Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War: We discovered that there’s no way out of Texas. Stone Cold gave Chyna a Stunner, The Rock figured out the last cog in his character by standing around and making ridiculous faces during other people’s promos, and Billy Gunn’s face became 3/4 trash can.
If you haven’t seen this episode, you can watch it on WWE Network here. Check out all the episodes you may have missed at the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War and Best and Worst of WWF Monday Night Raw tag pages. Follow along with the competition here.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War for February 16, 1998.
Best: The Pappy O’Daniel Flower Hour
This week is the first of back-to-back shows taped in Texas immediately following No Way Out, so (1) yes, Virginia, there is no way out of Texas, and (2) they’re mostly filler shows where nobody does anything crazy and everyone rests up for WrestleMania.
That means the A-story for the next two weeks, incredibly, is the ongoing breakup of Marc Mero and Sable, and their weird swinger couples relationship gone wrong with Luna Vachon and the Artist Formerly Known As Goldust. They get the main event spot on both weeks, while The Rock just kinda hangs out in a managerial role, D-X sits out an entire episode and Stone Cold just shows up to cut a quick promo and bail. Goldust isn’t even really “The Artist Formerly Known As” here, as he ditches the Marilyn Manson cosplay and lingerie for a look similar to early 2000s Goldie, with the modern bodysuit and the black wing eyes.
Early in the show, Jerry Lawler and Marc Mero hold an interview about how Sable “knows her place” and does whatever Mero says now, which of course leads to her getting more flowers delivered, storming to the back before the promo’s over and openly not listening to anything Mero says. That gets her “barred from ringside” for the Mero/Goldust vs. Chainsaw Charlie and Cactus Jack main event, and then OF COURSE she shows back up with a giant bouquet of flowers and distracts them into a loss. This pisses off Luna so much she starts eating Sable’s flowers, and that causes a catfiiiiight. It’s almost absurd how hot this angle is with the fans. They paired up Sable’s palatable, broad-base attractiveness with how much everyone naturally hates having to watch Marc Mero matches, then amplified it with Goldust’s eternally charming weirdness and Luna’s willingness to eat shit in every angle she’s ever done.
As a side note, Lawler mentions during the match that Goldust has promised to bring the “American Dream” to Raw next week, which … goes about as well as you’d expect, but has its moments. We’ll handle that segment after I’ve done a week of peaceful breathing exercises.
Worst: The LOD Takes A Dump
The New Age Outlaws continue using the world’s least handy foreign object — a giant trash dumpster — to harass everyone else in the tag team division. This week they pull Road Warrior Hawk off the apron while Animal’s wrestling the Substandard French-Canadians, throw him in the garbage, and sit on the lid until Animal notices them. Animal eventually figures out what’s going on and grabs a chair to fight them off, and when they scatter Hawk pops out and almost gets hit by the chair. They didn’t really work out the timing on that. Long story short, the Road Warriors lose a match to the Quebecers, who have spent the last few weeks feuding with the last awful team the L.O.D. had to job to three out of four times, the Godwinns.
WrestleMania 14 does both of these teams favors. One lasts a lot longer than the other.
Worst: The Other Tag Teams Are Doing Worse Than Literal Garbage
The other tag match on the show features the NWA World Tag Team Champion Rock ‘n’ Roll Express defending their belts against the Headbangers, which is like watching the kid from the Twisted Sister ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ video wrestle his dad.
The match is prefaced by a pre-taped Jim Cornette-face-heavy promo (pictured) in which he takes the very Internet point of view of “real wrestling good, sports entertainment bad,” and puts it in the mouth of the least likable and identifiable person in the company. He says people said he was great when he shot on the WCW and WWF, but now that he’s brought the NWA in to show everyone real old-timey wrestling, they hate him. He’s either oblivious to or not mentioning the fact that the actual angle boiled down to, “a man said he was going to show us real wrestling and then showed us a bunch of really terrible wrestling.”
To drive that point home, he assigns classic NWA referee Tommy Young — history’s most on-the-take referee, who spent the entire 1980s screwing every babyface in the National Wrestling Alliance — as the ref. Like every “NWA” match they ever booked on Raw, this one ends with the NWA guys about to lose handily, and the match ending on some bullshit technicality. This time it’s Tommy Young in his peripherals seeing someone get thrown over the top rope between him counting “two” and him counting “three” and calls for a disqualification. Them’s the NWA rules, you see. He didn’t disqualify the Headbangers for jumping off the top rope literally four seconds earlier, but I guess we’re picking and choosing our Bill Watts mandates.
Worst: Gangz Are Breaking Up!
when you try to say something nice on twitter
It’s a bad week for the veterans of WWF’s Gang Warz™. Crush shows up in WCW this week, the Nation of Domination is experiencing a coup — more on that in a second — and the Jackyl is “wiping his hands” of the Truth Commission after Sniper, a wrestler we know literally nothing about beyond his name and gang affiliation, loses to Ken Shamrock. He smacks the guy in the face, and this is when we find out Sniper is French-Canadian thanks to his very Pat Patterson yelling style. He and Bull “Recon” Buchanan (who is extremely southern-fried and from Georgia) promise to keep the Commission going without the Jackyl, and everyone at home is like, “lol, okay.”
Fun note: This match was supposed to be Ahmed Johnson vs. Kurrgan, but Johnson ended up walking out and losing his job. From the March 2, 1998, Observer:
Ahmed Johnson (Tony Norris) was officially released on 2/23. This stems from an incident at the television taping on 2/16 in Waco, TX. Johnson had nearly four years remaining on a five-year contract. It’s no secret that the company wasn’t happy with him, between his injuring people, his own constant injuries, and a poor workrate. In addition, because of losing momentum from the injuries, and losing even more steam with the heel turn and rapid face turn back that made nobody care about him, his stock had fallen tremendously since he was originally offered the deal and thought to be one of the potential top attractions in the company. He was instructed at the Dallas TV to do a job for Kurrgan using the claw, and refused and walked out. He never returned, missing TV the next night and his house show dates over the weekend. My feeling, given the knowledge going in that he would surely react this way because of what was asked, not to mention in being in Dallas where he wrestled in the early part of his career (and rarely did jobs then either due to his size), that the end result may have been more desired than what was asked. As it was, Titan has legally gotten out of his contract because he breached, because God only knows how bad it would have looked had they actually done that match on television and that he wouldn’t have been worth a thing coming out of it anyway. Norris has since claimed to friends that he never refused to do the job, was never asked to do the job, but that he felt the company was burying him since he openly spoke on the “wrong side of the fence” on the touchy Survivor Series finish issue. Hey, that’s what he claimed.
Pour one out for the career of Ahmed Johnson. Like he’d always say, mamf famma bromph habba dah.
You know, I feel like this week’s report is too negative. Let’s talk about something positive!
[sigh] Nevermind.
Worst: Brian Christopher Gets A Mexican
Feeling unable to defeat Light Heavyweight Champion TAKA Michinoku with sweaty laughing and racism alone Brian Christopher “gets himself a Mexican” in the form of Pirata Morgan. I love the idea that Brian Christopher spent the morning going through a bunch of lucha tapes and was like, “GET ME THAT FAT LITTLE PIRATE.” And then when he couldn’t get Piratita, somebody was like, “I can get you the bigger, worse version.”
Christopher and his Mexican pirate take on TAKA and Mr. Aguila and lose, and it’s every Brian Christopher thing you’ve ever seen with some slow C-grade lucha libre in the middle. Aguila’s pretty great, and gets some incredible ups on a corkscrew tope CON-hillo to the floor, but Pirata wrestles like one of the Villanos. Just a ton of bumping you with his shoulder and running in the opposite direction. The highlight, as usual, is my chance to make a GIF of special guest ring announcer Sunny. Good grief.
Worst: Dok Hendrix Humping In Some Ill-Fitting Jeans
Since the World Wrestling Federation’s in Texas, they pay homage to one of the territories they ruthlessly put out of business by parading out “Dok Hendrix” in a Raw t-shirt and baggy JNCOs for the Michael P.S. Hayes Freebirds pop. Also to honor the company they put out of business, as soon as the crowd starts enjoying remembering a thing, they send out Kane to chokeslam him to death. And hey, nothing’s more fun to screencap than one of Paw Bear’s chin-your-face camera ad libs.
Meanwhile Jim Ross is like, “aw dammit if only THE UNDERTAKER could be here,” reading the minds of pretty much everyone who bought tickets to Raw.
Best: Speaking Of Kane
Next week, the WWF will announce a second MEGA SPORTS CELEBRITY who will join Mike Tyson in appearing at WrestleMania 14. I won’t spoil who it is, but I will say it’s comparable to how George Michael Bluth put his face in his cousin’s boobs.
Worst: Just Be Tag Team Partners Already
The best actual match on the show is probably Owen Hart defending the European Championship against NWA North American Champion Jeff Jarrett, which means it’s technically an “NWA” match, so take three guesses on how it ends. The first two are wrong.
Yep, Jim Cornette hops into the ring at the first sign of trouble and tries to hit Owen with a tennis racket. He misses, because even the DQ finishes can’t go the NWA’s way, and gets put in the Sharpshooter. Then Jarrett picks up the racket and tries to hit Owen, but even the saves for previously failed attacks can’t go the NWA’s way, and he gets beaten up too. It’s almost like the WWF doesn’t like the NWA and wants everything associated with WCW to look like a shitty joke. Almost.
Best: When You RT Yourself
First of all, look who figured out how cool he looks in sunglasses, and how well they distract from his way-too-expressive eyes. The final piece is there, and The Rock is finally The Rock. Praise be.
Second of all, the actual match here is Faarooq vs. Steve Blackman, but it’s memorable for the pre- and post-match shenanigans. The Rock feels bad about the Nation being at each other’s throats at No Way Out Of Texas, so he apologizes to the team and brings them all gifts. For Kama, D’Lo and Mark Henry, $15,000 gold Rolex watches. He even promises to pay for the extra gold links for Henry’s big-ass wrists. For Faarooq … a goddamn picture of The Rock. A big picture of himself. And he’s SO MAD that Faarooq doesn’t appreciate the gesture, because to The Rock, looking at a likeness of The Rock is worth more than 45-thousand dollars.
The best part is that Faarooq tries to use the portrait as a weapon, but The Rock gets mad at the prospect of it getting damaged and yanks it away. That leaves Blackman open to grab a distraction roll-up and win the match, making the issues within the Nation even worse. Faarooq deals with this by punching the picture to pieces, setting up one of my favorite under-the-radar Rock bits … as everyone’s leaving, Rock looks at the photo, holds it up and mouths, “It’s me! It’s ME!” Like the problem is Faarooq didn’t realize. Classic.
And that’s pretty much it. Be safe for WrestleMania, kids!
Next Week:
Dallas filler week two, featuring “The American Dream,” The Rock jobbing to a pair of nunchucks, and that TAKA Michinoku vs. Barry Windham match you’ve been waiting for finally happens.
