Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War: Vince McMahon attempted to get Stone Cold Steve Austin to do things “the easy way,” then micromanaged him until Austin just smacked him in the nuts. Cactus Jack quit because of all the “Austin” chants, Luna Vachon won Raw’s first intergender match, and Kane called out The Undertaker by destroying and then burning their parents’ graves. As you do.
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 April 13, 1998.
Best: Austin’s Got No Chance (No Chance In Hell)
Oh man, this episode.
Two weeks ago, Vince McMahon had Stone Cold Steve Austin arrested and taken to jail for assaulting him. Last week, Austin tried to play ball, but Vince nitpicked him and nitpicked him until Austin sack-tapped him, effectively assaulting him again. This week, Austin opens the show by calling out Vince and getting to the point: if he and Vince are destined to fight, they should stop beating around the bush and just have a wrestling match. Right here tonight. With the WWF WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ON THE LINE.
Like all the best Austin and McMahon segments, this features one of them being resistant to the conceit of the bit until the other straight-up peer pressures them into doing it, and then it blows up in one or both of their faces. Austin wants a match with Vince, assuming he could just kick this old man’s ass and be done with it, but he doesn’t realize the power of McMahon’s cabal of Yes Men to figuratively and literally pump him up until he’s a dangerous old maniac. Vince accepts the challenge, because of course he does, and throughout the show we get segments of Gerald Brisco and Pat Patterson backstage hyping him up while folks like Jim Ross wander backstage to try to tell him to not put his own head in a guillotine.
When it’s time for the match, we get two big First Time Ever reveals:
- the fact that under his corny grandpa suits Vince McMahon is fuckin’ jacked, and
- when Vince McMahon walks with a purpose, his walk turns into this hilarious POWER STRUT
So now we’re in a world where Vince McMahon looks and walks like this. We’re a couple of firings and roaring growls away from Mr. McMahon.
Before the match can start, Vince reveals his big play: during the opening, Austin casually mentioned that he could probably kick Vince’s ass with “one arm tied behind his back,” which if you’ve ever watched wrestling before you know means “I AM CONTRACTUALLY AGREEING TO WRESTLE YOU WITH ONE ARM LITERALLY TIED BEHIND MY BACK.” The best attention to detail here is that Vince makes sure the arm that gets tied is the one Austin uses to do the Stunner. What’s he gonna do without the dreaded Holding Sit, punch him a bunch? C’mon.
“One arm tied behind your back” is also usually code for “this match isn’t going to actually happen,” and sure enough, Dude Love of all people shows up to “veto” the match IN THE NAME OF LOVE. Love was Stone Cold’s tag team partner and only friend, if you’ll remember, but shares a striking resemblance to the guy who quit the company last week because of “Austin” chants, so neither Austin nor McMahon really knows what to make of it. Vince ends up shoving the Dude down, believing that he’s stepped in and stolen his moment, and Dude tries to retaliate with a Mandible Claw. When Austin steps in to break it up so he can have his match, Dude attacks AUSTIN, and that sets us up for Stone Cold’s first title feud.
Not only did this match set up Austin vs. Dude Love for Unforgiven, it popped a ridiculous rating and brought enough eyes to the show to help Raw beat Nitro first time in almost two years. The WWF had been on a roll lately (as you’ve been reading about, hopefully), the hottest act in wrestling was suddenly the champion, and Vince McMahon had leveraged the Montreal Screwjob heat into becoming the best heel wrestling had seen in ages. A few weeks later, WWF would taunt WCW’s ratings decline by sending D-X to drive around in a jeep in the parking lot at Nitro. The ratings go back and forth for a while, but by the time The Rock is champion and Tony Schiavone’s snarking about “putting butts in seats,” the “war” was basically done.
WWE still talks about the D-X “invasion” as being the turning point in the Monday Night War, but if you look at what actually turned it, it was Steve Austin and Vince McMahon. BECAUSE OF COURSE IT WAS.
BECAUSE OF COURSE IT WAS.
Worst: Chainz Gets Beaten Up During A Chains Match
If you can’t tell what the hell is going on in that screencap, don’t worry; I capped it, and even I can barely tell what’s happening.
This is Raw’s first “chain match” between the Disciples of Apocalypse and Los Boricuas (called everything form LOS BONICUAS to LOS BOLICLAS by Michael Cole, trying to do a Spanish accent). Usually in a chain match, you tie a chain around somebody’s wrist and tie the other end to their opponent, and they fight each other with a chain. If it’s a tag match, you might do that twice. Here, Raw tries to innovate by developing an entirely new match concept where all four competitors in a tag team match are tied to a corresponding ring post by a long-ass chain, meaning they can use the chain as a weapon, but can only go so far. Except, you know, WWE rings are 20 X 20, so they aren’t limited at all, and you end up with a tornado tag where all the chains get crossed and the referee has to constantly untangle them. Enjoy the “box of cords you aren’t sure you need but you’re holding onto anyway” match!
It turns out the match barely happens anyway — welcome to Crash TV, everybody — as D-Generation X randomly beats up and attempts to paralyze DOA member Chainz … uh, during the Chains match, which he’s not in for some reason. They end up getting into the ring and causing a disqualification in the chains match, because you can do that I guess, and team up with Los Boricuas to beat down the bikers. When that’s over, they pretend like they’re going to let the Boricuas A-team into D-X proper, and make them point at their own doom:
Good times. Sorry, Savio, you’ll always have the Caribbean Strap Match.
Mostly Best: The D-X Ass-ay Writing Contest
D-X returns later to do color commentary for Owen Hart vs. Billy Gunn, featuring the debut of the “Mr. Ass” nickname and gear (pictured) and prefaced by a Triple H promo on how they decided which member of the team would fight Owen via an ESSAY CONTEST. H had everyone write a 500 word essay, which we get to hear about, but sadly do not get to read.
The essays are all very character specific, which I appreciate. Road Dogg’s essay was written on rolling papers, X-Pac wrote slash fiction, Triple H just wrote about his dick, Chyna wrote a beautiful essay that made them cry but included graphic violence unsuitable for primetime television, and the winner, Monsieur Derrière, presented his essay with professional binding and illustrations of Owen having sex with farm animals. BUTT sex, I’d imagine. He loves to love them, he loves to date them; he loves to write them, and illustrate them.
Owen brings out the L.O.D. 2000 and Sunny to back him up, which leads to a pretty hilarious run of The Kid (now officially named “X-Pac”) and Triple H commentary. They joke about how “Owen Fart” (timeless) is a “12-time All American” to piss of Jim Ross, and joke that the L.O.D. have “got their age on their belt buckle, 2000.” They also rightfully point out that the Road Warriors used to be tough, and now look like giant weird plastic action figures. Oh, and Sunny gets called “Skanky,” which is almost as clever as “Kloudy.”
Hart actually wins for once when Gunn celebrates too early and gets rolled up. Join us next week when we read Billy Gunn’s illustrated essay on why you shouldn’t start your end zone celebration before you cross the goal line.
Best: The Undertaker Pulls A Kane
In response to Kane destroying their parents’ tombstones with a sledgehammer and setting their graves on fire, The Undertaker and his hilarious tear-drop prison tattoo spend the entire episode making the lights go out on random matches so he can show up and destroy everybody. He interrupts this El Panter and Aguila vs. Brian Christopher and Scott Taylor match with a double chokeslam and a way too thorough beating of Scott, then pops back in later to become a huge babyface by saving us from having to watch The Headbangers wrestle.
That finally brings out Paul Bearer and Kane — to a huge pop, because he’s spent the past few weeks humiliating a disgraced baseball star and castrating a fun-loving basketball gorilla — and Paw Bear makes the challenge: if The Undertaker really wants to confront Kane face-to-face again, he’ll meet him in the cemetery where their parents are buried, “right on their damn grave.” Nobody did goth southern dandy threat-shouting quite like Paul Bearer.
Best: Val Venis Is So Much Grosser When You’re Older
This week we join Val Venis on the set of Desperate Amateurs while he does casting for his upcoming film, Lust in Space. Just wanted to point out the purposeful boob pixelation there, and note how much less you want to hear phrases like, “when I EXPLODE INSIDE THE WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION” when you’re in your thirties. Don’t explode inside the WWF, Val, that’s how WWE versions of ECW get made.
Shout-out to ol’ Chief Morley for making this character his own, though. He’s fully committed. Dude can’t even get through a 5th-grade quality dick pun without audibly having sex with it. What’re the chances Vince McMahon’s originally name for him was just Pal Penis?
Worst: The Fact That Luna Can’t Show Up To Face Alicia Fox At Evolution
“Captain” Luna is still sailing toward the first-ever evening gown match with Sable, so this week she calls her out to do it right here, right now. Of course it’s Sabledust who answers, looking like every woman I went to church with as a kid, and gets immediately stripped down to his heels and Been Caught Stealing foam boobs and belly. Goldust is pretty hilarious here, honestly. “You just got me naked! You’re kinky. That’s it, that is it, I’m taking my pumps off and I’m gonna whoop some butt.”
Actual Sable shows up looking like she just walked out of a Whitesnake video and the two brawl. The crowd loves it, because in April of 1998 Sable could’ve shown up on Raw kicking a box of kittens and the crowd would’ve wooed and cheered for her.
Worst: Some Girls Don’t Like Matches Like This, Oh But Some Girls Do
Before Jeff Jarrett’s match with TAKA Michinoku, Tennessee Lee drops a shower of nWo-esque leaflets from the ceiling revealing that at Unforgiven, Double J will sing lead for country superstars Sawyer Brown. No, really. Sawyer Brown — the best country group whose name also means, “I’ve seen your butthole” — was riding the wave of country music’s popularity in the early ’90s, but was a few years removed from having hits and being relevant. Definitely a great fit for the Mike Tyson-ass World Wrestling Federation!
Anyway, Tennessee Lee’s such a good promoter that most of the advertisements end up in the ring where nobody can see them, and the ones that get held up for the camera to see are shown during Jarrett’s entrance. In the dark.
great job, everyone
Note: I’m so excited to GIF Jeff Jarrett and Sawyer Brown for you in a couple of weeks.
The Funks Are Back, Kind Of
With Cactus Jack gone, Terry Funk finally realizes he should probably just be Terry Funk instead of putting pantyhose on his head and swinging around a chainsaw without a chain on it. He debuts his new “hardcore” tag team partner: Flash Funk (get it), who Jim Ross mentions seems “too cold.” Michael Cole keeps calling him Flash Funk, because he doesn’t get jokes or references.
They get a strong, quick win over The Quebecers in a match that could’ve been really good in a different promotion. PCO is still about 20 years away from being an old man Glacier Frankenstein, too, so maybe it’d even be better NOW. PCO vs. Terry Funk in 2018 would be like Goldberg vs. the Where’s The Beef Lady, though, so maybe not.
Best: The New Nation, Or, ‘The Rock Takes A Culinary Arts Class’
I saved this bit for last, because on a show where Mr. Ass happens, Dude Love turns heel, Austin fights McMahon and Vince debuts his signature power strut, this might be the most important thing that happened.
Faarooq shows up with some Diamond Dallas Page-style rib tape on and calls out the Nation of Domination for turning on him and beating him down. The Nation shows up, and The Rock — in a very shiny The Rock kind of $500 shirt — drops the first usage of his most famous catchphrase.
“Y’see Faarooq, The Rock understands that you’re still half ignorant from the beating we gave you last week, so try your best and smell what The Rock is gonna cook here in Philadelphia.”
It’s not exact yet, but it’s there. Faarooq throws up a Nation symbol and gets made fun of, but Rock’s Nation doesn’t realize Faarooq has his two toughest African-American associates standing behind them: Ken Shamrock and Steve Blackman. Hey, at least one of them’s named “Blackman.” The Nation and Faarooq’s Karate Fighters brawl, which sets up a six-man tag for Unforgiven. Sorry, Unforgiven: In Your House.
Later in the night, Blackman and Shamrock have a tag team match against the New Midnight Express, which ends with one of WWE’s all-time worst finishes: a tag team match breaking down after the hot tag, and the referee throwing it out because he can’t get it under control. That’s right behind “you’re kicking too much ass” on the list of bad WWE finishes. It’s notable, though, because of the pre-match staredown between Shamrock and the NWA’s newest enforcer, Dan Severn.
It’s crazy to think WWE was so head of the curve here, signing the two biggest UFC stars ever (at the time) to wrestling contracts and putting them on their wrestling show when their record against one another was 1-1. They would KILL to be able to do that now. Sadly, nothing really happened.
Here’s what Severn said about it years later:
“Shamrock basically went to work about one year before I did. They were talking to us both at the same time. Ken pretty much said for X amount of dollars, I’m yours and the reality is that anyone under contract to the WWE, they are selling their soul. At that time, I was and still am as far as I know the only athlete that didn’t have any boundaries about me. I could work for anybody because at the time I was the NWA champion and in the NWA alone I was working for about 30 different promoters under the NWA banner and the nwa wanted to make me exclusive to them and I said well what is that worth to you guys because if you want me to be exclusive to you, there has to be an annual salary with that cause if I’m just doing a couple of shots for the NWA…what does that do for me? Nothing. Basically, the WWF had a chance with a Ken Shamrock vs Dan Severn (feud) because we each had a match a piece against one another so to do a tiebreaker, it is a no brainer. It could have easily been done. I really do believe that because the “Fed” knew that they really had no control over me that they couldn’t tell me what to do.”
Maybe they should’ve put Dan Severn in D-X?
Next Week
- Val Venis gets boned, figuratively
- The Undertaker gets boned, literally
- Steve Blackman gets screwed, metaphorically
- Dude Love explains himself on the “Love Shack,” which sadly does not include special musical guest the B-52s
- Triple H “ejaculates” all over the crowd, which he wouldn’t make a regular part of his arsenal until the mid-2000s
