The Best And Worst Of WWF Raw Is War 5/11/98: Fake News

Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War: Val Venis filmed a porn scene with Jenna Jameson, Vince McMahon made Mick Foley “rip out Terry Funk’s heart” to become the new number one contender, and the first Edge vignette aired. I think I know him!

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.

Hey, you! If you want us to keep doing retro reports, share them around! And be sure to drop down into our comments section to let us know what you thought of these shows. Head back to a time long forgotten when Raw was fun to watch, and things happened!

And now, the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War for May 11, 1998.

Best: You Got It, Dude

This week’s episode opens with Vince McMahon bringing out his new Corporate Son Dude Love, the man who figuratively “ripped the heart out” of his 53-year old cowboy best friend last week to get a title shot at Stone Cold Steve Austin. The Dude shows up in “business” clothes, which means a dress shirt and tie with a suit jacket Mr. Moody would’ve given a homeless man at Christmas and some sweatpants. Also, reading glasses. It’s great.

Vince announces that The Dude will get his title shot at Over the Edge: In Your House on May 31, and that there are some special stipulations:

• “the esteemed” Gerald Brisco, seen last week in an emotional tribute video because he and his friends are all jerks, will be the special guest time keeper
• WWE Hall of Famer Pat Patterson will be the special guest ring announcer
• and there will be a special guest referee, announced by Vince thusly:

“There will also be a very special guest referee. This man stands tall. Indeed he stands tall amid an abyss of mediocrity. This man’s sheer physical presence is nothing short of awe-inspiring. This guest referee is a man of principle, to the extend that he can swim in a sea of temptation and never run amuck. He will set new standards in officiating here in the World Wrestling Federation.”

Surprise!

The highlight here is Vince pronouncing “abyss” as “AB-iss,” causing both announcers to say, “what?” I’m gonna guess he got that from some North Carolina preacher’s pronunciation in the early ’50s, and now I’m sad we never got The Monster ABBISS in WWE. Seeing a word spelled and written out but never actually hearing anyone pronounce it correctly is a common thing — I used to say “tacky-turn” instead of “taciturn” because I’d read Ultros say it in Final Fantasy VI — and is alive and well in any YouTube game or movie review series.

Vince also announces that tonight’s main event will see Stone Cold Steve Austin and a partner to be named later in a tag team match against opponents also named later. Stone Cold shows up to the arena late looking for answers, and only finds Kevin Kelly standing in the parking lot trying on John Cena wigs.

More on the main event a little later. First, we’ve got to tell you about this weekend’s exciting pay-per-view extravaganza!

That’s right, UFC 17: Redemption airs this Friday! If you like watching The Man They Call Vader wrestle in a shirt against Barry Windham, you’ll love UFC’s almost 45 seconds of Tank Abbott! If you love two hours of non-finishes, you’ll love Dan Henderson’s TWO 15-minute decisions in a row! 1998 NJCAA Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar will be here soon-ish!

Worst: The Least Exciting Stipulation Ever

As a quick aside, we get the announcement that Vader will face Kane at Over The Edge in a mask vs. mask match, where the loser will be forced to unmask! Nobody mention the fact that Vader has been wrestling all over the world for 13 years and his mask almost always came off at some point during his matches (because it was ornamental, and not meant to “hide his identity”), or the fact that he’s basically just wearing a decorative jock strap on his head anyway. It’d be like Stone Cold taking on Triple H in a hair vs. hair match. I WONDER WHO WILL WIN!

Speaking Of Bald Guys, A Correction From Last Week

In last week’s column, I mistakenly said that the L.O.D. 2000 had turned a fatal four-way tag team match into an 8-man tag, when in actuality they’d done something much more relevant to the story at hand: they’d bartered their way into a Disciples of Apocalypse vs. New Age Outlaws WWF Tag Team Championship match, which got D-X out of a title defense and gave the DOA a reason to actually be mad at them. I’m going to get things wrong sometimes, so if you see me conflating any storyline points or whatever, feel free to drop down into the comments and let me know! I’m not trying to be a know-it-all by recapping 20-year old wrestling shows!

This week we get the (hilarious) followup, in which Skull defeats Road Warrior Hawk using twin magic and some of the worst technical wrestling in history. The inside cradle that ends the match almost rolls backwards — it’s the one move 8-ball does the entire match, since he’s the twin creating the magic — and I almost died laughing at this, easily the worst backbreaker I’ve ever seen:

It’s funnier the longer you watch it. I don’t know what drove Hawk’s WWE character to kayfabe alcoholism and kayfabe suicide, but tape of this match might’ve done it.

Best: In Case You Ever Wanted To See Jeff Jarrett Attack Someone With Nunchucks

Jeff Jarrett vs. Faarooq ends with interference from the Nation of Domination and Steve Blackman, and Jarrett finally getting some TMNT-style revenge for being humiliated in front of his close, personal friends Sawyer Brown at Unforgiven. Jarrett uses Blackman’s own nunchucks against him — called “numbchucks” by Michael Cole, who is definitely a 1990s parent — first holding both ends and hitting Blackman in the stomach with them like a steel chair, then trying to choke him with them before remembering how they work.

Propensity for guitar shots aside, Blackman really should’ve done his homework and not gotten into a weapons fight with a guy who spent the previous year attacking everyone in WCW with a metal briefcase. Steve’s fortunate that he’s a Michaelangelo and not a Leonardo is all I’m saying.

They’re doing an admirable job of building this Jarrett/Blackman beef, considering Blackman’s got the mic skills of a confused amnesiac and Jarrett’s entire WWF gimmick is, “wears a shirt made out of suspenders and plays country music, but not the kind everybody in the mid-90s likes.”

Edge Is Lurking

The Sexy Hobo Fighter is back, this time with a voice-over that sounds like a lady reading rejected Jim Johnston entrance theme lyrics. Imagine this with some driving butt-rock behind it.

“He is the truth that you deceive; the lie that you believe. He’s the God to which you pray; the devil he must repay. He is the bullet in the gun; pain from which you’ll run. He is the silencing machine; he’s the end to all your dreams.”

Really wish the voice-over had just said, “HE’S A SPOOKY VAMPIRE” and shown Edge wearing some big fake fang teeth, doing Dracula poses.

Best: Special Guest Star Tony Siragusa

Will he like tonight’s show? Well, it depends.

Worst: DX “Takes The Fight To WCW”

You know how when WWE’s recaps talk about D-X’s “invasion of Nitro” being the “turning point in the Monday Night Wars,” the only thing they ever show is them riding that jeep around in the parking lot outside an event? Whether you thought that was cool or not is up to you, but they never show the follow-up segments, because they are some of the most embarrassing shit ever.

First, D-X goes to WCW’s headquarters in Atlanta and are shocked to find that it’s a normal, nondescript office building and not a giant tower with a big WWF logo on the side. They make fun of a no tresspassing sign, then get comically upset when the security guy (who, I should remind you, is just a security guard and not a “member of WCW”) tells them to stop blocking the entrance and keeping people who work there from getting in. And that’s the entire thing.

When that doesn’t work, they head over to the CNN Center (which is even MORE not WCW), take the studio tour, and get upset when security guards tell them they can’t film it. Normal rules about not filming for commercial use on private property get turned into a “WCW doesn’t want you to see this” narrative, and we get some footage of D-X doing bits with security in the food court, asking guys who run studio tours to let them up to “see Ted Turner,” while random wrestling fans who happen to be there stand around in the background.

To finish this rebellious act of anarchy, we get a shot of D-X crotch-chopping at each other a few blocks away from CNN, and a very counter-culture post-production graphic of the building being “spray-painted.”

And then they blow it up with a cannon.

CNN’s wrestling show is going to be so upset!

Later, D-X cuts an in-ring promo about how WCW “called 911” on them and tried to have them “thrown in jail” for “screwing with World Championship Wrestling.” X-Pac yells at the camera about Eric Bischoff, the rest of the group hits their catchphrases, and we have a quick new chapter in Owen Hart’s endless quest to ever look good against Triple H. Chyna trips him up on the top rope to end the match, and everything breaks down into a Nation vs. D-X melee. D-X will have a six-man tag team “war” against the Nation at Over The Edge, and presumably someone on the creative team starts writing up their, “this feud needs BLACKFACE” pitch.

P.S. nobody let the President find these GIFs.

Worst: WHY YOU LITTLE

In a segment that a billion percent was written by Vince McMahon, rough-and-ready cowpoke Bradshaw teaches TAKA Michinoku how to drive by making him smoke cigars and hitting him in the head with his hat a la The Skipper on Gilligan’s Island. Asians can’t drive, you see. That’s the joke. TAKA almost hits a few fans as he drives out of the arena. When they return, they get jumped by Club Kamikaze.

But wait!

Terry Funk (who seems to be doing fine after having his heart ripped out) and 2 Cold Scorpio are supposed to have a match with Club Kamikaze, but new evil Asian manager Yamaguchi-san declares his team, “the new generation with the new Japanese attitudes” (?) and renames them Kai En Tai. In case you’ve ever wondered, Kaientai means “naval auxiliary force,” and is named in tribute after Japan’s first modern corporation. Wikipedia describes it as, “a naval institution and paramilitary organization dedicated to freeing Japan from feudal rule and protecting the country’s national sovereignty that was a major player in the introduction of the Meiji Restoration.” The more you know!

Kai En Tai win here thanks to the match being contested under Lucha House Rules, as all three members of the team are allowed in the ring for some reason and never tag. Bradshaw and TAKA return from their 1962 sitcom to even the odds, and we’re T-minus a month away from Yamaguchi revealing his beautiful young wife and love of forced castration. Stay tuned, folks.

Best: Stay Gold, Pony Boy

In a development that was shocking and compelling at the time but pretty ruined by knowing how it turned out, Dustin Rhodes shows up on the stage and burns his Goldust costume in a dumpster fire to announce that he’s done letting Vince McMahon ruin the legacy of the Rhodes family and take away his dignity.

It’s a great segment, but you won’t be surprised to learn that a 1998 angle ends up involving comedic blasphemy and a guy losing his ex-wife to a wrestling porn star. This is such an interesting time in Dustin’s development as a character, because the idea at the time was that Goldust was an embarrassing hindrance on a legendary wrestling family’s name, but eventually you come to figure out (through Goldust’s progression through the remainder of his time in the WWF, runs in WCW and TNA, and eventual return to WWE) that his commitment to a ridiculous character is what proved his talent as a Rhodes, and made him a legend. Somebody should make a movie about that. [shifty eyes]

Worst, Then Best: Sneaky Giant Goths

Marc Mero and Sable’s “confrontation” feels more like a modern Raw segment than anything I’ve seen on the show all year. In it, Sable has challenged Mero to a match of sorts, or some kind of fight, and we’ve seen her training in the gym for it. When it’s time for the confrontation, Sable gets on the mic and tells Mero she can’t believe he let it get this far, but if this is REALLY WHAT HE WANTS, she’ll do it. Even though she’s the one who made the challenge.

Mero then immediately scoops her up in a fireman’s carry and walks her around the ring to show her he could TKO her whenever he wanted, while the announce team yells AW C’MONNN. Instead of hurting her, he sets her back down on her feet and asks her to apologize. And sure, Mero asking his wife to apologize for getting over instead of helping him get over is a selfish point of view, but the history of them as characters (and brief suggestions of domestic abuse) don’t really get addressed. Sable’s response is to kick him in the nuts and powerbomb him. So she’s mad at him for taking it too far by agreeing to her taking it too far, then cheap shots him when he doesn’t want to fight her?

Anyway, the segment is immediately saved by a 7-foot tall undead goth wizard managing to sneak up on Jerry Lawler without him noticing:

Taker beats the dog shit out of Lawler for laughing about his promiscuous mother last week, and only stops briefly to listen to Paul Bearer scream a promo about how he’s going to prove Kane’s his biological son. When The Undertaker’s done handling the Locker Room Talk®, he bails … just in time for Al Snow to return to the WWF with a severed woman’s head to join the commentary team in Lawler’s place. Unusually buff Arena Event Staff throw him out, but not before he can get in the ring and shake Head at everyone.

This is a great example of how Crash TV should work. The Mero/Sable segment bleeds into the Undertaker/Lawler/Kane/Paw Bearer issue seamlessly, which then sets up Al Snow’s return. Segments connecting like this are really great when you don’t have to have a general manager or authority figure show up with a microphone and announce, “ATTENTION EVERYONE, ATTENTION PLEASE, THE FIRST SEGMENT WILL NOW BECOME THE SECOND!”

Best: Main Event Madness

Remember that main event I mentioned earlier? You’ll be shocked to learn that it’s more of Vince McMahon stacking the deck against Stone Cold Steve Austin by teaming with him himself against The Rock and D’Lo Brown. Vince is wrestling in his sleeveless referee shirt, which is a little confusing. You’d think Jim Ross was watching The Passion of the Christ based on his reactions here. He also puts over how the main event doesn’t involve “senior citizens” like WCW, even though 52-year old Vince McMahon is out here and in the previous segment he’d just breathlessly put over 53-year old Terry Funk as “the ol’ southpaw.”

Austin’s of course left alone for the majority of the match, which sets up its best moment: D’Lo Brown misses a frog splash, Austin teases making a hot tag to Vince, and before Vince can do the “heel pretends to want the tag but then refuses” bit, Austin just shoots him a double bird and goes back to kicking D’Lo’s ass. Eventually Vince just gets into the ring and clotheslines Austin himself, and the match ends with everyone (including Patterson and Brisco) joining in to beat him down.

Austin starts in on whomping the Stooges, but Dude Love shows up in his weekend guidance counselor best and tackles him. That brings out Dustin Rhodes (who’s mad at Foley for being mad at him for getting a title shot instead of him a couple of weeks ago) and D-Generation X (who hate the Nation) for a giant brawl while the crowd goes crazy. Join us this Sunday* for the Royal Rumble!

*next January

Next Week:

How surprising is next week’s show, you ask?

• Val Venis finally comes
• Jim Ross compares the Sable/Mero situation to the Emancipation Proclamation
• Kane wears a mask and a track suit to get his DNA tested, but doesn’t know they’re just gonna sell his data to corporations

And more!