Dust Dust?
Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War: The World Wrestling Federation’s killing time with taped shows in Texas because there’s still a month before WrestleMania 14. But hey, The Rock’s wearing sunglasses and giving people giant portraits of himself as presents, so things are looking up.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War for February 23, 1998.
Worst: Egregion Of Doom
No, that’s not a picture of two of the worm monsters from Tremors mating, it’s Road Warrior Hawk and Road Warrior Animal deciding they’re Road Warrior Donezo after losing in the stupidest way possible to the New Age Outlaws.
The match is really quick, as the Legion of Doom destroys the Outlaws in short order with a Doomsday Device. Instead of like, getting out of the ring so the pin could be counted — or standing there without issue like 90% of tag team match finishes — Hawk stands around with his arms in the air until the referee starts bothering him. That leaves nobody to count the pin for Animal. Billy Gunn wanders in and dumps Hawk, so the referee decides to start paying attention to him instead of the pin. Eventually Animal gets up like, “what the snot, bro” (or whatever ersatz curse words they’d use) so the referee starts aimlessly finger-yelling to Hawk on the floor. This leaves Gunn open to blast Animal in the face with one of the tag titles, and the Outlaws win.
After the match, the Road Warriors decide to blame each other. This leads to an ECW-style cat fight, because at this point the Legion of Doom has been booked into oblivion and can’t even convincingly kick their own asses.
A few segments later, Animal’s backstage screaming at Jerry Lawler about how he “doesn’t have a brother” anymore, so Hawk runs in and starts slap-fighting him again. It’s up to Blackjack Bradshaw, Headbanger Mosh and a jobber who looks like teenage Hacksaw Jim Duggan to pull them apart. Eventually Hawk leaves the arena, sans face paint, and refuses to talk to anyone about the apparent Legion of Doom breakup. It’s a tough situation, but don’t worry; it’s nothing a flame bra and some space-age motorcycle helmets can’t fix.
If you’re wondering what becomes of the Outlaws, they try to calmly leave the arena, job well done, in D-Generation X t-shirts. Foreshadowing! But their commute is literally cut off by an attack from Cactus Jack wielding a baseball bat and Terry Funk seemingly unable to properly operate a chainsaw despite putting “chainsaw” in his wrestling name.
That attack is so bad we’ve gotta downgrade it from “attempted murder” to “somebody in the parking lot opened their door into the side of my car and didn’t leave a note.”
Worst: The NWA Has No Idea What It’s Doing
You know what’s a really terrible idea for a pro wrestling faction? Guys who can only win by cheating, but don’t know how to cheat without losing.
In this week’s edition of Ten Pounds of Old, Jim Cornette accidentally costs the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express the NWA World Tag Team Championship by hitting one of the Headbangers in the back with a tennis racket, then turning around and smiling to the crowd while dude falls unconscious into a pinfall victory. It’s the Perry Saturn finish from last week’s Thunder, but for real. AND FOR A TITLE CHANGE.
Cornette also ruins a Ken Shamrock match by getting in the ring and blatantly hitting his own man, Jeff Jarrett, in the face with a tennis racket. If this was a long con to set up the NWA as a fake nWo and then swerve so they’re just the Billionaire Ted version of Jim Crockett Promotions, congratulations, everybody looks awful and wrestling is dumb.
On the bright side, Jarrett handles this loss by announcing that he and Cornette should probably “part ways,” which is character growth. Mongo McMichael hit him in the face with a briefcase for like two years for trying to cuckold him and he had to quit the company and fly several hours away instead of not doing it.
Finally we have the very EWR match-up of TAKA Michinoku vs. Barry Windham, which probably would’ve been great if it’d happened with 10-years earlier Windham and 10-years later TAKA. Or any version of Barry Windham besides the one that wrestles in chaps and a vest. The highlight here is probably Sunny showing up to do the ring announcing in a Marge Simpson altered suit version of the Britney Spears ‘Oops! I Did It Again’ jumpsuit. She looks like she lost her luggage and had to get dressed with a Fruit Roll-Up.
This one doesn’t even get a finish, as the lights go out and Kane shows up to beat up TAKA for some reason. Paw Bear challenges Stone Cold Steve Austin to face Kane next week, because everybody knows the quickest way to rattle the Texas Rattlesnake is to pick on Japanese cruiserweights. We all remember the time Triple H ran over Men’s Teioh in a steamroller to set up Three Stages of Hell.
The Most E-Fed Interview Ever
1. The reason they’re doing Kane vs. Stone Cold and announcing it in advance is because they are desperate to improve the ratings heading into WrestleMania 14, and get as many eyes on the product as possible so the Mike Tyson guest appearance is worth the money. We know it ends up being worth it, but it was a gamble at the time. Not only that, but we get a D-Generation X promo from Shawn Michaels’ home in San Antonio that amounts to, “nothing’s going on this week, but tune in for the next FOUR weeks, because D-Generation X is going to do some crazy stuff for ratings you’re not gonna want to miss!” It might as well have been Chyna reading a PR e-mail.
2. You know those really terrible e-fed promos that think they’re clever where a character is chilling at home in a really nice house, playing pool or something while his friends and a bunch of women hang out and put him over? It’s the #1 E-fed trope, right alongside “goth guy in fingerless gloves who is the Undertaker but also a cruiserweight.” The footage from Michaels’ home is HILARIOUS e-feddy, from the opening with him standing behind his bar with his back to the camera, to him kissing a blonde on the cheek, to he and Triple H feeding each other cues to talk about upcoming match dates and the importance of ratings. Michaels is even wearing a cowboy hat. The only thing missing was a gratuitous celebrity cameo from the lead singer of Korn, or the Insane Clown Posse, or something else from 1998.
Best: It Takes A Nation Of Five To Hold Us Back
“The Rock takes on Steve Blackman” should be enough, right? Well, how about, “The Rock takes on Steve Blackman and the finish involves nunchucks, foreshadows an important moment in Survivor Series ’98 and the Rock’s development, and features Jim Ross repeatedly calling them NUMCHUCKS?” Great, right?
Rock takes on Blackman, and when it looks like The Rock has him beaten, Faarooq gets up on the apron to distract the referee. Rock takes offense to this, but realizes he’s actually setting up an opening for D’Lo Brown to toss in Blackman’s black(man)light NUMCHUCKS for a foreign object assist. D’Lo “accidentally” throws the weapon over Rock’s head, allowing Blackman to catch it and K.O. Rock for the upset. We find out moments later that Faarooq actually instructed D’Lo to interfere like that, because he hates The Rock’s guts and wants him out of the group but is too passive-aggressive to just Dominator him and call it a day.
As an added bonus, this is (I believe) the first on-camera instance of Ron Simmons’ “DAMN” catchphrase. Watch:
I like it a lot more when it’s in reaction to a D’Lo Brown nunchuck attack, and not like, how gross it is to see The Great Khali french Mae Young or whatever.
Best/Worst: Kurrgan Is Great At The Claw Game
The only thing I have to say about the Disciples of Apocalypse vs. Whatever’s Left of the Truth Commission match is that it’s funny as shit to see Kurrgan drag a guy up the ramp by his face. I wish he’d gotten a chance to do that to Ahmed Johnson the week before, which I’m guessing was probably booked to. Could he have kept a grip on Ahmed? Ahmed’s always covered in a fine layer of sludge.
All you need to know is that the Truth Commission is still breaking up, which is less interesting than the Legion of Doom breaking up, less interesting than the Goldust/Marc Mero team breaking up, but more interesting than the NWA breaking up. Shout-out to whoever booked four team breakups on the same two hour episode, Vince Russo.
Best: Dust In The Wind
You’d think I’d hate a segment that intensely disrespects the ‘American Dream’ Dusty Rhodes, but I just can’t. It’s hilarious, from Dustin’s clearly learned and perfected Dusty Rhodes impersonation to the legitimately funny writing. Dusty announcing that he’s a 5-time World Heavyweight Champion, then upping it to “2,000-time World Heavyweight Champion, reach for the stars, touch it all” is wonderful, as is him saying he “beat Ric Flair 25,000 times in a row.” The trick to a great Dusty impersonation is to work in his lesser vocal quirks, like saying “ya unnastand” as punctuation.
So Dustin shows up as “Dust Dust,” the Dusty Rhodes version of Goldust, complete with black eyes, a stuffed polka-dot singlet, and scars on his arm. It’s a weirdly loving tribute considering that it’s supposed to be insulting, but I guess the magic of Dusty Rhodes is that even insults made him seem more important. Plus, they mention on commentary that they called the real Dusty on the phone and asked him if they could do it, and he thought it was funny. I mean, it beats a weekend show color commentator joining the nWo to be the mouthpiece for the best talker in the group.
The finish is also pretty funny, with Bradshaw earning points for attacking while “Dusty” is flipping, flopping and flying. We’ll call this the “flip, flop, and die.”
As a bonus, the post-match interview features my new favorite WWE deep-cut accidental foreshadowing:
The Artist Formerly Known As Goldust is fine.
Goldie continues to anchor this week’s show in the main event, which is built around the INSANE reactions the Luna Vachon vs. Sable feud has been getting. I don’t know if it was just the right time and the right place, or if WWE fans were desperate for women’s wrestling to be exciting, or if the best way to get over a babyface is to make them stand next to goddamn Johnny B. Badd, but it was hot. Super hot.
Mero main events the show in a European Championship match against Owen Hart, and loses by disqualification when he attempts to distract the referee by pie-facing the ref in the face and pushing him down so he can hit a low blow. You know you’ve thought your plan through when you try to avoid getting disqualified by getting disqualified.
Anyway, Luna shows up looking to throw hands with Sable, and they get into another pull-apart brawl. This causes Goldust to get involved, and he kinda politely backs Sable into a corner and tells her to chill. Mero, who is obsessed with having a beautiful wife nobody is allowed to look at or talk to despite him always bringing her out on TV and getting her a WWE job, takes offense and lays Goldust out. Now you’ve got the men AND the women in these couples at each other’s throats, and that’s an excellent way to set up what ends up being the hottest match on the WrestleMania card. Good stuff, especially considering this is the second half of a pretty bad TV taping.
Next Week:
Mike Tyson returns to Raw with the worst crotch chops you’ve ever seen, Tennessee Lee debuts, and the Undertaker shows up to deliver the most hilariously wonderful goth-ass wrestling promo about hell and fire ever. See you then!
