Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War: D-Generation X decided blackface would be a great idea that wouldn’t retroactively embarrass everyone. Brawl For All rolled on, Paul Ellering’s t-shirt asked “who’s gonna eat us,” and The Undertaker became number one contender to Stone Cold Steve Austin’s WWF Championship by dressing up as Kane.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War for July 13, 1998.
Worst: H-B-Shizzle Is Izzle The Hizzle
Raw opens with an appearance from Shawn Michaels, showing up for the first time since losing the WWF Championship to Stone Cold Steve Austin and getting punched in the face by Gang Warz Benedict Arnold Mike Tyson at WrestleMania XIV back in March. If you’re trying to answer the Trivial Pursuit question, “What brought Shawn Michaels back after WrestleMania XIV,” the answer is, “he hated watching Karl Malone wrestle.”
“I am here to stay, you know what … I was sitting at home last night, I saw wrestling fans, our wrestling fans, brutalized by the competition, and I thought to myself, you know the WWF, we’ve got style, we’ve got it all, they don’t have the Heartbreak Kid, I gotta go back, I miss this, it’s a part of me.”
The best part is when he’s directly asked when he’s returning to the ring. Since “August 25, 2002,” would be too specific, he drops his smile on the floor and crawls around looking for it like Velma losing her glasses on Scooby-Doo.
“… right now that’s not so much, nobody knows the question, the answer to that except the man himself.”
Note: You’d think he was talking about God, but he didn’t get saved until 2002, so I think he’s saying, “the only person who knows when Shawn Michaels is returning is Shawn Michaels, and I have no way to speak with him.”
Anyway, Shawn sticks around to do color commentary on the episode and completely forgets his pre-existing relationships with everyone. He puts over Stone Cold Steve Austin as a cool hellraiser who doesn’t follow anyone’s rules, affably laughs about D-Generation X without bringing up the fact that they kicked him out of the group via a passive-aggressive comedy skit at the end of their VHS tape, and is all, “oh golly gee” about The Undertaker’s entrance. The only consistency, of course, is when Jason Sensation sits in to do wrestler impressions and does Bret Hart.
I’ll give him some bonus points for making me laugh when Vince McMahon’s on the mic and says, “I’m not easy to fool,” and Shawn waits a beat before adding, “… well …” Maybe it’s easier to fool him on Thursdays.
Best: Jason Goes To Hell
Speaking of Jason, he sits in on commentary with the team to do some impressions while the Nation of Domination stews in the back. If you’re wondering what the two worst back-to-back decisions ever made on Raw were, it was Jason Sensation going along with a bunch of bullies’ blackface impersonation of the black militant separatist faction, followed by him sitting at the announce table making fun of wrestlers until one of them wanders out and beats the shit out of him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OUehF6U0M4
The guy’s impressions are really good — his Bret sounds a little too much like his Owen and his Shawn Michaels is just saying his name, but that Undertaker is spot-on — and despite all the really terrible shit he’s become known for nowadays, he’s still a gifted impressionist. His Ric Flair is the best I’ve ever heard, and his Hulk Hogan is almost terrifyingly exact. You can watch clips of those here.
Jim Ross yelling, “HE’S A KID, HE’S A KID, OWEN, COME ON,” is classic J.R., but again, the “kid” absolutely deserved it. Don’t dip your nugget if you can’t stomach the sauce.
This leads directly into The Rock and Owen Hart vs. Triple H and X-Pac, which probably could’ve been a legendary TV match if it didn’t happen in mid-1998 and have a five minute time limit. It ends with Pac getting a surprising (and surprisingly clean) win on the Intercontinental Champion with an X-Factor. You’d think that would be setting up Rock vs. X-Pac for Fully Loaded, but the match ends up happening next week, and it’s used as a set-up for …
The Rock vs. Triple H in a 2-out-of-3 falls match for the Intercontinental Championship, and X-Pac losing in the second match of the night to D’Lo Brown. Sure!
Best: Cahootie And The Blowfish
The A-story of the episode is the relationship between The Undertaker and Kane, and the lingering question of, “where was Kane during last week’s main event, and how did The Undertaker get access to Kane’s gear and smoky eye palette to disguise himself and become number one contender?” Those questions get exacerbated after Undertaker easily defeats poor Vader, and Kane prevents Mankind from attacking Taker with a steel chair. The word “cahoots” gets tossed around a lot.
Later in the night, Undertaker shows up to “watch” Kane and Mankind challenge The New Age Outlaws for the Tag Team Championship. Everyone’s cahoot-a-meter starts going off, and things get worse when the D-X vs. Nation beef pops off again and Everybody Fights, inside the ring and out. Undertaker doesn’t get involved, but he certainly doesn’t prevent D’Lo Brown from sneaking in, dropping a chest-protector-assisted frog splash on the Road Dogg, and handing the tag belts to a 7-foot tall fire demon and his best friend, Psycho Dad.
TELL ME ABOUT THEM CAHOOTS, BIG MAN.
Vince McMahon shows up demanding information about the aforementioned cahoots, and Undertaker straight up tells him to go to Hell. Vince briefly attempts to puff up his chest and square up with a murderous zombie wizard, but thankfully Stone Cold Steve Austin, belligerent assault redneck, shows up to diffuse the situation. He doesn’t care too much about cahoots, he just knows he’s supposed to team up with Undertaker against Kane and Mankind at Fully Loaded and wants to know if he’ll be fighting two guys or three. Taker tells him to go to Hell with Vince, and thankfully D-Generation X, racist dick-pointers, show up to diffuse the situation.
Triple H cerebrally assassinates the situation and proposes a solution: the New Age Outlaws get a rematch for the Tag Team Championship right here tonight, and Undertaker and Stone Cold will be at ringside as special enforcers. “Special enforcers” worked out well for D-X at WrestleMania, which neither they nor Shawn Michaels brings up. Everyone agrees, and our main event is set.
The main event expertly ties all these threads together in one of the least structurally sound matches but best meshing of plot points Raw’s ever done.
The ref gets bumped, and when Austin slides in and tries to count the pin for the Outlaws, Undertaker pulls him out of the ring. Before that can explode, Kane hits a chokeslam on Road Dogg and Undertaker slides into the ring to count the three, but Austin physically gets into the ring and pulls him away by the leg. Business is about to pick up™, but the Nation vs. D-X feud boils over again, causing another Everybody Fights situation. Undertaker and Austin get into respective, parallel fights with Mankind and Kane until EVERYTHING breaks down, and they just start hitting finishers on anyone who gets near them.
So many questions heading into Fully Loaded that go beyond the regular, boring old “can they co-exist” … most importantly, what is Vince McMahon’s role in all of this? If Undertaker and Kane are working together, presumably due to the absence of Paul Bearer and without including Mankind, is Vince in cahoots with both of them? He wants the title off of Stone Cold Steve Austin more than anyone, so is he just feigning ignorance to use Austin’s obsession with raging against the machine against him and lure him into a trap?
It’s fun to think about wrestling stories in a deeper way than a binary “is it or isn’t it” situation. It’s hard to find any stories like that these days, and it’s wild to think WWE had an easier time telling believable human stories with an undead mortician, a burn victim with magical powers, a screeching maniac with a leather jock strap on his face, and a guy who somehow remained cool despite drinking light beer all the time and tucking a baseball jersey with his name on it into jean shorts.
This episode put Raw back on top in the ratings only a week after the Georgia Dome Nitro, which probably says a lot about WCW’s inability to maintain an audience and how unsatisfying Bash at the Beach ended up.
Best: The Family Game
Hey, check this out, even the mid-card stories have layers!
TAKA Michinoku gets paired up with newly formed gay panic team “Too Much” in a six-man tag against Kaientai. Too Much are ostensibly heels, despite not really mattering much, and end up getting into a shoving match with TAKA. TAKA shoves back, causing Kaientai to get the jump on Scott Taylor and win the match while he just stands around gawking at them (pictured). It’s great, because TAKA’s finally starting to realize that he’s spent the past year trying to “befriend” a bunch of Americans only for them to treat him like a joke at every turn, and that maybe he should start hanging around with his old Japanese friends.
After the match, Kaientai’s celebration is cut short when Val Venis shows up to “apologize” to Mr. Yamaguchi-San and give him a sneak peek at his latest film: Land of the Rising Venis, co-starring Mrs. Yamaguchi-San.
First of all, I hadn’t been this jealous of fictional characters since the time the Green Ranger got to kiss the Pink Ranger. Second of all, “Land of the Rising Venis” is pretty lame, as if you wanted to make a porno version of a classic Japanese film you could’ve just called it Drunken Angles, or maybe a Woman in the Dunes parody called Woman Into Dudes. Third of all, if you’re going to sleep with someone’s wife and run the risk of having your pee-pee choppy-choppied, make sure she’s at least as fine as Mrs. Yamaguchi-San.
Also, LOL at WWE pixelating Mrs. Yamaguchi-San when she’s under the blanket, then unpixelating it when she crawls out of it. You guys filming a segment about two people in bed and worried about showing the bed? Anyway, join us next week for Mrs. Yamaguchi-San’s solo sequel to Land of the Rising Venis, which I’m assuming is called, Rash? Oh Man.
Brawl For All Is Getting Worse, Somehow
Two more Brawl For All fights this week, despite them still getting booed as soon as the bell rings, and a bunch of “we want wrestling” chants starting up. Jim Ross is working overtime with his, “these guys are out of their element, folks, they aren’t trained boxers or amateur wrestlers,” stuff. Which, you know, is extra hilarious when we do see trained boxers (Marc Mero) and amateur wrestlers (Dan Severn) competing and completely shitting the bed.
Up first is Bombastic Bob and Bodacious Bart, who are now just Bob Holly and Bart Gunn because the New Midnight Express broke up off-screen. They’re supposed to do a worked pull-apart brawl after the match, but it’s kind of embarrassing after watching them go three rounds with Holly having no idea how to box and Gunn clearly just kinda standing around so he doesn’t accidentally knock out the guy he’s supposed to do an angle with.
Literally the only highlight here is a great sign in the crowd: “Bob Holly makes me melancholy.”
more like Sprawl For All, am I right
After that is the first truly bullshit Brawl for All fight, Dan Severn vs. The Godfather. Severn’s apparently a ringer here, as he’s a former UFC Heavyweight Champion and an all-around wrestling murder machine, but they’ve got him in here in boxing gloves against a guy who is way bigger and way stronger than him. So he keeps trying to shoot these weak takedowns with Godfather sprawling and shutting down all but like one of them, then coming up with some Shane McMahon quality punches.
Godfather manages to never get hit by those deadly kitty cat punches, wins all three rounds on punches thrown, and only gets taken down once … yet somehow loses the fight, because WWF doesn’t want Dan Severn going out in the first round. They show the point totals with the Godfather ahead for the first two rounds, then conveniently ignore it for the third. Severn ends up dropping out of the competition after this, claiming he had “nothing to prove,” except I guess for, “can win a wacky fake toughman competition against a pro wrestler.” Godfather moves on to round two in Severn’s place, because he won the fight to begin with.
If you’re keeping track at home, that’s six Brawl For All fights with zero knockouts, two real injuries, one exit due to embarrassment, and six boring decisions. THIS IS GOING SO WELL.
Also On This Episode
All that’s left to report is this hilarious image of Jacqueline, selling “falling onto the top rope crotch-first” like Vince McMahon sells an orgasm. This happens after she tries to interfere in a match, Sable trips her up, and Marc Mero is unable to run baby run from Steve Blackman’s pumped-up kicks.
As a reminder, these two will settle things in a FULLY LOADED BIKINI CONTEST. Sable and Jacqueline, I mean. Not Blackman and Mero. Although honestly, how amazing would that be?
Next Week:
CAHOOTSAMANIA continues as Triple H remembers he is the European Champion, PCO technically faces Death for the first time, and Val Venis ventures into unfamiliar territory by preventing a woman’s spanking. Plus, Mrs. Yamaguchi-San finally gets a first name! All this and more on Monday Night Raw, next week!
