Previously on WWF Raw Is War: Raw is still stuck on Saturday nights because of tennis, giving us Raw, Sunday Night Heat, and then another Raw on three consecutive days.
Previously on Sunday Night Heat: Ken Shamrock challenged Stone Cold Steve Austin to a WWF Championship match, Sable challenged Jacqueline to an evening gown match, and Gangrel challenged us to observe his, “obviously gothic-type lifestyle.”
If you haven’t seen this episode, you can watch it on WWE Network here. Check out all the episodes of classic Raw 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 Saturday Night from September 14, 1998.
Best: We’re Back On Mondays With An A+ A-Story
The best Attitude Era Raws are the ones where the entire episode revolves around a single story, which the writers (presumably Vince Russo, doing the one thing Vince Russo has always done really well) (bro) tethering a bunch of ancillary stories to it.
The primary story over the past few months has been The Undertaker’s rivalry with Stone Cold Steve Austin, Undertaker’s growing control over his fire-lobbing brother Kane, and Vince McMahon trying to convince a couple of 7-foot-tall monsters to help him abuse the champion he hates while still making a bunch of money. It’s important to remember that Austin’s popularity ended up being a character trait, and explained why McMahon didn’t just fire him if he hated him so much. That’s something missing from a lot of modern evil General Manager stories. This week’s Raw opens up with McMahon making the promised triple threat match at Breakdown even worse for Austin with the announcement that Undertaker won’t be allowed to pin Kane to win, and Kane won’t be allowed to pin Undertaker. That not only removes the brothers’ ability to simply win the match for the benefit of one or the other, but guarantees that they’ll have to work in McMahon’s best interest and murder Stone Cold.
Vince, being Vince, gets extra cocky about his brilliant idea and starts poking Austin in the chest about it. Austin, being Austin, punches him in the goddamn face. This causes Undertaker and Kane to attack Austin 2-on-1, because Vince has them backed into a corner where they have to do his bidding or miss out on the world’s easiest title opportunity. Vince, still being Vince, gets down in Austin’s face to do Austin’s own taunt, and looks a lot like a dog who has finally been told they can eat their dinner.
We find out about two confirmed matches here, as well, via challenges from Sunday Night Heat:
- Austin will defend the WWF Championship against Ken Shamrock in the main event, with everyone in the building (correctly) assuming Vince is going to let them destroy each other and then send out Kane and Undertaker to finish the job, and
- Kane vs. The Rock
The important thing to remember about The Rock is that the SummerSlam ladder match with Triple H turned him into a main-event player in the eyes of the fans, for all intents and purposes, and he’s already capitalizing on that momentum by calling out top tier guys like Kane and Undertaker. He’s mad about their reign of destruction from a couple of Raws ago, which saw him stick up for Nation of Domination lackey D’Lo Brown and get beaten up for it.
The other important thing to note is that D’Lo completely bailed on that beatdown instead of helping the leader who stuck his neck out to help him, and now relations between Rock and The Nation are strained. Since he’s about to fight goddamn Kane, he tries to organize a battle plan and tell everyone where they need to be. The whole “know your role” thing. They bicker about it and don’t want to follow his orders, so he tells them to just stay in the back and let him whip Kane’s monkey ass full of candy (or whatever) himself. Rock’s confidence was step one in getting the crowd behind him. Challenging top heels and sticking up for his friends was step two. Ditching the Nation is the ever-important step three.
This is the Raw where the crowd officially falls in love with The Rock, by the way. They’re chanting for him, losing their mind for all of his offense, and transform the People’s Elbow — previously something Rock did to piss off the audience with unnecessary theatrics — into a must-see move. He hits it on Kane here, and you can see on Rock’s face how confused/overjoyed he is by how popular he suddenly is. Undertaker jumps into the ring and shit-cans Rock to the outside after the elbow, drawing huge boos.
But wait just a minute, folks: Rock and Undertaker being distracted on the floor allows Mankind to return to Raw as a massively over babyface and smash Kane in the back of the head with a sledgehammer like Kane did to him at SummerSlam. The crowd goes apeshit, Taker chases Mankind up the ramp, and Rock rolls back in to pin Kane and win the match. The crowd chants the three-count, so you know it worked.
To keep the show rolling, Undertaker grabs a microphone and challenges Mankind to fight him here tonight and “end things once and for all.” He even tells him he can bring his sledgehammer if he wants, possibly feeling confident after, you know, nearly throwing the motherfucker to his doom at King of the Ring. Mankind, now officially the version you love and remember, accepts.
As expected, Undertaker beats the ever-loving dog shit out of Mankind in a loosely defined “anything goes” street fight. They both bring sledgehammers to the ring, but the referee’s like, “heh heh nope, nope, nope,” and takes them away. Tables, chairs, stairs, and everything that isn’t nailed down gets involved, and Undertaker even throws a way too close sledgehammer at Mankind’s head while he’s propped up against the steps. Even watching it now, knowing Mick Foley didn’t die on Raw via crushed skull, it makes me nervous. Undertaker was swinging that shit.
Mankind manages to keep fighting against both Kane and The Undertaker by his lonesome, but you can only do that for so long. As Undertaker’s about to deal a final, decisive blow with the sledgehammer, THE ROCK jumps out of Mankind’s dumpster of weapons and makes the save. Jim Ross screaming THE ROCK! THE ROCK WAS IN THE DUMPSTER! is so good here, and the crowd can’t get enough of it. Mankind saved Rock earlier in the night, so Rock repays the favor. It works, because Rock just got mad at D’Lo Brown for getting saved and not saving back. Rock has finally found his best friend, future tag team partner, bloodiest rival, and crash test dummy 10-15 chair shots at a time. That’s what they mean when they say, “connection.”
At the end of the night, the main event plays out like expected. Austin and Shamrock have a really good match — with Austin notably working super heel again for some reason to get Shamrock over, as if he just woke up on Monday morning and was like, “I’m tired of this brawling Stone Cold style, let me try working a match like it’s 1996 again” — until Kane and Undertaker show up to ruin it. And, because everything that happens on the episode matters and happened for a reason, The Rock and Mankind show up to make the save.
The greatest thing about this is that it’s in service of the pay-per-view build without seeming like hacky pay-per-view build. Austin’s defending the WWF Championship against Undertaker and Kane in a triple threat match, sure, but you know who’s in the other triple threat, to name a #1 contender to the WWF Championship? Ken Shamrock, The Rock, and Mankind. It makes so much sense and works so well it makes you mad about every episode of Raw from like 2003 on.
Really, really great stuff on this episode. And we haven’t even gotten to the vampires yet!
Best: When The B-Story Also Ties Into The A-Story
Early in the night, Billy Gunn and Road Dogg show up looking like they just got back from vacation in the Bahamas for a Jeff Jarrett vs. Road Dogg match. Surprisingly, the announce team takes a second to remind you about the long, torrid history between Jarrett and the Roadie, complete with a video package, to give the match some gravitas. That’s truly exceptional considering there was a terrible Jeff Jarrett WCW run between now and then. Plus, you’d expect WWF (at least now) to not want to remind you of a popular guy like Road Dogg’s more embarrassing days, but it not only informs the match, it informs the character, and maybe explains to someone who’s watching for the first time why a guy would call himself “The Road Dogg.”
The match isn’t great, but it contributes to the greater narrative. Raw needs to isolate Chyna and X-Pac for another story, so Jarrett vs. Roadie ends with Jarrett jabbing him with the “business end” of a broken guitar, and then slamming it down on his throat. Jarrett wins, and the D-O-double-G gets taken to the Local Medical Facili-ty with an undisclosed throat injury. Billy Gunn in short pants screaming at Sgt. Slaughter to leave them alone as they’re being taken away in an ambulance is unintentionally hilarious.
Later in the episode, Triple H pins Owen Hart, because of course he does.
The finish sees X-Pac and Chyna gang up on Mark Henry on the outside, which distracts Owen and leaves him open for a Pedigree. After the match, Henry steals a microphone from prepubescent Michael Cole and challenges Pac and Chyna to a handicap match, making sure to refer to Chyna as his “girlfriend.” They accept, of course. They should probably have more help from Triple H, considering, but he’s extremely into trying to get girls in the crowd to show him their tits. It’s literally all he’s into.
That match absolutely rules. The crowd is batshit for everything that happens, everyone’s working at the top of their game, and everyone’s motivations are clear because it recalls its own history and ties into the two hours of wrestling show the crowd’s been watching. Funny, right? Almost too many great moments to name here, from a double suplex that brings everyone in the building to their feet to the World’s Strongest Man bench-pressing X-Pac from one lateral press into another.
Chyna really shines here — opponents of intergender wrestling should look at how willing someone as massive as Mark Henry is to sell for her and make her look great, and take note of how Chyna and X-Pac clearly belong in the same size and weight class — but gets her foot tugged on by D’Lo Brown and makes the fatal mistake of jumping to Henry’s arms. One DEEP powerslam later and Chyna is rekt, and the match is over. Henry doesn’t lose heat for selling for two people way smaller than him because he won a 2-on-1 handicap match, and Chyna and X-Pac don’t lose anything because they kicked Henry’s ass and technically only lost via (light) cheating. A really well done TV match from start to finish, with the heels coming out on top to help balance out the otherwise face-heavy night.
Worst: Shade Of The Evening
Honestly, the only low point of the episode is the “first ever evening gown match on Raw” (prestigious!) between Sable and Jacqueline. Even that’s not too bad if you’re into that kind of thing, and are interested in Jacqueline’s entire boobs falling out and staying out for like 80% of the match. The Network version is heavily pixelated, but I’m sure you can find an uncensored version in filmed-with-a-toaster quality on DailyMotion.
Sable hits a Sable Bomb and strips Jackie of whatever’s left of her evening gown to win the match. The most notable thing is the mysteriously purposeful zoom-in on a Sable-esque fan in the front row that isn’t mentioned on commentary, but will become important later.
In case you’re unaware, this ends up being “Tori” (not that one), an obsessed Sable fan and future on-screen girlfriend of both Kane and X-Pac. She was also a former LPWA Champion and competed in All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling, but you aren’t really going to get to see any evidence of that in late ’90s WWF.
BEST: HE’S A MAN
YESSSSS.
This episode features the first vignette for the “Real Man’s Man” Steven Regal, the World Wrestling Federation’s brilliant idea to bring in an uptight British blue-blood from WCW and turn him into Ron Swanson. The first video, which you can watch below, is just like, “Steven Regal can chop wood, motherfuckers.” Future videos show him shaving and squeezing oranges with his hands. I don’t even know. I have never, ever known.
I will take this opportunity, though, to share his entrance theme, which is still one of the greatest pieces of music ever recorded. Can you believe this happened in 1998, and not like, 1994? Or 1988? Real Man’s Man Steven Regal should’ve been feuding with Dino Bravo, not The Godfather.
Best, I Guess: A River Runnels Through It
The Val Venis vs. Dustin Runnels feud escalates when — get this — Val decides to sleep with his wife and make a porno about it. He calls it The Preacher’s Wife, which is pretty hilarious, but it’s just a shot-for-shot remake of his video with Mrs. Yamaguchi-san. Who are you, Gus Van Sant?
Hope nobody tries to cut off your dick with a samurai sword this time!
Best: Train In Vein
Finally we have a Raw moment I’ve been referencing for 20 years: the first showdown between Gangrel and Edge. Up until now, Edge has been a mysterious drifter and sexy hobo fighter without a lot of back story. Gangrel is a “Blade guy” who drinks “viscous liquids” because apparently you can’t say “vampire” or “blood” on Raw when you’re hastily licensing an unrelated role-playing game.
Anyway, the match ends with Gangrel DDT’ing Edge on the floor, doing a deep drink of his viscous goblet with a spit take, and announcing that, “THE BLOOD OF GANGREL FLOWS THROUGH YOUR VEINS! ETERNITY IS FOREVER, EDGE! YEEEHHH!” I can’t quite capture Gangrel’s weird Howard Dean yell in text, so please listen to it for yourself.
Is he saying “yeet?”
Next Week:
A number one contender match is made, a new European Champion is crowned, and Al Snow wrestles Sgt. Slaughter on Raw in 1998. Plus, the first appearance of the Stone Cold Steve Austin and Billy Gunn tag team I’m calling Stun Gunn. Wait, no, “Cold Ass.” See you then!
