Previously on Sunday Night Heat: Vince McMahon revealed his master plan for Breakdown; Kane and The Undertaker will face Stone Cold Steve Austin for the WWF Championship in a triple threat match. Future master plans involve more kidnapping.
Previously on WWF Raw Saturday Night: USA Network is still giving primetime Monday priority to the U.S. Open tennis tournament, so Raw’s on Saturday night spinning its wheels.
You can watch this episode on WWE Network here. You can follow the series and read previous entries on the Heat of the Moment tag page. If you like these, and our break from the normal Best and Worst format, make sure to share it around so it gets read and drop us a comment below.
Here’s what you missed 21 years ago on WWF Sunday Night Heat, originally aired on September 13, 1998.
HoW THeY USeD To DeAL WiTH SHaNE McMaHON CoNSTANTLY SWeATING
When you’re 28, you build up a sweat when you scream, “HO YEAH! HO YEAH! BAM BAM BAM!” non-stop for an hour. When you’re 49, you build up a sweat because you woke up in the morning and moved.
As a quick, related aside, Shane’s line-o-mac of the week happens during his intro for Gangrel, which has become appointment television. Last week he said Gangrel reminded him of, “one of those guys” from “that Blade movie.” This week, he drops:
“Nice! Spewing that, viscous substance all over da place! Gangrel obviously leading a gothic-type lifestyle!”
Obviously! Ho yeah!
Tomorrow night on Raw — as this episode of Sunday Night Heat is sandwiched between two Raws, one on Saturday and one on Monday, giving you an indication of how unimportant it probably is in the long weekend of planning — the mysterious relationship between Gangrel and Edge will be explored, as they’re set to go one-on-one. On Heat, Gangrel’s mysterious relationship with hilariously squashing the members of Kaientai continues as he Tiger Suplexes poor TAKA Michinoku onto the actual geographical top of his head. No, really, look.
I know Edge and Gangrel’s connection is “vampirism,” but I wish it’d just been, “Edge is into tape trading, got super into Michinoku Pro recently, and doesn’t want to see all his favorites get their necks broken on Sunday afternoon cable TV.”
HeAT 1NDEX
This squash – 🔥
Shane McMahon’s Peggy Hill commentary – ❄️❄️❄️
The blood of Gangrel running through Edge’s veins forever – 🧛♂️🇨🇦
SaBLE WoRKS BLuE
The Sultry Sable™ sends in video from the set of Pacific Blue, and if you thought she was guest starring as a bike cop who can’t act, think again. She’s a prison inmate who can’t act, and she’s the toughest around! Her name is Brenda, a jailhouse thug who can’t stop taking off her shirt to get into yard fights with cops and gets her boobs pressed against the bars a lot. You can watch some of the highlights here. Blue is the New Black!
Sable says that she saw Jacqueline wearing a pretty evening gown, so she thought they should have an evening gown match on Raw tomorrow night. There’s some real latent psychological stuff happening in the WWF women’s division in the late ’90s. A whole lot of, “I fucking hate you, so let’s take off our clothes together.” Vince Russo was really working through some shit I’m not sure he ever got through.
HeAT 1NDEX
Prison Justice, ’90s cable-style – 🔥
Literally any Sable promo – ❄️
Russo’s writing style – 🍆🍆🍆💥🔂
JaCKIE ON YoUR BaCKIE
Speaking of Jacqueline, she gets Her Man Marc Mero disqualified by randomly jumping onto Val Venis’ back mid-hip-swivel. Because Val doesn’t know the 100-pound person on his back who’d be trying to save Marc Mero is Jacqueline, somehow, he grabs her by her hair and slams her into the mat. They play it like he just mad a mistake, as though, you know, he thought Vader had gotten into the ring and piggybacked him and he’d just gotten better at squats. As Mero and Jackie are leaving, they accept Sable’s challenge to a Take Off Your Clothes match. Jacqueline will take off your clothes THE HARDEST!
While this is happening, an enraptured (cough) Dustin Runnels hits the ring and beats the shit out of Val for being sexually sacrilegious on Raw Saturday Night. Little does he know that on Raw Monday Night, Val will reveal that he’s stopped shooting censored Asian porn and started working in the MILF category. More on that on Raw.
HeAT 1NDEX
Marc Mero matches, bless his heart – ❄️
Val’s very lazy topical 1998 pre-match speech about how he has a more dangerous bat than McGwire or Sosa – ❄️❄️
I’M A LuMBERJACK AND I’M OKaY
The advertised main event of the night is a lumberjack grudge match between Jeff Jarrett and X-Pac with various 1998 WWF roster members surrounding the ring. It’s basically Southern Justice (for Jarrett), the New Age Outlaws (for Pac), and then all the other tag teams that don’t have anything to do. Bradshaw’s randomly out there, too, so of course he’s the reason why everyone starts fighting. Nothing the World Wrestling Federation likes more than a lumberjack match where the lumberjacks start brawling so the referee’s distracted by whatever’s happening in the ring. It’s their favorite.
So yeah, the referee gets distracted right around the time X-Pac’s able to hit the Bronco Buster (Shane McMahon’s favorite move ever, you should hear him react to it like a child seeing their Christmas presents for the first time) and the Bella Buster. This allows Dennis Knight to slide into the ring as the world’s most slovenly interference and hit X-Pac with his new finisher, the pumphandle slam somebody saw Wrath do on Nitro. Jarret steals the victory, and is now like two weeks into nobody making him shave his head for losing a hair vs. hair match.
HeAT 1NDEX
The match, without the lumberjacks – 🔥
The lumberjacks – ❄️
Phineas I. Godwinn’s Blood Running Cold – ❄️❄️❄️
BRoTHERS OF CoNTINUED DeSTRUCTION
Look at how excited The Undertaker is to touch D’Lo Brown’s butt!
Kane ends up in a match against D’Lo to continue the Nation’s beef with the Brothers of Destruction following that whole thing where The Rock stuck up for his hench only for the hench to skip town and leave him to get beaten down. D’Lo does surprisingly well against Kane, all things considered, and almost pulls out a surprise victory thanks to interference from The Rock and his deadliest weapon: not knowing his own strength when he swings a chair. Even these shots to the back look like they should’ve sent Kane’s ribs flying out the front of his chest.
Pretty sure I’d rather get hit by a car than let The Rock hit me with a steel chair.
Anyway, Kane recovers, because that’s what Kane does, and he and the Undertaker spend a few minutes dismantling D’Lo and Mark Henry for good measure. The Rock will have plenty of important battles with these guys, but not on a Sunday Night Heat crammed between two Raws.
HeAT 1NDEX
Rock’s chair shots – ⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️
SHaMROCK WaNTS HiM A PiECE
The A-story of the episode, as it were, is that The World’s Most Dangerous Man Ken Shamrock wants a title shot. After he gets a quick submission win over Vader (in a match Vader works very gingerly, so Shamrock doesn’t flip out and break his nose in five places again), he gets on the mic and says that in his year and a half in the company he’s only gotten one WWF Championship opportunity. He wants a match against Stone Cold Steve Austin, and he doesn’t care what he has to do to get it. To his credit, he knows the simplest way to a WWF Championship match: say you want one into a microphone, and say some confident shit about the champion.
At the end of the night, Stone Cold shows up, belt a-swingin’, and says OBVIOUSLY HAIL YEAH I’LL WRESTLE KEN SHAMROCK LET’S GET A REFEREE OUT HERE. The only problem is that there’s like 20 seconds of television time left, so the show goes off the air with Austin and Shamrock standing in the ring while Vince makes, “motherfuckers do you not know how time works,” faces.
Shamrock will get his title shot on the next night’s Monday Night Raw, and we can guarantee with 0% certainty that it won’t be ruined by Kane and The Undertaker’s gimmick of showing up and ruining everything.
HeAT 1NDEX
Shamrock vs. Austin – 🔥🔥🔥
Knowing how it’ll end, even 21 years ago while this episode of Heat was happening – ❄️❄️
AW NUTS WE GOTTA GO – ❄️❄️❄️
NeXT WeEK:
Not much, and then the Harris Twins main event. See you then (?)!
