Previously on Sunday Night Heat: Sable cut a promo on Jacqueline while in the middle of filming a sexy lesbian prison fight for Pacific Blue, the Brothers of Destruction continued brothering destruction, and Ken Shamrock challenged the WWF Champion.
Previously on WWF Raw Is War: Raw returned to Mondays with the budding friendship of The Rock and Mankind, the show’s first evening gown match, and Vince McMahon trying to eat Stone Cold Steve Austin’s face.
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 20, 1998.
THe ANNoUNCE TeAM OF YoUR NiGHTMARES
Jim Ross is on assignment, presumably barbecue sauce-based, so meet the most popular and least problematic announcing duo in WWE history: Shane McMahon and Jim Cornette.
It wasn’t a big deal at the time, because social media hadn’t yet turned us into warring ideological tribes who can’t even process fake fighting for entertainment without screaming at each other for not doing it right, but can you imagine the 2019 versions of McMahon and Cornette on commentary? Holy shit. Shane just constantly putting himself over with lazy indifference while Cornette piss-shouts into a microphone about how anyone laughing at R-Truth or whatever he doesn’t like this week is a fat, stupid, [gay or racial slur] he’s going to beat up in real life? The only step above this in terms of commentary is, what, Hulk Hogan and Vince Russo? Mark Madden and Sadako from The Ring?
CaNADIAN PoRN OF THe WeEK
This week’s episode starts with pansexual Oscar statue turned reform preacher turned … cuckold conspiracy theorist (?) Dustin Runnels losing a short match to Mankind and His Amazing Friends via Mandible Claw.
He can’t concentrate on winning wrestling matches because he’s just learned that his wife starred in a shot-for-shot remake of the Val Venis classic Land of the Rising Venis. Unfortunately for Dustin, Val is pro wrestling history’s sorest winner and shows up after the fall to announce that, in true porn industry style, he’s already scripted, shot, and released the sequel:
It’s just like The Preacher’s Wife, only they’ve switched sides. Also, apparently if you called something “How ____ Got Her Groove Back” in 1998, Terry McMillan and the How Stella Got Her Groove Back lawyers would descend on you like a cast of ravenous hawks. But can we take a second to appreciate Val Venis naming all his homemade Marlena pornos after films with strong female leads of color? I hope the third one is a first-draft sex joke about Set It Off.
In case you needed the grander themes of the feud illustrated for you, Val ends the segment by aggressively massaging his own snail trail until Dustin submits.
HeAT 1NDEX
Losing your holy wife to a Canadian porn star – ❄️❄️❄️❄️
Canadian porn enthusiasts who are upset that Val’s porn work became all about wrestling when he became a wrestler, thereby robbing them of his previous, purer creative work – ❄️❄️
Val’s jock – 🔥
I WaNNA Be, YoUR SLeDGEHAMMER
This week’s main event is The Undertaker and Kane vs. their very favorite jobbers, the Disciples of Apocalypse. The Harris Twins are just The Undertaker and Kane if they grew up in the Tennessee State Fairground Sports Arena instead of a funeral home. In a pre-match interview, Undertaker says that as far as he’s concerned, “DOA” stands for, “dead on arrival.” That’s gotta be the funniest, “that’s the joke,” insult ever. I hope Undertaker starts feuding with the Pretty Mean Sisters soon and says as far as he’s concerned, “PMS” stands for, “premenstrual syndrome.”
Anyway, the interview gets interrupted by Raw’s random assembling of anti-Corporation heroes: Mankind, The Rock, and Ken Shamrock. There’s a mole in their union, but I’ll let you think long and hard about which one it might be. Vince McMahon gets involved trying to break things up and gets slung into the wall by Ken Shamrock’s aimless rage, causing the babyfaces to get ejected from the arena. Kane and Undertaker prove themselves to be great candidates for a future son-in-law by protecting Vince with sledgehammers.
Before the faces get tossed, we get a quick conversation between Vince and Mankind that lets us know how brilliant these two are going to be together soon. “Did you get the get well card that my secretary sent?” The best line is probably when Vince tells him to leave, and Mankind responds with, “Can you give us a ride? I mean, I don’t drive…” Classic.
The main plays out like you’d expect. No, the Harris Twins were somehow not able to defeat Kane and The Undertaker. Kane and Undertaker are the kings of Sunday Night Heat. The highlight (or lowlight, depending on your point of view) is probably the commentary team of Shane and Vince McMahon — dear Lord — and Vince’s guaran-damn-tee of a new WWF champion at Breakdown. DOA returns to the back to have, “economic anxiety.”
HeAT 1NDEX
Vince McMahon and Mick Foley’s chemistry – 🔥🔥🔥
DOA, who make me wish I was watching Southern Justice – ❄️❄️❄️
CaNCELLED DuE To SNoW
“Wrestler goofs off in the production truck” can be fun. “Wrestler orders around the production team” can be even better, but “wrestler actively compromises your ability to watch the show” is detrimental by design.
This episode’s one match that could’ve been really good — X-Pac, Triple H, and Billy Gunn versus Jeff Jarrett, Owen Hart, and D-Lo Brown — gets completely ignored and overshadowed by mysterious “production errors” we later find out are Al Snow’s fault. For example, here’s D’Lo Brown’s heat getting kneecapped by how funny they thought it’d be to do a scene transition into darkness.
Terrible. Eventually, Commissioner Slaughter handcuffs Snow, drags him to the ring, and punishes him by announcing a Boot Camp match between the two for the following Raw. I think an Al Snow match punishes us more than it punishes him, but whatever. Slaughter tries to put an exclamation point on this by putting Snow in the Cobra Clutch, only, you know, Snow’s hands are cuffed behind his back. Apparently nobody thought to do a dry run of this segment and realize that’d be the problem, so Sarge just has to kinda hug him and pretend it’s deadly.
Woof!
HeAT 1NDEX
The “Boot Camp” match concept, which WWE treated like it was War Games or some shit – ❄️
Literally Al Snow – ❄️❄️
ALSo ON THiS EPiSODE
Edge defeats TAKA Michinoku in one of those matches that probably would’ve been great if it’d gone longer than 33 seconds. Kaientai shows up for a Welcome to Marwen-style beatdown, but an already bloody Gangrel makes the save. I guess they caught him during dinner. Gangrel promises that Edge will soon, “come home,” and we’re reaching “Coach Feratu” levels of wondering why nobody knows they’re all vampires.
Finally, Jacqueline defeats Luna Vachon and then challenges Sable to a “wrestling match” on Raw. You can tell this was originally one of those graphic, Attitude Era promo battles where they call each other “bitch” and “skank” and “ho” over and over, but got cut down considerably, probably because it’s on at like 7 PM on a Sunday. One illogical ice burn still remains:
“Pin me-” [weird edit]
“Pin you? That should be easy enough. After all, you get NAILED enough!”
… okay? The announcers’ call only raises futher questions:
“WOOOOO! Well hold on a second, Sable’s not a professional athlete!”
“She doesn’t have to be an athlete, she doesn’t have to be a wrestler, ’cause she’s gonna stand up for herself as a woman!”
NeXT WeEK:
We’re introduced to some jobbers named “Matt Hardy” and “Jeff Hardy.” More importantly, Golga vs. Mosh!
