Found Footage Friday: WWF 1998~! AUSTIN~! TOO SEXY~! AGUILA~! FAAROOQ~! CACTUS~! TAFKA GOLDUST~! QUEBECERS~!

WWF House Show Anaheim 3/13/98

Mr. Aguila vs. Brian Christopher

MD: This was the good stuff. I can't imagine anything else on the show is going to reach this level. Christopher was as on as a human being could possibly be. Fascinating reactions to things, fascinating creative choices. He went for a German out of the corner and Aguila landed on his feet. Yet he celebrated like he had just tossed him across the ring. Surely, he would have felt... well, no matter. Then he ate a massive dive and sold his throat for some reason. I enjoyed it. He had some really nice offense too, not just the power bomb down the stretch but a Stroke and this Bulldog which for some reason Aguila decided to sell by compacting himself in a seated spot. Story of his comeuppance was going for the same thing twice and then having it backfire on him in the most spectacular way possible (bulldog #2 let to him crotched in the corner). Really, this was Christopher wound up and given room to run as fast and as far as possible to amazing results.

ER: I love how long they both took coming to the ring. We've never seen Aguila take this long to walk to the ring, and because of that this is the most we have ever heard of Aguila's music. This is the clearest this theme has ever been played. We're learning more about WWF Aguila than ever before, as this is also a clear beautiful look at his gear. This is a GREAT set of gear on Aguila, great use of bright color against white, Lisa Frank color with a clean white canvas. He uses that canvas to paint something beautiful, like the sequence where he knocked Christopher down with a spinning heel kick, hit an effortlessly high floating dropkick to knock him to the floor, then hit an incredible twisting moonsault press to the floor. Cleanest shit ever. 

Christopher was great at setting up his own offense and Aguila's. His set up and execution of the Stroke, rolling Aguila through and firmly planting him, got a stunned reaction and he knew it, soaking in the crowd's hate even more than normal. His messy bulldog (complimentary) nicely set up Aguila shoving him off the next bulldog, balls first into the turnbuckles. The elbowdrop Aguila dropped right on Christopher's face after he dropped to the mat was the best...or was it the best when Christopher hopped to his feet running in place selling that the elbowdrop smashed his nose. How often did we get to see Christopher use two different powerbomb variations in WWF? Funny that I'm seeing it on a house show. Both men covered from the blown spot well, Christopher worked as base for luchadors far better than anyone could have expected. 

Steve Blackman vs. Faarooq

MD: Farooq looked really good here. Just tons of presence. He called everyone ugly on the mic to start, then got Blackman to pose, lured him into the corner and hit a spinning heelbutt I've never seen him do. It was just the way he carried himself. He went for a handshake and Blackman kicked it away but then he got him to run right into the spinebuster slam. Most of his offense was just tossing Blackman out so D-Lo and Henry could beat on him, and Blackman won far, far too soon with a small package out of nowhere, but Farooq looked great in the few minutes we got here, just like the savviest wrestler going. Post-match there was Nation dissension and Rocky ran out and drew chants to try to calm everything down.  

ER: Faarooq looked so damn good here. As someone who's been throwing 1998 WWF on as a break from 1997 WCW, I can attest that this is the best Faarooq looks in the ring in the entire first half of '98. Was he saving it all for the house shows? I'm so confused. He had a really cool Raw match against Shamrock in January '98, so maybe we just weren't getting enough Faarooq against shooters? Honestly, this is one of the greatest NATION performances we have. This is more than just the leader, this is everybody contributing. Faarooq is out here channeling Jungle Jim Kelly with a corner spinkick that he never otherwise used, showing off his peoples' karate to some white karate champ, while his whole team is putting in great work. How about Mark Henry throwing fucking BODY shots full arm into Blackman's stomach? Mark Henry is in baggy light wash jeans and a leather vest and is so wide it's insane. He looks like prom night Shaq. Kama and D-Lo put the boots to Blackman and Kama throws one of the best punches he's ever thrown. Faarooq's singlet doesn't get enough credit for being as elegant as it was. A truly great piece of pro wrestling gear. The simple band diagonally across his torso and the confidence to have so much of the singlet all black. This is confidence. Blackman's inside cradle finish was so slick and so well executed that it played as a finish just as well as Ogawa beating Akiyama, but this was a whole damn Nation show.

Cactus Jack vs. Billy Gunn [Falls Count Anywhere] 

MD: This was great fun. Just constant motion with weapon shots and big bumps all around and stooging from Gunn. Gunn landing on the outstretched chair and taking a goofy flopping bump was one of my favorite Billy Gunn things ever. The transitions were otherwise basically of convenience. Gunn would roll out on the Mandible Claw. He'd roll Cactus back in and Jack would take over in the corner with punches and the running knee, etc. So it wasn't exactly rocket science, but it was still very enjoyable and the sort of thing people weren't going to get on TV. 

ER: Also as part of my 1998 rewatch, I have become a much bigger fan of Billy Gunn than ever before. Did I contribute to the not-long-ago Billy Gunn discourse online? I sure did. I don't know why we didn't give him credit for what he was doing in '98 while it was happening, but damn has his work aged well. This man is a true stooge who is incredible at setting up opponents and taking a lot of damage. All of that is on display here, and all of it plays perfectly off Cactus. Gunn is the best part of the brawl on the floor, the way he hits the ring steps for max volume, the way he flops around on all his bumps and the way he and Cactus get so dirty after a suplex. Why is the floor of the Arrowhead Pond so damn filthy!? Was this a cowboy bar on days the Ducks weren't playing and they needed to fill the arena with sawdust? Gunn and Cactus get so covered in dust that they look like they're on a crew who hauls asbestos out of office buildings. 

Gunn is the perfect foil for all of Cactus's offense, from the violent to the absurd. He leans into Jack's best punches and holds firm to take a running knee in the corner. He gets tossed through a table in the corner and later takes a hard whip into the table he broke. But he is at his best getting over through absurdity, and that is on full display when he gets his balls salad tonged by Cactus and the crowd loses their damn minds for it. Gunn lays Cactus out with a chair and lays the chair over his face, setting up a fistdrop off the middle buckle - he even kisses his fist, which is some expert fistdrop knowledge from a guy who I've never see do a fistdrop before - that is of course reversed when Cactus raises the chair to meet Billy. Gunn's running in place face flop to sell the absurdity was divine. His two big pieces of offense looked great, snapping off a piledriver with real torque and sticking the not-yet-named Fameasser when Cactus ducks his head. For the finish, I loved Billy's kickout attempt after taking the double arm DDT on a chair. No life in the legs, no chance of kickout, but a visual attempt to roll his shoulder up at 3 that didn't take away from any of the violent and/or silly damage he took. 

Mark Mero vs. Chainz

MD: No idea how they thought this was going to work. The only babyface out there was Sable (and someone was whistling for her the whole match). Mero's entrance was over with all the lights and Sable was very over in general, getting her own chant as the match started. Mero played to the crowd, especially when it came to her. Chainz was just there, a de facto babyface who didn't get a shine (he tossed Mero out right at the start). Mero's shots and knees and what not looked good, but no one wanted to see Chainz work up from a chinlock (even being choked by wrist tape). He had a brief comeback but missed a Bombs Away kneedrop and ate the TKO. Probably good to see the state of the Mero/Sable act in a setting like this but this was doomed from the start.

ER: Chainz was definitely the babyface here, he was just the least defined character of the DOA. Part of this was because he didn't have a nazi twin, part of it was having a Z in his name like he was a member of the Burger King Kids Club. But he was a babyface at this point of 1998, even if that was mostly because DOA were in a regular feud with the Nation and WWF crowds were definitely going to be in the corner of DOA for reasons beyond face/heel alignment. Would a heel have the kind of shiny, lustrous hair that Chainz had? 

I thought the match worked really well with Chainz as babyface, throwing strong punches that Mero took like a great overpowered heel. I was also surprised at how fast Mero bumped to the floor when Chainz threw him through the ropes. Both men bump real well for the other. Mero goes down hard for a shoulderblock and clothesline, Chainz takes a shockingly cool bump when Mero snaps his neck over the ropes. He took it the exact same way Jimmy Hart took his apron bumps, and bumping was an underrated part of Chainz' game. Yes, I realize while typing that that every part of Chainz' game was underrated, because there isn't a person reading this who can clearly picture their favorite WWF Chainz moments. What did Chainz use as a finisher? I can't ever recall him winning a match during this run. But in the couple months around WrestleMania this year, he seemed like a guy who was trying for the last time to be noticed. We're not counting that weird stretch in TNA where he was losing 10 pounds a week until he was all teeth and jawbone and his hair started suffering from vitamin deficiency, I mean that he was trying to stand out to someone in WWF who might notice. 

Go watch how much Chainz puts himself out there in the DOA vs. DX vs. Boricuas chain match angle from Raw 4/13/98 (I fully understand if you do not do this) and it was clear he was trying to be noticed by someone. Was it me? Was it me, Chainz, noticing you 25 years after the fact? I love what you did against Marc Mero, Chainz. I loved your missed kneedrop off the middle buckle, and loved you leaning in to take Mero's kneelift to the side of the head rather than to your breadbasket. Nobody else took Mero's kneelift this way, only you Chainz. And it looked really good! I am a noticer, always noticing things. Your effort was true. 

Steve Austin vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley 

MD: I haven't actually written out the word "Helmsley" in a very long time. It still has a red underline under it. I'm not going back to check. Let me dump in some of the personal stuff here actually. I didn't watch a hell of a lot of wrestling from ~93-98. I remember seeing Hogan turn on scramblevision. Mania XIV was in Boston (I lived in a suburb) so with the public workout and everything, people were buzzing about it at High School and that's when I more or less got back into it, right around here.

That said, I don't go back to 98 WWF much. If we had more house shows, maybe it'd be different. What I have seen tends to be C-Shows. So I haven't seen these guys from this particular year in a long time. And it's fascinating just to see Austin move. I'm more used to the Austin of a couple of years earlier or a couple of years later, but here he was a superstar just ready to get the belt and carry the company. He conducted the crowd and fed off of them. It was a house show. The act hadn't quite calcified yet. So he was a little looser but it didn't feel pandering in any way. 

What I'll say about Hunter here is that he was very giving. His character didn't earn a single thing. He got everything through cheating or Chyna or chance. I imagine it wouldn't have carried through quite as well if TV cameras were on but he let himself be genuinely vulnerable in a way that, after a certain point, he never did genuinely again. And he came off as a better, more effective heel because of it. 

Early on they did a couple of hammerlock bits which were very good. Great back elbow and fun punch out of them. That's probably what I will remember out of this as much as anything else. Austin had to fight his way back from some legwork, but he did. The finish was wonky, overthought. Even vulnerable Hunter is still Hunter. It did six or seven things (too complicated a set up for the comeback with a double down that wasn't really needed, shrugging of the stunner the first time, a ref bump, Chyna, etc.) when one or two would have hit so much better. Still, the good in here was quite good.

ER: Man, I loved this. I loved this. I thought it was great. Austin was flat out incredible and constant motion towards something More, while HHH turned in what might be his best performance of the year. I have seen enough Austin/HHH matches and don't think they always work well as opponents, primarily because of HHH, but this was tremendous and a perfect use of time. If you dare, go ahead and check out their brutally long match a few weeks later from Mayhem in Manchester, and you can see a HHH with no idea how to treat a match against Austin. Here? Like night and day, roles defined perfectly and not a single wasted movement by either. HHH was not attempting to work cool heel, he was just feeding and setting things up for Austin to knock down, which he did spectacularly. The work over Austin's perpetually injured knee/s was interesting, and the ways Austin moved around that knee work was amazing. It's crazy how active Austin was in this era. 

For a guy who would eventually be surrounded by go go go wrestlers, it's wild how much he went went went without making his actual work feel empty and forgotten. It's funny whenever I see Austin talked about as a guy who "didn't do much" in the ring. Maybe that's referring to his "small moveset" (silly) but I watch the guy and see someone who is constantly doing something. Austin is a very active wrestler and this 12 minute and change format is perfect for him to craft this active, cool story. I loved every beat of this. When Hunter was getting his ass kicked, he was actually getting his ass kicked. This was not a self-service stooge performance from Hunter, he wasn't yet at the time where he was "showing people he could work down" he was just the heel taking a beating. Early, Austin rocks him so good with a back elbow to break a hammerlock that I had to rewind it a few times, both to see the elbow and to see the actual anger in Hunter's face. That's how a heel should look when a tough babyface elbows him in his big nose. And, while it didn't smash Hunter's nose, Austin's falling elbow is one of the greatest pieces of offense in wrestling history. What an incredible magic trick. This wife beating beer drinking Texas rattlesnake also figured out how to work an incredibly dangerous elbow, pointed directly at someone's throat and never showing a sliver of light, in a way that looks like he's collapsing a man's trachea. The trust he built with that elbow is incredible, and earned. 

When things settle down into Hunter working the knee, I loved the way Austin would stay in the match while selling, never settling into a long Hunter control sequence (because Austin rightly understood that Hunter has next to no ideas how to control things for that long), which fits perfectly into Austin's style. He is a fighter, a man who wants to constantly advance and who will keep after you after losing a limb, and that's how he sells the leg. There is an incredible spot, my personal favorite moment on this show, where Austin misses a clothesline and falls forward into the ropes, recovering in time for Hunter to kick him straight in the knee. The way Austin missed this clothesline pays such perfect attention to detail, every frame looking like a man who threw to connect, falling into the ropes because your missed momentum carried you there. His fall into the ropes looked like a man who hadn't considered he would ever miss that clothesline. Only the top 0.1% of wrestlers can miss offense with that kind of conviction. 

Chyna's involvement was the perfect amount as well, as her presence was always acknowledged while her threats were mostly implied. When she finally elbow smashes Austin from the floor it played as one of the best moments of an already excellent match. When she finally gets in the ring for the finish, the crowd was rabid for any kind of involvement from her. The way they played Chyna's first year in the company was an incredible use of restraint, totally unimaginable today. Austin's greatest feat in this match is actually making Hunter's goof ass Flair/Race cosplay bumps mean something other than "now is the time Hunter can show that he has watched several Flair/Race matches". His rolling upside down bump in the corner is almost always shoehorned into a match, but here felt like the best possible use and execution, adding an off the rails feel to Austin's comeback fire. 

I honestly don't think I could name 10 better matches in 1998 WWF. If these house shows keep coming, maybe eventually we'll be able to name 20 better. 

Godwinns vs. DoA [Country Whipping]

MD: Three minutes. The fans didn't really care at all until a couple of hard Godwinn shots in the ring towards the end. I was off thinking why they didn't get a couple more hillbillies (Moondog Splat was still active in 97?) and have them as part of the whole gang wars thing. And then I blinked and there was a slop drop and the thing was over. On some level this was kind of Death Valley Days coded. Just guys whipping the hell out of each other for three minutes and going home. If Phil, Matt and Eric booked this though, it'd have way more emotional resonance. 

ER: This was only two minutes long and a mostly useless two minutes, all likely for a very good reason. When you have Nazi Bikers taking on Confederacy Nostalgists it is only a matter of time before they come to some real Can't We All Just Get Along conclusions. Why are we lightly whipping each other for two minutes? We all collectively, the four of us, hate blacks, so why are we fighting each other? Henry and Skull have a moment of understanding that they're wasting their own energy fighting those with the same goals, so they agree to a lazily set up Slop Drop and clear the ring so a full crew of tough black dudes can do something more productive. 

Rock vs. Ken Shamrock

MD: Sort of a tale of two matches here. Shamrock looked great early, charging right in and having a lot of dynamic offense. Rocky fed and fed and fed and he did a great job with it. Some distraction from the outside let Rocky take over and it was a little off to me, a little rough around the edges. He didn't register some of Shamrock's stuff in the hope spots. That sort of thing. They did another ref bump here, but it was a nice one with a ducked clothesline. Then the rest of the Nation got involved and everything fell apart. It looked like Rocky was going to sneak away with a win after a D-Lo chairshot but another ref ran out and the Nation swarmed in. DQ win for Shamrock with the fans getting at least one big moment as he hit the Belly to Belly on Henry after a heated face off. 

Headbangers vs. Quebecers

MD: I had high hopes for this one, and it seemed like they'd be personified in Jacques' look. It was pretty amazing. Quebecers had the blue gear here, but Jacques had his hair pulled back tight, which made him looking like the hairline was really receding, with an almost fluffy ponytail, and a baldspot in the middle. Amazing stuff.

There was nothing wrong with this match really, but I wanted more elaboration in the early stooging. Pierre bumped all over the place, but I needed a bit more pluck and comeuppance from Jacques. It's a house show. Do all the bits. They did barely any of the bits. There'd be more bits on a 1989 Rougeaus TV squash. So I was a little disappointed there. I did like the finish where one Headbanger leapfrogged over the other to avoid a whip into one another, only to run right into Quebecers clotheslines. That set up the Quebecers going for their finisher, it getting broken up and the Headbangers hitting theirs. I needed this to have 600% more bullshit and I'm not sure why it didn't.

Undertaker vs. TAFKA Goldust

MD: There were elements to the initial Goldust character which pushed things in clever, if not entirely subtle ways. I don't think much of that was in this incarnation. It was all trying too hard and so little of it landed. Dustin wasn't at his physical best here but he still bumped all over the place for Taker and had his usual timing. Another distraction transition, this time with Taker choking Luna. I liked the comeback though as Taker hit a flurry of punches to the gut like he was playing Punch Out! Then the lights went off and the place went more nuts for Kane than they did for any of the matches. You wonder about the mic-ing with the cameras as they are for most of this, but when the place explodes for something like that it really does make you feel like they've just been quiet for most of the wrestling. I kind of liked Taker's punch exchange on Kane too. Weirdly, the ref didn't call for the DQ even though it would have made total sense (it wasn't a ball control thing either; Kane was getting shots in). But they wanted to send the fans home happy with a "clean" win after the Tombstone I guess and they couldn't do yet another ref bump. 

I'm going to chalk this off as a dubiously agented show. There were good things, but past the Christopher match, which they still might have gotten pre-show, just at half the length, and the Cactus Jack match which they wouldn't be getting anywhere else save maybe PPV (at least until the Hardcore division started up), I don't think it was all that much of a stronger experience than you would have gotten from a Raw of this era, and as a house show, it really should have been.

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The Unheralded Two Minute Long 1998 WWF Chain Match

Savio Vega/Jose Estrada vs. 8-Ball/Skull WWF Raw 4/13/98

ER: WWF was not a Chain Match fed. I don't think they even ran any chain matches during the Hardcore Title era, and before this two minute long match that was much more Great Segment than Actual Match, they hadn't run any chain matches since Hercules or Ivan Koloff had been there. But in 1998 they had Puerto Ricans and Nazi Bikers and it's actually shocking that this is the only chain match the promotion had during that run. But again, this is not so much a match, as it is a great way to have nine guys fighting onscreen at one time. Savio is fighting Skull, Estrada is fighting 8-Ball, Savio swings his chain past Skull's ear into the ring steps, and from there they all have chain-wrapped fists as they brawl to the void as more and more people get involved in a bigger and bigger fight. 

WWF has had putrid, at times unwatchable camera work for the last 20 years, a product filmed and directed by people who don't know how to film or direct pro wrestling. Watch any game from any major sport in 1998, and you will be blown away by how many advancements have been made in filming each of them. All of them have made net positive gains in the way they are presented and shot. Pro wrestling is somehow the only athletic event where every part of the presentation has devolved. This is a segment that shows how well they were able to film and direct a lot of moving parts while always showing every part of the chaos that was happening. While two cool Puerto Ricans punch two Nazis in the face, DX comes out and at once begin to beat Chainz' ass. I am not sure where Jesus Castillo or Miguel Perez were on this night, but Chainz is the only man to accompany his boys, and he is quickly swarmed by DX. 

The cameras perfectly frame the assault on Chainz in the foreground while chains fly in the ring in the background. Billy Gunn and Chainz throw punches at each other's crowns until Chainz takes a chair to the back, and then the chain fight in the back fades out as we close in on Chainz taking just an unnecessarily brutal beating. X-Pac gives him an unprotected chair shot to the head, he takes an even harder shot to the back, HHH gives him a Pedigree on the chair, and the man gets dragged to the entrance ramp to take a spike piledriver on another fucking chair. The Chainz Stretcher Job. DOA and Los Boricuas are all throwing close quarter punches at each other's heads while the chains whip around everywhere, oblivious to the Chainz massacre. 

With Chainz left for dead the assailants spill into the ring and the filming of the action shifts, as DX now joins Savio and Estrada as true heroes unmercifully stomping the Nazis while Chainz is framed perfectly in the background, slowly dragging himself up the ramp like he's futilely crawling away from Leatherface. X-Pac is stomping and choking the hell out of Skull while literally screaming in his face, Estrada is dropping Hitman elbows on 8-Ball, Billy Gunn wraps his fist in a chain and does a fucking chain wrapped fistdrop and it's one of many things that make Billy Gunn perhaps the highest Stock Rising guy of 1998. When the Nazis are lying in their own filth, Chyna finally gets involved and uppercuts Both Boricuas in the Balls. 

This whole segment was one of the only times DX actually came off like full heel total assholes who weren't trying to be cool. There was no preening to the crowd, nothing was done to come off likable, every part of their time on screen was spent fighting. They were dominant but in a real Taking Liberties Because They're Bad People kind of way. They started by jumping one guy 4 on 1 and giving him a ringside beating that stood out as noticeably stiffer than any prior DX angles, then went 6 on 2 to beat up that guy's friends (technically Nazis so that is them being good guys), then went 5 on 2 to take out the two guys who had just helped them out. Real assholes with no redeeming qualities, filmed by a production crew who knew how to highlight everything that made them assholes. 

Not 10 minutes later Mark Henry, The Rock, D-Lo, and Kama have a crazy pull apart with Faarooq, Steve Blackman, Ken Shamrock, and various security guys like Sgt. Slaughter and Tony Garea. This has to be the only Mark Henry/Sgt. Slaughter interaction we've ever seen. 

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WWF Raw 5/18/98: Would You Look at These Great On-Paper Matches!!

Scorpio vs. Val Venis

ER: What a fucking wild match. First, it's an incredible rib to have two months of vignettes building up your big dick porn star wrestler, and then debut him against the Legendarily Dicked Too Cold Scorpio. And the match is such a colossal failure as a Val Venis debut that it's crazy to me that this match isn't more renowned. Everyone remembers how bad Jericho was made to look in his debut, but here's Venis working his in-ring debut after two months of vignettes, getting my ass completely handed to me by Too Cold Scorpio's most dominant performance of 1998. Jim Ross points out on commentary that Scorpio has been looking a whole lot tougher and more confident since teaming with Terry Funk, and from there we get this unexpected resurgent babyface performance from Scorpio that completely overshadows Val's debut. 

They work a fast paced, tidy All Japan juniors style match that really plays to the strengths of both, but Venis is too good at bumping and Scorpio is too good at delivering stiff offense. I really liked Venis's 1998 offense, especially his corner work. He had several different great strikes that he could play with his opponent in a corner - tough to do - with a big chop, great submarine uppercut, nice overhand right. And he really plays chicken a couple of times with shoulderblocks that neither backed down from. But this was Scorpio's story, and if your debut turns into somebody else's story, well then I can not think of many worse circumstances to debut under. Scorpio just keeps hitting cooler and cooler offense that keeps sounding louder and louder, and the more spin kicks he does the more the Nashville crowd starts getting behind him. Scorpio lays Venis out with hard back elbows and clotheslines, and yes three different spin kicks. So Venis kept bumping for Scorpio and Scorpio just kept getting flashier, hitting a gorgeous sunset flip out of an electric chair and an incredible worked Wrestling II knee lift. 

But the truly greatest moment of the match comes when Scorpio nails his twisting splash off the top, and Venis kicks out as late as possible, and the crowd was disappointed that Venis kicked out! If it hadn't been clear at that point, it was now crystal clear that this crowd was now fully behind Scorpio bucking the lifelong trend that has been ingrained into us that the debuting gimmick always wins. I still think I have a personal Mandela effect with Bastion Booger losing his debut against Virgil, then winning a rematch the next week. Did that happen? It felt so weird seeing a guy with a gimmick, whatever the gimmick was, lose in his debut. When they had a rematch the next week I was sure it was because there had been a mistake and that Booger was clearly supposed to have won. Scorpio starts visibly playing to the fans, really leans into taking that debut away from Venis. I swear Val got no offense in the last 4 minutes of this match, just took a real noble beating in the match that was supposed to highlight his cool new moveset to a crowd who had never seen him. Scorpio misses a big moonsault (to the disappointed groans of the Nashville Arena) and then Venis wins with an okay big splash (he hit many more better). Scorpio even kind of showed him up on his own finisher, as he got into position for the Money Shot into an active way. He was on his stomach after missing his moonsault, then made a bit of a show out of struggling up to his hands and knees before falling over and winding up on his back in the center of the ring. 

Two weeks later they had Val Venis squash Papi Chulo, or, the very obvious guy you have on the roster to debut against a new heavily promoted babyface. I don't think Scorpio got to shine brighter than this over the rest of his WWF run. 

Terry Funk vs. Marc Mero

ER: Great Terry Funk performance, really putting on a show for a Nashville crowd that I bet he assumed would be more into a classic stumbling babyface performance, instead of chanting and leering at Sable as if they were heckling to get under Rob Dibble's thin skin. And so, Funk staggers, doing a fun bit on the apron where he gets punched by Mero, swinging Funk around for the fans to see as he barely holds onto the top rope, and does that a few times before walking and falling right off the apron. Mero is almost exclusively punches and cheater elbows here, but Funk is a guy who will lean in to your cool elbow strike and then throw back a few lefts of his own. Funk has an awesome western lariat and gets to hit a bitchin piledriver, but Sable's presence at ringside means the fans will not care at all about what Funk or Mero do. Sable does get involved, screeching loudly, Mero hits a low blow, and Funk somehow kicks out at 2? Funk might be the only guy in 1998 to have balls durable enough to not get immediately pinned after getting uppercutted in them. Funk even gets to no sell Mero's TKO finisher, as Sable gets on the apron a bit too early to call attention to the low blow, meaning Mero has to get in her face earlier, meaning Funk gets to stand right up after the TKO to spike Mero with a DDT for the win. 

LOD 2000 (Animal/Hawk) vs. D.O.A. (Chainz/Skull)

ER: This felt like it should have been better, but still kicked enough ass to deliver. I like when we get Chainz into the DOA mix instead of the twins, and I thought Hawk and Animal looked like they were trying hard even while being clearly a step off. Hawk looks a little messy but has the best punch exchange of the match when he fires at Skull's ribs in the corner. Animal hits a big powerslam and hits a really high leaping elbow, and I always get into Chainz' methhead crank biker energy. A longhair biker hitting a big boot and dropping a bunch of frantic elbowdrops feels like the offense of a crazed NoDoz and mescaline fueled biker. Hawk hits a big size powerbomb on Skull, we get a switcheroo with 8-Ball, and you know what I think this did fully kick ass. 

Dude Love vs. Dustin Runnels

ER: Dustin/Foley is always a cool match up, no matter the gimmick or era. Dustin during the Runnels era was an impressively raw babyface in hindsight. It isn't a well thought out progression, and they don't capitalize on things they could have, but matches from Runnels era really show Dustin's barest bones babyface skills. I've seen Dustin work with several different sized house show crowds, and he's always been one of those guys who knew how to do little things to connect to a crowd. This part of 1998 felt visually painful when I watched it at the time, his storyline a sad struggling man rather than a walking tall babyface. I thought his promos came off a little pathetic at the time, clearly a man between stages of his career, yet still somehow under 30 years old. But his in-ring still connected with crowds, and they connected to him here as a babyface fighting for his career (there was a "Dustin Must Win or Not Be Paid for 30 Days" stip added to this match, but barely promoted before, during, or after the match), and the whole match is basically Dustin kicking Foley's ass for 2 minutes before getting distracted and losing by way of mandible claw. The 2 minutes of fired up Dustin were really cool, with Runnels pulling Dude's sports jacket over his head and hitting him with hockey punches, really just 2 whole minutes of Dustin throwing punches before losing immediately. Neither guy looked in their best shape, both were moving a little slow, but the beating looked great. 

The Head Bangers vs. Dick Togo/MEN's Teioh

ER: A total mess of a match that nobody knows how to react to. Kaientai only took one week to move from their MPro gear into their street gang clothes, but Togo was really the only member who actually looked cool in street clothes. Teioh looks like a debatably tough junior high school student, wearing baggy jeans and basketball shoes, and is completely dwarfed by both Head Bangers. The Bangers easily handle the much smaller Kaientai, doing some nice double teams like a crossbody vertical suplex and a middle rope clothesline from Thrasher. Funaki and Yamaguchi cheat from the floor, but it never seems very effective. Kaientai really doesn't do much of anything until Togo gets in and gets a nice corkscrew senton off the top, a springboard axe handle, and a nice cannonball. Eventually all of Kaientai are in the ring blatantly interfering, Taka and Bradshaw run out, and nobody knows exactly what to do or where to go. Neither Bradshaw or Taka run in and actually hit anyone, so you have all four members of Kaientai, both Head Bangers, and now two new people all kind of standing around, and somehow when Taka finally does make a move at someone he runs squarely into referee Tim White. WWF's severe lack of any other "small" wrestlers really made Kaientai look like Lilliputians during the formative debut time where they were supposed to look cool. 

New Age Outlaws vs. The Rock/Owen Hart

ER: Owen Hart in the Nation still comes off like one of his weirder periods in WWF, honestly feels like he was going through the same gimmick crisis as Dustin was going through, he just happened to wind up around a hotter act instead of lost in the shuffle. This starts as a big DX/Nation skirmish (X-Pac/Henry is a fun underrated pairing btw) and settles down into a pretty nice tag match. The Rock and Road Dogg were really complementary opponents, both good at taking the exaggerated strikes of the other, Road Dogg taking super fast back bumps off Rock punches, clotheslines, and a back elbow. Owen comes in with a couple of nice atomic drops, and somehow Road Dogg's ear gets cut open. Owen improvises and goes all the way in on Road Dogg's ear blood, biting at the ear and getting Road Dogg's blood all over his mouth and nose. I don't think Jim Ross really knew how to react to how psychotic Owen looked while biting Road Dogg's ear, so he just kind of fumbles around and moves on quickly. This is certainly the era of really blatant interference, and this just ends when Faarooq runs in and hits the Dominator on Rock while the ref somehow had his back turned the entire time. 

Steve Austin vs. Gerald Brisco/Pat Patterson

ER: I did not give a single goddamn about Patterson and Brisco wrestling in matches during 1998, literally wanted to see anybody else on the roster get ring time than these two. Watching it back over two decades later and it's pretty fun seeing what kind of stupid bumps and finishers two men in their mid to late 50s are willing to take. I still would much rather see the dark match from after this episode of Raw (which was Vader/Terry Funk/Undertaker vs. Rock/Dude Love/Kane), but it's clear neither of them were dogging it. Austin threw a bunch of hard fists at the side of their heads, and Patterson takes an insane bump into the turnbuckles, suddenly channeling his inner Psicosis. Patterson winds up hanging from the top rope/turnbuckle by his knee, like he took the upside down corner Flair bump and just hung there after. It looked like an old man trying his damndest to tear his ACL. All of them eat Stunners (including guest ref Sgt. Slaughter), Vince comes out of the crowd dressed as Austin wearing a mask, Foley comes out and eats a lariat, and it's another Raw that ends with Austin scrapping against five guys while refs hold him back, the exact Raw ending that would make me and my friends flip out and love pro wrestling as teenagers. 

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WWF Raw 6/15/98: A Great Episode of Wrestling TV

Vader vs. The Rock

ER: Even though they were in the same fed for two years, Rock and Vader aren't two guys I think about matching up too often. It's a cool match, and it did happen a couple times, but my brain thinks of them as from two different eras. And I think this is our only Vader match vs. "The Rock" as opposed to Rocky Maivia which is a whole other thing. There were a bunch of Vader/Rock matches from 10/98, and my reaction to that was "Wait Vader was still in WWF in October of 1998?" Babyface Vader just crushing the Rock is really damn fun, and Rock is game to get rocked. Vader hits some nice avalanches (loved his short arm lefty clothesline as Rock staggers out from the corner), a bear attack, a big splash off the middle buckle and also a great standing splash. Vader takes a big bump to the floor off a Rock clothesline and while down there takes a standing splash from Mark Henry. Mark Henry had nearly the exact same form on his standing splash as Vader did, which is cool. The match simply ends with a Rock Bottom after the Mark Henry interference, but this was a cool bit of megastars who barely missed each other colliding. 

 

Darren Drozdov vs. Jeff Jarrett

ER: This match was not much, nor was it meant to be much. It runs about 2 minutes, focuses a lot of attention on Marc Mero/Jacqueline at ringside, and mostly appears to be killing time until Mero punching Jarrett in the balls. I am still curious whether Droz actually got good before his injury, because he does not look ready for Raw so far. Some of the spot set ups are unintentionally humorous, like Droz doing a big boot so that Jarrett can catch it and sweep a leg, and a lot of the problem is that Droz doesn't move around the ring who understands wrestling. I'm curious if he found a steady moveset that fit him or got more comfortable in there, because right now he feels like an undercooked Power Plant guy, only without the cool danger of a Power Plant guy. 

Chainz vs. Val Venis

ER: Now this I thought was really good. Val Venis was really good in 1998, and I think his offense would have made him a really good regular All Japan gaijin if he had made a different career decision. He did a couple of All Japan tours the year before and I really would have loved to see him settle in with that 98/99 AJPW roster. Chainz could have done well in Japan too, and his cool offense really made this in a hard scrabble match, a nice 1998 TV gem between two guys nobody remembers having a 5 minute TV match. They both kick each other in the face with big boots and mafia kicks, Venis took a high backdrop, Chainz took a hard bump on a snap suplex, and all of the strikes looked great. Venis had a few different strikes he threw from a couple angles, a big looping low starting arm slot uppercut (which is honestly one of the best  strikes in 1998 WWF) and a full body knife edge chop. Chainz throws some strong turnbuckle mount punches and throws a great overhand right up at Venis while Venis was on the top rope. This had the stronger pacing of a same era WCW TV match, and even though they weren't getting a lot of reaction for what they were doing, it didn't stop them from hitting each other. Venis buries his knee on his kitchen sinks, and Chainz has these awesome fast drop running elbow drops, tons of action crammed into its run time. This is the kind of gem you'd hope to see on WCW Worldwide or WWF Velocity. 

Dustin Runnels vs. Marc Mero

ER: Dustin gets the sad "already waiting in the ring" entrance, but the Texas crowd still reacts louder for him than many other people on the show. The match was much more angle than match, and there's a certain awkwardness that comes with a 4 minute match that's playing into more than one angle. Not only is it very obvious that Sable is going to show up, but Jeff Jarrett and Southern Justice are also at ringside the entire match, so you have two pros not working a match with any throughlines, just filling time. And two pros filling time is kind of cool, because none of it is going to flow anyway, the two guys know that the cameras are going to constantly be cutting to people at ringside, so you might as well break out some neat stuff in a vacuum. Dustin flies full speed into armdrags and throws a couple of his own, and I just love how Dustin takes arm drags. Mero even hits a powerbomb at one point! No real set up for it, just decided to powerbomb Dustin in the middle of all this. The distraction finish is a real fun lemons into lemonade situation, as Sable comes down to distract Mero, but instead of Dustin getting just a simple schoolboy on Mero he runs into the frame with an awesome bulldog. Dustin has one of wrestling's greatest ever bulldogs, and beating a distracted man with something cool like that will always be more interesting that the distraction -> rollup finish they went to a ton in this era. 

X-Pac vs. HHH

ER: I remember my friend being so excited for this match, a big Waltman fan who had been wondering every week since he returned to WWF and was just WAITING for him to actually wrestle. The crowd seemed both excited for the match (and not knowing what would happen in a singles match between two members of DX) and also like they had no idea how to react. They seem to root for X-Pac, but he also had the flashier highspots, but mostly had no idea how to react. X-Pac looked great in his in-ring return, and I'm not sure he has hit as many of his kicks this squarely under the chin in any match. HHH was good at doing his fast back bumps for X-Pac's kicks. Yes I know that these are the exact same fast back bumps that HHH takes for every single strike, but Pac's kicks earned those bumps. His leaping spin kick is really great and he was throwing all of them with real accuracy. Almost all of HHH's offense is based off Irish whips, the kind of thing you can't unsee, but X-Pac is one of the few wrestlers who can take an insanely violent Irish whip bump off a turnbuckle. Pac flies into the buckles so hard a couple of times that I have no clue how they weren't skeleton shifting. Both guys took big bumps to the floor (both seem to be in competition to see who takes a faster bump to the floor, and we ALL win), but this was a real X-Pac showcase, and you could see HHH actually wanting X-Pac to be showcased, and that is the unique thing about HHH working matches against his friends. 

Mark Henry/Owen Hart vs. Dan Severn/Ken Shamrock

ER: This kicked so much ass. Every pairing brings something really original and it had a really quick violent pace for its 5 minute runtime. Shamrock/Owen was a hot opening, with both going really fast. Owens hits a fast spinning heel kick and Shamrock just cannonballs himself into Owen at full speed. There's this awesome competitive vibe to the Henry/Shamrock section, as Shamrock drops a charging Henry with a drop toehold, and it looked messy which made it look better, like Henry was getting dropped by a spike strip. Henry took it like a man not quite expecting to go down from a drop toehold, which is of course going to make it look better. Henry was much better much earlier than we gave him credit for. Even us Henry stalwarts didn't really start beating the drum unit 02/03. What change did many of us go through collectively in 2003 when we realized how we had completely ignored Honda and Henry up until then? After Henry got taken down, he scrambled to his feet faster than Shamrock, which looked really cool, and I love Henry's full rotation powerslam. 

Severn/Henry is an awesome encounter I didn't know we ever got, and Severn hits a big belly to belly that really looks like he deadlifts Henry, and also has the gall to try to hit a German suplex (Henry throws a back elbow right to the temple to shut that idea down). Severn/Henry is just a cool match up that we should have got again, but they were moving Henry into a Vader feud, and instead Severn fought mostly against Owen for the rest of his WWF run. But we got a minute of Severn and Henry and it was what you would want. Owen and Severn were very good together, with Owen especially good at moving around the kind of non-moving Severn. Severn wound up in some wrong places some of the time and kind of stood still (this was a feature of Severn that I enjoy, I don't view it as a bug), but the two of them had a killer mat scramble and Owen looked like he could have taken him. Severn also must have still been imagining he was giving Mark Henry a German, because he LAUNCHED Owen over quickly with a German so fast that it surprised JR. This ended in a big huge schmozz with DX and The Nation and Vader all running down to fight, great way to protect everyone while still having a cool match. 

PAS: This was Owen Hart and three mega athletic guys who clearly didn't fully grasp pro-wrestling. Hart kept it together, while the other guys did a bunch of cool looking things which were 10% off from the way wrestlers work things. Shamrock was so jacked up everytime he is in the ring, and hits this crazy spinning bodypress. Loved the Severn vs. Henry stuff, including Severn hitting a couple of big suplexes on Mark. Green Henry ruled, he always looked like he was going rip someones arm off. I would have loved to see what he could have done in a shootstyle fed.

Tag Team Royal Rumble

ER: This was weird but kind of good in that good 90s battle royal way. But this was a tag team royal rumble, which was clunky to start but got to the right place. They must have been running short on time, as they had teams enter every 30 seconds. 30 seconds is close enough between that you wonder if things would have just been more satisfying had everyone started in the ring like a traditional battle royal. By the time all the teams were in only a few minutes had gone by and only the New Midnight Express had been eliminated. So with the quick entrances they may as well have just started with everyone in the ring, as they basically got to that point anyway. But once the rules silliness and quick entrances were out of the way, it was easy to just settle in and enjoy the wonderful little battle royal details that we got: 

This was obviously a hugely emotional battle royal, as a few of these teams never teamed again. Faarooq and Steve Blackman (a team that had several matches as a team! And disappointingly they did not team long enough for Russo to brand them Two BlackMen) never teamed again, unable to get past their battle royal loss. Same thing with the team of Bradshaw and Taka Michinoku (who clearly would have already been slotted into the team name of Bradshaw and Rickshaw by Russo), and this might have been our final appearance of the only mildly cool era of the Oddities, when they still had carnival music and were both heels, Kurrgan still in his black tights and Golga in his filthy brown gear. We got some bizarre interactions, with none weirder than Terry Funk getting into it with Kurrgan. Funk throws some truly terrible looking strikes that also probably felt stiff as hell, but it's the exact kind of thing you want from a battle royal, because who else ever realized that there was any kind of Terry Funk/Kurrgan interaction? The eliminations come quick and several guys take hard spills. Taka gets press slammed to the floor, Brian Christopher gets eliminated, then kicks a just-eliminated Mosh on his way to the back, Bradshaw throws a couple of stiff full arms strikes to Kurrgan, and unexpectedly the battle royal comes down to Kane/Mankind and....Funk/Scorpio. Kane makes a Scorpio spin kick look terrible, Funk hits a full swing chairshot on Kane, then takes one from Mankind right to the face, and by the end this had more than enough moments of small joy to make this a recommendable battle royal. 

The show ends with a bunch of great chaos that I remember from watching in high school. Once Paul Bearer came out and the Cell lowered, I thought "Doesn't Bearer hit a big blade job here?" And he does! Kane and Mankind are out to take on Austin and Taker in a Hell in a Cell, with the Texas crowd clearly waiting around all night JUST to see Austin run out and attack people. Austin gets into it with Kane and Mankind, Bearer is inside the ring/Cell, Taker rips his way up from underneath the ring to surprise Bearer, and the beating Bearer takes is really well done. The blade job looks great, Taker looks like he really kicks him several times in the ribs and scrapes his face across the Cell, Kane climbs to the top of the Cell to try to get in and help Bearer, great chaos. All I could think of was how cool it would be to be there live watching, seeing Kane scale the Cell, seeing Bearer bleed out, love it. 

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WWF Raw 6/8/98: A Fine Episode of Wrestling TV

I didn't feel like watching AEW tonight, but here's an old episode of Raw filled with a ton of pairings that I loved. I did not write about any of the DX segments, but they happened - were plentiful - and were skipped. 

Kama Mustafa vs. Ken Shamrock

ER: This was an opening round King of the Ring match, and they worked it like a 3 minute round in a Different Style Fight. That's exactly what you want from this pairing, and it's one of the best Kama performances we have. He came off like a cool shoot fighting monster here, integrating kicks and strikes with cool big man pro wrestling like a heavy avalanche, hard clothesline to Shamrock's chest, and a brick wall shoulderblock. This had a nice Brawl for All feel to it, but if the fights were actually interesting in a worked way. Kama should have worked like this more often. Shamrock always tried weird things in the first year of his WWF run, here he gets caught in a big slam after leaping up knees first into Kama's shoulders like he was going for his rana on someone super tall, or adlibbing a chest breaker. Shamrock gets a cool roll into the ankle lock, this whole thing ruled. 

Marc Mero/Jeff Jarrett vs. Faarooq/Steve Blackman 

ER: This tag has a cool FMW feel to it, even though it features four guys who didn't work FMW. It's got a martial arts guy, a boxer, a Memphis guy, and a tough guy power wrestler. And they all wrestled as those exact styles so the whole thing was a constant style clash in the best way. Blackman was working somewhat awkwardly timed karate sequences, Jarrett caught Blackman in a nice Russian legsweep, Mero threw punches, Faarooq threw big blocks into shoulder joints and yanked on an arm, it was great. Over in less than 3 minutes, cool combination of the roster. 

Scorpio vs. Owen Hart

ER: This was always a great pairing, and this match is no different. We got this pairing a lot, and it felt more like a regular WCW series, like Malenko/Eddie. The crowd was real icy here for no reason, certainly not for lack of effort. I think Scorpio was pretty low profile at that point and people weren't taking to Owen's tough whiny guy heel turn. Confusing characters aside, the ring action was as fun as you'd expect. They were the only guys on this episode to go off the top rope, and they still worked as snug as the other matches. So you had sturdy landing German suplexes and a big heavy Scorpio crossbody, each had stiff spinkick variations, nice mix of snug work and flying. Owen takes out Scorpio's leg with a real nasty chop block, cool way to set up a submission finish. 

Chainz vs. Darren Drozdov

ER: Chainz was the worker of DOA, but it was pretty surprising to see him (fairly easily) beat Drozdov here. I liked the way they ran into each other, liked how Chainz actually made Droz duck on clotheslines, and thought Chainz made good use of his offense. He's got a good big boot, and a great high rotation powerslam, and he missed a kneedrop off the middle turnbuckle like he was Bobby Eaton. Droz at this point didn't have the poise of a wrestler, not quite blending from one spot to the next very well. Did that get better by a year later? I honestly don't remember anything about the in ring abilities of 1999 Droz. Chainz was gone from WWF this same month, so again it's so weird seeing him get a clean win off a Death Valley driver (was that Chainz' finisher?), but hey, I'm a Chainz guy. 

Mark Henry vs. Vader

ER: These two weren't in the same place for long, so I'm glad we got a few singles matches out of it. This was the first of their singles matches, and I imagine if these two crossed paths in another time, another place, we could have had some real classics. I still loved what little we got here, it really felt like something that could have been good for both if they ran with it. You know it's a big hoss battle when JR compares them to at least four different kinds of animal (we got bulls, Clydesdales, thankfully avoided comparison to large apes, but I got nervous the more he kept running through the large mammals), and it's awesome that these two are not only identically sized but really similarly built. They both do cool full arm strikes while refusing to budge, both standing chest to chest and throwing arms at the side of heads. 

Henry leans way into throwing a huge elbow strike, Vader boxes his ears, and we get some cool attempts at Vader slamming Henry. Henry makes a show of doing a clean jerk on Vader, snatching him up and walking with him a bit before slamming, and then hits a great elbowdrop and great legdrop (Vader sells the legdrop like Henry landed all his weight on his eye socket). It feels like a big moment when Vader finally bodyslams Henry, and I liked how they set up Henry powerslamming Vader, with Vader leaping off the middle buckle into him and Henry turning it into a slam. Sadly, Taker limps down to the ring wearing sweatpants and a weightlifting sweatshirt that hugs his gut, then relies on these two leaping into his chokeslam. Taker was interrupting stuff all night and it made Henry and Vader look like real dweebs to just lie there and put up literally no fight whatsoever. They should have flattened him together and then formed an unstoppable monster tag team, then taken that tag team to All Japan. 

D-Lo Brown vs. Dan Severn

ER: Thankless crowd, but some great stuff happened here. Severn was a little slow on the draw, more hesitation than in his other WWF matches so far, but D-Lo did a really great job of filling in the gaps. Severn kept locking in these real constricting rear waistlocks that led to some heavy landing amateur takedowns. D-Lo throws some nice overhand rights and was surprisingly good at neutralizing Severn as Severn went for takedowns. I don't remember seeing matches with much D-Lo grappling, and I can't imagine he was doing a ton of that pre-WWF vs. Wolfman or Power Ranger in Smoky Mountain. But you could see it here as Severn goes after takedowns like a Pitbull and D-Lo is great at grabbing Severn's leg to block things and make his body dead weight. That dead weight makes Severn's big suplexes look earned and finisher worthy. D-Lo knocks Severn down with a nice calf kick, then taunts him and clubs him while down, leading to Severn grabbing his arm and throwing him with a trap arm belly to belly. 

Severn's German suplex is a real highlight, and this one was closer to a Tamon Honda Dead End than any other suplexes being thrown in 1998 WWF. Severn threw D-Lo much more like an MMA suplex, the form looked a lot like Frank Shamrock dropping Igor Zinoviev. It would have been a cool time to try a stoppage finish. The match was already getting a completely icy reception, it's not like a KO stoppage would have made things worse. The German didn't read as a pro wrestling suplex, it made no loud ring bang noise, it was just a crazy throw. I'm sure it would have made Severn look like more of a threat than the bow and arrow submission he finished D-Lo with, if only because the application of the hold took far longer than it should have. The hold itself looked awesome when it was fully applied, looked like he could snap D-Lo in half, but the application was unnecessarily sluggish. Still, the overall match was one of the strongest match-ups for Severn, and I wonder what a full return match would look like. Wait is this the submission that lead to D'Lo getting his chest protector? Maybe it was a worthwhile finish. 

Val Venis vs. Dustin Runnels

ER: This had a kind of weird match dynamic on its face, as Venis got his full entrance and long pre-match promo, while Dustin was already waiting in the ring. But Venis works heel through the whole match, and Dustin gets arguably the best in ring babyface reactions of the night. The crowd was mostly quiet ALL NIGHT through a lot of wrestling, but when Dustin comes out of the corner punching Venis and hitting a swing for the fences lariat to knock Val to the floor, the crowd was loud and alive. They don't fully capitalize on that reaction, as they quiet things back down as Venis controls with decent punches, and I liked how they worked through a miscommunication. Dustin had gotten Irish whipped into the ropes and came out with a great back sell, dropping to his knees after it sounded like he knocked the turnbuckle loose. Val had clearly been running in with a clothesline right as Dustin dropped to his knees, and Val took the opportunity to use his outstretched arm to lock in a sleeper. I really like how they transitioned things back to Dustin, with a good version of that transition Faarooq always puts in matches, where he catches knees to his balls after dropping his weight down on his opponent. Venis works it far more plausibly than Faarooq and Dustin aims the knee perfectly, and Venis was incredible at selling his balls, doing his hip shimmy as a ball sell instead of as a towel removal. Dustin hits an inverted atomic drop after, just to give us more of Venis selling balls. Dustin practically takes Val's arm off with a great arm drag, and the crowd reacts big to his dropdown uppercut and great old school style bulldog. Sweatpants Undertaker also interrupts this one with chokeslams for both, so we get deprived of another finish. It was cool to hear the crowd so fully into Dustin, as I'd remembered the Runnels Era being a more unappreciated era for him. 

8-Ball/Skull vs. LOD 2000 vs. New Age Outlaws

ER: I really like Washed LOD. Both still do cool things while also occasionally stumbling and/or losing their balance, it gives this great vulnerable monster feel to their matches that was never there. Animal works a fast rope running/drop down exchange with Gunn and hits a great powerslam and Hawk hits a nice wobbly enziguiri after an exchange, adds in these little suck it taunts to the Outlaws all match, love my old washed boys. The Outlaws were the ones who saved this, as they actually looked great. The highlight for me was this great drop toehold/kneedrop combo they did, which I get sounds like a way to backhand compliment a match, except it was a perfect drop toehold/kneedrop. Gunn's drop toehold was especially great, really grapevines that leg to force a faceplant, right at the exact moment Road Dogg is there with a knee. Billy Gunn was great at working with Animal and there was this cool Road Dogg moment against 8-Ball where he skidded to a stop after ducking a clothesline before reaching back with a punch. This is the match that made the "Outlaw Rule" as both wind up in the ring together while the other four guys have to distract themselves so none of them can get in the ring in time to break up the pin. JR even points out what fucking idiots LOD and DOA are for trying to get the NAO to fight. Strong Outlaw performance in a mostly bad match, but the Outlaw highlights were enough, while Sunny in her Never Hotter LOD 2000 gear at ringside was undeniable. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

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WWF Raw 2/9/98: A Good Episode of Wrestling TV

I threw on this episode of Raw because I wanted to see the cruiser tag, but I found myself captivated by what looked like a top to bottom rock solid pro wrestling card. Every match looked fun on paper, figured I would dive back into my teens.

Jeff Jarrett/Barry Windham vs. Legion of Doom WWF Raw 2/9/98

ER: How did I not remember the killer fast working cutthroat big bumping tag team of Jeff Jarrett and Barry Windham? I very much remember the bad NWA reboot, but forgot we got actual cool tag teams with them, where Jarrett looked flat out the best he ever looked (work wise, look wise, everything). This is a flat out 1985 NWA tag match taking place on 1998 WWF TV, and it's great. Windham and Jarrett were an awesome team that didn't get enough of a chance, and this whole tag played like a stiff old guy brawl. LOD and Windham are all 38 and up, which was old for this era WWF. But Hawk worked stiff the whole match, dropping Windham with a heavy Thesz press and punching him right in the ear, and later throwing chops to Jarrett that looked like backhands right across Jarrett's face. Windham bumped around for LOD but also gave right back, hitting a couple great lariats and his best punch of the match right on the floor while close to some fans. The crowd was lit up for LOD the whole match. Neither Hawk or Animal were working any complicated power spots here, but they were working quick and throwing themselves into punches and shoulderblocks. Hawk took a really nasty bump for the finish, charging into the ringpost and falling to the floor. The crowd was already into LOD, just two big dudes in face paint running into people would have been enough, but Hawk is out here taking bumps like this. Cornette comes out and we get a hard racket shot, and Bradshaw runs out and looks as pissed and dangerous as peak Stan Hansen. this was great TV tag wrestling.

Pierre vs. Henry Godwinn

ER: A slow burning hoss battle and a rare singles match appearance from 1998 Pierre, who takes several crazy bumps. Both guys hit hard, really swinging limbs into each other, and Pierre kicks things up a notch with a bonkers no hands tope that falls a little short, so the big man just does a gigantic belly flop to the floor. Godwinn takes a nice spill to the floor, too, but here's Pierre taking a big lariat over the top to the floor, missing a huge in ring cannonball, and getting super height on a backdrop. They kept a real pace here, really filling the minutes with a lot more movement than I expected from two tag guys. This was a big man's match where the misses were just important as the hits, and both landed heavy.

Pantera/Brian Christopher vs. Taka Michinoku/Aguila

ER: This show is an easy 3 for 3 so far. This match got 6 big minutes and everyone here made the most of those minutes. Pantera gets catapulted over the top and gets big air before crashing hard, and then Christopher gets backdropped to the floor, with Pantera taking a somersault bump into him after getting dropkicked off the apron. Aguila hits a killer corkscrew plancha, Taka hits one of his breathtaking no hands springboard planchas; this was a hot freaking match and the crowd was reacting well. Christopher had a long heel control segment on Aguila that was real good, and I forgot how strong the reactions were for Aguila. There's a great moment where Christopher narrowly ducks a high arcing, 2/3 across the ring Aguila moonsault press, and Aguila grazes vertically over the top of him and lands belly first on the mat. The finish was a great Memphis finish, with Christopher digging in under his balls to pull out a fake weapon, and Pantera shoving the crotch weapon into the nose of his mask. Pantera leaps off the middle buckle right into Taka, and Taka bumps as if he just got hit in the face with a sock of nickels. High end WWF cruiser match for the time. Pantera had this incredible 6 match run in 1998, bounced, then came back for more a year later. I'd love to know who was asking about Pantera every year.  

Ken Shamrock/Chainz vs. The Rock/Faarooq

ER: I really liked Chainz here, he of arguably the dumbest WWF wrestling name of 1998. But he hit with big clubbing hands to the side of Rock's ear, took a nice Nation beatdown, and took a big bump over the top and into the guardrail. Faarooq had a nice powerslam and took Shamrock's sillier MMA strikes (he still hadn't figured out punches, but his kicks were thrown nicely), and Shamrock hits a really cool standing rana. Rock stooged around nicely and took advantage of cheating with such confidence, he was really operating at peak heel power already. House show Rock was probably amazing during this period. The match ends with a DQ when Rock absolutely obliterates Shamrock's brain cells with a chairshot. Good lord. Rock swings a chair right into the flat of the forehead and this was a 19 fucking 98 chairshot indeed.

Steve Blackman vs. Recon

ER: This ruled. Blackman does a bunch of karate blocks and chops and a big armdrag, and suddenly the Truth Commission's (genuinely great, almost John Carpenter influenced) music starts up and Jackal gets lowered from the ceiling speaking over the house mic from a podium. He cuts this wild Jim Jones promo about how the WWF fears him, and Blackman and Recon bizarrely have a match like they have no idea it's going on. They don't stop once to look over at Jackal's sermon, just continue having a very normal (and very fun) match. It's so weird!! Blackman comes off as a more interesting worker than Shamrock at this point (though he has no crowd connection whatsoever. He steadfastly refuses to acknowledge anybody other than his opponent), and here he's awesomely and robotically going through every single move he knows, landing weird elbow drops, high spinkicks, a fast sunset flip, and finishing with a cool rings of Saturn variation. The whole presentation of this was strange in a great way.

Goldust vs. Thrasher

ER: This is the late 90s, and so Goldust is dressed as Marilyn Manson (and really is wearing almost the exact same gear Charly Manson would later use), and we have to hear JR obnoxiously call him "Marilyn Manson Dust" the entire match. I hated how he said it every time. Mare-uhh-lenn MAN-sun Dust. We don't get too many Thrasher singles matches, and this is a unique match up, and a Goldust singles match is almost always going to work even if it's Goldust working with a stupid wig. They do oddly get mixed up on who is supposed to be the heel, with Mosh choking Goldust from the floor and Goldust getting a babyface comeback right after. But this match had Goldust throwing several great punches, Thrasher hitting a cool springboard back elbow, a nice Goldust hotshot on the barricade, the kind of stuff I wanted to see.

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