What the World Was Watching: Monday Night Raw - May 5, 1998

by Logan Scisco

-Michael Cole narrates a video package recapping the events of last week’s show, where Steve Austin escaped the show with the WWF championship.

-Jim Ross and Michael Cole are in the booth and they are taped from Richmond, Virginia.

-Mick Foley walks out to do the Love Shack, but is not wearing his Dude Love gear.  He complains about not getting an immediate rematch with Steve Austin after Unforgiven and says Vince McMahon is trying to get rid of him by booking him to face Terry Funk in a no holds barred match tonight.  He says he won’t wrestle in the Dude Love outfit anymore and he demands McMahon come out because “Cactus Jack” wants answers.  McMahon comes out and says that the match with Funk is a reward, not a punishment, because triumph comes through adversity and that if Foley wins decisively he will become the number one contender of the WWF title.  Steve Austin then suddenly comes out and tears down the Love Shack.  McMahon came off as a master manipulator here and his talk about triumph and sacrifice channeled the best evangelical preachers in America.  1 for 1

-Call 815-734-1161 to get your copy of the WrestleMania XIV video tape and a lifesize Steve Austin poster for $44.95 (plus $9 shipping & handling)!

-Opening Contest:  The Rock & Owen Hart (w/The Nation of Domination) beat Steve Blackman & Faarooq when Owen pins Blackman with a spinning heel kick at 6:20:

Commissioner Slaughter tosses the Nation from ringside before this bout and I find it humorous that Faarooq still doesn’t have a unique entrance theme for his face character.  Faarooq hits the Dominator just forty seconds into the match, which Cole hilariously calls as “WOW!”, but Owen breaks the fall.  Blackman’s storyline arc is crazy at this point, as he’s a proxy for Shamrock in his Nation feud and engaged in a lame feud with Jeff Jarrett.  This match features the first official call of the People’s Elbow, thereby giving the Rock’s whacky elbow drop a name.  This match has really good energy and Blackman’s multiple feuds intersect here (which is why that can be a nice piece of booking) when Jarrett interferes and causes Blackman to be pinned by Owen.  Rating:  **½ (2 for 2)

-McMahon narrates a video package hyping Gerald Brisco.  This is pretty funny in light of Brisco being put in the Austin-McMahon feud and Brisco makes clear that everything he has he owes to McMahon.  I love subtle stuff like this.

-We get our first Edge vignette, which sees him beating up a random man on the street and riding a subway alone.

-D-Generation X cuts a generic promo and WWF Tag Team Champions The New Age Outlaws prepare to defend the titles against the Disciples of Apocalyse, but LOD 2000 comes out and challenges DX to an eight man tag pitting DOA and the LOD against Triple H, the Outlaws, and X-Pac.  Hawk and DX go back and forth in a comic exchange of questioning each other’s manhood which shows that the parties involved don’t really like each other (which is why this gets a point from me).  The DOA can’t be happy that the LOD has hijacked their tag team title shot.  3 for 3

-Dan Severn defeats Savio Vega via submission to an armbar at 1:34:

Ross uses the match to hype UFC 17 and I’d love to see Severn’s style critiqued by the WWE today, since it is definitely not “WWE style.”  Severn hits some suplexes, survives some Savio chops, and then puts Savio away with an armbar.

-Jerry Lawler and Paul Bearer are captured, supposedly off-camera, chatting in the locker room and Bearer recaps how the Undertaker/Kane’s mother seduced him when he was nineteen.  When we get back from commercial, Lawler apologizes to viewers for having the conversation broadcast over the air.  Lawler and Bearer were great in this segment and the whole thing came off like a natural conversation and not stiff like today’s segments.  It’s amazing what you can do when you let people play to their natural personalities.  By the way, this was still during a “TV-PG” era!  4 for 4

-A video shows Sable training for her match, which the WWF is billing as a “public confrontation”, with Marc Mero next week.

-“Marvelous” Marc Mero versus “Double J” Jeff Jarrett (w/Tennessee Lee) does not occur:

Before this match starts, Steve Blackman runs out and attacks Jarrett.  The beatdown is quite weak, but it keeps advancing that feud while protecting Mero for his confrontation with Sable next week.

-The Disciples of Apocalypse illegal switch against the New Age Outlaws on last week’s Raw is the Playstation Slam of the Week.

-Jerry Lawler joins Ross for commentary as we enter hour two.

-D-Generation X wrestle LOD 2000 & The Disciples of Apocalypse to a no contest when the LOD-DOA partnership disintegrates:

Sunny is tossed from ringside before the match, continuing the ejection of seconds tonight, and X-Pac follows since Chyna is wrestling with Triple H and the Outlaws thereby making this the first match she is wrestling against other men in the company.  The crowd loves Chyna and it’s pretty amazing in retrospect how over she was.  With women’s equality becoming an en vogue topic these days, I’m surprised the WWE hasn’t made another attempt to bring in Kharma or another sizable woman again and run a similar angle.  The storyline that the announcers keep selling is that the DOA aren’t happy with the LOD taking their title shot away, but that has some logic gaps because why didn’t the DOA just complain to Commissioner Slaughter and get their title shot reinstated?  An argument over the hot tag emerges in the face corner and that turns into a brawl to end this.  Decent little match, but the most interesting parts were when DX was in control.  Rating:  ** (5 for 5)

-Footage of the LOD and DOA brawling backstage during the commercial break is shown.

-Kane (w/Paul Bearer) wrestles The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust to a no contest at 1:52:

We were supposed to get heel-heel with Jarrett and Mero earlier and now we get a pairing between these two, which is also unusual.  Luna has seemingly been divorced from Goldust at this point, with the Evening Gown match blowing off their partnership.  Kane is wearing a bandage on his right hand to sell his loss in the Inferno match at Unforgiven.  Kane manhandles Goldust, but the Undertaker runs out and attacks Bearer over the comments Bearer made about his mother earlier in the show.  Kane and the Undertaker then engage in the THIRD pull apart brawl on the show tonight.  Doesn’t Russo know of any other finish?

-Mick Foley’s promo a month ago where he bid goodbye to the Cactus Jack character is the Cinnaburst Rewind segment.

-A video package recaps the history between Mick Foley and Terry Funk.

-Val Venis introduces us to the set of his latest video “Val Venis:  Soldier of Love” and Jenna Jameson makes a cameo.

-No Holds Barred Match with Pat Patterson as Guest Referee:  Mick Foley defeats Terry Funk with a stump piledriver on a chair at 14:12:

Steve Austin comes out to do commentary for this match and Pat Patterson is inserted at the last second as the guest referee.  Austin’s mic malfunctions, reminding long time fans of Jim Ross’s mic problems at In Your House:  Buried Alive in 1996, and he gets pissed off and decks Lawler.  Foley puts a new twist on the concession stand brawl by taking out the vendor and giving him a suplex.  The vendor and Foley also take a moonsault from Funk.  However, Funk argues that his neck is hurt and the match to stop, but Foley continues the attack.  For all intents and purposes, this was a squash for Foley and that fits the storyline to make him the number one contender for Austin’s title.  Funk took an insane beating in this match and it had some brutal spots, but the squash aspect of it overwhelmed putting on a more competitive match.  I also found it difficult to relate to Funk continually kicking out of some of Foley’s moves near the end, probably because Funk had not been built into a big threat during his WWF run so you knew he was going to lose anyway.  Rating:  *** (6 for 6)

-After the match, Foley smashes Funk’s head repeatedly into a chair and Austin comes into the ring and tosses a beer into Foley’s face, causing Foley to inadvertently put Patterson in the Mandible Claw.  Patterson then tries to hit Austin with a chair, but Austin counters it in time with a kick and Stunner.  The Dude Love music then comes on and McMahon comes out dancing with the Dudettes.  Foley re-embraces his older character and McMahon dances like a fool to the music by the entrance.

The Final Report Card:  Even though this RAW fell too much in love with crazy brawls, there were lots of fun moments that made the show engaging and memorable.  Chyna’s participation in the tag match, the vendor getting destroyed by Funk and Foley, the Bearer segment with Lawler, and McMahon’s opening promo and crazy dancing at the end were the highlights of the show.  This show also had a great storyline arc of McMahon getting Foley back on his side and convincing him to go back to a gimmick that he trashed earlier in the show.

Monday Night War Rating:  5.5 (vs. 3.5 for Nitro)

Show Evaluation:  Thumbs Up