WWF Raw – June 1st, 1998 – Rosemont Horizon – Chicago, IL
Vince McMahon opens WWF Raw with a hilarious voiceover to recap last night’s Over The Edge main event. Speaking in his serious announcer voice, Vince looks past Steve Austin’s “shallow victory” to focus on the real question on everyone’s mind: How is Mr. McMahon? And yes, he refers to himself in the first person. Thanks to Dude Love’s “incompetence”, McMahon was knocked out with a chair shot, then forced marionette-style to make a three-count in a “selfish, heartless, and cruel” act by Stone Cold.
Too much scum, and not enough scuz! It’s time for WWF Raw, live from Chicago, Illinois. However, with all the Ric Flair signs, you’d think they were in Charlotte.
We join yet another Mick Foley sit-down strike, apparently 15 minutes in progress. Foley, not wearing his Dude Love attire, invites Vince McMahon to the ring for an apology. Foley also says that Dude Love will be “out of action for a while” due to facial injuries; he must mean the Dude Love persona specifically, as Foley will be falling off roofs by month’s end. Foley also seems to think Dude Love will be in line for a third title shot when he returns.
In response, McMahon calls Foley a personal and professional failure, then tells him to get on his knees to show he’s sorry. At least he gets to keep his clothes on! When Foley refuses, McMahon calls him an embarrassment. Mick admits that it felt good to hit McMahon with a chair, so the boss dares him to do it again. Foley picks up the chair and considers taking McMahon up on his offer, until Vince threatens to ruin him financially if he does. Mick should have just hit him right away while Vince was begging for it, as he’d technically just be following his boss’s orders.
“C’mon, Dude!” says Vince. “C’mon, Dude!” Out of context, this would be much funnier. “C’mon,” McMahon yells. “Hit me with the bloody chair!” He admits that he hasn’t fired Steve Austin because he makes Vince money, but the same can’t be said for Foley; therefore, Mick’s fired. Vince then dances an angry dance while Dude Love’s disco theme plays (which is funny in any context).
Tonight’s WWF Raw is presented by Burst gum – the only gum with flavor crystals! The LOD beat another combination of the DOA in tag action last night, but this still hasn’t settled the feud. Instead, they will battle it out in a Chicago Street Fight, apparently in an actual street. Or, at the very least, a driveway. A nervous Darren Drozdov pukes on Kevin Kelly before Hawk vows to snack on danger and dine on death.
The bikers ride in and brawl with the LOD, slamming each other into the walls and hitting each other with trash cans and signs. Sunny is there to scream. This goes on for a while until the Undertaker walks in and beats up Chainz and Puke, now known as Droz. Match over.
Undertaker beats up a random guy backstage looking for Vince McMahon; his assault is interrupted by Val Venis’s saxophone. Venis tells the ladies that it actually *is* a gun in his pocket. Venis takes on Papi Chulo, gyrating for the ladies’ pleasure. He even gyrates while locking Chulo in the camel clutch. While Jim Ross comments on the injustice of Mick Foley’s public firing, Michael Cole interrupts to tell JR that Papi Chulo is Spanish for “Pimp Daddy”. Venis beats Pimp Daddy with the Money Shot.
While Jim Ross wonders what kind of reception Venis will get tomorrow night in Rockford, Val exits through the narrow gap between the railing and ramp. At the same time, Undertaker arrives through that same opening. Is the ramp broken or something?
Steve Austin’s new “Don’t Trust Anybody” t-shirt is on sale now.
When WWF Raw comes back on the air, Undertaker, dressed in a sweatsuit, addresses the audience. Taker said that Vince hired him and let him be himself (an undead mortician who could levitate and come back from the dead). But shortly afterward, McMahon began using the Undertaker to beat everyone his hand-picked champions couldn’t beat (Kamala, Giant Gonzalez, King Kong Bundy, Kama, etc.). Now, Taker demands a title shot.
McMahon comes out, yells at Taker for chokeslamming him last week, and wonders aloud whether Undertaker’s mother really was a whore as Paul Bearer says. McMahon puts Taker in the main event and says that whoever wins will become #1 contender. His opponent? Kane.
The JVC Kaboom of the Week is Undertaker’s chokeslam to Pat Patterson through a table last night.
In an ad, a photographer takes pictures of Sable until D-X interrupts. The New Age Outlaws and X-Pac pump their Super Soakers and squirt a screaming Sable. Subtext? What’s that?
Speaking of Sable, Michael Cole recaps last night’s Marc Mero vs. Sable match. Sable, rather than recruiting a wrestler, represented herself. Marvelous Marc then lay down for Sable, only to roll her up and kick her out of the WWF.
Mero now wrestles in the first round of the King of the Ring tournament; the guy who pretended to be a Black man takes on Steve Blackman. The Marvelous One gets booed before fans chant for Sable. But there will be no Sable, only Jacqueline who has, quote, “a bod to die for”. “She’s no Sable!” says a disgusted Jim Ross.
Steve Blackman hits Mero with kicks and chops to his bod, but Jacqueline puts Mero’s foot on the rope to break up Steve’s pin. Marc then hits him in his lethal weapon. Mero drops Blackman with a Samoan drop (which Cole erroneously calls the TKO before Ross corrects him), then pins him with the Wild Thing. “We haven’t seen that in years!” yells an astonished Cole. And for good reason: Mero lands knees-first onto the canvas.
Mero celebrates with a handful of Jacqueline’s buttocks, causing JR’s Mama to faint at home.
Stone Cold’s appeared on Mancow’s radio show this morning, where Vince McMahon called in.
Another Edge vignette airs; the young man has a great future ahead of him, although the voiceovers make him sound like a woman.
It’s WWF Raw’s second hour, meaning Jerry Lawler is here to dispel the rumor that he broke up the Spice Girls. Just keep him away from Baby Spice.
Triple H and the New Age Outlaws now face the Nation of Domination in an elimination tag match. Tonight, the Nation consists of The Rock, D’Lo Brown, and Owen Hart, though Kama and Mark Henry accompany them. Jerry Lawler, struggling to comprehend an elimination tag match, is confused at the idea that, if you get pinned, you’re out of the match and have to return to the locker room. This, of course, is what happens in every match, except in an elimination tag match, the rest of your team keeps wrestling.
All ten members of both stables face off in the ring before Commissioner Slaughter ejects everyone not in the match. Billy Gunn eliminates D’Lo first with a piledriver in short order; soon after, The Rock pins Road Dogg after a Rock Bottom. Gunn misses a corner splash and hits the top of the ring post before Owen heel-kicks and pins him. That makes three falls in four minutes. Chyna strolls back to the ring as WWF Raw goes to commercial.
Triple H sunset-flips Owen Hart and scores what would be an eight- or nine-count, were the referee paying attention. Instead, Owen kicks out and tags in The Rock, who delivers the People’s Elbow to Helmsley. Hunter kicks out, then escapes a Rock Bottom and delivers a Pedigree. While Owen is distracted by Chyna, Triple H scores the pin on the IC champion. With just Owen and Hunter remaining, Ken Shamrock runs in and punches out Hart, drawing a disqualification.
The rest of the Nation gangs up on Shamrock, but Dan Severn backs Ken up. After a stare-down, Severn exits, and Hunter gets into a scuffle with Shamrock for causing the DQ. This draws WWF officials into the ring, one of whom tells Ken to settle down. “Who the hell are you!?” says Shamrock. It’s a fair point, but for the record, it’s Tony Garea.
When WWF Raw returns, Vince McMahon is seen backstage shaking hands with Kane.
Tennessee Lee introduces Jeff Jarrett, then a team he calls Southern Justice, who use the theme song Jarrett would use until leaving the WWF in 1999. It’s the Godwinns, who now wear suits and slick back their hair. Jarrett’s opponent in this King of the Ring match is Faarooq, though Jim Ross stresses that it’s only a “qualifying match”. This, despite the match being part of the on-screen tournament bracket.
The former Nation leader controls most of the match until the former Godwinns distract him. Predictably, Southern Justice is unfair to Faarooq. Jarrett then hits Faarooq with a leather belt (thankfully just the buckle) and pins him. This means Double J is headed to the first round King of the Ring tournament (which won’t be shown on pay-per-view, either).
A video package airs of Vince McMahon’s Jimmy Savile-like commitment to charity work.
Taka Michinoku, accompanied by Bradshaw, makes a rare Light Heavyweight title defense against future tag partner Sho Funaki. Jerry Lawler compares Taka to the new Godzilla movie, which started out hot but has since lost momentum due to the bad reviews. He also says, in a further effort to pin this episode of WWF Raw to a particular week in 1998, that should Taka lose his title, his career would be as dead as Barry Goldwater.
Al Snow, made up like Mr. Yunioshi and with a kasa on his head (and on his Head), poses as a Japanese photographer. As he is ejected from ringside, Taka hits Funaki with the Michinoku Driver for the victory.
Backstage, Paul Bearer stands with Kane. Bearer says he’s confident that Kane will defeat The Undertaker tonight, as he’s beaten Taker before (just not in a wrestling match, since he’s lost both of those).
In the parking lot, Al Snow yells at Head.
Vince McMahon is now on commentary for the Mark Henry vs. Terry Funk King of the Ring match. Did the boss come to the ring one match too early? We could very well hear the boss call some more Maneuvers, if he actually bothers talking about the match at hand. He doesn’t. He does, however, say “Oh!” a lot during some of the bumps.
While outside the ring, Funk hits Henry right over the head with a chair, which the referee somehow allows. Terry then delivers an Asai moonsault to the safety railing. The “highly competitive match-up” ends when Henry splashes Terry in the middle of the ring and pins him. He’ll face the winner of Ken Shamrock vs. The Godfather, which is what Kama is called now.
The screen goes black for several seconds, but Vince and the announcers are absolutely unfazed. It’s not The Undertaker’s or Kane’s entrance, but a production error.
Steve Austin marches towards Gorilla position as WWF Raw goes to break, then arrives after the commercial. The WWF champion joins his boss on commentary, albeit on the opposite end of the announce table.
Kane enters first, then The Undertaker, who starts punching it out with his brother while the fog still hangs in the ring. Taker clocks Paul Bearer on the outside, then goes Old School on Kane. Both guest commentators, between arguments, say they’d be fine with either man winning and challenging Austin. Kane downs Undertaker with a big boot (which JR, like Tony Schiavone, rhymes with “foot”), but the Undertaker fights back with a chokeslam. Kane sits up, so Undertaker drops him with a Russian leg sweep, which impresses both Vince and Steve.
The referee gets squished in the corner by the Undertaker, who then tombstones his brother. Mick Foley, now wearing his Mankind mask, appears and puts the Mandible Claw on Taker. Vince is incredulous that Foley, whom he fired, is still in the building. Undertaker eventually knocks off Mankind, twice, but the distraction allows Kane to tombstone and pin him. Vince grins a grin, Steve flips him off, and Kane mimes wearing the belt.
Mankind and The Undertaker duke it out after the match, leading McMahon to reconsider firing him. “They’re gonna have to settle this match in hell!” says Ross, in a bit of obvious foreshadowing. “He’s taking The Undertaker all the way down to hell!” adds Vince. WWF Raw goes off the air with one match set for King of the Ring and another one strongly implied.
Final tally:
1 JR’s Mama
(Year total: 5)