Mike Reviews Raw is War #278

Happy Saturday Everyone!

We reviewed WCW Nitro last week, so let’s take a look at an the episode of Raw that aired the following week seeing as I’ve never seen it before, featuring Rock, Mankind and Ken Shamrock going at it in the Main Event. Back before the days of WWE Network/Peacock, I had all of the 1998 Raw is War shows on DVD, but this episode never worked for whatever reason, so let’s scratch the long running itch once and for all.

You can view the full Raw card by clicking the link below;

Raw is War #278 card

Raw is emanating from Sacramento, California on the 15th of September 1998, and aired on the 21st of September

Calling the action are Shane McMahon and Jim Cornette

This was the go-home show for the Breakdown: In Your House show I should add, which I believe has been reviewed by Scott in the past.

The Rock, Ken Shamrock and Mankind are all in the ring with Vince McMahon to start, as all three had been messing with Vince’s plans in recent weeks due to attacking Undertaker and Kane, who are Vince’s hired goons. Speaking of which, those two stand in the entrance way in order to block any attacks from an angry Stone Cold. Vince decides to book Stone Cold and a partner against Undertaker and Kane for later, and then books a #1 contender match between Rock, Shamrock and Mankind in order to make sure that neither of them will volunteer to be Stone Cold’s partner later on. This was Vince McMahon being his usual evil Machiavellian self by using his silver tongue in order to manipulate people, which has certainly lost some of it’s entertainment factor as more has been revealed about how he is in real life over the years.

We get clips of Jeff Jarrett hitting Road Dogg in the throat with part of his guitar, which means that Roadie cannot do his usual mic work tonight.

Match 1
Jeff Jarrett w/ Dennis Knight and Mark Canterbury Vs “Badass” Billy Gunn w/ X-Pac and The Road Dogg

X-Pac defeated Jarrett back at SummerSlam in a haircut match, so Jarrett and his goons are looking for revenge on both X-Pac and The Outlaws. Gunn manages to complete the full NAO intro, with Roadie having cue cards for him in a funny bit. Referee Tim White decides to send all of the seconds to the back, leaving us with Jarrett Vs Gunn one on one. I should get it out nice and early here that Shane McMahon is absolutely AWFUL on commentary, as he spends most of it yelling in a really annoying manner. I guess that sort of thing was “in” during the 90’s? Cornette, by comparison, is a very good play by play announcer here, showing that he was certainly multiskilled when it came to this whole Pro-Wrestling thing.

Gunn uses his power to fling Jarrett around, with Jarrett selling it well and taking some nice bumps for it all. Jarrett keeps trying to get a foothold in the bout, but Gunn keeps shrugging it off and regaining control. Gunn eventually misses a cross body, and that allows Jarrett to control things for a bit after following up with a baseball slide. Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler were filming Man On The Moon during this taping I believe, hence why we’ve got the makeshift announce team covering things. Gunn sells well whilst getting worked over, with Jarrett’s stuff looking okay, if a little bit on the light side at points. I’m all for folk working safe, but it needs to look like it might actually hurt too.

Gunn gets the occasional hope spot in there, and eventually manages to catch Jarrett with a Rocker Dropper. This was before it was Gunn’s finisher though, so instead Gunn puts Jarrett in the corner and goes for a Stinger Splash. Jarrett dodges that though, leading to referee Tim White taking a stray hand to the eyes. Jarrett tries to use this moment to clock Gunn with his guitar, but White recovers in time to catch Jarrett and takes the guitar away. This allows Gunn to catch Jarrett with a Rude Awakening, which leads to the three count?

WINNER: BILLY GUNN
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: A clean pin? On Raw?? In 1998??? I’ll have to look out of the window in case I see some bacon floating past. The match itself was solid action, as they got a reasonable amount of time for a TV match from around this time and the finish was executed well. Some of Jarrett’s offence looked a little weak at points, but at least he wasn’t in any danger of hurting someone I guess

The announce team run us through the card.

Michael Cole walks up to Vince McMahon backstage, who is having a chat with Ed Ferrara and Vince Russo. Cole wants to know who might volunteer to tag with Stone Cold later. Vince says that the match is happening regardless, so if Stone Cold can’t get a partner then he’ll have to go it alone.

Speaking of Stone Cold Steve Austin, he joins us in the ring, along with his Smokin’ Skull WWF Title belt. Stone Cold says that, despite what Undertaker thinks, trying to take Ol’ Stone Cold’s belt makes this situation personal instead of it being just business. Austin goes on to say that the fact that Kane and Taker can’t pin one another at Breakdown in their triple threat match with Stone Cold is utter bull-shine, and he doesn’t care if someone volunteers to be his partner later on or not, because he’ll fight Kane and Taker regardless. That’s a babyface right there folks! This was the usual good Austin promo from this time period and set the table for later on the show as well as hyping up the pay per view.

Earlier today; Undertaker and Kane show up, and the rest of the locker room wisely gives them a wide berth.

It looks like we’ve got a match scheduled between The Head Bangers (Mosh and Thrasher) and The Oddities (Kurrgan and Golga) w/ Luna Vachon and Giant Silva. However, The Head Bangers decide that they want to go Heel, so they beat up The Oddities during their entrance and then shred Golga’s Cartman doll just to be extra jerky about it all. Getting beaten up by just two wrestlers when they had BOTH the numbers and size advantage certainly chumpified The Oddities there.

Undertaker and Kane are backstage with Michael Cole, and they are not impressed with what Stone Cold had to say earlier on. They made a business deal with Vince McMahon so that they could get a Title shot, and one of them will win the belt at Breakdown. This was a decent promo that made things look bleak for Stone Cold.

Match 2
WWF Women’s World Title
Belt Vacant
Jackie Moore w/ “Marvellous” Marc Mero Vs Sable

Sable used to be Mero’s valet, but Mero treated her badly, so Sable branched out on her own. Mero has since shacked up with Jackie, and since Jackie and Sable are arguably the two biggest stars in the division, they’ve decided to bring back the Women’s Title for this match. We see that Terri Poch is at ringside, which might have been one of the first times she appeared on screen for the WWF. Sable has total job face on tonight and she also defeated Jackie on Raw the previous week, which kind of telegraphs the finish here. Sable gets distracted by Mero early on, which leads to Jackie working some heat.

Sable’s selling isn’t amazing, but she takes a very good bump for a DDT at one stage. Sable eventually dodges a Jackie attack and makes the comeback, although her offence looks pretty lacklustre outside of a nice back body drop. Mero ends up getting slugged at one stage when he gets up on the apron, which gets a good pop from the crowd. Sable tries to suplex Jackie back into the ring following that, but we get the finish from the IC Title match at WrestleMania V, as Mero grabs Sable’s leg so that Jackie lands on top, and then he holds on to Sable’s leg in order to prevent her kicking out.

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: JACKIE
RATING: 3/4*

Thoughts: Jackie looked good here when she was on offence, but Sable’s stuff looked pretty bad for the most part. Jackie kind of needed to win one at this stage, and putting the belt on a Heel to build to Sable getting the big Title win was probably the right call rather than just coronating Sable straight away

Match 3
The Brothers of Destruction (Undertaker & Kane) Vs Stone Cold Steve Austin and Billy Gunn

Gunn is defying Vince McMahon to partner Austin here, although Austin seems less than impressed with his newfound ally. Vince McMahon is of course furious that Austin has a partner, as the match is a brawl from the off. It’s a decent brawl too, as even when the Attitude Era was at it’s wackiest you could usually count on the Austin segments to be serious wrestling because he insisted upon it. Both Taker and Kane are happy to sell for Gunn here, which helps make him look like he belongs in this setting, although the WWF was never able to really succeed at making him an upper card guy in the long run. Despite the fact that Austin wasn’t especially enthused to see Gunn volunteer earlier on, the two of them actually work quite well as a team during the shine.

Taker eventually manages to attack Gunn illegally whilst the ref is distracted, and that leads to our heat segment. Gunn sells that well, whilst B.O.D look suitably mean and dangerous ahead of the pay per view on Sunday, so it’s an effective section of the match that makes the crowd want to see Austin get tagged in. Kane and Gunn eventually clothesline each other down, which leads to Austin getting the hot tag and raising heck. A Stunner on Kane looks to end things, but Taker breaks it up and things completely fall apart, with all four going at it and referee Earl Hebner taking a bump. Taker Choke Slam’s Gunn in the confusion, despite neither being the legal wrestler, and Hebner awakens to count the three.

WINNERS: THE BROTHERS OF DESTRUCTION
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: Decent tag action there, with Gunn not looking too out of place amongst the Main Event guys. Taker and Kane had to win really ahead of their Title shot, and they protected Gunn somewhat in defeat with him not being the legal wrestler at the time of the pin. Austin was over like rover here of course, and this match gave the crowd a chance to see him and also add some hype to the pay per view, without putting any of the guys in the Main Event in too taxing a situation by allowing them to cover for each other in a tag setting

Stone Cold clatters the Heels with a steel chair following the match, but they quickly shrug it off and return to their feet, in order to highlight once again just what a mountain Austin has to climb at Breakdown.

Match 4
Southern Justice (Dennis Knight and Mark Canterbury) Vs The Disciples of Apocalypse (Skull and 8-Ball) w/ “Mr. Dot Com” Paul Ellering

Knight and Canterbury used to be The Godwinn’s, but now they are generic bruisers who play backup for Jeff Jarrett. Skull and 8-Ball are battling bikers who have stolen The Road Warriors’ manager (Ellering). Both of these teams are ostensibly Heels, which means we get some classic RussAra “Shades of Grey” going on, bro. This one is just a slugfest, with very little actual wrestling going on and the crowd being pretty muted because they don’t have anyone to cheer for. It’s a fine enough if you like burly blokes slugging one another in a quick TV match, but it’s a bit dull and heatless otherwise. Jeff Jarrett eventually joins us to clock Ellering with his guitar (likely not drawing a dime in the process) and the match kind of just ends.

SPORTZ ENTERTAINMENT FINISH
RATING: 1/2*

Thoughts: A whole lot of meh going on here, with the rubbish finish only making the contest all the more pointless, especially as these two teams weren’t feuding or set to feud either. Jarrett and his goons were busy with DX, whilst DOA were feuding with LOD 2000.

Michael Cole is interviewing Vince McMahon backstage. Vince is disappointed that someone defied him and tagged with Stone Cold earlier, as it’s made Undertaker and Kane really angry and they might do something later on.

Steven Regal is a Real Man’s Man, and he shaves himself with a razor in the woods in order to prove it.

Match 5
Luchas de Apuestas
Al Snow will get a job if he wins
Boot Camp Rules
Commissioner Slaughter Vs Al Snow w/ Head

Snow had returned from a stint in ECW in May and had been trying to secure a WWF contract, but he had thus far failed. Slaughter, being the Commish, has agreed that Snow will be reinstated should Snow be able to defeat Slaughter in the commissioners signature bout. This isn’t much of a match due to Slaughter being far beyond his best here, which doesn’t give Snow much to work with from a work rate perspective, but it has reasonable crowd reactions and they mostly stick to brawling. Slaughter’s biggest issue is how slow he’s moving, which was a combination of many years of wrestling and ever increasing bulk. Slaughter would actually lean up a bit in the 00’s and his rare cameos wouldn’t be as bad because he had greater mobility.

Snow is trying really hard to get this over, as he delivers a Moonsault off the ringside barricades and then follows up with a chair assisted one back inside the ring, although Slaughter manages to dodge the latter one and apply the Cobra Clutch. Snow manages to survive that though by using his Head and clocking the Commish right in the Persian Gulf in order to break the hold. Slaughter tries using his boot as a weapon following that, but Snow manages to dodge it and kicks Slaughter low before following up with a Head shot to pick up the win and a WWF contract.

WINNER: AL SNOW
RATING: *

Thoughts: A slow motion brawl which had reasonable heat. Fans seemed to like Snow at least

Gerald Brisco and Pat Patterson attack Snow following the match, but Too Cold Scorpio runs down to make the save and establish them as allies for a few months.

Val Venis is coming…out to the ring as he’s got a match next.

The Rock has no time for Michael Cole, nor his opponents tonight, because Mankind is a piece of trash and Ken Shamrock is just acting tough rather than actually being tough. This was an excellent promo from The Rock, as he focused more on giving a promo rather than just playing catchphrase bingo.

Match 6
Owen Hart Vs Val Venis

Venis is feuding with Dustin Runnels, who is sitting on commentary for this one. Runnels was doing a religious gimmick at the time, which meant he didn’t like Val Venis’ porn star gimmick, leading to a feud. Venis decided to then shack up with Runnel’s wife, which was supposed to make him a babyface, but it just made the fans hate everyone due to all three people involved in the story being so unlikable. Owen didn’t really have much of a storyline going on at the time after ending his feud with Ken Shamrock back at SummerSlam, but soon he’d start dressing as The Blue Blazer again, which would begin the storyline arc that would sadly lead to Owen’s death.

Owen and Venis have a decent match together here, but the commentary team and director are more interested in focusing on the Venis/Runnels drama. Owen is working as a Heel here, and he gets the heat on the adulterer, but Runnels gets into the ring to attack Venis before Venis can make a comeback. That’s a DQ of course, which leads to Owen just walking off in order to leave the two jerks to continue their feud.

WINNER BY DQ: VAL VENIS
RATING: N/A

Thoughts: Barely a match

Venis fights back and ties Runnels up in the ropes before taunting him about the whole shagging his wife thing, as I again ponder how Venis was supposed to be a babyface in this whole thing. How hard would it have been to make Runnels a babyface and then have Venis steal his wife, leading to a big feud between the two? Anyway, we get some video footage on the tron of Venis and Terri Runnels canoodling. And despite this heavy heat angle, the match between Venis and Runnels had barely any heat due to the fans having no one to cheer for.

Match 7
WWF European Title
Champ: D-Lo Brown Vs X-Pac

The European belt hadn’t really had much in the way of prestige when Triple H had been Champ, as it was used as more of a prop for gags than anything else. Brown actually acted like he cared about holding the belt though, which immediately made it seem like the belt was worth having. One of the better aspects of Brown being the Champ is that he’s announced from a different European city each time, with Madrid in Spain getting a shout out this week (and Shane of course has the weather forecast for that day in order to “prove” that the show wasn’t taped). Brown takes most of this, with the Champ’s offence looking good and X-Pac doing a solid job of selling it all.

Brown was approaching 300 pounds around this time and also had a chest protector on as well, so he was usually the dominating powerhouse in his battles with X-Pac. Brown would slim down a bit and get into great shape in 99/00, especially when he was tagging with Chaz. Brown eventually misses a second rope Moonsault, which allows X-Pac to make a spirited comeback that the crowd is into. Shane McMahon may be super annoying on commentary, but at least he sounds like he’s invested in the action, as he cheers along with all the big moves like he’s Pat McAfee. Brown looks to have regained control, but he tries coming off the top rope with something and X-Pac counters into the X-Factor face buster, which is enough for the three count and the Title (and a massive pop from the crowd).

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: X-PAC
RATING: ***

Thoughts: Fans like pin fall finishes; who knew? This was a good match, with these two having really strong chemistry as opponents and the crowd being into X-Pac. The clean finish and Title change helped make the match feel special too, and this feud did an excellent job of rehabbing the European Title after Shawn Michaels and Triple H had spent most of the past year treating it as some kind of prop from a sitcom

Mankind has some backstage promo time with Michael Cole. Mankind feels like The Little Engine That Could tonight, and goes on to cut a funny promo about how much tougher Rock and Shamrock are, but he doesn’t care about it. This was the early stages of Mick Foley working a lot more comedy into the character, and it ended up working out really well for him.

Main Event
Mankind Vs “The World’s Most Dangerous Man” Ken Shamrock Vs “The People’s Champ” The Rock

This one is good fun, with all three wrestlers going at it from the off and fighting all over the ringside area. Things do drift into the usual Triple Threat formula at points of two folks wrestling in the ring whilst another sells outside and gets a breather, which ended up making a lot of these things feel too samey in the end. When all three are interacting at the same time it’s entertaining fast paced chaos, which is when these kinds of matches are at their best. We get Shamrock Vs Mankind, Mankind Vs Rock, and then eventually a Rock Vs Shamrock section, and all three of those combinations work well, so even though it’s formula, the formula is at least executed well. Sadly, after a night where we’ve mostly gotten pin fall finishes, we don’t get one here in the Main Event, as Undertaker and Kane amble down to the ring with Vince McMahon and then put a beating on all three competitors to make this a no contest.

NO CONTEST
RATING: ***

Thoughts: This was a good match, although the finish blew. It allowed the WWF to run the match again at the next pay per view in a cage at least, which gave us one of the better matches of 1998, so every cloud I guess. Interestingly, Vince McMahon seemed to be cheering on The Rock prior to the non-finish, which could have been foreshadowing for Rock’s eventual Heel turn. This was an effective way to make Undertaker and Kane look big and scary at least

Stone Cold attacks Vince McMahon from behind following that before scampering away when Kane and Undertaker try to help the boss.

In Conclusion

An energetic episode of Raw is War, with some good matches and, mostly, clean finishes. They did an effective job of making Undertaker and Kane look like a dangerous duo, whilst also letting Billy Gunn mix it up with the Main Eventers and planting some seeds for down the line, such as Sable chasing down Jackie for the belt. Overall this was a solid go-home show, and to get so many good matches with clean finishes on an Attitude Era show is kind of a miracle, so the show is a thumbs up almost for that alone.

Raw is War #278 is a recommended show!