Live Feed Mania – WWF Monday Night Raw 06/28/99

WWF @ Charlotte, NC – Coliseum – June 28, 1999 (19,553; sell out)

We’re in Charlotte for the day after King Of The Ring with the king of tape trading himself Richard Land’s wonderful collection of Satellite Feeds!

Battalion vs. Max Mini

aired on Super Astros 07/04/99

Video quality is pish but the pop for Battalion is impressive. He makes his entrance to The Truth Commission’s theme so I’m glad someone is still waving their flag. Wait no I’m not.

Pop for “Mini Max” (as Fink calls him) is even louder. This is Pirata Morgan Jr. vs. the original Mascarita Sagrada Jr. so it should be good. Sure enough their exchanges are silky smooth with even a messed up armdrag not stopping the action as Max sails through the ropes in response. Battalion straight-up slaps Max in the back of the head when they return to the ring for boos, followed by a clothesline that flips Max 180 degrees. Battalion takes the Sgt. Slaughter bump through the ropes allowing Max to land a flying Frankensteiner off the apron to the floor. Battalion misses a second rope back senton then tries to hump Max for a pin. Doesn’t work. Max comes back with more beautiful lucha headscissors and a crazy swanton off the top rope to the outside. He flies back in to take a Powerbomb from Battalion who lands a jumping splash at 4:27.

Finish was anticlimactic after everything else they’d done but what the hell, this was a sweet way to start the show with both lads busting out their coolest moves and not outstaying their welcome. Crowd dug it too.

Then the Super Astros interviewer asks Max Mini how he’s doing and his mate tells her. My Spanish is non existent outside of “brutal! brutal! BRUTAL!” so we’ll move on.

Meat (w/ Terri, Jackie, and Ryan Shamrock) vs. Brad Anderson

aired on Shotgun Saturday Night 07/03/99

Ryan tries to flirt with Meat before the match so Terri gets jealous and suddenly they’re all kissing him. Crowd cheers because tits. Brad Anderson is Gene Anderson’s legit son and has a crazy low 1.20 rating on CageMatch. I wonder why?

In May 2019, Anderson was involved in an incident in North Carolina promotion Revolution Wrestling Authority in which he legitimately attacked another wrestler named Jacob Ryan during a match. The assault was broken up by promoter Julian Strauss and many of the other wrestlers who were booked for the event, and Anderson was escorted from the building. Anderson later defended himself by claiming that Ryan had injured his son Carter with a sloppy clothesline in a segment on the previous event, and that he handled it “old school” by stretching him in retaliation. Ryan pressed assault charges against Anderson. RWA ceased operation shortly afterwards, although it was active again as of May 2022.

Ah.

Armdrags take over Brad until he’s sent into the ropes and Flair Flips to set up…a stare from Meat who waits for the next spot. Oof. Meat gets sent into the turnbuckles but counters by clotheslining Brad off the apron and he just flies the fuck off. Brad can barely stand after that so Meat lands his Reverse DDT finish at 2:02.

Two wrestlers doing a fine job of disgracing their Dads’ legacies.

Commentators Kevin Kelly & Terry Taylor get introduced and booed.

Viscera (w/ WWF European Champion Mideon) vs. D’Lo Brown (w/ Mark Henry)

aired on Shotgun Saturday Night 07/03/99

I thought Viscera was the coolest looking wrestler in the world when I was a kid. Pop for D’Lo is at Steve Austin levels of loudness. D’Lo can’t knock Viscera down with clotheslines so attempts a charge and runs right into a meaty spinning leg kick. Viscera misses a follow up elbow enabling D’Lo to land The D’Lo Leg Drop for two. I miss when wrestlers would power up their moves by dancing beforehand. D’Lo nearly pulls his back out trying for the Sky High so attempts a Running Powerbomb instead. Yeah nah. D’Lo dodges a Patera charge to land the Lo Down but the ref gets distracted by Mark Henry dealing with Mideon, which allows Mideon to smash D’Lo with the European Title belt and a viagra-fuelled splash ends it at 3:40.

Viscera was perfectly fine taking a bunch of bumps in a sub five minute match every week and I admit I sometimes get nostalgic for these simple TV matches.

The Giant Silva vs. Pantera

aired on Super Astros 07/04/99

Pantera’s entrance music sadly isn’t sung by Rob Van Dam. The pop for Silva and his ICP theme music is amazingly loud. I thought The Oddities were done by February 1999 but I guess Silva’s got nothing else to be doing. He falls over getting in the ring but it’s deliberate so the crowd love him. Pantera can’t slam him so Silva mocks him. That would have been better if D’Lo and Viscera hadn’t just done that spot. The rest is just Silva trying to do basic moves like leg drops and headbutts with the crowd not reacting. Until he finishes Pantera with a fucking top rope splash at 2:35!

Match threatened to kill the hot crowd but it’s not often you see a 7 foot 3 inch guy coming off the top so I can’t hate it.

Gangrel vs. Test

aired on Shotgun Saturday Night 07/03/99

Gangrel’s entrance is more than enough to warm up the crowd again. Holy shit at Test’s pop too. This is before Summerslam so he’s reaching his highest popularity.

Test nails the Big Boot early. Only gets two here as he wasn’t throwing like it prime Chono like he would later on, as Gangrel lands an overhead belly-to-belly to land some quick elbows. Gangrel was very strike heavy in WWF so I’ll skip ahead to Test powering out of a chinlock to land a diving gutwrench Powerbomb. Test’s move set wouldn’t change but he figured out how to make it work until he became legit good in 2001. Test sidesteps a Gangrel dropkick to land his sweet top rope elbow at 4:50.

I love Gangrel and his crappy offence won’t stop that.

Afterwards Gangrel lands the Implant DDT on Mike Chioda because he’s got too much salt in his blood.

Michael Cole conducts an in-ring interview with The Hardy Boyz! Oh and their Dad Michael Hayes. I didn’t understand this pairing as a kid and I can only understand it as a rib now I’m an adult. Cole asks about the chemistry Hayes has with The Hardyz and he immediately name-drops The Freebirds which in fairness gets a decent pop. Hayes declines to be part of the “Senior Tour”, he’s just wanting to give back to the business. The Hardyz put over backyard wrestling (which I’m sure someone asked them not to mention again after this) until the tag champs The Acolytes head out to batter everyone. Kelly makes exasperated noises as Bradshaw clotheslines Jeff’s face off before everyone takes a powerbomb or Dominator. Quite an effective beat-down from a team I didn’t give a damn about until they rebranded as The APA.

Welcome To The Jungle starts blaring out as the official theme song for Jim Ross & Jerry Lawler. Crowd reacts like Guns ‘n’ Roses themselves showed up.

The Fink lets the crowd know they’ll be live on the air so make lots of noise, so they do and the commentators hype up how great Raw will be…in ten minutes when they go live. American TV is weird. In the mean time, here’s this:

WWF Hardcore Champion Al Snow vs. The Brooklyn Brawler

aired on Shotgun Saturday Night 07/03/99

It’s non-title but it’s still a Hardcore match. OK then. Brawler gets an “already in the ring” introduction and is so mad he attacks Snow when he turns his back. The chants of “We Want Head” are crazy loud. Snow smashes Brawler with a cookie sheet but referee Harvey Wippleman prevents Snow from using a fire extinguisher. That’s sensible, it could be one of those dodgy ones that removes oxygen from…oh wait he’s working heel to allow Brawler to get the advantage. Brawler gets a ladder from out the ring and he does a completely unexpectedly crazy spot where he legdrops a horizontal ladder on the outside to send himself flying.

Snow then strikes Wippleman down with Head and uses his unconscious hand to count Head’s pin on Brawler at 3:14. Jesus, even Brawler was trying tonight.

Also happening but not recorded:

Miguel Perez defeated Apollo Dantes

Christian defeated Chuck Coates

Chaz defeated Donnie Parker

Raw is War – included an opening segment in which Steve Austin told Vince McMahon that, although he had lost the CEO position the previous night at King of the Ring, he went ahead and signed a world title match for himself while still CEO and if the Undertaker had anyone interfere on his behalf, Austin would win the title via forfeit; prior to Austin coming out, McMahon announced that the Undertaker would defend the title against Triple H at Fully Loaded; featured Steve Blackman attacking Ken Shamrock with a kendo stick in the ring, causing Shamrock to bleed from the mouth; included an in-ring promo in which Billy Gunn, Chyna, and Triple H said they wanted the rights to the DX name; included Ivory turning heel in an in-ring promo in which she challenged any woman in the crowd; someone eventually did take her up on her offer just for Nicole Bass to intervene and take out the mystery woman:

Chaz (w/ Marianna) pinned Meat (w/ Terri Runnels) with a roll up after Marianna pushed Terri off the ring apron

Hardcore Holly pinned Kane after the Big Show interfered and hit a chokeslam on Kane; after the bout, Kane hit the chokeslam repeatedly on Holly

The Rock defeated Triple H via disqualification when Billy Gunn interfered and hit the Rock with a foreign object

The Godfather fought Edge to a no contest when Droz and Albert came ringside
WWF Tag Team Champion Bradshaw pinned Billy Gunn after X-Pac interfered; after the bout, both Chyna and the Road Dogg came down

WWF IC Champion Jeff Jarrett (w/ Debra) pinned X-Pac after interference from both Debra and Billy Gunn; after the bout, a brawl ensued pitting X-Pac and the Road Dogg against Gunn and Chyna

Steve Austin pinned WWF World Champion the Undertaker (w/ Paul Bearer) to win the title at 12:03 with the Stunner; stipulations stated that if there was any interference from the Corporate Ministry, Taker would be forced for forfeit the title to the challenger (The Attitude Era)

Yeah I’m glad we didn’t get that Raw recorded, sounds uneventful.

Overall: No crazy off-the-air moments here but some surprisingly solid action from the C-Shows made this an alright watch. Also it’s not every day you see a Gene Anderson match on the same show as Battalion.

I’ve been Maffew