LOD 2000

With some of my graduate work behind me, I finally had
time to devote three hours to this show and continue my reviews of the World
Wrestling Federation in 1998.  Before
academic responsibilities got in the way, Steve Austin and Vince McMahon’s feud
started moving to another level and ended WCW Monday Nitro’s 82-week winning
streak.  Dude Love, Austin’s former tag
team partner, was inserted into the angle as McMahon’s alleged representative.  However, that match on this show is
overshadowed by the Inferno match booked between the Undertaker and Kane.  Meanwhile, Ken Shamrock and Faarooq have
joined forces because they hate the Rock and Triple H has dominated his feud
with Owen Hart.  The Legion of Doom have
been rechristened “LOD 2000” and given Sunny as a manager, but it’s sort of
like putting lipstick on a pig and their best days are behind them.  Still, their victory in the WrestleMania XIV
tag team battle royal gives them a title shot on this show against their rivals
the New Age Outlaws.  Finally, Sable is
becoming the top diva in the company and Luna Vachon has threatened to rip her
clothes off in the first Evening Gown match in WWF history.  Got all that?

–Jim Ross and Jerry
“the King” Lawler are in the booth and they are broadcasting from Greensboro,
North Carolina.  They speculate on what
Vince McMahon means when he says something “catastrophic” is going to happen
tonight.

–Opening
Contest:  Ken Shamrock, Faarooq &
Steve Blackman beat The Rock, Mark Henry & D-Lo Brown (w/Kama Mustafa) when
Faarooq pins the Rock with a Dominator at 13:35:

Faarooq is wearing his usual ring gear here, which does
not quite fit his face turn.  He does get
a big pop for whipping D-Lo with a belt in the early going, though.  Amazingly, Ross is able to restrain himself
and not discuss the football credentials of some of the participants until nine
minutes in.  A pretty dull opener that
quiets a hot crowd, but its booking follows logical wrestling principles as
Faarooq pins the Rock to make him seem like a credible challenger for the Rock’s
Intercontinental title and set up a one-on-one match between the two in the
near future.  Rating:  **

–Michael Cole
interviews the winning team and Faarooq says this was the opening shot of a
long war that he is going to wage against the Nation.

–WWF Champion Steve
Austin comes out and throws the timekeeper into the ring.  Austin interrogates him over why he rang the
bell to prematurely end the Dude Love-Steve Blackman match on the previous RAW
and makes it clear that if Vince McMahon tries to screw him out of the title
that he is going to give the timekeeper the beating of a lifetime.  Nice thread of storyline continuity here.

–The announce team
recaps the Triple H-Owen Hart feud.

–European
Championship Match with Chyna Suspended in a Cage Above the Ring:  Triple H (Champion) pins Owen Hart after
X-Pac hits Owen with a fire extinguisher at 12:27:

One fan has the ability to predict the future in the
audience tonight, carrying a sign that reads “Playboy needs Chyna.”  Commissioner Slaughter being an antagonist
for D-Generation X has lost much of its luster, as the arrival of Vince McMahon
as the owner of the company makes him look very weak on the totem pole, but it
is still a lot clearer than the five or six authority figures roaming around
the “WWE Universe” today.  Owen has lost
a lot of heat since starting this feud in January, illustrating why wins and
losses matter.  This is a good match, but
it lacks the atmosphere of their WrestleMania encounter and the focus is more
on Chyna bending the bars of the cage she is in, dangerously hanging onto it
while she is trying to escape, and then having the Road Dogg lower the cage so
she can get to the ground.  The ensuing
chaos allows Triple H to get another controversial win over Owen when logic
dictated that Owen goes over here.  This
did have a somewhat logical payoff, although that would require an Owen turn
and we’ll get to that in future reviews. 
Rating:  ***

–Cole interviews
Owen Hart, who lets us know that “enough is enough and it’s time for things to
change around here.”

–NWA Tag Team
Championship Match:  The New Midnight
Express (Champions w/Jim Cornette) defeated The Rock N’ Roll Express when
Bodacious Bart pinned Robert Gibson after a Bombastic Bob bulldog at 7:22:

This is a bonus match, which illustrates the lack of
depth in the company at the time, but we are in NWA country so the Rock N’ Roll
Express get a decent pop while the Express are greeted with silence.  God bless Ross as he tries to hype put over
the Rock N’ Roll and this match, but his historical references go over the head
of most of the audience since the WWF rarely emphasized wrestling history at
this time.  Referee Tim White and
Cornette have a funny showdown where Cornette dares White to fight him and
White scares him off.  You might assume
this would be decent, but there is more stalling than action and the match
moves very slowly.  The Express hit their
double dropkick on Bart, but shenanigans ensue and the Express retain the
titles, which no one cares about.  Rating: 
*¼

–Dok Hendrix
interviews Goldust and Luna Vachon and Luna emphasizes that she wants to strip
Sable of all her clothes.

–Evening Gown
Match:  Luna Vachon (w/Goldust) beats
Sable at 2:34:

Marc Mero does not come down to the ring with Sable
because he is allegedly humiliated by Sable’s recent antics.  Maybe he meant her promos.  The crowd chants for Sable, which makes sense
if you consider her the face, but little sense in terms of the match since they
want to see her without her clothes. 
Since we’re getting more Russo booking around this time it is not
surprising that this ends with a screwjob, as Mero shows up, distracts Sable,
and allows Luna strips Sable of the top of her dress.  After the match. Sable strips off Luna’s
dress and then takes off the rest of her clothing underneath the ring.

–Vince McMahon, Pat
Patterson, and Gerald Brisco walk to the ring and McMahon reiterates that “anything
can happen in the World Wrestling Federation.” 
McMahon debunks that a conspiracy is in the works tonight and that he is
just going to be at ringside because he was born in North Carolina.

–Call
1-900-737-4WWF to hear from the winners and losers of tonight’s matches!

–WWF Tag Team Championship
Match:  The New Age Outlaws (Champions) defeat
LOD 2000 (w/Sunny) when Road Dogg pins Hawk at 12:21:

LOD 2000 did not get a lot of airtime before this match,
which is as close to a vote of no confidence from WWF management as you can
get.  Sunny’s dress is nowhere near as
eye catching as her WrestleMania XIV attire. 
The LOD get a nice nostalgia pop, but after that there’s not much to see
except some token power moves.  Animal does
a good job staying in peril, which was appropriate because Hawk botches several
moves throughout.  The finish makes
little sense, as the referee says Hawk does not lift his shoulders on a German
suplex, but Road Dogg never lifts his shoulders to earn a victory.  After the match, the LOD give the referee a
Doomsday Device and the referee does a stretcher job.  Thankfully, this is the end of the
Outlaws-LOD issue.  This was also Sunny’s
last WWF pay-per-view appearance.  Rating: 
¾*

–Jeff Jarrett “sings”
with Sawyer Brown, a country music group. 
The crowd is so enamored with this performance that they chant “We want
Flair!”  It always baffles me that the
WWF brass thought this stuff was going to get Jarrett over.  At the end of the performance, Steve Blackman
attacks Jarrett, but after he puts Jarrett in a submission move, Tennessee Lee
blasts Blackman with a guitar.

–A video package
hypes the Inferno match between the Undertaker and Kane.  Lawler has a hot dog ready to roast at
ringside.

–Inferno Match:  The Undertaker beats Kane (w/Paul Bearer) at
16:02:

I’m really surprised that they did not make this the main
event of the pay-per-view considering how low key the Steve Austin-Dude Love
title match was, but maybe they were afraid of these two putting on a
less-than-stellar match like WrestleMania. 
This match is one of those that sounds good in theory, but is terrible
in execution because it is very difficult to build drama and this quickly
becomes a kick-and-punch affair.  Things
pick up after the Undertaker throws Kane over the top rope and Kane goes to
leave, which does not make a lot of sense for Kane’s character, but Vader makes
a surprise return to a big pop and fights Kane back to ringside, where the
Undertaker hits a plancha.  The
Undertaker destroys Bearer on the Sawyer Brown stage and knocks Kane’s arm into
the fire to win.  Things really didn’t
look good for Kane at the time, as he lost his second consecutive match, this
one definitively, to the Undertaker.  It’s
quite amazing that he maintained his upper midcard standing as a character
after this.  Rating:  *½

–A video package
recaps the Steve Austin-Vince McMahon/Dude Love feud.

–WWF Championship
Match with Vince McMahon at Ringside: 
Dude Love defeats “Stone Cold” Steve Austin (Champion) via
disqualification at 18:48:

The big story of this match is whether Love and McMahon
are working together and if McMahon is going to screw Austin out of the title
by intimidating the timekeeper.  McMahon
waits to come out until eight minutes into the match and Pat Patterson
hilariously carries the folding chair for McMahon to sit in.  I always wondered during this feud why
McMahon favored Love.  Was he that much
better of an alternative?  Would you want
your company led by a man who’s stuck in the 1960s/1970s?  McMahon tries to get the timekeeper to ring
the bell when Love applies an abdominal stretch, but the timekeeper doesn’t
budge and the match continues.  The
referee eventually gets bumped, which causes him to miss Love applying the
Mandible Claw (or Love Handle if you prefer) and the battle spills to the floor
where Austin knocks McMahon out with a chair to a HUGE pop.  Austin counts his own fall and his music
plays, but we eventually hear from Howard Finkel that Love is the winner by
disqualification since Austin hit a WWF official.  McMahon does a stretcher job as well.  Love took some nasty spills in this match as
per usual and the brawling was technically proficient.  I’m not really a fan of the ending, but in
storyline terms it worked out for the best since McMahon wanted to make it
certain that Austin would lose the title at the next pay-per-view by stacking
the deck against him.  Rating: 
***½

The Final Report Card:  This show illustrates that most of 1998 was
Steve Austin and not much else.  His match
was the most exciting on the show and the midcard had lots of weird things
happening like the LOD getting another push, the Rock N’ Roll Express getting a
WWF pay-per-view match in 1998, and Jeff Jarrett feuding with Steve Blackman
for lack of something better to do.  The
main event is exciting and Triple H-Owen is their usual solid outing, but
compared with WrestleMania XIV this show did not blow you away or even make you
feel satisfied.  Owen loses again, the
Outlaws kept the belts in a match finish that made no sense, the Inferno match
was nothing special, and the main event had an inconclusive finish.  Some of these things, like the Owen loss and
the inconclusive main event finish, led to greater things down the road and those
shows will be the ones that will get a thumbs up rating, not this outing.

Attendance: 
21,427

Buyrate: 
0.85 (+0.35 over previous year)

Show Evaluation:  Thumbs Down

–A video package recaps the Steve
Austin-Vince McMahon interaction on last week’s show, where their WWF title
match was interrupted by Dude Love.

–Jim Ross and
Michael Cole are in the booth and they are taped from Long Island, New York.

–Kevin Kelly gives
us a report from the Undertaker and Kane’s parents grave, where they will be
facing each other tonight.

–Dude Love hosts
the Love Shack and it does not take long for Vince McMahon to crash the
party.  McMahon tells Love that is being
fined $5,000 and warns him not to interfere with his business again before
leaving.  Love says he attacked Steve
Austin because he attacked him from behind, but that he may not face him at
Unforgiven if Austin grovels at his feet by the end of the show.  It always amazes me how easily Foley can
modify his promos for each of his characters. 
1 for 1

–Opening Long
Island Street Fight:  Faarooq beats Kama
Mustafa with a spinebuster at 5:52:

The Nation is nice enough to bring lots of weapons to
ringside, the most impressive of which is a beer keg that Mark Henry carries in
from the audience.  However, the allies
of both men are barred from ringside. 
Impressively, Ross holds off until four minutes in to remind us of
Faarooq’s All-American roots.  Kama
dominates much of the match, which largely ignores the stipulation, and Faarooq
blasts Kama with his boot to avoid a Kama hammer attack and pick up the
win.  Cole makes so many errors in
calling this match, one of which is screaming “DOMINATOR” after Faarooq hits
the spinebuster.  Rating:  ¾* (1 for 2)

–D-Generation X is
seen admiring footage of them relieving themselves on the Disciples of
Apocalypse’s motorcycles weeks ago. 
Billy Gunn dares Triple H to expose himself and urinate on tonight’s
crowd.

–A video package
hypes Jeff Jarrett’s musical performance with Sawyer Brown at Unforgiven.

–D-Generation X
comes out and Ross tells us that when Triple H and Owen Hart face off at
Unforgiven that Chyna will be suspended above the ring in a cage.  Triple H and the New Age Outlaws comment on
their opponents at Unforgiven and Triple H’s urinating prank sees him take a
giant squirt gun and blow it into the audience. 
LOD 2000, Owen Hart, and Sunny appear on the ramp and start heading
toward DX, but Sergeant Slaughter intervenes and books a match between them for
later tonight.  I was just not a fan of
DX’s juvenile antics in this segment and we’ve really heard everything they
have to say against their opponents, although that is more of a fault with
repetitive booking than anything else.  1 for 3

–Dan Severn UFC
clips are the 10-321 Rewind segment.

–Kelly lets us know
that the Undertaker is minutes away from the cemetery!

–Dan Severn (w/Jim
Cornette) defeats Mosh (w/Thrasher) via submission to an armbar at 2:40:

I don’t know why the WWE does not bother to use tag team
wrestlers in singles competition against non-tag team wrestlers much anymore
because it is an easy way to give singles stars victories while not harming the
reputation of a tag team, since the announcers can always point out that the
losing tag wrestler was not competing with their partner and they were out of
their element.  Severn easily squashes
Mosh here with a few suplexes and an awkward looking armbar.  This match should’ve been shorter and Mosh
should have received no offense, but since Severn is part of this NWA faction
the booking team doesn’t care that much about him.

–The Undertaker
appears at the cemetery and chokes Kelly, who screams like a little girl.  Kelly says after the commercial break that
the Undertaker may be heading back to the arena after not finding Kane.

–Before the next
match, Luna Vachon promises to strip Sable of her soul and all of her clothes
at Unforgiven.

–Bradshaw defeats
The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust (w/Luna Vachon) by disqualification when
the Kamikaze Club interferes at 4:50:

After months of wearing weird outfits, Goldust is back to
wearing his more traditional attire here. 
Both of these guys are in need of some direction and Bradshaw gets
something when the Kamikaze Club interferes and lays him out before
escaping through the crowd.  This was
good when Bradshaw was using his stiff-looking offense, but we did not get
enough of that.  Rating:  * (1 for 4)

–Vince McMahon
slapping Steve Austin is last week’s M&M Slam of the Week.

–Jerry “the King”
Lawler joins Ross for the second hour on commentary.

–WWF Champion Steve
Austin comes out and alleges a conspiracy between Vince McMahon and Dude Love
to take the WWF title from him and he vows to kick ass tonight.  He teases going after a photographer, a
cameraman, and a timekeeper before heading to the locker room.  A simple filler promo and segment to keep the
wheels turning toward Unforgiven.  1 for 5

–A hearse is shown
arriving at the arena.  Is it the
Undertaker?

–Non-Title
Match:  Terry Funk & 2 Cold Scorpio
beat The New Midnight Express (NWA Tag Team Champions w/Jim Cornette & Dan
Severn) when Scorpio pins Bombastic Bob with the 450 splash at 7:07:

Scorpio, having a new lease on creative life by going
back to his old name, is the only one that doesn’t phone it in for this
match.  You would think that two former
tag wrestlers in Bart Gunn and Holly would work well as a team, but they do not
show much of it in this match.  Scorpio
hits a crazy plancha when the Express beat on Funk on the outside and picks up
another victory for his team with the 450. 
Severn doesn’t let Scorpio gloat, though, as he walks into the ring and
gives him a belly-to-belly suplex. 
What’s funny is that Severn starts walking into the ring after the 450,
so you think a disqualification is coming, but he walks in so slow that the
referee finishes the three count before he can get to Scorpio.  Some stablemate, eh?  Rating:  * (1 for 6)

–The new Val Venis
vignette has him in the shower and warning women to get their rest.

–Cole interviews
Sable, who says she does not care if Luna Vachon strips her naked at
Unforgiven.  That claim is interesting in
retrospect because having that booked to happen on RAW a year later is what led
Sable to leave the company and sue them. 
Whoever arranged this segment was smart because they kept Sable’s
talking limited to that one line.

–Paul Bearer and
Kane greet the hearse that has shown up to the arena.

–Call 815-734-1161
to get the Steve Austin “Hell Yeah!” t-shirt for $25 (plus $6 shipping &
handling)!

–Vince McMahon
tells Cole that he is ready to fight Austin if he dares to confront him.

–Triple H &
The New Age Outlaws (w/X-Pac & Chyna) beat Owen Hart & LOD 2000
(w/Sunny) when Billy Gunn pins Animal after a piledriver at 8:27 shown:

Ross chooses to talk about his past NWA experiences
during this match by mentioning how the Horsemen were no match for the
Legion of Doom and that Greensboro, North Carolina, where Unforgiven will be
held, is Ric Flair country.  The LOD’s
role in this match is limited, but they aren’t showing anything special, which
their new gimmick cannot mask.  In fact,
this match is a lot like the tag match with Funk and 2 Cold Scorpio earlier in
that Owen completely carries his team’s side of the contest.  The Road Dogg gets hit with a Doomsday
Device, but Chyna picks up Sunny and that creates enough of a distraction that
enables X-Pac to hit Animal with a chair and produce the finish.  At least Owen didn’t eat the pin.  Rating:  ** (2 for 7)

–Paul Bearer and
Kane are shown wheeling a dirty casket backstage as Bearer sings about “digging
up bones.”  The hearse driver cracks me
up as he just watches all of this unfold with a stoic look like all of this is
just another day at the office.

–Kane and Paul
Bearer come out and there are two caskets on the stage, which Bearer says are
the dug up graves of the Undertaker’s parents.  Bearer says that the Undertaker can pay his respects since
he didn’t go to their funeral.  He adds that he (Bearer) buried them in the cheapest caskets possible.  The Undertaker appears through the crowd and
as he charges ramp, Kane pours gasoline on one of the caskets and Bearer sets it
alight.  Kane then chokeslams the Undertaker into the other, which is the casket
of his mother.  In a nice attention to
detail, they made sure to put bones and worms in the casket the Undertaker was
thrown into.  Great segment that was much
better than having the men fight at the cemetery.  3 for
8

–Cole tells us that
Kane and Paul Bearer have left the arena and the Undertaker is with whatever is
left of the remains.

–Vince McMahon
walks out to do commentary for the next match. 
Lawler welcomes him back “like good old times.”  Storyline continuity is a nice thing.

–Dude Love beats
Steve Blackman via submission to an abdominal stretch at 3:57:

Lawler constantly sucks up to McMahon at the booth and
snitches on all the bad thing Ross has said about him over the last couple of
weeks.  McMahon laments that he and
Austin could have had a “classic” on last week’s show and promises to be close
to the ring during the WWF title match at Unforgiven.  I would almost prefer they not call Love the
number one contender for Austin’s title since he has not beaten anyone to
immediately get a title shot.  Anyway,
after some brief action, Love puts Blackman in an abdominal stretch and the
bell mysteriously rings, thereby making this the “Long Island Screwjob” I
suppose.  Rating:  * (3 for 9)

–After the bell,
Blackman interrogates the timekeeper and hiptosses him on the arena floor.  McMahon is outraged at all of this and as he
tends to the timekeeper, Steve Austin runs out, grabs McMahon, and hiptosses
HIM.  Austin and Love brawl on the floor
and Pat Patterson and Gerald Brisco get Stone Cold Stunners as McMahon
flees.  Really fun closing segment that
sent the crowd into a frenzy.  4 for 10

The Final Report Card:  Fun ending aside, this was a very dry episode
of RAW relative to the last few weeks.  The
second hour was where all of the action was, but very little was entertaining
outside of Austin-McMahon and the Undertaker-Kane angle.  The Terry Funk & 2 Cold Scorpio tag team
had potential, so I am not sure why they abandoned it so quickly in 1998, but
it was good to see Scorpio being used as more than a jobber for a change.

Here is our final Unforgiven card:

WWF Championship Match:  Steve Austin (Champion) vs. Dude Love with
Vince McMahon at ringside

WWF Tag Team Championship Match:  The New Age Outlaws (Champions) vs. LOD 2000

European Championship Match:  Triple H (Champion) vs. Owen Hart with Chyna
suspended above the ring in a cage

Inferno Match:  The Undertaker vs. Kane

Evening Gown Match:  Sable vs. Luna Vachon

The Nation of Domination vs. Ken Shamrock,
Steve Blackman & Faarooq

Monday Night War Rating:  4.4 (vs. 5.1 for Nitro)

Show Evaluation:  Thumbs Down

–A video package
recaps the big events at last night’s WrestleMania pay-per-view.

–Jim Ross and
Michael Cole are in the booth and they are live from Albany, New York.

–Vince McMahon
walks out with the new version of the WWF title, which will replace the winged
eagle title that has been a staple of the company since 1988.  The crowd is so loud and rabid that McMahon
does not even know if his microphone is working.  Austin snatches the new title from McMahon
and McMahon goes back on what he said prior to WrestleMania and says he is
proud of Austin for winning the title. 
McMahon says that together they can make Austin the greatest WWF
champion of all-time.  Austin sees
through that scheme and takes offense when McMahon says he loves him.  After embarrassing McMahon, Austin reiterates
that he will continue to do things his way and McMahon tells him that he can
take the easy road and adapt or take the hard way and be forced to follow his
plan anyway.  Austin takes ten seconds to
think about it and then gives McMahon a Stone Cold Stunner.  Words cannot describe how awesome this
segment is.  McMahon played it like his
1990s announcing personality and Austin showed that way of doing business was
not going to be the way that the Attitude Era was going to proceed.  1 for
1

–McMahon is shown
recovering in the locker room surrounded by his cronies.

–Opening
Contest:  The Legion of Doom (w/Sunny)
defeat Jose & Jesus when Hawk pins Jesus after a Doomsday Device in 34
seconds:

The only good thing about this repackaging is that it
gives Sunny something to do.  The Legion
of Doom roll through Jose and Jesus like the jobbers they are and after the
match Sunny says that they should be known as “LOD 2000” from now on.

–Jim Ross says that
the WWF tag team titles are being held up due to the wrong dumpster being used
last night at WrestleMania and that the New Age Outlaws and Cactus Jack and
Chainsaw Charlie will meet in a steel cage match tonight.

–Kevin Kelly says
that Vince McMahon has called the police and wants Steve Austin arrested.  After the commercial break, Kelly adds that
Austin says that Vince does not have the balls to arrest him.

–Kurrgan (w/The
Jackyl) beats Chainz with the Paralyzer at 2:12:

Chainz never knocks Kurrgan off of his feet in this
squash, which continues Kurrgan’s reign of terror in the lower midcard.  After the match, Kurrgan keeps the Paralyzer
on and drags Chainz to the locker room.

–Police officers
are shown arriving at the arena and greeted by Vince McMahon.

–Jeff Jarrett
(w/Tennessee Lee) defeats Aguila via submission to the figure-four leg lock at
2:36:

Jarrett continues to use the horse for his entrance,
which boggles my mind because I forgot that he even had such a ridiculous
entrance at this time.  The booking of
this match shows the problem of the light heavyweight division because Aguila
should be wrestling other light heavyweights, but there are not enough of them
in the company so they end up as cannon fodder for Jarrett and other midcarders.  Lee promises a big surprise on next week’s
show while doing commentary for this squash.

–After the bell,
Steve Blackman runs out and floors Jarrett with a pump kick, but Jarrett
recovers and knocks him out of the ring when Blackman tries to go after
Lee.  This is a great crowd because they
give this developing feud a huge reaction.

–Police officers
are shown carrying Austin away in handcuffs. 
Austin tries to go after McMahon despite the handcuffs and Austin
promises that McMahon will pay.  Gerald
Brisco reassures McMahon that he made the right decision.  After
the commercial break, McMahon walks out with Brisco and Commissioner Slaughter
and explains in a contrite voice that he felt Austin needed to cool off for
twenty-four hours based on his actions earlier tonight.  2 for 2

–Triple H and Chyna
inform us that the tonight the WWF as we know it will come to an X-rated end.

–Ross interviews
Intercontinental Champion the Rock, who is backstage, and the Rock promises to
lay the smack down on Ken Shamrock.  The
Rock tells Faarooq that he opened his eyes to something new last night and
tells him that he is why he is still the champion and he guarantees that the
Nation will be stronger after tonight. 
Faarooq appears to be unconvinced.

–Jerry “the King”
Lawler comes out to do commentary for hour two.

–Ken Shamrock
& Steve Blackman beat The Rock & Faarooq (w/The Nation of Domination)
when Shamrock pins Faarooq after a belly-to-belly suplex at 4:22:

It takes Ross 1:25 to talk about Faarooq’s football
background, which might be a new record. 
The Rock’s heat is off the charts at the beginning of this match and it
only grows when he refuses to get into the ring to fight Shamrock.  This proceeds with Shamrock and Blackman
beating the tar out of Faarooq and the Rock walking out on Faarooq when Faarooq
tries to make the tag.  They work that
spot really well because the Rock at first holds his hand higher when Faarooq
crawls to their corner and then decides to blow him off for good.  Rating:  *½ (3 for 3)

–After the match,
Faarooq calls the Rock back to the ring. 
The Rock returns and he and Faarooq brawl until the other members of the
Nation and WWF officials separate them. 
However, when the WWF officials leave and Faarooq calls the Rock back to
the ring, the other members of the Nation turn on Faarooq and the Rock
re-enters the ring to give Faarooq a Rock Bottom.  The Rock proclaims himself the new leader of
the Nation.

–Kane giving Pete
Rose a Tombstone is the 10-321 Rewind segment.

–European Champion
Triple H and Chyna come out and Triple H says that he was right about Mike
Tyson.  He accuses Shawn Michaels of
dropping the ball and says that he is taking over and tonight is the genesis of
D-Generation X.  Hmmm…so that’s where
Michael McGillicutty got that line. 
Triple H says that for allies to go to war he is looking at the Kliq and
Sean Waltman walks out.  Ross’s lack of
enthusiasm when Waltman comes out is pretty funny.  Waltman proceeds to cut a fun promo that runs
down Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff and says that Scott Hall and Kevin Nash would
be with him tonight if they were not being held hostage by WCW.  This segment nicely moved DX into Triple H’s
control and overcame the audience’s hesitation to embrace a Triple H-led DX.  4 for
4

–Sable powerbombing
Luna Vachon last night at WrestleMania is the Bop It Slam of the Week.

–The first Val
Venis vignette is aired where he previews his new film “Live Hard.”

-Before the match,
Luna Vachon comes out and demands a rematch with Sable.  After Sable agrees, she lays out what an Evening
Gown match is.  Mero does not want Sable
to accept the challenge, but Sable accepts anyway.  It’s a testament to Luna’s character that she
didn’t become a face in the lead up to that match because the crowd popped huge
at the suggestion that she wanted to strip Sable off her clothes.

–“Marvelous” Marc
Mero (w/Sable) beat Taka Michinoku with a TKO at 1:36:

Throughout the match, Sable criticizes Mero’s heel tactics, but that
distracts the referee and helps Mero hit a low blow to win.  So, that whole light heavyweight
division?  Yeah, who cares about
that.  After the match, Sable tries to
tend to Michinoku and argues with Mero on her way to the backstage area.

–After the match,
three Japanese men hit the ring and destroy Michinoku.

–NWA Tag Team
Championship Match:  The New Midnight
Express (w/Cornette) defeat The Headbangers (Champions) to win the titles when
Bombastic Bomb pins Mosh after a Rocket Launcher at 4:00:

Before the match, Cornette brings out Dan Severn, who was
in the midst of a four year reign as the NWA World Heavyweight Champion and
should have been a bigger deal in the WWF. 
The hype of Severn takes precedence over calling this match, which is
standard fare.  After the bell, Severn
gets into the ring and suplexes the Headbangers around.  This was the ideal role for Severn to kick
ass and say very little, but that is not how he was treated during this
run.  Rating:  ** (4 for 4)

–Steve Austin calls
into the show and promises to show Vince McMahon how pissed off he is on next
week’s RAW.

–As the cage is
being set up for the main event, Kane and Paul Bearer walk out and Bearer
promises that the Undertaker-Kane feud is not over.  He says that he had a dream where the ring
was surrounded by fire and Kane stood tall. 
He challenges the Undertaker to enter his dream and face Kane in a match
where the loser will be set on fire. 
Very nice promo by Bearer to setup an Inferno match between Kane and the
Undertaker at Unforgiven and it was also a good use of time so that the cage
could be constructed for the main event. 5
for 5

–Steel Cage Match
for the WWF Tag Team Championship:  The
New Age Outlaws beat Cactus Jack & Chainsaw Charlie to win the titles when
the Road Dogg pins Cactus after a spike piledriver on a chair at 4:38:

Funk is shown with a nasty deep bruise suffered at last
night’s WrestleMania.  This match is
being contested under pinfall and submission rules, so escaping the cage gets
you nothing, and it assumes tornado tag rules as well.  The Outlaws tie Charlie to the cage by his
neck with handcuffs, which is rather ingenious, and Cactus fights the Outlaws
off for a while, but D-Generation X runs out and Sean Waltman, who is still
being referred to as “the Kid,” blasts Cactus in the head with a chair several
times as Chyna distracts the referee. 
This gives the Outlaws the break they need to win the titles for the
second time.  Rating:  ** (6 for 6)

–After the bell,
D-Generation X destroys Cactus and ties Charlie tighter to the cage.  The Outlaws celebrate with Triple H and
Waltman and the DX theme plays in the background, seemingly confirming that the
Outlaws are the stable’s newest members.

The Final Report Card:  They really packed a lot into this RAW and it
followed a format that the company should look into today where the first hour
is packed with squash matches and a lead angle to keep people interested and
then having serious and more risky angles play out in the next hour.  More power is handed to the lead figures of
the Attitude Era from the New Generation as Triple H takes over D-Generation X
and the Rock takes over the Nation from Faarooq.  This show was very instrumental in setting
the tone for the rest of the year as well, with McMahon having Austin arrested
for the first time and DX being reformed with Triple H, the soon-to-be named
X-Pac, and the New Age Outlaws.  The show
also continued to tighten the gap with Nitro and showed that the company was
starting to benefit from an edgier product with Austin on top.

Monday Night War Rating:  3.8 (vs. 4.2 for Nitro)

Show Evaluation:  Thumbs Up