Last week on Raw Is War they were like, “Hey guys, we know this episode sucks but next week is going to be a real banger.” It’s a week later so let’s see how good they actually make good on this promise and also if they finally manage to get out of Texas.
Video Package!
We get a video packaging recapping the stuff that’s been going on with Austin and Michaels and Mike Tyson. All three of these men will be here tonight on Raw Is War!
Meanwhile in the Arena…
After that good, good Raw Is War theme song we head to the Gund Arena in Cleveland, Ohio for some explosions as the show begins. Jim Ross, Michael Cole, and Kevin Kelly welcome us to the show.
With that out of the way, DX heads out and makes their way down to the ring. Michael Cole reminds us that DX told us that WrestleMania XIV was going to be X rated. The get in the ring and Shawn Michaels preens to the camera wearing a cowboy hat and sunglasses while Triple H gets on the mic and declares that the Road to WrestleMania has begun. Hunter tells parents to get their kids permission to watch and says that viewer discretion is advised but will be “completely fu…ignored.”
He then moves on to talking about Owen Hart. He says that Owen’s walking around with his European Championship and vows to end Owen’s reign at WrestleMania. It’s then time for the Triple H talks about his cock portion of the promo. It’s not particularly inspired hog talk if I’m being honest. Triple H apparently has a massive hog, but he wrestles in wrestle panties so I know this is not true.
Shawn Michaels then gets on the mic to talk about Mike Tyson. He says that tonight DX will make Tyson an offer that he cannot refuse. Michaels then explains that if Tyson does refuse DX will make sure he never forgets them. Shawn there’s some logical inconsistencies in this promo Bud. You say that Tyson is unable to refuse your offer but then lay out what would happen if he did refuse your offer. Can he refuse it or not?
That notwithstanding, Michaels moves on to talk about Stone Cold. Michaels runs through his dozen or so catchphrases and talking points to say that at WrestleMania XIV Austin will find out that he’s not as tough an SOB as he thinks he is, but tonight he wants Austin to shine up his “chrome dome” so Michaels “can crack it like an egg.”
(Sound of Breaking Glass)
Austin comes out and gets in the ring with DX but before anything can happen, the lights go out and Kane’s music plays. Kane and Paul Bearer show up on the stage while DX flees. Bearer gets on the mic and tells Austin that he’s not going to have to worry about WrestleMania because tonight Kane will send him straight to hell.
They then leave and Austin goes over to the announce table and makes Michael Cole sit on the floor.He takes Cole’s headset and tells JR that he’ll kick Kane’s ass with the lights on or the lights off since it makes no difference to him. He’ll even kick Mike Tyson’s ass tonight if he feels like it.
“And that’s the bottom line cuz Stone Cold said so!”
Hype!
Later tonight another WrestleMania celebrity will be revealed. I don’t remember who it actually is but have some guesses based on some old Wrestling Observer I looked at when Tyson first showed up about how the idea was to get a bunch of “controversial figures” to appear at Mania.
Meanwhile Backstage…
Speaking of controversial figures, Mike Tyson’s limo arrives. He’s with Shane McMahon and his entourage.
Meanwhile in the Arena…
Back from break, the New Age Outlaws head out wearing shitty airbrushed “Indians Sux” Florida Marlins t-shirts. I assume this is some sort of topical sports reference but since it’s not 1998 anymore and I did not live in a market that cared about either of the teams I have no idea what they’re referencing here to try and get cheap heat.
Anyway they’re both wearing neck braces and there’s a dumpster already at ringside. Road Dogg claims that dumpsters follow them around now. They get in the ring and say that after Chainsaw Charlie and Cactus Jack attempted to murder them last week they’re going to have to press charges.
We then get footage of the attack that went down on last week’s episode, this time from the camcorder that Road Dogg was carrying when Michael Cole attempted to interview them. In this particular instance having a different camera angle doesn’t really add anything new to what transpired but I kind of like this as a gimmick and think you could do something cool with it in the modern era when everyone has a camcorder as part of their phone, but I digress.
Back in the ring the Outlaws says that they’re too injured to wrestle tonight and have a doctor’s note and everything. Commissioner Slaughter shows up on the TitanTron and tells them that they’re full of shit. They’re not only going to wrestle tonight, they’re going to wrestle right now and what’s more their titles are going to be on the line.
Match 1: New Age Outlaws (c) vs. DOA
WWF World Tag Team Championship Match
The DOA are of course the tadem of Skull and 8-Ball. They ride out on “those beautiful Titan motorcycles,” as is their wont. The DOA hits the ring and starts pounding on the Outlaws from the jump. Things never really settle down into anything approaching an actual wrestling match as the two teams just brawl.
Billy Gunn waffles one of the Harris Boys (8-Ball I think) with one of the belts while out on the floor the other Harris (Skull perhaps) gets whipped into the dumpster. The Outlaws then head over to the dumpster and the lid flies open, braining both of them.
Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie pop out of the dumpster. The Outlaws immediately hightail it through the crowd to avoid getting murdered by Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie. They are promptly counted out and the DOA are awarded the match but not the titles in 1:22.
Winners: DOA
This was barely a match but I have to say if this was the finish you wanted to do having the match wrap up in a minute and change is probably the best way to go about it. I’m a lot less annoyed by a largely meaningless match getting spoiled after a minute of wrestling adjacent action then I would be if this had gone on for eight minutes before the nonsense at the end. While not a terrific wrestling match as a segment coupled with the pre-match promo from the Outlaws it was fine. [NR]
Video Package!
We then get a video package outlining the ongoing tensions between Marc Mero, Sable, Goldust and Luna Vachon. Marc Mero will be in action next!
WrestleMania Millennium Moment
This week’s WrestleMania Millennium Moment brought to you by M&Ms is Salt N Pepa singing “What a Man” at WrestleMania XI which I’m pretty sure is excised from every version of WrestleMania XI that was ever commercially available.
Match 2: Tom Brandi vs. Marc Mero (w/ Sable)
It’s weird that I’d totally forgotten that Mero and Brandi were feuding as part of Mero’s feud with Sable less than two months earlier. Brandi’s such an afterthought to the entire thing at this point that he doesn’t even get an entrance.
Mero, however, does get an entrance and the crowd in Cleveland go absolutely buckwild for Sable as was the wont of WWF fans in 1998. This of course pisses off Mero so he throws his robe at her and sends her to the back before the match begins to get that heel heat.
Brandi attacks Mero at the bell. Brandi comes off the top for a bulldog and covers but only gets two. Mero then makes his comeback, working Brandi over with punches and body slamming him for two. We then cut to the stage to see that Luna is making her way out solo clad in some skimpy attire.
Back in the ring, Mero snapmares Brandi. Brandi fights Mero off and give him an INVERTED ATOMIC DROP but ends up running into a TKO. Brandi manages to slip out of it and hit a sitout gourdbuster. He covers but only gets two. A Russian leg sweep earns Brandi another near fall.
Brandi then comes off the ropes but Luna grabs his legs. Brandi then leans through the ropes like a dope and gets popped in the mug by Luna. The referee then reprimands Luna for decking Tom Brandi. This distraction allows Mero to punch Brandi in the cock and then hit the TKO to pick up the win.
Luna then gets in the ring to congratulate Mero on his victory. He does not seem to want anything to do with her and wants even less to do with her after she forcibly kisses him. This kiss leads to Mero being distracted thus allowing Goldust to sneak in and blast Goldust from behind. Luna starts to choke Mero out but here comes Sable!
She grabs Luna by the hair and hurls her across the ring. Mero, meanwhile, starts to comeback on Goldust as referees hit the ring. Luna bails and the referees separate Goldust and Mero. Mero then turns his attention to Sable and starts yelling at her. Slaughter comes down to the ring but before he can really do anything Sable shoves Mero on his ass and then leaves the ring. Mero yells for her to come back to the ring and she happily obliges him. Mero immediately bails when Sable gets in the ring.
Winner: Marc Mero
The match itself was whatever but man alive was the crowd hot for the post-match stuff with Sable wrecking shop on Luna and then shoving Mero on his ass. Based on fan reaction I think Sable might be the single most over person in the entirety of the WWF at this point including even Austin. The response this lower mid-card angle is getting is absolutely wild to me. [*¾]
Hype!
We see baseball footage as we are reminded that Pete Rose will be at WrestleMania XIV.
Match 3: Owen Hart (c) vs. Mark Henry
WWF European Championship Match
Henry comes out with the Nation of Domination but Sgt. Slaughter cuts them off at the pass and sends them all to the back before the match begins.
The match begins and Hart goes after Henry’s legs with kicks. He gets Henry in the corner and works him over with mounted punches but ends up getting hurled off by Mark. Hart pops back up and goes back to work on Henry, blasting him with kicks and then leaving him with a spinning heel kick.
Henry ends up out on the floor and Owen nails him with a baseball slide as we see Chyna making her way out to the stage. Owen stares at her which allows Mark Henry a chance to sneak back into the ring and clobber Owen from behind. Henry then whips Hart into the corner and squashes him with an avalanche splash. Henry then plants Hart with a slam and follows up with an elbow drop that earns him a near fall.
Henry sends Owen off the ropes with an Irish whip and looks for a clothesline. Owen ducks it but then ends up leaping into Henry’s arms and nailed with a backbreaker. Henry looks for an elbow but Owen avoids it and then looks to finish things with a Sharpshooter but Mark Henry is too powerful and just kicks Owen off.
Henry whips Hart into the corner with such force that he bounces back out and on the rebound, Henry grabs him and plants him with a belly-to-belly suplex. Owen grabs Mark’s legs and attempts to sunset flip the big man but Henry fights it off and then attempts to sit on Owen and flatten him. Owen rolls out of the way and then tries for another Sharpshooter.
Again, Mark Henry proves to just be too damn strong. He kicks Owen off and then gets back to his feet and whips Hart into the corner. He then goes for another avalanche splash but this time Owen gets out of the way and Henry gets nothing but turnbuckles. Owen nails him with a missile dropkick that sends Henry crashing to the mat. Owen then goes up to the middle rope and comes off with an elbow drop and covers. He only gets two.
Henry gets back to his feet and catches Hart’s leg on an attempted kick which means it’s enziguri time. Owen finally manages to turn Mark Henry over and get the Sharpshooter applied in the middle of the ring. He works the hold for a bit and seems to have the match in the bag when Chyna hops up onto the apron.
Owen then breaks the hold and goes over to have words with her. Chyna hops down and Owen then stupidly goes up top. Chyna predictably ends up shoving him off the top rope. Mark Henry ends up catching him and the proceeds to squeeze the life out of Owen Hart. Before Owen submits or passes out in the hold, Chyna hits the ring and proceeds to punch Mark Henry in the cock. Both Henry and Owen Hart collapse and the referee calls for the bell. The winner of the match, as the result of a disqualification, is Mark Henry.
Her dick punching work done for the moment, Chyna heads up the ramp. Michael Cole tries to ask her why she did what she did. She looks at him like he’s an idiot and tells him she did it because she can and then walks off.
Winner: Mark Henry
Owen Hart continues to be one of the bright spots of WWF as I make my way through 1998. This week we ended up getting him in a pretty enjoyable big man vs. little man match and in the process saw what was probably the best Marc Henry match to date. Even the stuff with Chyna worked pretty well in the context of the match and in furthering the overall story between Owen and DX. [**¼]
Meanwhile Backstage…
Vince McMahon is shown chatting with Mike Tyson.
Match 4: Taka Michinoku & The Headbangers vs. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express & Barry Windham (w/ Jim Cornette)
Before the match Thrasher talks about all the great teams the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express have beaten and then mocks them for getting beaten by the Headbangers and losing their titles last week. Mosh then helpfully reminds them that it’s no longer the 1980s and if the Express are looking for an 8 track flashback he has two words for them, “BEAT IT!” Mosh explains that it’s 1998 and the Headbangers rule. The Headbangers then ask Taka Michinoku for his thoughts on Jim Cornette and Taka declares him to be a “jackass.”
Gibson and Mosh start things off, going back and forth in the opening moments of the match until Mosh sends Gibson flying with a monkey flip. Mosh then makes the tag to Taka who comes in and after getting a single shot in ends up getting brought over to the NWA’s corner where he’s triple teamed.
Windham, who gives so few fucks at this point that he doesn’t even bother to take off his entrance gear, merks Taka with a nasty DDT. Moments later Taka manages to roll under a double clothesline and make the HOT TAG to Thrasher who comes in and powerslams Gibson.
The match then breaks down into a six way with everyone fighting. Taka flies and takes out Winham out on the floor with a plancha that the camera misses most of. The bell then rings and The Headbangers and Taka Michinoku are declared the winners. See while the camera was missing the sole high spot of the match they were also missing the finish to the match which saw Thrasher get Gibson in an O’Connor roll.
With all the chaos going on Jim Cornette decided it was time to cheat and came into the ring with the racket. Thrasher, however, saw him coming and got the racket from him. He then used it on Gibson and pinned him for three.
Afterwards Cornette gets on the mic and challenges The Headbangers to face the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express next week and put the NWA World Tag Team titles on the line. It’s unclear if the Headbangers accept the challenge.
Winners: The Headbangers & Taka Michinoku
This was so short that after they missed the high spot and the finish they pretty much just replayed the entire match from different angles during the post-match highlight reel. This is another one of those “How in the fuck did these people end up having a match,” matches that I kind of love coming across when revisiting these old shows. Honestly for the parties involved and the year in which the match was taking place this was decent for the time that it got. The biggest fuck ups were on the production side of things which I can’t fault anyone in the ring for. If this had gone a bit longer than it did I think it would have been a decent little TV match but at a minute and change there really wasn’t much to it beyond the NWA continuing to suck. [NR]
Meanwhile in the Warzone…
Jim Ross is joined by Jerry Lawler as we head into hour two. Vince McMahon is already in the ring. The fans in Cleveland boo the shit out of him pretty much for just existing since all he does is ask them to welcome Mike Tyson.
Mike Tyson then makes his entrance and his entourage. Jim Ross mentions that Tyson is coming out to a song by Big Daddy Kane and for some reason Jim Ross mentioning “Big Daddy Kane” in his voice is hilarious to me. Tyson gets a pretty mixed response from the crowd in Cleveland but that might be some residual venom directed at Vince. I’m not really sure. Regardless, Tyson gets in the ring and shakes Vince’s hand.
Vince says that he wants to get right down to business. He asks Tyson if he’s going to be the enforier at WrestleMania or if Austin is going to enforce his own rules. Vince asks the rowdy crowd to be respectful which leads to them booing him even more. McMahon then asks Tyson who he thinks is going to leave Mania with the title but before Tyson can reply, DX’s music hits and DX heads out. A phalanx of officials are hot on their heels. McMahon looks furious.
They get in the ring and Shawn gets on the mic telling Mike Tyson that he’s not out here to disrespect him like Austin did. He says that when he calls someone out he’s man enough to do it to their face and he’s calling Tyson out. He calls Tyson “boy,” which is a pretty big “Yikes!”
Tyson is like, “Okay let’s do this!” and the ring immediately clears out. I’m not entirely sure why Vince McMahon the character is kayfabe okay with this but turned into a red faced demon shrieking, “YOU RUINED IT!!!” at Austin and attempting to punt him in the head when Austin did the exact same thing with less casual racism.
The crowd is living in the moment though and not thinking about how weird it is that Vince is resigned to let this happen this week but went berserk when Austin did it. The crowd is going absolutely bananas as Tyson and Michaels get in each other’s face. There’s some shoving and then Michaels rips off Tyson’s WWF shirt revealing a DX shirt underneath. It was a swerve baby!
DX and Mike Tyson chop at their crotches and each others’ crotches for an infinite amount of time in the ring while McMahon seethes at this latest development out on the floor. Michaels bellows that, “The Heartbreak Kid is the man that runs this show!” as McMahon and his Stooges angrily head to the back and the crotch chopping continues.
This was another one of those classic Attitude Era moments that everyone who was watching at the time would remember fondly years after the fact and unlike the dumpster spot with the Outlaws, Cactus Jack and Terry Funk that wasn’t actually half as good as the 10 second highlight clip everyone remembers when presented in the context of the episode this was still fantastic. Sure with hindsight you can kind of see the swerve that happens at Mania coming from a mile away but back in 1998 it was a wild and unexpected thing that also made sense. Far too often Vince Russo’s swerves ended up being illogical but this is one of those rare double swerves where every part of it actually works.
Meanwhile Backstage…
Back from break we get highlights of what just happened and then check in with DX and Tyson celebrating in the back along with Tyson’s entourage.
Match 5: Steve Blackman vs. Kama
No nunchuck rave kata from Blackman tonight unfortunately. Blackman’s going up against Kama this evening. Kama comes out with the Nation of Domination but Slaughter cuts them off at the pass and sends them all to the back. Busy night for Sarge this evening…
The Nation head to the back and the match gets underway with Blackman and Kama trading kicks with each other. JR mentions that both men have martial arts experience and actually references Kama being “the supreme fighting machine,” in the opening moments of the match.
Blackman gets sent off the ropes and bounces off Kama. Kama gets him up for a slam but Blackman slides out of it and grabs a waistlock only to catch a back elbow to the dome. Kama breaks free but Blackman stays on him with strikes. Kama returns the favor, nailing Blackman with a series of kicks before sending Blackman for a ride.
Blackman comes off the ropes and ducks a clothesline attempt from Kama and then nails him with a kick to send him out to the floor. Blackman then decides he’s a light heavyweight and takes Kama out with a pescado to the floor. He then rolls Kama into the ring.
Back inside, Blackman heads up top and connects with a flying body press that earns him a near fall. Both men get back to their feet and Blackman charges at Kama but ends up running right into a spinebuster. Blackman gets back to his feet and they go back and forth with strikes until Kama wrecks Blackman’s shit with a hook kick to the head. He then slams Blackman and goes up to the middle rope to leap off with a flying nothing into a boot from Blackman.
Blackman with a side slam as the crowd begin to chant, “Boring.” Blackman then nails Kama in the face with a pump kick and goes for some sort of submission hold I don’t really recall him ever using. I don’t know what he’s actually going for because as soon as he starts to apply it the Nation of Domination runs out and hits the ring and starts beating on Blackman for the DQ.
The Rock and Faarooq hit their finishers. Jim Ross explains that the Rock Bottom is what The Rock calls the Rock Bottom as The Rock hits the Rock Bottom. I don’t know if this is the first time the name is actually named or if this was Jim Ross just being cognizant of the fact that Tyson being on the show would bring in first time viewers who would not know what certain moves were called.
Anyway this beating brings out Ken Shamrock to make the save. The Rock and Faarooq bail but Kama stays in the ring and ends up eating a belly-to-belly suplex for his troubles. He rolls out of the ring and the Nation head up the ramp while in the ring Shamrock and Blackman bump fists.
Winner: Steve Blackman
This was a fine television match that clearly only existed to set up some sort of Blackman & Shamrock vs. Nation of Domination tag team match next week. It’s kind of weird how before they had long opening promo deals or Teddy Long appearing after a fuck finish to make it a tag match playa the amount of time it would take for them to assemble a tag team match.
Other than that the crowd pissed me off here with their “Boring” chants because there wasn’t anything happening here that was actually boring it was just a wrestling match between two guys who weren’t Sable or Stone Cold so they shit all over it. It was still only like three minutes and change and it was mostly Steve Blackman doing karate and Kama doing body slams, neither of which are boring in my book (it wasn’t like those old British Bulldog squashes where you’d still see him do like a 40 second chinlock or whatever). Anyway, fuck these fans the match was an okay TV match. Shamrock and Blackman vs. The Rock and D’Lo or whoever next week should be decent. [**]
Meanwhile Backstage…
Stone Cold is shown getting his knee brace ready as we head to commercial break.
Meanwhile in the Ring…
Oh hey there Colonel Parker welcome to the WWF! Parker is now Tennessee Lee (though his name won’t actually be mentioned until much later in this promo) and he’s here to hype up the greatest singer, entertainer, and wrestler of all time DOUBLE J!
Jeff Jarrett has abandoned his Aztec Warrior attire and is back to the light-up cowboy hat and glasses now. He comes out and spells his name and talks about being the best singing wrestling entertainer in the world before wishing Jim Cornette and the NWA good luck in their future endeavors. He explains that the NWA wasn’t prepared to adequately promote someone as multi-dimensional as him which is why he had to bring in the world’s greatest promoter, Tennessee Lee.
Match 6: Jeff Jarrett (w/ Tennessee Lee) vs. Flash Funk
Funk’s starting to grow his hair out for a 2 Cold Scorpio ponytail and heads out sans pimp hat but he’s still technically Flash Funk here. He bum rushes Jarrett but ends up getting whipped sternum first into the corner. Jarrett struts a bit and ends up getting decked by Funk.
Funk’s momentum is short lived though as Jarrett cuts him off and slams him. Funk comes back with some shoulder tackles but ends up running into a clothesline. More strutting from Jarrett follows. He then stomps away on Funk and chokes him out in the ropes for a bit before leaping onto Funk’s back and straddling him while he’s hung up on the middle rope.
Funk makes a comeback with some kicks and looks for a backslide but Jarrett kind of fucks up the planned reversal so Funk just clotheslines the shit out of him and boots him in the head. He then sends Jarrett off the ropes and back body drops him.
Jarrett goes to the eyes to cut Funk off though and then decks him. He sends Funk off the ropes but ends up getting dropped with a rolling kick. Funk covers but only gets two. Funk then whips Jarrett into the corner and connects with a Stinger Splash. Funk then dumps Jarrett with a back suplex and calls for the Tumbleweed.
Funk heads up top but Tennessee Lee gets on the apron and crotches him before shoving him into the ring. Jarrett then slaps on the Figure Four.
“SHADES OF THE NATURE BOY!” shouts Jim Ross before adding, “…uh Buddy Rogers.” I guess all this NWA shit has Good Ol’ JR a bit confused. Anyway Jarrett picks up the win.
Winner: Jeff Jarrett
I don’t know if going back to being Double J is an improvement over Aztec Warrior Jeff Jarrett of the NWA but at least adding Tennessee Lee to the mix allows Jarrett to now successfully cheat to win. I don’t remember what ends up happening with the NWA North American title. Jarrett didn’t bother coming out with it here. I assume at some point he’ll feud with one of the NWA guys over it in a heel vs. heel match that no one cares about and end up losing it via malarkey but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. As for this match it was a fine TV match which is to be expected by a couple of “good hands” like Funk and Jarrett. [*¾]
Hype!
We get a woman in the shadows talking about her decades long forbidden love affair. It’s revealed to be Gennifer Flowers. We’re supposed to think that she’s talking about fucking President Bill Clinton but she clarifies that she’s talking about WrestleMania. She’s going to be at WrestleMania XIV on March 29th!
Meanwhile in the Parking Lot…
DX and Tyson head to the limo while Michael Cole tries to interview them about why Mike Tyson just joined DX. Hunter bellows that they are winners and Tyson wants to be around winners. Cole tries to ask about Stone Cold but Michaels tells him to beat it. Tyson mutters something about how Stone Cold is going to be “out cold” if he steps to him. They then get into the limo to depart.
Meanwhile at the Announce Location…
Jerry Lawler takes a page out of Tony Schiavone’s announcing playbook and declares Tyson joining DX to be the biggest wrestling news in the history of wrestling news. Jim Ross then changes topics to discuss the break up of the Legion of Doom we apparently saw last week. This sets up for a video package.
Video Package!
We get a video package highlighting the rise and seeming fall of the Legion of Doom. It’s decent I guess. They mention the Legion of Doom winning titles in the NWA and the AWA in it and show them brawling last week. After the video package JR says that officials have tried to talk to both Hawk and Animal and apparently the situation is even worse than they first thought. He promises to keep us updated on the team.
Meanwhile Backstage…
Kane is standing somewhere. Jim Ross informs us that his confrontation with Austin is coming up next. Not match, confrontation. Should have guessed.
Meanwhile in the Arena…
Back from break Paul Bearer and Kane head out and make their way down to the ring ahead of Kane’s confrontation with Austin. Paul gets on the mic and raps for a bit about Mike Tyson joining DX and how much of a shock that must have been for Austin. He then says that Austin will be in for an even bigger shock when he wakes up tomorrow morning next to the Undertaker in the Pits of Hell!
(Sound of Breaking Glass)
Austin comes out but heads stage right instead of down the ramp to the ring. Turns out Triple H was just hanging out on the stage and Austin decides to wreck shop on him instead of confronting Kane in the ring. Triple H, however, ends up being bait and as Austin goes after him Shawn Michaels appears and superkicks Austin in the head. DX does some crotch chops and then heads to the back as Austin slowly gets back to his feet and shoves the referees off so he can chase after DX. TAPE MACHINES ARE ROLLING!
Back from break we are informed by Jim Ross that DX has apparently left the building. There’s still like six or seven minutes of TV time left to kill so Paul Bearer tells Kane to go grab the timekeeper. Kane goes out to the floor and before he goes over to the timekeeper pulls a random “fan” out of the crowd and hurls him to the floor and stomps on him a bit. No idea what that was about.
Kane then gets the timekeeper and the bell and brings them into the ring. Paul says that he neglected to do something a couple months ago when Kane burned Undertaker alive and that was hold a memorial service. He wants the timekeeper to ring the bell ten times while the crowd stands and remains silent. The timekeeper rings the bell ten times and once he’s done Paul tells him to ring it one more time for himself. Kane then attacks the timekeeper, goozling him and chokeslamming him. Paul wants to see a Tombstone so Kane obliges and Tombstones the timekeeper while Jim Ross yells about him having a family.
Paul says that Kane has done everything that he said he would do. Paul Bearer says that Kane’s “vanquished Vader…uh…that random teenager in a Stone Cold t-shirt…this timekeeper…that’s pretty much it,” and that he has one more Tombstone in him. Paul asks if Lawler or Jim Ross want to be the recipient. They do not so Paul Bearer asks if there’s anyone willing to step up and get Tombstoned. He’s pretty much doing the Master Lock Challenge here folks however no random midcarder emerges to get Tombstoned, instead he is met by the Undertaker’s dong.
Bearer laughs it off saying it can’t possibly be the Undertaker since Kane got rid of him. The dong keeps donging and Bearer yells at Jim Ross to shut the music off. Jim Ross says that he’s not doing it. Eventually the Undertaker’s music begins in earnest and we see a coffin up on the stage. It gets hit by a lightning bolt and the Undertaker suddenly sits up.
Taker stares his brother down as he stands and welcomes him to hell. He says that he is the demon that will lead Kane to eternal damnation before going on about how it wasn’t Kane and Paul Bearer that caused him to disappear because “you cannot destroy that which does not wish to perish.” I don’t know if it actually works that way but okay.
Taker tells Paul that every time he returns to the Darkness he does so of his own volition in order to heal his spirit. He then says that on this trip he had to visit the souls of his parents in order to soothe them because he knew he was going to have to do the one thing he promised he’d never do.
Paul Bearer interrupts his Shakespearean soliloquy to inform him that he’s no longer the Phenom, but rather Kane is. To demonstrate this, Kane does his fire thing, causing a wall of fire to erupt before The Undertaker. Taker kind of walks through it (the fire is dying down as he steps forward and is more or less gone as he steps over it) and says that he will walk through the fires of Hell to get to Kane and that soon Kane will understand why he is the Reaper of Wayward Souls and the Lord of Darkness.
Taker then tells Kane to remember how when they were children and they’d start to fight their parents would always pull Taker off him before he could maim Kane. Taker tells him that come March 29th at WrestleMania XIV there won’t be anyone there to stop him. Taker then wraps things up by telling Kane, “May the hounds of hell eat your rotting soul!” which I think I’m going to start using as the closing to my business letters.
Undertaker and the fans in Cleveland then bellow, “REST IN PEACE!” but Taker throws some weirdly timed pauses in there that throw the crowd off so only “REST” ends up being in unison and then the crowd in Cleveland say “IN” and “PEACE” like a beat and a half before Undertaker does.
Jim Ross bellows to close up the show, screaming, “WHAT A MOMENT! WHAT A FEELING! THE UNDERTAKER IS BACK TO WAGE WAR ON HIS OWN FLESH AND BLOOD!”
This entire segment veered towards self-parody at times but the crowd was super into it once The Undertaker showed up and started speechifying and with Taker back maybe that means Kane will finally have some actual purpose on the show other than randomly Tombstoning someone while Paul Bearer rambles about something unrelated to Kane’s actual reason for existing.
Final Thoughts
As is generally the case with these episodes of Raw Is War there were a couple of really big angles, most notably Tyson joining DX and The Undertaker returning to challenge Kane to a match at WrestleMania, but the wrestling was, by and large, an afterthought. I’d have probably been more annoyed by the Austin vs. Kane bait and switch if I’d been watching it live or worse yet, had been in the Gund Arena for the show, but I’m watching it 23 years after the fact and have the ability to watch pretty much ever single Steve Austin match that was ever taped whenever I feel like it so it’s less of an issue.
Atomic Drop 