Raw/Nitro January ‘98 (Week 3)

Monday Night Raw 19/1/98 (2.5 Stars)

Segment-

Paul Bearer in-ring promo. Paul mocks The Undertaker, saying that he successfully reeled him in and managed to get him to put his guard down. Paul gleefully recounts the moment that he and Kane locked The Undertaker into a casket and set it on fire! Kane joins Paul Bearer in the ring, as he is wheeled down in the burnt casket from The Royal Rumble.

Segment-

DX backstage promo. HHH says that Owen Hart is a loser and proved that he ‘can't cut it’ in the WWF. Shawn Michaels adds that he woke up ‘guilt ridden’ over what happened to the Undertaker at the Rumble. Shawn vows to find The Deadman and bring him back to Raw live, in an effort to prove to the fans that DX aren't bad all of the time!

Match 1- The Nation of Domination Vs Disciples of Apocalypse ends in a no-contest (6-Man Tag Match)

Match 2- Marc Mero def Tom Brandi 

Segment- DX are shown as they look inside of a hearse that’s parked backstage. It was suspected that The Undertaker was in the back, but instead a group of attractive girls are found waiting, as the faction climbs inside to join them!

Segment- Shane McMahon and Mike Tyson arrive at Monday Night Raw in a limousine.

Match 3- The Quebecers def Cactus Jack & Chainsaw Charlie via DQ

Segment- DX continues their search for The Undertaker backstage.

NWA North American Championship 

Match 4- (c) Jeff Jarrett def Blackjack Bradshaw 

Segment- Blackjack Windham turns on Blackjack Bradshaw and joins Jim Cornette's NWA faction alongside Jeff Jarrett!

Segment- The lights turn off in DX's locker room as they are talking amongst themselves, spooking them into believing that The Undertaker is back!

Segment- The Undertaker seems to slowly descend from the rafters before it's revealed to be Shawn Michaels instead! Shawn Michaels places The Undertaker’s ‘attire’ onto a BBQ. DX runs down Owen Hart, as HHH offers Owen a rematch for the European Championship next week on Raw, and Shawn Michaels calls out the Royal Rumble winner ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin ahead of their encounter at WrestleMania!

Match 4- The Headbangers, Taka Michinoku & Owen Hart def Los Boricuas

Match 5- Rocky Maivia def Ahmed Johnson 

Segment- Mike Tyson is shown backstage being friendly with DX.

Tag Team Championships

Match 6- (c) The New Age Outlaws def The Godwinns 

Segment- ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson is set to make an announcement alongside Vince McMahon. Before McMahon can make the announcement, ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin interrupts the proceedings. Austin gets into Tyson's face and calls him out, before flipping him off, leading to a pull apart brawl between the two men, as Tyson’s security and WWF officials attempt to get the situation under control!

Segment- An angry Mike Tyson is shown backstage with Vince McMahon, complaining about being ‘sucker punched’ by Austin!

Analysis 

Fresh off a hot PPV in the Royal Rumble, would we finally see ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson on Raw, and if so, what exactly were Vince's plans for him? The show also opened with an on-screen tribute to Juanita McMahon. Juanita was Vince Sr's wife. The pair were married until his eventual death in 1984. 

Matches 1 & 2

While the opening segment was entertaining, what followed was anything but! I was getting used to this however, especially during this particular era of Raw. Much more emphasis was placed on ‘character development’ or promo time, over actual in-ring competition. Ideally you'd want a nice balance between the two, but the New York based juggernauts had yet to find it.

D.O.A faced the Nation of Domination in 6-man tag action. Again, I just didn't care whatsoever about this so-called ‘faction warfare’. As an actual match it was fine, at least it was until eventually being waved off as a no-contest, after both teams stormed the ring. Presumably this finish was the result of creative having zero idea or direction for this angle whatsoever! As Jim Cornette likes to say…LAZZZY BOOKING! 

Post-match, The Rock and Mark Henry stormed the ring in order to add numbers to the assault, leading to Ken Shamrock and Ahmed Johnson making the save. As a side note, that is the most random late 90’s pairing I can think of by the way, well done WWF! Bonus points for that one alone.

The second match of the evening saw Marc Mero FINALLY get the better of Tom Brandi. Again, no real problem with this match. In terms of pure in-ring action, it was probably the MOTN (which admittedly, was nothing to shout about on this show)

The angle of Mero's insecurity as it related to Sable was slowly growing on me. The only thing I didn't get, is that Tom Brandi was obviously viewed as an enhancement guy. If they used literally ANYONE else for this angle, it could have been somewhat credible, and probably much more entertaining from an in-ring standpoint. Taka Michinoku anyone?

Overall, the first hour was slightly subpar, with few actual moments of note. It concluded with a heavily rushed match, as Jeff Jarrett pinned Blackjack Bradshaw to retain his NWA title. This entire segment was a mess and the company clearly didn't want to put any real time or effort into the storyline, so my question is, why bother in the first place? They obviously didn't believe in it, and by showcasing whatever this was, only served to hurt the show further. As previously noted, I actually LIKED the idea of an old school invasion style angle. But the problem was that the ‘two Vince’s’ obviously didn't, so it was probably better to fully commit to what they DID think would work, and just do that instead! Post-match, former NWA champion Blackjack Windham, aka Barry Windham, turned on his partner Blackjack Bradshaw later known as John Bradshaw, in order to join Cornettes' new faction alongside Jeff Jarrett. Got all of that? Good!

Second Hour/WarZone 

The second hour opened with an in-ring DX promo. They were being slightly more serious this time around, automatically making it one of their better segments to date. Shawn ascended from the rafters dressed as The Undertaker, before taking the attire off completely and placing it onto a BBQ (they didn't actually light it on fire, so not sure why they brought it, but whatever) They ran down Taker, Owen Hart as well as Shawn's future WrestleMania opponent Steve Austin. If they were more concise and hit their points slightly quicker, it may have been a more effective promo as there were times when neither HHH nor Shawn were really saying all that much. As previously noted, this was still one of the better talking segments from DX, and they legitimately had me fooled into thinking that Shawn was actually The Undertaker. A few bonus points for pulling that one off I guess. We also got promised a rematch between HHH & Owen Hart next week on Raw for the European Title, and if this wasn't given time as the actual main-event of the show, I may audibly scream!

Main-event 

Ok, so I'll speak about the Tyson/McMahon/Austin segment that closed the show, in lieu of the ‘main-event’ between The Godwinns and The New Age Outlaws, as this would prove to be a seminal moment for the WWF, and one that would be replayed for the decades that followed thanks to a legendary call by JR! This was a much shorter segment than history would have you remember, but boy, was it impactful! Austin essentially interrupted the moment, got into Tyson's face before flipping him off, leading to both men having to be restrained! J.R screaming at the top of his lungs “AUSTIN TYSON, AUSTIN TYSON! TYSON WANTS AUSTIN, AUSTIN WANTS TYSON” is hands down why he is the all time GOAT of commentary! It may seem like an obvious call, but the way he carried it was super convincing. For a nanosecond, you completely forget that you were watching a scripted show, and got caught up in the emotion of it all! He made EVERYTHING 10x more believable. Bravo Jim. Bravo…

Now, obviously I wasn't a child in America during this time, but I can also fully buy into the concept of arguments happening in the playground the next day as to ‘who would win in a real fight, Austin or Tyson’. Hell, maybe even some adults were having these kinds of conversations. Admittedly it would have been adults who were possibly a few fries short of a happy meal. All of that being said, it was still an EXPLOSIVE segment, Austin came across as a complete badass, and Tyson didn't lose any face in the process. It can be exceptionally hard to pull off both of these things simultaneously, but they did a great job on this occasion!

A final tidbit as it relates to Tyson which many people may not actually know. But allegedly, VKM had his son Shane follow ‘Iron Mike’ around EVERYWHERE backstage. Why you ask? Well, allegedly Vince was looking past WrestleMania. Indeed, Vincent K. McMahon, wanted to actively MANAGE THE BOXING CAREER OF MIKE TYSON. Yep, you read that sentence correctly! Sources indicate Vince hoped that once Tyson saw what he did for him in terms of the good PR following the scandal upon his release from prison, he would become more open to accepting the offer. Whether this was all true or not remains to be seen, but it would be unsurprising if McMahon indeed had much bigger plans down the road.

Summary 

As previously described, the matches were all quite short and lacking in the performance department, but that followed the new direction of Vince Russo's ‘shotgun booking’ format. Some of the highlights in this respect included Owen Hart picking up the pinfall victory during his 8-man tag match in the second hour, as well as a spot in the main-event between The New Age Outlaws and The Godwinns.

Billy Gunn used a stuffed toy pig that was loaded with an actual BRICK! As bad as this match was, it was still pretty funny and quite creative. It was also a true WTF moment, seeing a fully grown man sell a shot with what initially looked like a teddy bear.

This entire show was predicated on whether we had witnessed an actual murder at The Royal Rumble as it related to The Undertaker being brutalised with an axe before being set on fire, as well as the Mike Tyson appearance. And yes, I fully realise that one of those things is NOT like the other! Ultimately, both of these aspects were fine and hit their marks respectively, but the stuff around it was still pretty bad. 

Anyway, all in all, a pretty average show that was saved by one moment at the end and some passable stuff in the middle. But what a moment it was! The Tyson segment alone forces me to bump this up to an average rating of 2.5 stars. On to Nitro…*while I unscrew a very large bottle of Jack Daniels*

WCW Nitro 19/1/98 (2.75 Stars)

Match 1- Rick Martel def Eddie Guerrero 

Segment- WCW Thunder recap. Hogan is seen attacking DDP before a scheduled tag match, leaving Lex Luger to face Savage and Nash alone! Nash and Savage argue amongst themselves the entire time, nearly costing them. Hogan had seen enough, and squares up to Randy Savage, before The Giant comes down and chokeslams 'Hollywood’ Hogan, prompting a mass brawl between WCW and The nWo.

Segment- ‘Hollywood’ Hogan and Eric Bischoff in-ring promo. Bischoff gives Hogan a black baseball bat, to signify his ongoing control over The nWo. Hogan says that he won't hesitate to use it on any dissident members of the nWo, before hyping up his main-event match against The Giant.

Match 2- Chris Beniot def Marty Jannetty 

Match 3- The Cat def Jerry Flynn

Segment- Scott Hall in-ring ‘survey says’ promo, before calling out Larry Zybysko. Hall says that he is fully focused on his World Title match at WCW SuperBrawl in February, so gives Zbyszko the chance to back out of his match against him at Souled Out on Saturday!

Match 4- The Steiner Brothers def Buff Bagwell & Konnan 

Segment- Mean Gene interviews The Giant in-ring ahead of his PPV match against Kevin Nash. The nWo interrupt, as Nash and Hogan beat him up. Sting makes the save, hitting a Scorpion Death Drop on Hogan!

WCW TV Title 

Match 5- (c) Booker T def Mortis

Segment- Wrath attacks Booker T post-match, leading to Rick Martel making the save. Booker T promises Martel a title match at the PPV claiming that he is a ‘fighting champion’

Segment- Mean Gene in-ring interview with Ric Flair. Ric Flair hypes his ‘dream match’ against Bret Hart on Saturday at Souled Out. Bret Hart intervenes, and faces up to Ric Flair. Bret says that he respects Flair before putting him over, but still ensures his victory and says that he will ‘run right over’ Ric Flair. Flair responds by saying he doesn't want Bret to be able to say he's better than him, and dares Hart to say that he's the “best there is, was and ever will be” to his face one more time! Bret says he won't say it tonight, but those words will be ringing in his ears on Sunday morning! 

Match 6- Chris Jericho def Juventud Guerrera 

Segment- Chris Jericho apologises to Guerrera for not releasing a hold, claiming that he didn't hear the bell! When Juve fails to respond, Jericho jumps him, leading to Rey Mysterio making the save.

Match 7- Lex Luger def Scott Hall via DQ

Segment- Lex Luger gets jumped by ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage leading to the DQ. Hall and Savage form a 2 on 1 attack on Luger, leading to Larry Zybysko attempting the save. Zybsko is double teamed also, before Lex Luger chased them both away with a chair!

Match 8- The Giant def ‘Hollywood’ Hogan

Segment- Kevin Nash attacks fellow nWo member ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage for getting involved and costing Hogan the match! Lex Luger tries to get involved leading to the entirety of the nWo running down and attacking both Luger and The Giant. Sting descends from the rafters and clears the ring of the nWo! 

Analysis

We saw a 25 k live attendance from the Superdome in New Orleans, which was extremely impressive from a numbers standpoint, especially for a TV taping! This was also the go-home show for WCW Souled Out. The PPV was originally scheduled for Sunday night, but was moved to a Saturday so it wouldn't clash with the Super Bowl. I genuinely wonder what kind of numbers they would have gotten if they directly competed with the biggest sports event in America?

Matches 1 & 2

Eddie Guerrero opened Nitro, as he shockingly lost to Rick Martel in singles action via submission! This was instantly better than ANYTHING that Raw produced in terms of an actual wrestling match, and the show had only been on for 5 minutes! It wasn't an all time classic obviously, as it was only a sub 5 minute match, but Eddie Guerrero made it work and even if his best years were behind him, Rick Martel still looked passable. The story here was that Rick Martel challenged Booker T to a match for his TV Title. Booker T accepted for some reason (the announcers botched this stating it prematurely, as it would only be officially confirmed later the same night by Booker T himself) Anyway, that's a match we would see at the upcoming Souled Out PPV. I obviously haven't been keeping a keen eye on Martel's win/loss column, but this win over Eddie gave him some legitimately headed into the PPV at least.

We also got a MUCH NEEDED recap from WCW Thunder. Seeing as I don't watch it, and major angles still continued on that show, it was nice that we were still kept in the loop. After seeing the recap all I can say is…THANK GOD I didn't watch the Thursday night edition, because what we did see was an absolute mess! Typical nWo infighting between Hogan, Nash and Savage. If you want to read about what actually happened, I've outlined it all in the results section. But it was HUGELY overbooked. We then saw a live ‘Hollywood’ Hogan in-ring promo before the second match of the night. Bischoff gives Hogan a baseball bat to signify his ongoing control over the nWo, before Hogan hyped his main-event match against The Giant.

Chris Beniot submitted Marty Jannetty ahead of his upcoming match with Raven at WCW/nWo Souled Out. Again this was too short for an in depth review, but it still did a good job of showcasing Chris Beniot without making Jannetty look like a total schmuck. Post-match, The Flock unsuccessfully tried to jump Beniot, who with the help of Marty Jannetty, managed to fight off the secondary members of the cult-like faction, as Raven could only watch on!

A weakish first hour, but the matches were much more entertaining than what was showcased on Raw, so that has to account for something. Hell, even Jerry Flynn looked better than every member of D.O.A combined! Jerry Flynn Vs Steve Austin at Mania XIV? Book it Vince!

Second Hour

Hour number two opened with Mean Gene conducting an in-ring interview with The Giant. Ric Flair must have been SO PISSED that Gene was cheating on him and speaking to other wrestlers! Gene says The Giant has put ANOTHER 1.5 million dollar bounty to ensure his PPV match with Kevin Nash goes ahead, before he's interrupted by the nWo. I'm almost positive that The Giant had pulled a similar stunt before, was this man made of money? ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage tried to instigate things, leading to Hogan telling him to leave the ring. Savage shoved Nash into The Giant anyway, leading to a 2 one 1 assault on the seven footer. Sting runs down to make the save. As a segment, this was actually MUCH better than what was showcased midweek on Thunder. Mainly because it was a standalone moment, so it was much easier to follow rather than adding the unneeded chaos of an actual WRESTLING MATCH in the middle of it all!

Match 5

Booker T successfully defended his TV Title against Mortis. However, that's not what I want to tell you about (even though it was actually a pretty fun match) Because it was during this segment that I heard the HARROWING announcement that Nitro would be moving to 3 hours! This will not only be exceptionally difficult to review, but potentially difficult to watch in general! I will be fair and unbiased as always, and hopefully they would use the 3 hour format to actually slow down the pace and give more time to the segments and matches, allowing them space to breathe, rather than trying to cram in more unneeded moments at a breakneck speed. We will find out during my next Nitro review. So stay tuned for that one I guess…

Match 6

The number one contender for the Cruiserweight Championship, Chris Jericho, had a tune up match ahead of his upcoming PPV bout against the champion, Rey Mysterio. Jericho successfully submitted Juventud Guerrera in what was a decent enough lucha match, albeit one that ultimately proved to be nothing more than a quick showcase match for Jericho.

Chris Jericho is what I'd call a pro-wrestling chameleon. He could do almost whatever he wanted, and did it all extremely well! Whether that was wrestling a slower more technical based match, or work a quicker paced ‘lucha’ style as what was on display here. When it came to character work, he could do comedy or be the slimy, evil heel! (Something he'd only continue to master even more as his career progressed)

They played up the ‘respect’ factor all match, with constant hand shaking, sitting down on the ropes to allow their opponent back in etc. You just knew that all of this would all lead to the dastardly Jericho kicking the ever-loving shit out of Juvy post-match, and on that front we weren't disappointed. Rey Mysterio was forced to make the save, as he and Juve double teamed Jericho.

A clever way to book this match, and add some extra spice into Jericho's encounter with Mysterio at Souled Out.

Main-event 

Main-event time. As a small note, I really enjoyed Michael Buffer's ‘special announcements’ WCW typically reserved for main-events, or matches that generally featured Hogan. It added so much more to the ‘big match’ feel, and I'm honestly shocked that no company has attempted to replicate it since. You could argue that the WWE tried it with Samantha Irvin’s in-ring stuff for Cody and Roman, but typically she announced other matches on the same night and wasn't exclusively reserved for the last match. Anyway, Hogan/Giant in the main-event. Here's what went down…

Hogan came to the ring sporting a neck brace, leading to Bischoff stating that The Giant prematurely injured Hogan earlier that night, so he wouldn't be able to compete. The Giant suplexed Hogan into the ring anyway as the bell rang. So much for safety in the workplace. Hogan should start a union!

The Giant pinned Hogan clean, yes I know, I'm just as shocked as you are. Full notes can be found in the results section, but Savage tried to get involved, giving The Giant time to get back to his feet, and hit the chokeslam for the 1-2-3! We see a mass nWo run in with Sting clearing the ring as Nitro goes off the air!

As a match this was as pretty much what you'd expect. Neither man was a master technician, but they still managed to tell a story and sold us on what they were trying to sell. That being Hogan was still a chickenshit heel who was constantly ducking everyone and The Giant was, well, a giant, meaning that he could beat pretty much anyone in a fair fight.

However, I was starting to question how believable Hogan really was at this stage? The man was 45 years old, much slower and had a less defined body type. That being said, he was still Hogan and had an undefinable aura about him, even if that aura was slowly fading. Yet you still FELT as if he was a big deal, and regardless of what I or anyone else may think of him, even in the later stages of his career, he was a pretty big draw, and did some of his best work against these indomitable monsters, like The Giant.

Summary

A middle of the road edition for WCW. It did a GREAT job on selling me nearly every Souled Out match (minus that which had any involvement of the nWo). However I must recognise how exceptionally over they were, so maybe that was just a ‘me problem’.

I also LOVED the old school ‘who's the better wrestler’ promo between Ric Flair and Bret Hart. This worked for a couple of reasons, but mainly because they both had MASSIVE reputations, they had only faced each other twice before and that was 6 years ago to this point. Perhaps most important of all, it worked because they kept it simple and believable. AEW can claim ‘dream-matches’ every other week, but in reality only a handful truly exist. And like it or not, at the time this was one of them. Hell, it should have been the main-event for WrestleMania IX had Flair stayed with the company!

I'm tempted to score this one as a tie due to the Tyson/Austin segment on Raw, but that lasted all of 3 minutes and without it, the show was pretty bare-bones. Nitro had solid in-ring action for the most part, even if nothing blew you away. The show was also balanced much better as a result, leading to them winning this week. Point Nitro! Stay tuned for my upcoming review on WCW/nWo Souled Out, available shortly…