10 Years Ago This Week…. In the Wrestling Observer Newsletter
(June 23rd – 29th, 1998) #106
Dated: July 6th, 1998
By Stephen Lyon.
The Sneak Peek: Mick Foley’s career match occurs: takes big bumps off and through the ‘Hell in a Cell’ cage versus the Undertaker ……Full WWF King of the Ring ppv coverage (gets 97% thumbs up from Observer readers in post show poll)….. Two WWF world title changes take place…… Raw draws massive ratings and annihilates Nitro….. A terrible Nitro features the disastrous, shortlived ‘Eric Bischoff chatshow’ (‘Tonight Show’ spoof), complete with purpose-built $70,000 set….. Raw features Steven Regal’s in-ring debut, the start of the Brawl-For-All shoot tournament, and Paul Ellering returning, as DOA’s manager….. Interesting readers letters…... Plus much more.
The Big News: This issue opened with a look at Mick Foley’s famous match with Undertaker at the King of the Ring ppv this past weekend. Dave Meltzer debated whether or not Foley taking so much punishment for the sake of his art was really worth it, and also debated whether setting such an example was good for the future of the wrestling industry as a whole. Meltzer wrote, ‘….As long as I live, I can say with certainty that I will never forget the performance (of Foley), and there isn’t a lot about wrestling that I’d make that statement about….. Mick Foley will be linked with the Hell in a Cell more than Shawn Michaels will ever be linked with the ladder match, just as Bret Hart will never escape the link of (the Montreal screwjob)…. No matter what he does for the rest of his career…. But I’m sad and afraid for someone, I don’t know who…. Who in five or fifteen years time will try to live out their dream etched in their memory and not wind up as lucky a man as Mick Foley…’.
WWF held the King of the Ring ppv on June 28th, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before a sellout crowd of 17,087 fans paying $538,660, and a further $148,569 in merchandise sales. The show was very well-received in a post show Wrestling Observer readers’ poll, garnering a whopping 97.0% thumbs up, 1.8% thumbs down, and 1.2% thumbs in the middle. That verdict was almost entirely down to the last three matches on the card, as there were some absolute stinkers earlier in the show….. Show opened with the Head Bangers & Taka Michinoku defeating Dick Togo & Mens Teioh & Shoichi Funaki in 6:41 of a **1/4 match. It was a solid, fast paced opener, ending when Michinoku pinned Funaki after a Michinoku driver…… Sable came out and introduced Vince McMahon, Gerald Brisco and Pat Patterson. As Sable was leaving, Patterson patted Sable on the ass, and Sable slapped him. J.R. remarked that Patterson was putting his hands in places he’d never been before. Vince did an interview and it went too long, with the gist being that Kane was going to win the title. Boxer Michael Moorer was in the front row (never identified), wearing an Austin 3:16 t-shirt, but cheering on McMahon……
In the first King of the Ring semi final match, Ken Shamrock beat Jeff Jarrett in 5:29 of a * match. There was nothing wrong with the match, the crowd just weren’t into it at all. Shamrock won with the ankle lock…..In the second King of the Ring semi final match, The Rock pinned Dan Severn in 4:25 of an awful -*1/2 match. Severn was totally out of his depth here, unable to sell properly in a worked match. Finish came when D-Lo Brown splashed Severn from the top rope and Rock pinned him….. In another awful match, Too Much (Brian Christopher & Scott Taylor) defeated Al Snow & Head in 8:27 of a -** match . Jerry Lawler played heel referee, favouring Too Much. The stipulations were that if Snow lost, he’d have to leave WWF forever. Finish was incredibly dumb, which saw Christopher pull out a bottle of ‘Head & Shoulders’ shampoo, place ‘Head’ on the bottle, and then pinned Head as Lawler counted, with the bottle representing the Head’s shoulders. L-A-M-E. Even J.R. on commentary admitted this was an embarrassment……
X-Pac pinned Owen Hart in 8:30 of a **1/4 match. This match had no heat, but the wrestling was good. The crowd didn’t take to X-Pac as a face. Mark Henry came out and splashed X-Pac. Hart placed X-Pac in the sharpshooter, but Vader came out and brawled with Henry. Whilst this was going on, Chyna gave Hart a DDT, and X-Pac pinned Hart…… WWF Tag Team Champions, the New Age Outlaws defeated the New Midnight Express in 9:54 of a *1/2 match. No heat. Biggest pop came when Billy told Bart to ‘suck it’. Later on, Bob Holly went one step further and told Billy to not only ‘suck it’ but ‘f*** you’, which I’m guessing was unplanned. Finish came when Jim Cornette hit Billy Gunn with one of the NWA world tag team title belts, but Gunn no-sold the shot, and Chyna gave Cornette a low blow. Outlaws pinned Holly after giving him a double shot……. In the King of the Ring tournament final, Ken Shamrock beat The Rock in 14:09 to win the tournament, in a ***1/4 match. HHH provided color commentary on the match, to keep his feud with Rock going. This was a good match. Both traded nearly falls on each other before Shamrock won with the ankle lock……
In the match that everyone remembers, The Undertaker pinned Mankind in 16:00 of a Hell in a Cell cage match, that was rated at ****1/2. The match started with both guys on top of the cage, brawling. They exchanged chairshots, until Mankind took his first major bump, off the cage and through the announcers table at ringside. They sold that he was really hurt at first and stopped the match, and had EMTs come rushing out, along with Terry Funk, various WWF officials and even Vince McMahon himself, to sell the seriousness of the situation. They raised the cage (with Undertaker still stood on top of it) to allow the stretcher to get past. As the stretcher was half way down the aisle. Mankind (now with his mask removed) jumped off the stretcher and climbed the cage again. This time he brawled with Undertaker, before being thrown through the trapdoor on the cage and into the ring below, bashing his head on a chair on the way down (dislocated his jaw and dislodging three teeth – one of which somehow ended up in his nostril). Terry Funk came into the ring to check on Mankind, as Undertaker dropped down into the ring. J.R. was screaming ‘Will somebody stop the damn match?!’ as all this was going on. Funk took his cap off and began browbeating Undertaker, who chokeslammed Funk out of his training shoes. Mankind, amazingly, came back and pummelled Undertaker, with Taker juicing after a bump into the side of the cage. Mankind piledrove Taker on to a chair, and also gave him a DDT too, before he pulled out a bag of thumb tacks which he spread on the ring mat. Taker revived and chokeslammed Mankind on to the tacks, before also tombstoning Mankind on to the tacks too for the pinfall win……….
In the main event, Kane defeated Stone Cold Steve Austin in 14:52 of a ‘First Blood’ match, to win the WWF title. Match was rated at ***1/4. Austin did a great job despite him being way below 100%, after he’d spent several days in the hospital with a staph infection. They did a gimmick where, when Austin was in trouble in the match, the cage would start to come down, but when Austin would take control, the cage would rise, with the idea that McMahon was trying to screw Austin. Austin actually bled earlier on, from a small cut on the back, but they explained that Earl Hebner was instructed to only stop the match for ‘copious amounts of blood’. After a ref bump, Kane took control, Mankind came out and the cage was lowered. Austin hit the stunner on both Mankind and Kane, but then Undertaker showed up. Taker and Mankind exchanged duelling chairshots, but Mankind ducked, and Taker laid out Austin with a chair shot, busting him wide open. Undertaker grabbed what was purported to be gasoline from ringside (there for Kane to set himself on fire if he lost the match) and poured it on Hebner to revive him. Austin was bleeding a river and Hebner saw it and rang the bell, awarding the match and the title to Kane. Austin laid Kane out with a chair. The closing shot of the show was McMahon sat with Sable in the luxury box, and the graphic under McMahon read ‘Kane – New WWF Champion’, signifying McMahon had planned it all from the start……..
In other news, K-1 announced a live special on ESPN on July 23rd, and an upcoming ppv show on August 7th. They had hopes to replace the beleaguered UFC as the new fighting sport. Boxing legend Marvin Hagler was going to be part of the broadcast team, and Michael Buffer was being brought in to handle the ring announcing duties…...
MONDAY NIGHT RATINGS: WWF Raw Is War on June 29th totally annihilated WCW Monday Nitro in the ratings this week, drawing their third highest rating in the history of the show, and the highest rating ever for an opposed show. Raw drew a 5.36 rating, based on hours of 5.17 and 5.56. WCW Monday Nitro live drew a 4.05 rating, based on hours of 4.42, 3.95 and 3.78. Nitro actually drew a better first hour rating than last week and a similar second hour rating, but the third hour rating was down by a 0.5. Many Nitro fans switched to Raw, as Nitro’s rating dropped from a 4.9 to a 3.6 when Raw started. The Nitro replay drew a 1.3 rating, for a show that aired from 1am to 4am early Tuesday morning. Raw did a 6.9 rating for the three minute overrun after Nitro had gone off the air, which was an all-time record, as was the all-time combined share for the two shows, which was a 15.1 over the head-to-head two hours……
WWF attempted a new concept on Raw by beginning the ‘Brawl for All’ shoot match tournament. The tournament featured undercard guys who were going nowhere, who were paid extra to participate, with the hope that a good showing for somebody might help them to get more over with the fans. The rules were that every takedown would be worth five points, a knockdown worth ten points, a knockout would end the match, no wrestling holds were legal, and the wrestlers all wore 20 ounce gloves, and fought in three one minute rounds. Both fights on this show, Marc Mero vs Steve Blackman and Bradshaw vs Mark Canterbury, didn’t get over, and the crowd chanted ‘We Want Wrestling’ at various points. Ratings wise, both matches held up well. The legendary Danny Hodge was the guest referee for both fights. More on this in the Raw tv review below…….
READERS LETTERS: Two great letters this week. Here they both are, reprinted in full:
“I think you need to leave out your personal comments when reporting wrestling news. Like myself, I believe people get the Observer for the information, not your personal opinions. Comments about Tony Schiavone’s weight were way out of line.
James Mitchell,
Beckley, West Virginia.”
“I don’t know if you get Shotgun Saturday Night in your market, but it’s become a Meltzer fest. A few weeks ago, Jim Ross and Jim Cornette made a dated reference to the tv show, ‘Bonanza’ and Cornette said, ‘Footnote that Dave’. This week, Ross said that the King of the Ring ppv ‘won’t be a thumbs down’ and Cornette responded, ‘Well, the margin of error on those things is plus or minus 100%’.
Brian Smith,
New Haven, Conneticut.”
HERE AND THERE: In Memphis Power Pro-Wrestling, they were doing an angle where Jerry Lawler had quit the promotion, following disagreements with owner Randy Hales. This was a worked angle as a take-off on the McMahon-Austin angle. It was pushed hard on the June 27th tv show that Lawler had ‘quit’ over disagreements with Hales, and over him being disappointed that he hadn’t beaten Kane clean on the recent supershow. Bill Dundee did an interview saying that he thought Lawler had done a great job in the match with Kane, and he shouldn’t have quit over his performance. Hales said that they were going to crown a new ‘King of Memphis’ in a tournament during a live tv special on July 4thth, doing an angle on a Dennis Coraluzzo show in Mount Holly, New Jersey. Colaruzzo was doing a promo when he was attacked by five masked men. Four of them unmasked, revealing Stevie Richards, 911 and the Pit Bulls. The fifth was Gordon, and although he didn’t unmask, they made it clear it was him. The five were chased from the ring by other wrestlers on the card. Gordon and Coraluzzo had been bitter rivals for years and it was a surprise to see him return on a Coraluzzo show……. at 7pm, live from a major outdoors fireworks festival in Memphis…… Tod Gordon returned to wrestling on June 27
ECW: The June 27th ECW Arena show drew 1,250 fans, for what was described as one of the best shows of the year. Highlights from the show saw Masato Tanaka debut, pinning Balls Mahoney after some brutal chair shots. Shane Douglas was introduced as Joey Styles’ new color commentator. Taz went to a 20 minute time limit draw with Bam Bam Bigelow, in a really good brawl. The Dudleys beat Tommy Dreamer, The Sandman & Atsushi Onita (who was making his ECW debut). Onita got a big pop coming out, but turned heel during the match, costing his team the match. He accidently hit Sandman with a barbed wire board, but then gave Dreamer a DDT. The main event of the show saw Sabu & Rob Van Dam win the ECW Tag Team titles, defeating Chris Candido & Lance Storm in a good match……. Ticket sales were going well for the August 2nd ppv in Dayton, with 2,000 tickets sold already.
WCW: Thunder live on June 24th was from Orlando, Florida, and drew a sellout crowd of 13,874 fans, paying $176,986. It was the lowest rated Thunder ever. Meltzer commented that since Dusty Rhodes started booking again, it appeared that someone was deliberately trying to sabotage the company. Show opened with Giant issuing a challenge to Sting…… Public Enemy defeated Raven & Sick Boy in 4:57, when Perry Saturn came out and did a plancha on Raven, putting him through two tables at ringside…… Hugh Morrus pinned Eddie Guerrero in 5:03, due to distraction from Chavo….. Sting & Konnan came out for an interview, with Sting saying that Kevin Nash wasn’t in the building, but that he’d defend the tag titles against the Giant later on, with Lex Luger subbing for the absent Nash as his tag team partner….. In a vignette, Chris Benoit asked Arn Anderson to bring back the Horsemen. It appeared that WCW were going to try to bring back the Horsemen without Ric Flair…….. Stevie Ray pinned Sumo Fuji in 2:30, with the slapjack…..
WCW Cruiserweight Champion, Chris Jericho defeated Ultimo Dragon via D.Q. in 9:11. The announcing for this match was hideous. Dragon had the match won, but Dean Malenko came out and attacked Jericho, who had insulted Dean’s late father earlier in the match. Dave Meltzer wrote, ‘Really, they need to drop this Thursday show, because everybody in the company is so overworked that they are killing a promotion that just three months ago was on fire and is still doing excellent business, but it won’t be for much longer the way things are going….’…… Eric Bischoff and Scott Steiner came out for a long promo…… Hacksaw Jim Duggan pinned The Barbarian in 3:58 after a kneedrop…… Steve McMichael & Chris Benoit defeated Disco Inferno & Alex Wright in 13:06, when Benoit made Disco submit in the crossface…… The Giant & Brian Adams went to a no contest with WCW World Tag Team Champions, Sting & Lex Luger (subbing for Kevin Nash) in 4:22, when the entire NWO Hollywood faction ran in for 1,253,284th time and beat down Sting and Luger to end the show……..
WCW Monday Nitro live on June 29th was from Tampa, Florida, and drew 10,900 fans paying $199,431. It was a terrible show. It opened with Kevin Greene doing an interview, apparently unaware of who Curt Hennig was. At this point, the ship had sailed on Greene’s value as a marquee player in wrestling..... Chris Kanyon beat Horace in 4:07 with the flatliner. Amazingly, this was a good match, with Kanyon debuting all sorts of cool moves. Raven ran in and laid Kanyon out with a DDT afterwards….. The NWO Hollywood jobber crew were outside the building, holding crowbars and waiting for DDP and Karl Malone to arrive….. Little Dragon pinned Eddie Guerrero in 4:23. Dragon was a protégé of Ultimo Dragon. He was green, but had amazing ability. Eddie had him beat, but Chavo distracted Eddie with Pepe the hobby horse, and Dragon rolled up Eddie for the win. Afterwards, Eddie attacked Dragon with the hobby horse stick. Meltzer described this whole angle as ‘totally stupid’……
The Giant squashed Sumo Fuji & Judo Sawa in 49 seconds, chokeslamming both of them…... Curt Hennig & Rick Rude & Giant challenged Kevin Greene, who came out accompanied by Bill Goldberg, and everyone ran away…. WCW World Tag Team Champions, Sting & Lex Luger (subbing for the absent Kevin Nash) defeated Davey Boy Smith & Jim Neidhart in 8:05 of a horrible match…….. Perry Saturn defeated Reese with a death valley driver in 2:29. Described as ‘worse than you’d think’. The rest of the Flock laid out Saturn after the match…… Vampiro Canadiense made his WCW tv debut, pinning Brad Armstrong in 2:26 with the ‘nail in the coffin’ Michinoku driver……Alex Wright & Disco Inferno defeated Tokyo Magnum & Shiima Nobunaga in 4:29, when Wright pinned Nobunaga after a neckbreaker……. Ultimo Dragon defeated Dean Malenko via count out in 4:35, when Jericho came out and asked Malenko ‘Is this the city your father is buried in?’, which caused Malenko to chase Jericho to the back and be counted out…. Chris Benoit & Steve McMichael defeated Harlem Heat in 4:59, when Booker T was pinned after Bret Hart came out and hit him with a chair……
Next up came the disastrous first episode of ‘NWO Late Night’, a chat show segment hosted by Eric Bischoff, with a $70,000 purpose built chat show set situated in the arena. In a total snoozefest, Bischoff interviewed Scott Steiner. Dave Meltzer wrote, ‘In the all time list of bad ideas in wrestling, this is going to wind up very high on the charts’. It got absolute killed in the ratings…… Booker T challenged Bret Hart to a match at the Bash ppv, and Hart accepted…… In the main event, WCW U.S. Champion, Bill Goldberg pinned Glacier in 2:16. Hilariously, Michael Buffer was brought in to ring announce this marquee match up. Typical Goldberg squash. Show ended with DDP and Karl Malone arriving in an 18-wheeler. The NWO Hollywood jobbers who had been waiting outside the building for them for most of the show just ran away. It ended up with Page & Malone confronting Hogan & Bischoff in the ring, with DDP throwing Bischoff out of the ring, and Malone giving Hogan a bodyslam and two clotheslines. Page and Malone then did an interview to good reaction to close the show..….
In other news, the behind the scenes tension was really starting to build. There were big political problems brewing between Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash. Nash was absent from both this past week’s Thunder and Nitro show. Scott Hall was at the Nitro show, but walked out of the building mid-way through the show, after reportedly being asked to do a job to someone. Konnan was also absent from Nitro, and was said to have heat on him because of it.….. It appeared that the NWO Hotline was being dropped due to a lack of interest…… After wrestling each other on last week’s Nitro, Bret Hart and Chris Benoit wanted to work a program together……. This year’s Road Wild ppv was set to feature a 30 minute concert by country music singer, Travis Tritt…… It was revealed that Karl Malone would be getting paid ‘significantly less’ than the $750,000 getting paid to Dennis Rodman, for them both to wrestle at the Bash ppv…… PPV business experts were expecting the WCW Bash at the Beach ppv show with Rodman & Malone to do comparable business with Wrestlemania 14….. Time Warner officials were doing a major internal audit of WCW as a company, this past week…… The syndicated shows, WCW Worldwide and WCW Pro, were slated to become magazine-style recap shows from this point forward, as the final Universal Studios tapings took place over the past week.
WWF: Raw Is War live on June 29th was from Cleveland, Ohio, and drew a sellout crowd of 16,505 fans, paying $266,124. It was a terrific show with a very hot crowd. Show opened with Mr McMahon, Gerald Brisco and Sgt Slaughter (subbing for Pat Patterson, who was absent due to his long time friend and former Titan Sports employee, Lou Dondero, passing away from a heart attack over the weekend) came out to present Kane with his newly won WWF title belt. Stone Cold Steve Austin came out and demanded a rematch with Kane, claiming that Kane was ‘given the title’ through the help of his big brother and that he hadn’t really beaten him. Kane agreed to give Austin a rematch, much to the chagrin of the on-looking McMahon and Paul Bearer…… Steven Regal made his WWF in-ring debut, beating Darren Drosdov with the Regal Stretch in 4:41. Regal came across as totally bland, and this was before they gave him the infamous ‘Man’s Man’ gimmick that he’d have a few weeks later. Regal didn’t get over, and the match was a backdrop for Sable to provide color commentary and say nothing……
New King of the Ring, Ken Shamrock came out to do an interview. It wound up with both Owen Hart and HHH challenging him to a triple threat match……. In the first of the ‘Brawl For All’ shoot matches, Steve Blackman beat Marc Mero. Blackman continually took Mero down and won easily on points….. Val Venis beat Dick Togo in 3:03 in a good match. Mrs Yamaguchi-san was in the corner of Togo and Venis spent the whole match coming on to her. At the end of the match, Wally Yamaguchi-san ran out and slapped Venis across the face, so Venis threw him down. When the rest of Kaientai tried to make the save, he clocked them all with chair shots. Whilst all this was going on, Dustin Runnels was on color commentary, doing his new religious gimmick schtick and asking everyone if they would accept Jesus Christ into their hearts……. Edge was shown hanging around the rafters the entire show, basically doing a Sting impersonation…… In a triple threat match. Ken Shamrock beat Owen Hart and HHH in 12:49, when The Rock ran in and hit HHH with the I.C. title belt, allowing Shamrock to pin him……. Undertaker came out for an interview and said that he’d helped Kane win the WWF title the previous night because he didn’t want to see him set himself on fire and kill himself. Mr McMahon came out and said that the reason Undertaker did what he did was because he knew he could beat Kane for the title, and that he also knew that he couldn’t beat Austin. McMahon then ordered Undertaker not to interfere in the show’s main event……. In the second ‘Brawl For All’ shoot match of the night, Bradshaw beat Mark Canterbury (formerly Henry Godwinn). It was a close fight, and under the given rules, it really should have been a draw…….
LOD 2000 came out and introduced their new manager, Paul Ellering. Ellering came out, but Skull & Eight Ball ran in too, to attack LOD, and Ellering turned heel, becoming Skull & Eight Ball’s new manager instead….. Sunny had been removed from her spot as LOD’s manager due to her erratic behaviour and constant no-shows, and had been given an ultimatum – attend rehab or be fired…….. In the main event, Stone Cold Steve Austin regained the WWF title, defeating Kane in 8:28 with the stone cold stunner, after Austin had escaped from Kane’s tombstone piledriver attempt. Undertaker ran in, and Austin gave him a stunner too. Crowd went absolute nuts for Austin’s title win. The show went off the air as both Undertaker and Kane sat up suddenly, simultaneous…….
In notable dark matches from the show, several guys got tryouts, including Rhino Richards, who beat Breyer Wellington.
In other news, Basil DeVito had left the promotion to take up a job in the horse racing industry…… Phil LaFon was officially released this past week…… Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots NFL team, was scheduled to be the guest referee for the Stone Cold Steve Austin vs Mr McMahon arm-wrestling match that was set to be a feature match at the ‘WWF Footbrawl’ outdoor show at the Foxboro Stadium in Boston on August 8th. The show ended up being cancelled due to poor ticket sales……. In an internet interview, Dan Severn took several shots at Ken Shamrock, alluding that Shamrock took steroids to improve his physique, and basically said he was still doing so……
On the weekend tv, WWF Shotgun Saturday Night on July 4th (taped on June 29th at the Raw taping) saw Mens Teioh & Dick Togo beat Papi Chulo & Scott Casey…. Faarooq beat Lou Marconi….. X-Pac beat Jesus Castillo… In the main event, Terry Funk & Dustin Runnels defeated WWF Tag Team Champions, New Age Outlaws, via D.Q.
TV Ratings for the week:
WWF Raw Is War live did a 5.36 rating (5.17 first hour, 5.56 second hour) (USA, 9pm to 11pm).
WCW Monday Nitro live did a 4.05 rating (4.42 first hour, 3.95 second hour, 3.78 third hour) (TNT, 8pm to 11pm).
WCW Saturday Night did a 1.9 rating (TBS, 6pm to 8pm).
WCW Thunder did a 2.65 rating on Wednesday, June 24th on TBS, 8pm to 10pm.
WWF Superstars did a 1.9 (Sundays on USA, 11am to 12noon).
WWF Live Wire did a 1.5 (Saturdays on USA, 10am to 11am).
Upcoming Ten Years Ago Issues:
- Bill Goldberg wins the WCW World title, in front of more than 41,000 fans at the famous Nitro event at the Georgia Dome, beating Raw in the head-to-head ratings for the first time in five weeks; WWF’s Brawl-For-All shootfights on Raw are much talked about; On Raw, DX spoof the Nation in a hilarious skit. Plus much more. (issue dated July 13th, 1998).
- WCW pays Dennis Rodman $750,000 to fall asleep during a tag team match live on ppv – Full WCW Bash at the Beach ppv coverage, featuring Hogan & Rodman vs DDP & Karl Malone; WWF cancels a Boston outdoor stadium show due to a poor advance; More WWF Brawl-For-All craziness, including a suspicious looking Bart Gunn vs Bob Holly shootfight; On Nitro, the first week of Goldberg’s world title reign features the show being built around Hulk Hogan, plus Bret Hart vs Fit Finlay, Chavo Guerrero Jr debuting Pepe the hobby horse, and Hogan vs Scott Hall and Goldberg vs Curt Hennig; Raw features the return and debut of Shawn Michaels as a new color commentator with J.R. and Lawler (that was shortlived), Val Venis sleeps with Mr Yamaguchi-san’s wife, and Mankind & Kane win the tag team titles. Plus much more. (issue dated July 20th, 1998).
- WCW books Jay Leno to main event the Road Wild ppv in August; Akira Maeda retires (career retrospective article); Stone Cold Steve Austin powered WWF Raw to huge ratings win; The Rock & Giant Silva wrestled in Memphis; Jake Roberts was jailed; Riot takes place at an ECW show in Staten Island; WCW Nitro features Scott Hall & The Giant winning the tag team titles, and Bret Hart vs DDP; WWF Raw features D-Lo Brown beating HHH to win the European title, Steve Williams destroys Pierre Oulette in a Brawl-For-All fight, and Rock vs X-Pac. Plus much more. (issue dated July 27th, 1998).
- Fears grow about how the WCW Road Wild ppv will turn out, with Jay Leno booked for the main event; WWF Fully Loaded ppv coverage, featuring Owen Hart vs Ken Shamrock in Stu Hart’s famed Dungeon, Rock wrestling HHH to a 30 minute draw, and Stone Cold Steve Austin & Undertaker winning the tag team titles; Nitro was terrible again; Raw featured Bart Gunn knocking out Steve Williams in a ‘Brawl For All’ fight, Hawk debuting his new alcoholic gimmick, and Austin & Undertaker vs the New Age Outlaws. Plus much more. (issue dated August 3rd, 1998).
Closing thoughts:
I hope you enjoyed this week’s column. As always your questions, comments and thoughts are always welcomed, and you can contact me at
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.
Until next week, have a good week. Viva la merger~!
Stephen Lyon,
St Helens, England, U.K.
{plug}
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