Dark Pegasus Video Review: In Your House 22 – Over the Edge ’98

IYH 22: Over the Edge ’98 by J.D. Dunn The cool video package of the month paints Vince McMahon as some sort of 1984-ish overlord and Austin as his rebel antagonist. This was right around the time that Vince went from self-important douchebag to over-the-top cartoon character villain. May 31, 1998 Live from Milwaukee, Wis. Your hosts are Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler. Opening Match: LOD 2000 (w/Sunny & Darren Drozdov) vs. DOA (w/Chainz). I probably didn’t have to tell you that this is a straight-up power match. They work in the spot where Hawk no-sells a piledriver, but in this case, the piledriver was so bad that it deserved to be no-sold. Finally, Hawk misses a flying clothesline and spills to the floor where Chainz gives him a cheapshot clothesline. Ross chides the dirtsheets for saying LOD has “lost a step,” which is a bit hypocritical given his tendency to criticize WCW’s fossilized main events. The camera focuses on Sunny a lot. No complaints here. Hawk is your face-in-peril until Skull misses an elbowdrop. DOA tries a switcheroo, and it appears Droz misses his cue because 8-Ball has to wander around until he gets on the apron. Then, after Droz is up, 8-Ball turns his back on Droz so Droz can interfere. Animal finishes 8-Ball with a powerslam at 9:56. Not very good, but the two teams would continue to duel throughout the summer until the “drug pusher” angle started. * The Rock comes out to run down Milwaukee women as only the Rock can. Faarooq runs down and piledrives Rock on a chair (in theory). They stretcher the Rock out and all but announce that the IC Title match set for tonight is cancelled. Steve Austin says he doesn’t care about stacked odds. Jeff Jarrett (w/Tennessee Lee) vs. Steve Blackman. Blackman jumped the rail one week as one of Ken Shamrock’s friends. Up to this point, the only blemishes on his record were because of Jarrett. Al Snow joins the Spanish Announce team and gets dragged away by security. This is a contrast of styles if ever there was one. Blackman is a martial arts expert while Jarrett is old-school Memphis all the way. A Blackman splash finds Jarrett’s knees, but Blackman comes back with a series of kicks and knocks Jarrett out with a Bicycle Kick. Tennessee Lee hops on the apron to distract him, but it backfires. Blackman gets a rollup for two. Jarrett grabs one of Blackman’s sticks, but that also backfires. Finally, Tennessee Lee grabs the other stick and wallops Blackman while he’s going up, giving Jarrett the win at 10:19. Not bad, but nothing really stood out. ** Marc Mero vs. Sable’s Mystery Man. Mero got sick of his woman upstaging him, so he wants to get rid of her here. If he can beat her man, Sable is gone from the WWF forever. Sable comes out in wrestling gear and says she can fight her own battles, which just has “bad idea” written all over it. When Mero hears how adamant she is, he offers to lay down…then, he double-crosses her and rolls her up for the win at 0:29. Mero’s in-your-face celebration is hilarious. Sable would be rehired by Vince McMahon, rendering the whole thing pointless. That problem would become a theme throughout the show. 1/4* Sable delivers a tearful goodbye speech. Elsewhere, the Nation thinks Rock may be paralyzed. Bonus Match, Handicap Tag: TAKA Michinoku & Bradshaw vs. Kaientai (w/Yamaguchi-San). Bradshaw and Taka is one of your goofier pairings. The Kaientai guys are all from Michinoku Pro (as is Taka). The idea is that they are an Akira-esque street gang. JR actually recounts the history of Kaientai, but King interrupts him to talk about Sable. This match is not bad, but nearly on the level of some of their multi-man tags back in MPro. The idea is, Kaientai is deathly afraid of Bradshaw and run away from him whenever he gets in. Taka and Bradshaw control until Taka hits Funaki with a moonsault block off the top but he also bangs his chest on the railing. KDX works in all of their usual spots, but Taka comes back with spinning kicks and tags in Bradshaw. Bradshaw kills KDX dead with power moves, including a powerbomb and a TIGER SUPLEX!!! Holy crap. Why did that ever leave his repertoire? He makes the mistake of tagging Taka back in, and Taka gets hit with the Dick Togo Fatassed Senton at 9:55. Watching KDX was a lot more fun back then, but their doubleteams are so copied these days that they’ve lost a lot of their uniqueness. **1/2 Intercontinental Title: The Rock vs. Faarooq. The Rock doesn’t report, so Commissioner Slaughter comes out and tells Rocky to come out or lose his title. The Rock, wearing a neck brace, protests all the way down to the ring. Faarooq meets him in the aisle and tosses him in. Rock comes back and hits the People’s Elbow for two. Faarooq gets two off a headbutt, but Rocky comes back again with the DDT. Faarooq hits a spinebuster but botches the cover. He gets three, but Rock’s foot was on the ropes. The crowd doesn’t buy any of it anyway. Faarooq moves in again, but Rock scoops him up and gets the Flair Pin at 5:09. Faarooq tries to finish the cripple job he started with a pair of piledrivers, but the Nation runs out and lays the boots to Faarooq. DX makes the save, getting the biggest pop of the match. *1/2 Mask vs. Mask: Kane (w/Paul Bearer) vs. Vader. Earl Hebner is making his return as a referee after a few months off. Vader’s pretty over here, and gets a big pop for knocking Kane down with an avalanche. Kane comes back with a slam as they speculate what he looks like under the mask. Vader heads to the floor and grabs a wrench in retaliation for their No Way Out (of Texas) match. Vader goes for a moonsault, but it misses. Kane scoops him up and Tombstones him for the win at 7:26. Kane rips off Vader’s mask, which is silly because Vader often takes off his mask in big matches anyway. Oh, and remember what I said about them ignoring the stipulations? Vader would continue wearing the mask through the rest of his tenure as if this match never happened. **1/2 Vader calls himself a “big, fat piece of shit” after the match. Michael Cole honors the Crusher and Mad Dog Vachon. Lawler tries to pick a fight and gets his ass handed to him. Six-Man Tag: Triple H & The New Age Outlaws (w/Chyna & X-Pac) vs. Owen Hart, Kama Mustafa & D-Lo Brown (w/Mark Henry). The Nation was just starting to develop individual personalities at this point, and personality is all that drives this match. Everyone here is essentially a heel, but the fans are starting to take to DX. Roadie plays face-in-peril for a while, but nothing very interesting happens. D-Lo hits the Sky High spinebuster for two. Hunter breaks up the Sharpshooter. D-Lo hits the moonsault, but Hunter breaks that up too. Billy gets the hot tag, and DX cleans house. In all the chaos, Hunter and Billy team up to spike piledrive D-Lo on a tag belt. Owen makes the save, though, and Pedigrees Hunter on the belt at 18:27. Kind of long for what they had to offer. Owen finally got some revenge on Hunter after months of torment, though. **1/2 WWF Heavyweight Title: Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Dude Love. This is one of the more famous matches in WWF history, not only for its quality, but for becoming a template for every “anti-hero babyface vs. evil owner” match for the next…well, they’re still doing it. The story is that Vince McMahon hates Steve Austin and doesn’t think he’s an appropriate champion for the WWF image. Mick Foley wound up dumping the Cactus Jack gimmick because the fans started chanting for Stone Cold right as he was recovering from a beatdown by DX, so he also has a problem with Stone Cold. The Undertaker is your special guest enforcer because he’s the only one who A) hates Vince, and B) isn’t afraid of him. The deck is considerably stacked against Austin here, with Vince filling in as the special referee, Pat Patterson in the role of guest ring announcer, and Gerald Brisco as the timekeeper. Vince establishes him right away, counting Austin’s shoulders even though he has one up. Dude’s partial plate falls out, so Austin stomps on it, prompting Lawler to quip, “Dude Love has lost his smile.” They brawl on the outside, but Vince turns it into a No-Countout match. Dude grabs the Love Handle (the Mandible Claw), but Austin slings him into the “hangman” position in the ropes. Dude tosses Austin over the Spanish announce table and chokes him with a power cord, prompting Vince to turn it into a No-DQ match. Austin takes out Brisco while getting out of trouble and then clotheslines Dude over the railing. Brisco would be okay, though. He’s tough. He’s a wrestler. Dude hits a neckbreaker in the aisle, prompting a reminder that the match is (now) a Falls Count Anywhere. Yeah, in case you haven’t gotten the joke yet, McMahon is changing everything on the fly in order to tilt the match to Dude Love. They brawl all the way up near the junked cars set up near the entrance, and Dude gets his sunset flip off a car to the concrete. Sick. Even sicker is his attempt to do the Cactus Elbow off the car to the concrete. Austin rolls out of the way and gets two. His head is busted open, but Austin fires back and beats Dude all the way back to the ring. Patterson trips Austin up from the outside, allowing Dude to hit a clothesline and the Cactus Knee in the corner. It only gets two, so Dude calls for a chair and beats Austin down with it. A Kobashi Driver on the chair gets two, but Austin blocks a charge and SMASHES the chair against Dude’s head. Vince refuses to count, so Austin argues about it with him. Dude sneaks up with the chair, but Austin ducks out of the way, and Dude CLOBBERS VINCE! Oops. Stunner, and a second ref comes down, but Pat Patterson punks him out. Dude grabs the Love Handle, and Patterson tries to replace the ref, but Undertaker destroys him. Same with Gerald Brisco. Austin hits another Stunner and uses an unconscious McMahon’s hand to count the three at 22:25. This match is like the Halloween of wresting matches, where it was so copied that it actually became associated with all of the inferior clones that followed. Accept no substitutes, though. Even if the booking hasn’t aged well, the brawl itself is wild, and the match is an emotional rollercoaster at the end. ****1/4

The 411: Time hasn't been kind to this one thanks to a lot of recycled storylines over the past decade, but everything was fresh at the time. There really isn't that much to care about on the undercard, and the main event is available on the Foley disc. Still, the characters, and not the wrestling, drove the PPVs around this time, so it's a good bit of nostalgia. I'll be generous. Mild thumbs up for Over the Edge

Final Score:  6.5   [ Average ]