Raw History: Episode 258 and Reliving Nitro: Episode 138

Raw History
Episode #258
May 4th, 1998 | Richmond Coliseum in Richmond, Virginia

WWF Champion: Steve Austin (1) since 3/29/98
WWF Intercontinental Champion: The Rock (2) since 12/8/97
WWF European Champion: Triple H (2) since 3/17/98
WWF Tag Team Champions: The New Age Outlaws (2) since 3/30/98
WWF Light Heavyweight Champion: TAKA Michinoku (1) since 12/7/97

LAST WEEK ~ Clips of Austin’s title defense against Goldust were shown.

Jim Ross and Michael Cole were on commentary.

Dude Love kicked off the show with an episode of the Lock Shack. Or so we thought. Instead, it was Mick Foley, dressed normally, instead of Dude Love. He said he didn’t know who he was anymore. For the beating he took and put on Steve Austin, he got rewarded by sitting on the sidelines while Goldust, a man who comes out in a women’s teddy, gets the title shot that belongs to him. Foley announced that he was booked to face Terry Funk in a Falls Count Anywhere match. He held the Dude Love shirt in his hand and called out Vince, saying he was done dancing around with second-rate strippers. Vince obliged and got the shirt thrown in his face. Vince chastised him for not taking the title from Austin and called the match with Funk a reward, not a punishment. He wants Mick to beat Terry within an inch of his life and if Vince is impressed, Mick gets his title shot. Glass shattered and out came Steve Austin. He backed Vince down the ramp, holding a grappling hook. Mick watched as Austin used the hook to destroy the Love Shack set. Great opening segment. Foley was awesome, Vince played his role perfectly, and Austin got the crowd hype.

Faarooq and Steve Blackman vs. Owen Hart and WWF Intercontinental Champion The Rock
According to JR, Owen was not only just an official Nation member, but he was on “equal footing” with the Rock. We’ll see how long that lasts. Commissioner Slaughter came out and ejected the Nation before the bell. Faarooq and the Rock brawled on the ramp for a bit, while Blackman got some revenge for his buddy Ken Shamrock. Faarooq hit Rock with a Dominator early and had the pin broken up. I like him hitting his finisher. He wants to dish out as much punishment as possible on this usurper, so why not throw your best weapon out? After Rock got hit with a piledriver, Faarooq took the heat. Owen and Rock used Blackman’s inexperience to get him to fall into typical heel traps. Blackman did well with his hot tag until a Jeff Jarrett sneak attack set up an Owen spinning heel kick finish at 6:20. I quite liked that. It had some good psychology and decent action. [**¼]

VIDEO PACKAGE ~ Vince McMahon narrated a video to put over Gerald Brisco as a family man, great referee, businessman, and all-around jam up guy.

VIGNETTE ~ Our first look at Edge! He’s legitimately one of my three favorite wrestlers of all-time for me.

Time for DX. This went the way you’d expect. After referencing the “war” from last week, HHH made sexual jokes and Road Dogg did his usual intro. They threw insults at DOA and LOD 2000, which brought out the latter. Hawk had even worse jokes. He called the Outlaws dingle berries, called Dogg the Mr. Hole to Billy’s Mr. Ass, HHH was Mr. Nose, and Chyna was just mister. LOD challenged them to an eight man tag and made sure X-Pac would be involved. DX accepted by making more dick jokes.

Dan Severn vs. Savio Vega
Commentary plugged UFC 17. Severn is a week removed from dumping Jim Cornette as a manager. Severn won this in short order with an armbar at 1:17. [NR]

Jerry Lawler and Paul Bearer had a conversation backstage where they believed the camera was turned off. Bearer revealed that he was quite “studly” in the past, and banged Undertaker’s mother on the floor at the funeral home. She took his virginity that night and that was apparently when Kane was conceived. Following a break, Lawler apologized for the conversation since they didn’t know it was being taped.

VIDEO PACKAGE ~ Sable was shown working out for her match with Marc Mero. Lots of cleavage angles.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Marc Mero was scheduled to come up next. As expected, these two heels didn’t get to do battle. Instead, Steve Blackman attacked Jarrett to continue their feud.

SLAM OF THE WEEK ~ DOA beating the Outlaws last week.

WAR ZONE! Jerry Lawler replaced Cole. No War Zone intro video this week.

D-Generation X vs. DOA and LOD 2000
Commentary discussed how this match was a dumb move by DOA as it took them out of a scheduled title match. Why even mention a title match if you’re gonna do this? It just makes DOA look dumb. Sunny got ejected and they went to throw out Chyna, but X-Pac said she was competing instead of him, so he left. Commentary sold this as historic, but incorrectly called it the first intergender match in WWE history. The match was dull until Chyna entered and showed off a slow hurricanrana. The crowd popped for it. In fact, that was all they seemed to react to. It was as if that was all they ended up caring about. Eventually, it all led to the DOA and LOD brawling with each other, giving DX a countout win. I think. It went about 7:30. It was decent. [*¾]

Kane w/ Paul Bearer vs. TAFKA Goldust w/ Luna
They just keep booking heels against heels tonight, huh? This one had a bit of action but still got interrupted. At around 2:00, Undertaker came down and beat up on Bearer. Kane exited to battle him, even though his hand was still bandaged from the Inferno Match. They brawled up the ramp as security tried breaking them up. [NR]

VIDEO PACKAGE ~ A lengthy look was given to the history between Mick Foley and Terry Funk.

VIGNETTE ~ Another one for Val Venis, this time featuring real porn star Jenna Jameson.

Falls Count Anywhere Match: Mick Foley vs. Terry Funk
Steve Austin joined commentary for this one. Pat Patterson got introduced as the referee. These guys are basically the kings of this kind of match, so they went right into it. Foley bled quickly after a chair shot. Hilariously, when Austin began having headset problems, he leveled Lawler just in case he had something to do with it. The fight moved into the crowd, fitting of the stipulation. That set up Funk to bust out a damn moonsault off a balcony like his name was Kota Ibushi. It wasn’t nearly as pretty, but dude was in his 50s here. That’s impressive. Foley came back with a piledriver through a table by the concession stand before the show went to commercial. Returning, the fight continued in the backstage area. They managed to brawl back to the ring area. Foley began throwing his best stuff, including more than one piledriver onto a chair. He was doing what Vince wanted and destroying his friend. That got him the win at 14:11. Great main event that was full of action and told the story it needed to. [***¾]

Foley decided he wasn’t done, slamming Funk’s head onto a chair. Austin hit the ring to stop this and backed Foley into the corner. Patterson went after Austin with a chair, only to get laid out with a Stone Cold Stunner. As Dude neared the top of the stage, the Dude Love music hit again. Vince came out dancing with some girls in skimpy bikinis. Foley hugged Vince and they hilariously danced with the women. Austin was meant to look disgusted with them, but it’s clear he’s struggling not to laugh. To be fair, it’s really funny.

Reliving Nitro
Episode #138
May 4th, 1998 | Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, Indiana

WCW World Heavyweight Champion: Hulk Hogan (4) since 4/20/98
WCW United States Champion: Goldberg (1) since 4/20/98
WCW World Tag Team Champions: The Outsiders (5) since 2/22/98
WCW Television Champion: Booker T (2) since 2/22/98
WCW Cruiserweight Champion: Chris Jericho (3) since 1/24/98

IT’S ONLY A TWO HOUR EPISODE THIS WEEK! I LOVE THE NBA PLAYOFFS!

LAST WEEK ~ Kevin Nash announced that Randy Savage and Konnan were now part of the Wolfpac.

Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay, and Larry Zbyszko hosted hour one. They ran up through a recap of stuff from last week.

NITRO GIRLS!

Chavo Guerrero Jr. w/ Eddie Guerrero vs. Scott Norton
This all began when Eddie and Chavo came out. Eddie said he wanted to set an example for Chavo and called Norton out to face him. He even threw insults to upset him. The bell rang but then Eddie said his knee gave out and he sent Chavo in instead. Tremendous. Chavo got in a hope spot or two, but ultimately fell to the SHOULDERBREAKER at 2:28. [NR]

Post-match, Ultimo Dragon came down and argued with Eddie.

Kidman vs. Scott Putski
Putski was a scrub in the WWF and he’s here to job in WCW. As this went on, the Wolfpac members came down to the ring through the crowd. They were wearing nWo shirts, but in the now famous black and red. Kidman booked when he saw them, but Putski was left to eat a big boot and the Jackknife around 1:30. [NR]

Kevin Nash got a microphone and said the Wolfpac was running the show. Randy Savage said he wanted to get his hands on both Hogan and Bret Hart. He’d get the latter at the upcoming PPV. Nash introduced the newest defector to the Wolfpac, Curt Hennig. As Hennig came out, Brian Adams ran out to object, but Hennig joined anyway. He put on the shirt and Konnan challenged Adams later tonight. I’m sure that’ll be riveting.

VIGNETTE ~ Raven ran down some of what happened in his rough upbringing.

Chris Jericho hit the ring with his portrait of Dean Malenko. He dedicated his next match to Dean before throwing to a clip of Dean talking about his father, Boris Malenko. Jericho claimed the only reason Dean had the “Man of 1,000 Holds” nickname is because WCW gifted it to him since he’s so boring. Jericho brought out his opponent, BORE-US MALENKO. THE MAN OF ONE HOLD!

Non-Title Match: Chris Jericho vs. BORE-US Malenko
The jobber had a “1” on the back of his trunks. Classic. Jericho won via Liontamer at 1:52. [NR]

NITRO GIRLS! Alex Wright, in red shirt and yellow pants, interrupted to dance on a chair. Classic.

Street Fight: The Barbarian and Hugh Morrus w/ Jimmy Hart vs. Public Enemy
They booked these matches as Street Fights so Public Enemy could just use random garbage. Hart interfered early as soon as his guys got in trouble. Somehow, that meant Hart was part of the match and he fell to a splash through a table. Yes, they pinned him. It went 2:57. [½*]

Mean Gene brought out Brian Adams for a promo. He just did a lot of yelling and put over Hogan as having done more than the entire Wolfpac times ten.

VIDEO PACKAGE ~ Booker T vs. Chris Benoit. The feud has been heating up. There was controversy at Spring Stampede and they’ve traded the TV Title on house shows apparently.

They recapped the Hart/Hogan/Savage saga.

HOUR NUMBER TWO! Bobby Heenan replaced Zbyszko.

Loser Leaves The Flock Match: Hammer vs. Saturn
Kidman announced Raven wanted this match and said nobody would interfere. I don’t know if I can recall a match where the crowd cared this little, especially with something on the line. They brawled for a while and a chair came into play. After a ref bump, Saturn dropkicked the chair into Hammer’s face. A vendor hopped the guardrail and entered the ring. He broke his tray of sodas over Saturn’s head and then hit Hammer with the chair. Hammer landed on Saturn to win at 4:23. The vendor was Kanyon. [*½]

Raven was watching from the back when DDP jumped him and the Flock members back there. He had a Bullrope on. Why does Raven have a dressing room? What happened to the front row seats? DDP dragged Raven to the ring to continue the fight. He hung Raven over the ropes until security broke things up. Good angle and added more fire to the rivalry.

NITRO GIRLS!

Juventud Guerrera vs. Sick Boy
This is basically all Flock tonight. Juvi surprised me with one of his better 450 splashes, yet it only got a near fall. Strange. He went for another but Horace shoved him down for a DQ at 2:50. Meh. [NR]

The real fun came after the match, as Goldberg saved Juvi from a beating. The crowd ERUPTED. He hit Reese with the biggest Jackhammer ever to another huge pop. He was wildly over.

Mean Gene brought out Rick Steiner for an interview. He wanted to end things with brother tonight. Either they team back up, or they officially finish their issues now. Scott came out on crutches and told a sob story. He said he didn’t care about the nWo and wanted to form the team again. Rick didn’t trust it, but Gene egged him on. Stupid Gene. They hugged and Brian Adams attacked Rick with a bat. The beating put Rick out for a while, as he dealt with a legitimate injury.

Brian Adams vs. Konnan
Who decided any episode of anything should have this much Brian Adams? These two bad wrestlers had a bad match until Bret Hart showed up and rammed Konnan’s face into the guardrail. Kevin Nash then showed up to hit Adams for the DQ at 2:46. He added a Jackknife. [NR]

NITRO PARTY CLIPS!

WCW Television Championship: Booker T [c] vs. Fit Finlay
There was potential here, but the match was kept short. Still, they had some good back and forth throughout. Booker hit an Axe Kick and spinebuster, only for Chris Benoit to show up and distract him. That set up a Finlay Tombstone to give us a surprising new champion at 3:59. Intrigued by the title change. Match was solid for the time it got. [**]

Kevin Nash w/ The Wolfpac vs. Lex Luger
Michael Buffer got a big paycheck to do the intros. The match goes 2:44. Good use of your money WCW. Nash did his typical offense until Konnan and Savage hopped in to join him for a DQ. Yea, not much on the wrestling side of the show this week, huh? [NR]

Sting hit the ring to stop Luger from eating a Jackknife. Giant joined the fray for a six man brawl between WCW and the Wolfpac. The fans were into this. Dumbass Brian Adams came out to fight everyone, because we apparently didn’t have enough of him this episode. Bret Hart stopped him because it’s smart to let your enemies fight each other.

Raw MVP: Mick Foley
Raw LVP: DX
Nitro MVP: Chris Jericho
Nitro LVP: Brian Adams

Raw Rating: 5.5
Nitro Rating: 3.5

4.5

The final score: review Poor

The 411

Raw: For a taped episode, I thought this was fine. The main event was one of the better matches on Raw all year and the segments that bookended the show worked very well. That’s mostly because the guys involved are all great. Kane and Taker’s brawl was alright, though that feud has gone on way too long. I dug the Nation match, but again, DX brought things down. Their gimmick just isn’t funny and their match dragged. 7.0

Nitro: Despite being a two hour show, it somehow felt longer than the three hour ones. There was almost nothing to like about the in-ring stuff, other than a decent Finlay/Booker match and that title change. The angles mostly missed for me other than Jericho and Goldberg continuing to be fantastic. 2.0