WWF Raw Is War
11/1/99
Washington, DC

The Rock fought Road Dogg to a No Contest
The Hardy Boyz & Edge & Christian defeated The Holly Cousins & Too Cool
Mankind & Al Snow defeated Big Bossman & Prince Albert
Chyna defeated Stevie Richards
Steve Austin defeated Billy Gunn via DQ
Val Venis defeated Test via DQ
Kane defeated X-Pac via DQ
The Headbangers defeated The Dudley Boyz
Triple H defeated Shane McMahon

I like it when shows have a cohesive narrative. They’re easy to follow and build to a nice escalation that’s always enjoyable to follow. This Raw was just that with a WWF vs D-X feel which culminated in a fun sports entertainment main event match between Triple H vs Shane McMahon. Triple H brought out his posse, so Vince got Austin, Rock and Kane involved leading to a match with plenty of false finishes. While I thought it was one of the more enjoyable main events, I doubt Shane would say the same as he was knocked loopy twice and you could see it as well. In fact there was one period where Austin hit a stunner on Triple H which clearly should have been a near-fall, but Shane couldn’t bring himself to roll over and get the pin. The finish of the match saw Vince try and take HHH's head off with the WWF Championship only to hit Shane instead. HHH takes advantage of the situation, covers Shane and accepts the win but all JR can care about is whose side is Vince on?!

By the by, that Shane McMahon vs Triple H match was everything the Wrestlemania 32 match should have been. Instead we got a version of Kurt Angle vs Shane McMahon where Shane somehow out-wrestles Kurt Angle.

Only in the WWE.

Anyways, I actually remember the Vince angle back when I covered the early episodes of SmackDown. The idea was to obviously add more suspense to the Survivor Series, which made sense since they nixed the Foley heel turn and instead teamed up with Al Snow in what I'd like to dub a publicity tour. Foley was shilling his amazing autobiography, while Al Snow was riding the publicity surrounding the Walmart scandal. Not only were the friends outside of the ring, they actually teamed way back in 1998, with Snow and the JOB squad serving as Foley's initial underlings. That was before D-X joined the fray, because D-X retroactively take credit for everything. (Did you know that the Monday Night Wars was decided when D-X invaded Nitro that one time?).

Elsewhere, Chyna cut a nice promo on Jericho. The key to any good wrestling angle is adding an element of truth into the mix and in this case Chyna played the ol' size card. HHH must have had a field day feeding her lines. "I'm wondering if you're crying because, even though the heels on your boots are bigger than mine, I'm still taller than you are." Chyna then proceeds to beat "Y2J" (Stevie Richards) in a rip-off from Fall Brawl '98, before Jericho attacks Chyna from behind and puts her in the Walls of Jericho to a mild babyface reaction.

The WWF figured out what to do with the Stephanie McMahon/Test relationship angle and had Steph propose to Test after his match with Val Venis. The wedding is back on, and the WWF fans are set for one of the biggest storylines that has endured to the present day.

The Big Bossman & Prince Albert threw a gas bomb into the Big Show's locker room after the Big Show tried to push a car onto the pair on SmackDown. I hate it when angles go in this direction. It's all fine and dandy to do these type of shenanigans in the Looney Tunes but when the end game is two guys simulating a fight in the middle of the ring all these stunts feel excessive. Of course after getting the better of the Big Show, Bossman and Albert proceeded to lose to Mankind and Al Snow in a hardcore tag match. Heaven forbid I get salty over a Bossman push, but if you're going to book an opponent for your up and coming babyface attraction you may as well pretend he's an obstacle. At the very least, the Big Show could have interfered making it a two on one handicap match. Instead it was clean as a sheet since Vince doesn't care about anything other than his own program. It's Vince and HHH versus the world.

Still, I cannot stress how enjoyable this show was. The Eight Man Tag, Austin/Gunn, Shane/HHH and even Venis/Test were all fun matches while they lasted and the over-arching storyline made it a very easy watch.

WWF Notes

- Terry Taylor is skating on thin ice and it appears to be only a matter of time before he heads back to WCW
- Dr Death was officially released on November 1st
- WWF is negotiating with Dream Stage Entertainment (owners of Pride and Battlearts) to do their own live show in Japan
- Walmart has pulled all the Al Snow dolls after women’s groups complained about the Head accessory. They thought it was a dismembered head that supported man on woman violence
- Jim Neidhart maybe brought into team with the British Bulldog
- The Acolytes Bar Room Brawl skit cost the WWF $6000 worth in damages

WWF RAW IS WAR
11/8/99
State College, Pennsylvania

The New Age Outlaws defeated Mankind & Al Snow to WIN THE WWF TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS
The Godfather defeated Val Venis via Count Out
Edge & Christian & The Headbangers defeated The British Bulldog & The Mean Street Posse
The Rock defeated X-Pac
Kane defeated The Big Bossman via DQ
The Holly Cousins defeated Too Cool
Triple H defeated Test via Count Out

We’re on the road to Survivor Series ’99, the final stop? State College, Pennsylvania for this live edition of Raw Is War. Typically go-home shows sort of write themselves, they’re just one big infomercial for the PPV. However, this show was all over the place. It’s clear the WWF has little direction at this point and the on-air talent is dictating the focus behind the scenes.

For example, the WWF couldn’t get enough of the Walmart controversy surrounding the Al Snow Summer Slam ’99 action figure. A bunch of misinformed parents confused “Head” and thought it was an actual toy of a female’s head. They kicked up a storm, forcing Walmart to take it off their shelves and in typical WWF fashion they turned it into a storyline. Or should I say in typical WWF fashion, they made it a focus of the show. Three segments were dedicated to the fiasco and to add insult to injury, they felt out of order. Naturally you would build to a championship change, but here they did the change first (the second tag title change in as many shows) and then gave us two non-sequitor Al Snow backstage tapes that didn’t achieve anything.

To add insult to injury, the match sucked. By this stage it feels redundant to complain about giving away PPV matches on TV – it was just the lay of the land. However, it doesn’t excuse the wrestlers from having an awful match. By this point, it was just painful to watch Foley in the ring. He clearly didn’t take enough time off to rehab his injuries (between Over The Edge and SummerSlam) and he wasn’t in the right shape to be working at the level he was. Unfortunately the other guys weren’t much better – lots of blown spots, no real structure and lots of punch-kick action. To be fair to the performers, the booking wasn’t crash-hot either. During the match they cut-back to Vince who is barking instructions at who-knows (probably nobody given the mass exodus of WWF staffers), informing the crowd that if any member of D-X interferes they will be fired. Of course this signals non-DX interference by Val Venis who attacks Mick Foley on the outside in plain sight of senior official , Earl Hebner.

Poor old Val could not catch a break around this time. Not only is he stuck in this never-ending feud with Mick but he doesn’t even have a match at Survivor Series. Eventually they found a spot with him, chucking him with all the other ‘date-less’ wrestlers but without Russo around, Val is just an afterthought on the show.

Oh and to make matters worse, the finish saw Billy Gunn break-up Al Snow’s pin attempt with a steel chair behind Hebner’s back revealing that Hebner should have stopped the match. Was it the Pennsylvania Screwjob or just poor work from the boys? Regardless, we have new tag team champions, the second switch in as many shows.

I would be remised if I didn’t mention D-X’s backstage promo. This was brutal, and would be right up there as one of the worst promos of the year if it wasn’t for the god-awful Unholy Alliance promo. Here’s a rundown
- Road Dogg: One More Time Jackson *long pause*...here take the mic (talking to X-Pac) I have a head-ache.
- X-Pac with minimal enthusiasm: Hey fellas, People Magazine is doing a story on X-Pac. It’s called how X-Pac beat the living hell out of The Rock on Monday Night Raw...boo-ya
- HHH: McMahon you come out here and you say that’s their ass, that’s my ass...that’s....that’s your ass...lemme tell you something that’s not my ass this is my ass *flashes camera*

Awful, awful stuff. It does my head in how these guys are the backbone of the company at this point in time. Save me Y2J.

Speaking of terrible storylines, Lillian Garcia announced the Big Show’s father had passed away leading to a 10-bell salute. The whole bit about the Big Show’s pa is completely bullshit. Just a cheap way to garner sympathy after they couldn’t figure out what to do with him as a heel. Fortunately it’s saved by the Big Bossman who had no qualms playing a massive dickhead. Here’s the promo he cut on tonight’s show:

With the deepest regrets, and tears that are soaked
I'm sorry to hear that your dad finally croaked
He lived a full life on his own terms
Soon he'll be buried and eaten by worms
But if I could have a son as stupid as you
I'd have wished for cancer so I would die too
So be brave, and be strong, get your life on track
'Cause the old bastard's DEAD and he ain't never comin' back!

The Bossman shouldn’t have been in the position he was in that year, but I liked how he was such an unapologetic dickhead. In an era filled with ‘cool heels’ you need a couple of heat-seekers to help the babyfaces out. Plus, the WWF had a young locker room back then, lots of 20 year olds and they needed to learn about the intracacies of the business. So for guys like The Big Show, Prince Albert, Droz, Mark Henry, Viscera, Test etc. It just gave them a guy who could help them with their 1%ers

Sorry, I got off track – I forgot that this was DX is War and that’s what this show was about. Stone Cold Steve Austin? The Rock? Merely footnotes in the D-X v Vince McMahon is War show. And what a show it is with the big bad heel getting screwed at every turn by the recently redeemed authority figure. The only thing that could be worse is a rape angle...which of course they do here.

So in the main event, Vince’s future son in law Test is given a WWF Championship match against Triple H with Shane McMahon as Special Guest referee. HHH dominates most of the match but is screwed over time and time again by the McMahons. Eventually it gets too much and Test looks to have the match won when all of a sudden the rest of D-X appear on the titantron. Road Dogg leads the camera to Vince’s office where X-Pac and Billy Gunn are shown trying to take a woman’s skirt off as she tries to fight them off. Road Dogg reveals that the woman is in fact Vince’s daughter Stephanie McMahon. The “babyfaces” bail on the match and race to the locker room only to find that it’s empty. Vince screams for STEPHANIE!!! While HHH celebrates his precious count-out win.

WWF Notes
- After weeks of speculation, Terry Taylor officially resigned from the WWF and returned to WCW within one year of leaving the company.
- The WWF dropped the Viscera/Godfather angle for reasons unknown. Last week Viscera won the services of the hos, but the Godfather showed up with a new batch
- Internally, the WWF understand that the Bulldog is doing the best he can, but his body has broken down to the point where he’s only capable of having lacklustre matches
- Chris Jericho is being ribbed relentlessly backstaged. Notably at No Mercy where wrestlers asked him who he was facing, knowing full well he wasn’t on the card
- Austin is carrying an injury which has prevented him from working TVs and House Shows, there’s plenty of speculation on whether he’ll be fit for the PPV

WWF Survivor Series
11/14/99
Detroit, Michigan

SURVIVOR SERIES MATCH
The Godfather & D’Lo Brown & The Headbangers defeated The Dudley Boyz & The Acolytes at 9:26

Decent opener, it started slowly with Mosh and Buh Buh but once Bradshaw entered the fray the match picked up. At one stage, it felt as if they were going to go 20 minutes, but they did a spot where Bradshaw had enough and clobbered both D’Lo and Buh Buh with a chair-shot. He got himself DQ’d and ultimately D’Von and Farooq got into a fracas which got themselves eliminated. That left Buh Buh who hit a nice top-rope powerbomb but ultimately fell to the Godfather and D’Lo who appear to be a tag team moving forward.

Kurt Angle defeated Shawn Stasiak at 5:57

I’ve got to give the WWF credit, the way they handled Angle was fantastic. While there was a tinge of Blue Blazer about Kurt’s character from the start, the commentators didn’t beat you over the head over how much of a nerd he was. In fact, I could see the WWF using the exact same three vignettes three years prior, the only difference is that it wouldn’t have been ironic. Stasiak is a curious choice of opponent, but I suppose the logic here is that they would have worked with each other in Memphis and had plenty of dark match experience. This could have easily bombed, but the WWF knew what they were doing, building to the one spot where Kurt grabs the mic and tells the fans off – just something different that makes Kurt stand out from the rest of the pack. Not much of a match but as far as a debut goes, I thought it was effective.

SURVIVOR SERIES MATCH
Val Venis & Steve Blackman & Gangrel & Mark Henry defeated The British Bulldog & The Mean Street Posse at 9:08

What a strange heel v heel match-up. It really didn’t have any place on the show and it was bizarre watching Bulldog make a babyface comeback eliminating both Gangrel (superplex) and Blackman (fisherman suplex) in quick succession. It appeared as if the deal was just to give Venis and Bulldog a rub, no more, no less.

Mae Young & Fabulous Moolah & Debra & Tori defeated Ivory & Jackie & Luna Vachon & Terri Runnels at 1:50

Fortunately this wasn’t a Survivor Series match, otherwise the Kennel From Hell was about to get a run for its money. Barely a minute into the match, Moolah accepts the hot tag hits a snapmare, body-splash, pinfall and it’s over. I feel as if I’ve been pretty kind to the women’s division, omitting some of its less than stellar moments but right now this Young and Moolah bit has grown really stale. If they didn’t have anything for the women, they should have just kept them off TV.

Kane defeated X-Pac via DQ at 4:15

Given the D-X run-in, they could have saved this for TV. With that said, this was a really fun sprint that was structured in such a way where you could suspend your disbelief. Pac devised the perfect plan, cutting Kane off anytime he’d go for a trademark spot and winning big each time. I liked the finish as well, with Kane catching Pac before he could hit the X-Factor and nailing the chokeslam – just good psychology there.

The Big Show defeated The Big Bossman & Prince Albert & Mideon & Viscera at 1:26

Before the match, they aired a clip from Sunday Night Heat where the Big Show destroyed his partners Kaientai and the Blue Meanie in the locker-room. I actually didn’t mind this match, it was just a two minute squash where Show mowed through all of Bossman’s minions and when it came time for the Bossman to step up he chickened out like Count Tyrone Rugen from the Princess Bride. Again, more of a TV segment but if you’re going to book the Big Show, this is the way he ought to be booked.

WWF INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Chyna defeated Chris Jericho at 13:34

I genuinely believe this was one of the better matches the WWF produced that year. I loathe to hop on any bandwagons but Jericho really did pull out all the stops and actually got a really good wrestling match out of Chyna. Where as guys like Jarrett and Road Dogg relied on all sorts of smoke and mirrors to have a successful match, Jericho used his skills as a Pro Wrestler and happened to top both. The only complaint here is that he was too good, he won the crowd over and the fans desperately wanted to see Jericho win when he reversed a head-scissors into a Walls of Jericho.

However, I thought Jericho did a good job of being a slime-ball through out and finding some interesting ways of getting heat with the audience. Whether it was planting a kiss on Miss Kitty and throwing her away like trash, stripping the barricade of all its protective coating and throwing Chyna onto the steal or his very suggestive pin-attempt (think Edge on Beulah) and Jericho did a great job of playing a dick.

Also, I have to give credit for the finish. Normally I hate it when guys kick out of finishers, but here they justified it with the top-rope pedigree. Of course it didn’t really come off as well as it could have, but the willingness of Jericho to take that bump is to be admired.

SURVIVOR SERIES MATCH
Too Cool & The Holly Cousins defeated The Hardy Boyz & Edge & Christian at 14:27

Kind of an underwhelming match – both teams tried hard but their effort couldn’t save a disjointed match. If the match had have shaved four minutes, kept the crash and burn stuff right before the finish and then they started hitting all their planned spots, I believe this would have been a really good match.

One thing I found interesting about this match was that Christian was the final survivor of his team and actually did a relatively good job in the role. Of course he was the least popular of the babyfaces, so it hurt the match but there was nothing wrong with his performance. The finish was sweet as well with both guys teasing their finisher, Christian going for a rolling cradle only for Hardcore to steal the pin for himself.

WWF TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
The New Age Outlaws defeated Mankind & Al Snow at 13:59

It feels as if retirement has come early for Mankind. There isn’t a lot he can do physically and while he’s still a quality promo and can interact with the crowd when it comes to the wrestling he can’t do much of anything. For the most part, it hasn’t been an issue since matches rarely last longer than 4 minutes on TV, but in a match where he has to go nearly 14 it really shows.

In particular, since Foley couldn’t bump, they had the babyfaces work the heat segment with Road Dogg doing his trademark babyface-in-peril routine, despite being the biggest heels in the promotion. It was just a really poor set-up that made the match drag on and on until the finish which was well put together. Plenty of clever near falls before the Outlaws finished Foley off with a nasty spike-piledriver. Considering Vince had informed Foley that he had worked his last match around this time, it’s efforts like that which make Mick so well respected in the community.

WWF CHAMPIONSHIP
The Big Show defeated Triple H & The Rock at 16:13

Of course the Big Show was a late addition to the match with Stone Cold set to take his place but in the end, injuries got the better of Austin and the Texas Rattlesnake opted to go in for surgery. So as a last minute surprise, McMahon put the championship on the Big Show just for something a little different.

The match started off OK but by the time they did their first referee bump it descended into a farce and it was just weird to see the big bad heel get screwed out of his championship. I guess the thinking was that it would buy them two big main event matches (McMahon v HHH, Show v HHH), but it contradicts the goal of making HHH the dominant heel.

Plus, The Rock who is a megastar at this point was made to look really second-rate in all of this as he was on the outside fending off D-X. It was too early to put the belt on him, but they needed to find a better way to protect him here.

Overall – I was surprised by the show. I’ve read plenty of criticism and while a lot of it’s warranted I thought the show delivered plenty of positives. Jericho/Chyna was way better than it had any right to be, Kane & X-Pac was a really good sprint, Angle’s debut was well handled and I liked the Big Show squash match. However, the bait and switch with the main event sucked and left us with a very lacklustre finish.

WWF RAW IS WAR
11/15/99
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Mankind defeated Val Venis
Kurt Angle defeated The Godfather
Gangrel defeated Chris Jericho
The Big Show defeated The British Bulldog
Road Dogg defeated Al Snow
Test defeated Billy Gunn
Triple H defeated Kane via DQ
The Big Bossman defeated The Rock

The post-Survivor Series edition of Raw and all the attention was on Stone Cold Steve Austin. After being mowed down last night, everybody wanted to know who was behind it, but like any good TV show they kept the mystery up in the air. While the pay-off was incredibly underwhelming, I’m glad they didn’t just have Triple H own it right from the start. It would have been predictable and his character had already been responsible for some of the more ridiculous moments and would go onto do one of the biggest out-there storylines of all-time.

For the most part, the show was just a series of backstage segments where guys like D-X, Vince and the Rock cut promos on the detectives. Interestingly they also interviewed Lawler, which would have been a little random given he was on commentary, but I wonder if it was an homage to his angle with Eddie Gilbert? I’d be surprised, but it’d be cool since it was one of the better Memphis moments.

Outside of that, this may have been the most consistent Raw of 99 from an in-ring perspective. Multiple matches were back and forth affairs where one guy simply ended up being the better man on the day. The only noteworthy exceptions happened to be Gangrel/Jericho and the Bossman/Rock matches.

Jericho/Gangrel was a continuation of the Chyna angle where Chyna screws Jericho over and he happens to lose to jobbers. While the main event saw the Rock succumb to the numbers game in what was essentially a two-on-one hardcore handicap match. While a guy in the Rock’s position shouldn’t be losing to a vet like Bossman, given the context the decision made sense and they did everything after the match to ensure The Rock kept his heat by having him beat down and bloody both guys. It wasn’t ideal, but given the corner creative was in, I thought they made the right choice.

On the other hand, I didn’t think they made the right choice with Jericho/Chyna. I understand that there has to be a certain intensity to a main eventer, but there’s certain things characters should never do. For instance, Jericho should never tie somebody into a chair, place them in a dark room and smash their hand with a hammer. Yet that’s what they did here and it just came off as incredibly cheesy.

WWF Notes
- Jericho broke Stevie Richards leg last week on Raw in a segment where Stevie dressed up as Elvis and serenaded Chyna. This was just another in a long line of incidents where Jericho hurt somebody. Earlier, Road Dogg was less than improved with Jericho’s chops and HHH was absolutely livid when Jericho gave Chyna a black eye in a pull-apart brawl. Theories are being tossed about why Jericho isn’t working so well in the WWF. A couple of popular ones being tossed around is the lifts in his shoes which are forcing him to wrestle on his tip-toes. Another is that he’s gained considerable muscle since leaving WCW and that he has to cut back in order to work his style of match.
- Test suffered a legitimate broken nose in his match against D-X on SmackDown. Hence, the rematch on Raw and why they made a big deal out of the Fameasser
- X-Pac suffered a separated shoulder in his match against The Rock on Raw which is why the Survivor Series match was kept short
- The WWF currently is unsure on the status of Austin, but if he’s cleared he’ll main event Wrestlemania. Currently Plan B is to have a match involving HHH and The Rock, which is why these two are being kept apart
- While Wade didn’t give any names, the Big Show was not the only name being tossed up as Austin’s replacement.

WWF RAW IS WAR
11/22/99
Buffalo, New York

The Holly Cousins defeated Mankind and Al Snow
Kurt Angle defeated Mark Henry
Chris Jericho defeated The Godfather
Edge & Christian defeated The Dudley Boyz
X-Pac defeated Jeff Hardy
The Big Show defeated Kane via Count-Out
Too Cool defeated The British Bulldog & Val Venis via DQ
Test defeated Road Dogg
Rock n Sock defeated The Big Bossman & Prince Albert
Triple H fought The Acolytes to a No Contest

This week on AMC’s Breaking Bad...

After the fairly subdued episode last week, this show was completely buckwild with Vince playing the role of Stone Cold Steve Austin. He opened the night by ramming his car into the D-X limo, and then proceeded to chase after D-X with a baseball bat, only to be detained by police before returning to throw HHH off the entrance ramp to close the show. It’s clear now that Austin is out of the picture, they haven’t quite figured out how to book a top babyface, so they recycle the exact same formula albeit for a middle aged non-wrestler. I get why they stuck with it, when you strike gold with that formula it’s difficult to shy away from it. The problem is that Vince is a total miscast and the McMahon family soap opera tends to veer into incredibly cheesy directions. It’s like I may as well be recapping the Bold and the Beautiful at this point.

The rest of the roster feels like an after-thought as the company focuses primarily on D-Generation X and the Corporation. The only point of interest was the Rock n Sock reunion, with Mankind accepting The Rock’s open invitation to take on the Bossman and Albert. Obviously it was just a way to keep both men busy heading into Wrestlemania season, but I didn’t mind the decision. The pairing ended on such an anti-climax, putting them back together, to set up a quasi rematch with the New Age Outlaws was a hand-in-glove idea. The only issue is that it exposed how silly the Bossman/Show angle was, with Bossman going down with relative ease on TV. I’m not sure if there was an easy way around this, perhaps throwing Big Show into the main event as Vince’s ace up the sleeve (you owe me for Survivor Series, dammit!) would have been more acceptable?

The rest of the show speaks for itself. In terms of storylines, the show is relatively sparse compared to the Russo days, but the in-ring quality has noticeably gone up a clip. There’s nothing I’d go out of my way to recommend, but as a series of matches it’s easy enough to sit through.

WWF Notes
- There’s a lot of speculation surrounding Stone Cold Steve Austin. He underwent a maleogram and the results of that will determine his future. Austin has been struggling the last few months and has privately been very bored with his character as of late. Regardless of results, Austin will still earn a down-side of $4 000 000 over the next two years (HBK is still earning $750 000 a year) so he will still be involved in some capacity moving forward.
- Mick Foley has been telling a number of different media outlets that he’s going to retire. Like Austin, his body is breaking down and he’s struggling to find the same motivation that made him a star which is why he’s working a safer style
- Chris Jericho responded to the PWTorch’s report on his website, writing a funny piece where he took the piss out of the report. Of course as we all know, it was just damage control
- Randy Savage is reportedly interested in signing with the WWF. After his recent fall-out with WCW, Savage is willing to sign with the fed as long as he’s guaranteed a massive down-side and creative control. JR hasn’t ruled signing Savage out, but isn’t happy with Randy’s terms
- WCW is close to signing D’Lo Brown
- The Parent Television Council has been a real thorn in the WWF’s side as of late, convincing both Coca Cola and the Army to pull their sponsorship from the WWF. As a response, the WWF have introduced a ‘protester’ who interferes in Val Venis & Godfather matches and JR had to read a press release pleading with fans to call their sponsers and convince them that the WWF is quality entertainment
- The FMW/WWF show occurred on November 23rd with HBK reffing the H v “Hayabusa” match. Before the match, they held a press conference where HBK announced that FMW and TWA had reached an agreement and that he would be sending over two of his best students – Lance Jade and American Dragon

WWF RAW IS WAR
11/29/99
Los Angeles, California

The Big Bossman & Viscera defeated The Big Show & Kane
Edge defeated Matt Hardy
Steve Blackman defeated The Godfather
Too Cool defeated The Holly Cousins
Test defeated Triple H
Kurt Angle defeated Val Venis
X-Pac & The New Age Outlaws defeated Kane & The Rock n Sock Connection via DQ

In one of the most shocking moments in WWF history, HHH broke the news that Stephanie McMahon was actually Stephanie McMahon-Helmsly. You’re all familiar with the angle and while it’s legacy lives onto this day for better or for worse this was without doubt HHH’s crowning moment. For so long, HHH had always been the poor man’s Shawn Michaels doing his best Harley Race impression while boring the millions but this angle took everything to the next level.

With the cat out of the bag, does the show hold up? Eh, not really – it just feels like a long waiting game until we get to the lines of ‘does anyone object’. From there, it was great because the audience is clued in that something is going to go down but before then it’s a bunch of really hammy backstage vignettes where guys have to pretend a wedding is going down.

Outside of the reveal, the only noteworthy aspect of the angle was the Test v HHH match. For a semi-main match, this was given a surprising amount of time, clocking in at just under 9 minutes. It really wasn’t much of a match, as most of the focus was spent on the identity of the special guest referee. Y’see HHH had a restraining order on Vince McMahon, so it was awfully suspicious that the special guest referee had gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal their identity. Eventually Shane ran in, smashed HHH with the chair allowing Test to hit his elbow for the pin. While I believe it was clearly done in a way to suggest it was Vince, Wade Keller seems to believe that the physical characteristics of the referee said otherwise. Needless to say, they never revealed the identity of said referee so it’s right up there with WCW’s White Hummer as Wrestling’s Unsolved Mysteries.

In the last review, I forgot to mention that Rikishi made his Monday Night Raw review saving Too Cool from a Mean Street Posse beat-down. His emergence had an immediate impact on Too Cool and the fans were digging the dancing fat man gimmick right from the start – it was odd how instantaneous it was.

And on a final note, in one of the strangest slow burn angles of all-time, the EMT that debuted at Unforgiven happened to be B.B. after all. I knew it! It’s been bothering me ever since she appears all the time but they barely pay any attention to her. B.B. had big fake tits and that was her deal – apparently Terrific Terry Taylor hired her based on some videos she sent in and nobody could figure out why.

WWF Notes
- D’Lo Brown was backstage at a WCW show in Toronto. Despite having a year and a half left on his deal, D’Lo was contemplating whether he should activate a supposed get-out clause he had in place. While there, it didn’t take him long to run into Mike Graham who had a few choice words for the WWF star and had to get in a ‘at least I didn’t cripple any body’ retort. No real details on who started the altercation but it’s just another bad Mike Graham story

WWF RAW IS WAR
12/6/99
Worchester, Massachusetts

Too Cool defeated The New Age Outlaws via DQ
Kurt Angle & Steve Blackman defeated The Hardy Boyz
Val Venis fought D’Lo Brown to a No Contest
The Godfather defeated Prince Albert
Rikishi defeated Hardcore Holly
Triple H & X-Pac defeated Test & Kane
The Big Show defeated Viscera
The Rock n Sock fought Al Snow and Chris Jericho to a No Contest

This was your typical go-home show where there was little advancement storyline wise and the show was intended as more of a sneak-peak of what was to come. So instead of picking a highlight, I thought I’d try something different and give a play-by-play.

WWF Tag Team Championship Match
Too Cool vs The New Age Outlaws

Before the match, the Road Dogg did a PG variation of his opening promo. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the Road Dogg taking the piss, but suffice to say it was awful, especially when Road Dogg had to replace shiznit with poo poo. I didn’t think it was possible, but somehow shiznit was a more preferable option.

One of the highlights of late has been able to witness the progression of Too Cool. When they interfered in that Holly Cousins v Edge & Christian, they were greeted with silence. But little by little they’ve generated a nice following for themselves and while they’re not there just yet, you can see the gears moving as they’ve turned them babyface, given them Rikishi, a post-match gimmick and they’re fine-tuning their match to just a couple of go-to spots.

Short-ish match with Too Cool dominating proceedings before the Holly Cousins hit the ring and caused the DQ. Considering the New Age Outlaws are working the semi-main of the PPV, I find it odd that they’re typically working the opening match against random tag teams – more could have been done to make them bigger stars.

Mankind/Al Snow promo

Quality promo, Snow confronts Mankind about bringing back the Rock n Sock connection and how he’s become a brown-nosing comedy figure. Foley actually came up with a fair response, reminding Snow that it’s better than having to endure the brutality of hardcore wrestling and that everyone involved (Foley, The Rock and the fans) enjoy it. The segment with both guys going at it before the referees pulled them apart.

Kurt Angle & Steve Blackman vs. The Hardy Boyz

Angle has been one of the highlights of late, as his pre-match promos are on point and he’s fairly decent in the ring, even this early on in his career. Not much of a match – about a minute in, Blackman wails Jeff with the kendo stick enabling Kurt to score the cheap pinfall victory.

Val Venis vs D’Lo Brown

It’s sad to see both guys relegated to the European championship division. Two minutes in, the British Bulldog and the Mean Street Posse interfered calling an end to the segment.

The Godfather vs Prince Albert

This was a follow up match from Sunday Night Heat where Albert cost the Godfather the match, enabling his mentor to win. Filler, but any excuse to get a fan-favourite like the Godfather on the show is fine in my book.

Triple H/Stephanie McMahon/Vince McMahon promo

To cut a long story short, they added the stipulations where if HHH won at the PPV he would receive a guaranteed championship match and if he lost he’d sign the annulment form. The crux of the promo was really good, with HHH forcing a kiss on Steph while Vince could do nothing but watch from the entrance ramp (due to the restraining order). However, it was really long winded dragging on much longer than it should have.

Rikishi vs Hardcore Holly

Rikishi won in less than a minute, a bit of a waste since Hardcore would face Rikishi at the PPV.

BB/Ivory/Jackie/Miss Kitty segment

BB, Ivory and Jackie walk to the ring dressed up in evening gowns and right as they’re wondering who the forth participant is, Chyna’s music hits. The place goes crazy, but Chyna reveals that it’ll be Miss Kitty who will wrestle in the evening gown match at the PPV. Kitty reveals that it could be a problem as she doesn’t believe in wearing underwear.

Triple H & X-Pac vs Test & Kane

Boy was this a burial of Test. Ideally, this entire Raw should have been built around a Test v HHH main event where HHH puts Test on the shelf with some sort of injury to get more heat heading into the PPV. Instead we get this two-for-one tag deal where HHH managed to pin Test relatively clean in five minutes.

WWF Championship Match
Viscera vs The Big Show (c)

It seems like whenever Vince is in trouble, he’ll just throw two of his biggest guys in the ring to face off against each other. This was a good example of that and while it was another surprisingly good Viscera matches, it did little to get the Big Show over. The highlight of the match saw the Big Show hit a missile dropkick for the victory – an impressive spot even though Big Show’s variation was less than impressive.

The Rock n Sock vs Al Snow & Chris Jericho

They worked this like a tornado tag, with Rock working Jericho while Snow worked Mankind. The match never really went anywhere before the New Age Outlaws interfered and caused the lame-duck finish to the show.

WWF Notes
- Shawn Stasiak was suspended for recording private locker room conversations
- Ken Shamrock is medically cleared to wrestle on December 17th and the Undertaker is due back in six weeks
- Austin is in no rush to return to the ring. Despite his surgeon having a cancellation that would enable him to work on Austin in January, Austin doesn’t want to go in until February 17th. Even if the surgery is successful, it appears that Austin’s motivation to return to in-ring action is at an all-time low.

BP, this isn't all new, right? Or is it? I can't tell if this is simply a reposting of one of my favorite HoW projects, or a new continuation. If the latter, sweet; I'll go back and read from the beginning! If the former, can you let us know where the "new" posts start?

In either case, so glad to see this as one of the foundational threads to the new HoW. Good man!

No new content just yet, just bringing the thread over to notify you all that I'm going to be adding the finishing touches in the very near future.

Truth be told, I finished watching my last 1999 show in March of 2016. I watched something like three months worth of Pro Wrestling in a week, wrote my thoughts down on each show, summarized the PWTorch and called it a day. But as I was rolling those reviews out, a couple of things popped up. Firstly, I found the WWE Network version of Raw was far more palatable than my crappy VHS copies (sorry Shin) and wanted to catch the last shows with that quality and re-do it. Then Meltzer started rolling out his 1999 Observers which again caused me to put on the breaks.

Meltz is well into 2000 now, PW has been reborn and now I'm just about ready to give this thread the finishing touches it deserves.

I've got a few ideas for the direction this thread will go in. This isn't going to merely be a review thread, I want to add other features before I bid farewell to the year that got me into Pro Wrestling in the first place.

Great job on moving this over, great thread.

WWF Armageddon 1999
12/12/99
Sunrise, Florida

Whenever anyone brings up this pay-per-view either one of two moments instantly come to mind. First is the Stephanie McMahon heel turn, one of the biggest on-screen moments in the WWF and the official beginning of a new era in the company, the McMahon-Helmsly era. The other moment was a much bigger deal behind the scenes, the Swimming Pool Evening Gown match where Miss Kitty flashed her breasts on live pay-per-view. While this would be unacceptable at the best of times (just ask Janet Jackson), this publicity stunt followed a mass exodus of sponsers like the Army Reserves, Coca Cola, MnM and caused the WWF to tone down their shows and implore their fans to write the major sponsers.

The biggest problem with the Miss Kitty incident is that the WWF tried to absolve themselves of any responsibility. In an effort to save face they blamed the entire incident on Miss Kitty and didn’t discuss the incident on the post-PPV edition of Raw. The problem is you would have to be born yesterday to believe the WWF on this one. Not only was Slaughter conveniently there with a towel and he was able to cover her up in a matter of seconds, Miss Kitty was never punished for the incident and she appeared the next night on Raw with the Women’s Championship like nothing had happened. The other problem was that it was an awful match. If you’re going to film a softcore porno, you’ve got to book the right women and while B.B. looked like she belonged on set, neither Ivory or Jaqueline could be described as pin-up girls. Not only that but as soon as Kitty stripped, they teased a Mae Young strip tease right after which was just ridiculous. I guess it was all in good fun but if I just spent my hard earned and gave up my free time I’d be mighty pissed off.

Apart from the Stephanie heel-turn, the Vince/Helmsly match is remembered for lasting a gruelling 28 minutes. Not only did this expose Vince as a worker, it was a dumb idea because during a pre-match rehearsal, HHH injured his knee and had to have his knee heavily strapped before the match. Neither of them took many bumps, instead Vince threw powder into HHH’s eyes during the opening exchanges which he sold like it was sulphuric acid. Vince dominated the early exchanges and it took HHH around 15 minutes to wash the powder out of his eyes. Beyond punching and hitting one another with various weapons around ring-side including the props set around ring-side, the match had two big stunts. The first saw HHH disappear into the parking lot. Vince went out looking for him but couldn’t find him anywhere until HHH tried to run him down, causing Vince to jump a guard rail just in time to avoid a potential fatality. No matter what, seeing a 54 year old man worth that amount of money taking that sort of risk for his company is always impressive. His second stunt wasn’t as impressive. It was poorly set up with HHH randomly climbing the set, Vince followed him up there and was tossed off onto the crash-pad below. Even by Pro Wrestling standards, this spot looked awful. As far as Attitude style main events go, there were far worse bouts like Rock-Taker at King of the Ring and Rock-HHH at Fully Loaded and if it wasn’t for the finish which was fantastic soap-opera television it would have been reviled.

Big Show-Bossman was kept mercifully short at 3:16. Bossman and Prince Albert did a good job of putting Show as a monster, but with so little time it’s a difficult job to mess up. The same can be said of Rikishi/Viscera v The Holly Cousins which sounded horrible on paper but at 4:18 they were able to showcase Rikishi without exposing anybody. The best match of the night happened to be between X-Pac and Kane. Despite the height and weight disadvantage, X-Pac did a great job of getting himself over as the heel targeting Tori through out the match and making use of a special set of rules. X-Pac could win through all the usual cage match means, but in order for Kane to win he had to pin X-Pac. They worked a fast-paced match up with plenty of near-falls, at one point Kane did a his trademark jumping clothesline off the top of the cage while X-Pac hit Kane with an X-Factor onto a Steel Chair for a near fall. Ultimately Kane prevailed but fans tend to forget about this match, possibly because they blew it off like nothing happened. Tori eventually turned on Kane, they had another match at No Way Out and it became one of those feuds that just lasted too long. It’s a shame because their first two bouts were among Kane’s best efforts as a performer and a real feather in the cap of Waltman.

Chyna-Jericho was another reasonable follow-up from Survivor Series. While it wasn’t as good as the first match, Jericho once again worked his arse off to give Chyna another good match and to her credit Chyna took some wicked strikes. Jericho wrote about this night in his second book and despite having always valued the IC belt, the night turned out to be a stinker since Chyna complained about the punches behind Jericho’s back and Jericho was forced to learn under X-Pac. Once again, to X-Pac’s credit despite Jericho having a ton of heat, X-Pac really showed Jericho the ropes and Chris went onto have a stellar career. Jericho really tried his best to get the crowd to cheer Chyna but no matter what once he locked in the Walls of Jericho fans were begging for Chyna to tap and usher in a new era for the IC belt.

The rest of the card can all be summed up pretty easily. New Age Outlaws vs The Rock n Sock connection was a lazy filler match intended to get both Foley and Rock on the show without them seeming like less stars. The match lasted too long, neither team seemed motivated and poor Foley could hardly move at this point. The European Championship match was as irrelevant as ever with the Bulldog third wheeling in an otherwise solid D’Lo Brown v Val Venis match. In the end, Venis captured his first European Championship after hitting a Money Shot on both Brown and Bulldog right after Brown had the Bulldog pinned with a Frog Splash. Kurt Angle and Steve Blackman had the worst match of night. As a worker, Blackman had no personality in the ring and just about every move he hit looked awful. The crowd chanted boring through out the match which felt deserved in this instance. The opening match was a Number One Contender’s Tag Team Battle Royale featuring eight teams. The match itself proved to be a big waste of talent as the story focused more on the incompetency of the officials than the actual workers. A lot of clear eliminations were missed, including the finish where the Hardys had eliminated The Acolytes on two separate occasions but the officials missed it. The only saving grace was Jeff’s elimination right at the end which maybe one of the best battle royale eliminations in history. The amount of air he got was amazing. Otherwise, I fail to see how this got the Acolytes over as bad-asses moving forward to the 2000 Royal Rumble. Not to mention, the other big storyline of the match is that Pete Gas and Joey Abs worked a twin magic gimmick and somehow got away with it. How the hell do you get those two mixed up?

From what I can gather, the WWF were really scrambling around this time. Originally the WWF were looking to go with a Rock v Heel Austin Wrestlemania feud and once Steve had to go in for his surgery they had to go back to what they knew. They put the championship on The Big Show at Survivor Series to compensate fans for the bait and switch on Austin. Foley was also set to retire which changed his plans around. Shamrock got injured, Jericho got a ton of heat, Jarrett walked out, the WWF was still trying to replace Sable and the roster was undergoing a transition as well. As a result you get this thrown together show with a bunch of rematches that had to rely heavily on the angle at the end. Thankfully they smashed it out of the park and the Stephanie McMahon heel turn was a fantastic moment but the promotion itself wasn't doing crash hot and it wouldn't find it's groove until Vince Russo managed to get himself sent home from WCW causing a huge chain reaction. I don't believe in the illuminati or anything crazy, but there's an awful lot of coincidences surrounding Russo's tenure with WCW. WCW had Jarrett voisted on them, Bret managed to get hurt, Goldberg managed to get hurt, Hogan and Flair both got sent home and their best workers all walked out at once...and David Arquette won the WCW Championship.

Match Ratings
Tag Team Battle Royale – 3/10
Steve Blackman vs Kurt Angle – 1/10
Evening Gown Swimming Pool – 1/10
Rikishi/Viscera v The Holly Cousins – 2/10
Val Venis vs D’Lo Brown vs British Bulldog – 3/10
Kane vs X-Pac – 6/10
Chris Jericho vs Chyna – 5/10
The Rock n Sock Connection vs The New Age Outlaws – 2/10
Big Show vs The Big Bossman – 2/10
Vince McMahon vs Triple H – 3/10

WWF Raw Is War
12/13/99
Tampa, Florida

Chris Jericho def. X-Pac via DQ at 3:20
Mark Henry def. The Godfather at 1:47
The Rock n Sock Connection def. The Dudley Boyz at 15:20
The Cat def. Tori at 1:15 in a Chocolate Pudding match
The Acolytes def. The Mean Street Posse at 1:30
Edge & Christian def. The Hardy Boyz at 5:40 in a Steel Cage Match
The New Age Outlaws def. Kane at 2:25
The Big Show def. Big Bossman & Prince Albert at 1:58
The New Age Outlaws fought Test & Triple H to a No Contest at 6:00

The biggest take-away from the post-Armageddon Raw was how flimsy the set-up was for the McMahon-Helmsly era. All it took was one really good heel promo from Stephanie to get Vince out of the building one night and poof, now Stephanie is in charge of the family business. If you haven't seen the Stephanie McMahon promo, I'd highly recommend it. Not only is it one of the best promos of 1999, but it's a pivotal moment of the Attitude Era that manages to redeem the absurdity of the Corporate Ministry storyline.

It led directly into the tag match between The Rock n Sock connection and The Dudley Boyz. It was so rare to see a 15 minute match on Raw at this point and surprisingly this held up nicely. Not only was this the highest rated segment on the show, both teams worked well and had a great over-booked shmozzle. Through out the match Triple H, Stephanie and Al Snow got involved and the match became a no disqualification match. Not only was this a contender for The Rock n Sock's best ever match together (Wrestlemania XX may just take the crown), but this was a pivotal moment in the Dudley Boyz career. It's funny looking back at their stints in the WWF/E because both times they came from other promotions, they usually had to revert to their older gimmick. In 1999, they had to go back to '96 with the stuttering gimmick and in 2015 they returned with the camo and the glasses.

The Cat/Tori, Acolytes/Posse, Outlaws/Kane and Outlaws/Test & HHH all followed a similar theme of the heels screwing with the babyfaces, or in the Posse's case, people they didn't like. So what you ended up getting was five matches that didn't even last 3 minutes and a main event that was just a glorified beat-down of Test. They laid the McMahon-Helmsly stuff on really thick and it worked a treat but it came at the expense of other talent.

They had a Cage match between Edge & Christian/Hardy Boyz which ended up being a really good sprint, but the fans had no reason to care about it. It took two big dives from Edge & Jeff to get them going, but before you knew it the match was over. Even if you gave them the same time, presenting the match as two unwilling participants being forced into a cage match is lame, which is exactly the way they went with it.

Outside of the McMahon-Helmsly stuff they had Jericho's first defence as Intercontinental Champion against X-Pac. On paper, this seemed like a slam-duck and the idea to position Jericho as the babyface was smart. However, the match had a horrible finish where Jericho submitted X-Pac with the Walls, but Chyna interfered and attacked the referee, leading to Jericho winning via DQ. It's one of those awful Attitude Era finishes which makes a farce of everything. I feel bad for everyone involved, but probably Chyna moreso. She was one of the hottest acts in the company and instead of having her confront HHH she's written as this passive aggressive bewildering woman.

Then there was the debut of the Mark Henry/Mae Young pairing. This maybe remembered as some of the most embarrassing television the WWF put together, but when that GTV segment aired and it was revealed that Young was sleeping with Henry, the reaction from Lawler and the crowd was priceless. It was one of the biggest pops on the show and a huge moment in Henry's career which had been flatlining ever since his angle with Chyna ended. It speaks volumes that Henry fought The Godfather without any real explanation. The two had been teaming in recent times and outside of a brief comment from JR, it wasn't acknowledged.

Notes

- During the show, Lawler and JR tried to advertise the latest Stone Cold Steve Austin doll that could cut promos. The only problem was, they forgot to put batteries into the doll, so they had to pretend the doll was speaking. Later in the show they revealed their mistake and further into the show had a second go at it.

- HHH was scheduled to beat The Big Show for the WWF Championship on the show, but that had to be delayed after the knee injury he suffered in the warm-up for the main event at Armageddon. Supposedly the only reason The Big Show has the belt is because Vince was worried that fans would be irate after Austin was pulled from the show at the last minute.

- The WWF were in talks to bring in Wrath and Bryan Addams from WCW. The idea would be to make them The New Domilition and book them like the Road Warriors of the tag team division. Russo and Ferrera were also interested in keeping them and would later get their way, making them Kronik. They maybe the worst hoss tag teams of all-time, but they were one of my favourite acts of WCW in 2000.

- With Bischoff out of power, the latest rumour going around is that DDP is looking to get out of WCW. JR shot down the DDP rumour on WWF.com

- Bubba The Love Sponge worked the Dark Match against Gerald Briscoe. Supposedly this was pretty common and Bubba worked both ECW and WCW.

WWF SmackDown 12/16/99

Chris Jericho def. Prince Albert (w/Big Bossman) in 2:44
Kurt Angle def. Test via DQ in 2:53
Matt Hardy def. Jeff Hardy in 5:23
X-Pac def. Tori in :43
Mankind def. Al Snow in 8:01
Edge def. Christian in 3:54
The Acolytes def. The Mean Street Posse in :26
Rikishi Phatu & Too Cool def. Viscera & The Holly Cousins in 6:08
The New Age Outlaws def. The Stooges in 2:00
The Rock fought The Big Show ended in a No Contest at 6:42

SmackDown picked up where Raw left off with the McMahon-Helmsly in charge. Usually shows like these are a total write off because it's the same angle through out the entire show, but they put a nice spin on it. The partner vs partner matches were surprisingly good because they were allowed to wrestle. Of the two, the Hardy Boyz easily had the better match. Edge screwed up the finish in his match and the Hardy Boyz had some great spots. I can't get enough of Matt's ricochet DDT spot.



It wasn't quite as good as the one he hit on Christian on SmackDown during their Terry Invitational Tournament, but it's still a cool move that you rarely see these days.

Mankind/Snow was the best Foley match I've seen since he took time off in May. Watching Foley during this time has been rough and when he isn't signalling for Mr. Socko he's got little else to offer. At least on this occasion they were able to come up with some decent slapstick and a finish that got a great pop. Snow lured 'Foley' into DX's lockeroom, and you couldn't see anything until Snow came flying out of the lockeroom seemingly unconcious. Foley pinned Snow in the hallway and the camera panned up to see The Rock. The Rock then ripped the D-X figurehead off the locker-room and the crowd went crazy.

Finally, I wanted to give props to Stephanie McMahon. She went from being one of the worst characters on the show, to one of the more interesting in the matter of a week. Not only was the heel turn a huge moment but the follow-up has been great. A lot of heel characters suck because they're shallow and you just don't buy them as people. With Stephanie there's layers to her character that's interesting and you're not quite sure how it's all going to play out. For instance on this show they were alredy planting seeds for her crush on Kurt Angle, she was booking babyface matches like the Acolytes vs. The Mean Street Posse, she told King off for sucking up to her and she didn't have anytime for the New Age Outlaws. When you consider she could have taken after her mother and had zero screen presence, it's a miracle things panned out as well as they did.

What an amazing point about Stephanie, and especially her not taking after Linda from a charisma standpoint. I guess we can thank the Genetic Jackhammer's indomitable genes.

Been browsing through this the past few minutes. Great thread. I kept up with it at the old PW and now I'm gonna have to sit down and read the whole thing from start to finish again one day.

WWF Raw Is War
12/20/99
Houston, Texas

The New Age Outlaws def. Test in 3:25
Christian & Jeff Hardy def. Edge & Matt Hardy in 4:52
Kurt Angle def. Viscera in 2:13
The Dudley Boyz def. Mae Young/Faboulous Moolah & The Acolytes in 1:40
Santa Claus (HHH) def. Mankind in a Boiler Room Brawl match
Chris Jericho def. The Godfather in 2:30
Hardcore Holly (w/Terri) def. Val Venis (w/BB) in 2:30
Al Snow def. The Rock in 5:44
Rikishi Phatu & Too Cool def. The Mean Street Posse in 4:08
The Big Show def. Kane (w/Tori) in 6:52

This was a typical Christmas edition of Raw, where the company phones it in because they know nobody's watching. Well the show drew a 4.7 which the WWE would kill for now, but you get the gist. The biggest angle of the night saw Hardcore Holly face off against Val Venis in the over-the-top topless match, where the valet of the losing side had to strip. As you'd expect, this was the highest rated segment of the show and the highlight of BB's career. Of course they had HHH come out and block the camera from seeing anything getting more heel heat by proxy. I don't know about you guys, but to me, it seems like an instance of Vince playing with fire. They got into a lot of trouble following the Ms. Kitty incident and instead of toning it down, they kept playing it up, leading to the Mae Young bit at the Royal Rumble. What sucked about the Rumble is that it was the first show Channel 4 broadcasted in the UK and afterwards everything had to be on an hour delay with certain segments heavily edited out.

The best match saw The Big Show defend the WWF Championship against Kane. These two had one of the worst matches at King of the Ring, so this was a surprisingly decent ** match where Kane got to show off his athleticism. He nailed Show with a sweet enuzuguri, hit two neat top rope clothesline variations and even managed to pull off a decent drop-kick as a comeback spot. I enjoyed the finish as well, I never get tired of watching guys get powerbombed through tables, it's one of life's simple pleasure. It's a shame that the stipulation of the match sucked. If Kane failed to win the WWF Championship, Tori had to spend Christmas with X-Pac. Not only did it mean that Tori had to stay on the show (she was awful...easily one of the worst characters of the Attitude era) but X-Pac wasn't even on the show to promote the angle. Meltzer reckons he took time off to spend Christmas with his young family.

The Snow vs Rock match wasn't half-bad either. They had the Outlaws screw The Rock over, but not before a few near-falls which the crowd went crazy for. Despite this being the biggest win of Al Snow's career, they made sure to focus put the focus on the McMahon-Helmsly routine. One of the arguments that Meltzer makes for The Rock is that he's the exception to every megastar rule. So losing an improntu match like this (and a month earlier against Bossman) would be key examples. Personally, when it's presented in this fashion, there's nothing wrong with the babyface losing the occasional match. Nobody likes the Patriots so blemishes here and there doesn't matter. Especially since The Rock would go onto beat Al Snow in a Cage match on SmackDown, rendering Snow's win moot.

Mankind vs Santa could be the most Mick Foley match of all-time. His obsession with Santa Claus started off as endearing, but over the years it's become really kooky especially since he has that immaculate Christmas room in his house. This wasn't much of a match, but just a creative way to plant the seeds for HHH/Mankind at the Royal Rumble. Mankind survived a 3-1 and then a 2-1 attack, only for HHH to blind-side him and win the match. Foley has been a thorn in HHH's side ever since the Armaggeddon '99 match where he brought Vince a bunch of weapons to use on Helmsly.

WWF Notes

- Lawler and Miss Kitty were absent on the show. They were busy attending the premier of Man on the Moon, a dime-a-dozen biographical flick that came out around the time Jim Carrey was trying to show his range (the Truman Show and Simon Birch came out around the same time). While it falls short, I give the movie props for introducing me to Kaufman and his role in Pro Wrestling.

- Austin's neck surgery was bumped up to January 11th, which gave him a 11 week window to get ready for Wrestlemania 2000. Austin was contemplating retirement in November of 1999 which would have been a huge blow but doctors were confident about his recovery. The Rock was keeping in touch with Austin at the time and the two have been mapping out a big angle where Austin would turn heel and help get The Rock over as the babyface of the company. So even as early as December of '99, Austin had his heart-set on the heel turn.

- Jericho and Vince had a heated but constructive argument after the recent SmackDown. This was documented in Jericho's book, but the story back then was that Vince wasn't happy with Jericho's ring-work and thought his psychology was awful. They had signed him so he could be a heel, but he got himself over as a face. Vince offered Jericho his release, but Chris refused and agreed to work a program with X-Pac which didn't happen. Instead X-Pac just watched over Jericho's matches, while Chris mostly worked with Al Snow & Hardcore Holly on the live events. Meltzer's take on this is that Jericho was always going to get over as a babyface due to his ability to cut promos and the flashy entrance. He conceded that his ring-work wasn't as great as it had been in WCW, but that was to be expected when he went from working guys like Malenko, Eddie, Rey, Juventud to working the mid-card in the WWF. Meltzer believed the heat stemmed from Kevin Nash and was passed over to DX who were burying him to just about anybody backstage.

- Back on the Shawn Stasiak story, he was officially released around this time and he was caught recording Blackman/Bulldog's conversations. Stasiak didn't plan on sharing the recording, he just has a weird fetish. The locker room went from out-right hating Stasiak to pitying him for being such a kook.

- There was a rumour doing the rounds that the winner of the Rumble will not be guaranteed a shot at the championship at Wrestlemania. The thought is that The Rock winning is far too predictible and they wanted to spice things up by adding a twist. One name being tossed around as a potential winner is Tazz.

- In one of those stories that should have been obvious, but flew over my head, the reason the WWF added the extra z to Tazz is because of the Looney Tunes character.

- Shawn Michaels in a recent interview stated he'll be right to wrestle in the near future. This is good news for Michaels as one of his pupils at his wrestling academy suffered a serious neck injury and wasn't covered by insurance. Michaels is covering his medical costs, but due to the potential lawsuit may have to get back into wrestling to support himself. One issue with Michaels' return is that he's got heat with both Austin (stemming from Wrestlemania XIV and SummerSlam '99) and The Rock (stemming from Michaels being a dick in Hawaii)

Goddamn, I forgot that Meat Stasiak was a more charismatic Baby Driver in real life, autistically recording people for reasons he couldn't even understand.

Poor Jericho, man. Dude leaves WCW, all enthusiastic thinking the WWF will know what to do with him. WWF is like, "Go lose to Triple H's girlfriend. Be best buds with Mr. Hughes." Then they're annoyed that he's getting over despite all this. If WCW wasn't such a shit show, I wonder if Jericho accepts the release offer.

Wow, a fun thought exercise is to think what WWF in 2000 would've looked like if Austin had been able to return for Rock/Austin II at 'Mania with the heel turn there (which I think would've worked far better) and if Michaels had been able to return to the ring two years earlier.

Oct 20, 2017 7:10:15 GMT Big Pete said:

- There was a rumour doing the rounds that the winner of the Rumble will not be guaranteed a shot at the championship at Wrestlemania. The thought is that The Rock winning is far too predictible and they wanted to spice things up by adding a twist. One name being tossed around as a potential winner is Tazz.

Reading this makes me sadder than ever at what became of Tazz. From a potential Rumble winner to an undercard filler feud with Bossman in two months is quite the fall. 

WWF SmackDown
12/23/99
Dallas, Texas

The premise of the show was similar to the previous SmackDown. Stephanie McMahon admitted she had made mistakes, but tonight things would be different, booking the babyfaces in favourable matches. Test made short work of the Road Dogg, Kane squashed Billy Gunn, The Rock got his win back over Al Snow in a cage match and Mankind had a shot at the WWF Championship. This led into the main event where Triple H was suspended 15 feet in the air in a cell, with Test, Edge, Christian and Jeff Hardy patrolling ring-side so the heels couldn't interfere. Surprise, surprise, it was a set-up and as soon as HHH's cell began to lower, the babyfaces got bum-rushed by all the heels on the roster and the show ended with HHH and Stephanie standing tall in the ring.

Outside of building heat for the heels, the show marked the transition of the Dudley Boyz from stuttering comic heels, to the women beating bullies. In truth, it started on Monday Night Raw when they attacked Mae Young but this was the first we got to see of their new persona and they'd go onto become one of the biggest acts of 2000. As time has gone on, their popularity seems to be credited with their work against the Hardys and Edge and Christian, but it was really the Mae Young table spot that got them noticed. Buh Buh did the job to Henry on the show, but he got more out of Young's presence than Mark ever did.

The show also featured a blow-off match between Rikishi & Viscera who had a mini-feud stemming from Armaggedon. Rikishi went over in a short match, Too Cool came out to celebrate and the fans went home happy. Everything wrong in 2000 can be traced to an obese guy in a thing getting over, but Fatu was always a solid worker and made the most of a ridiculous gimmick.

Favourite line of the show was at the start of the show when Mankind was staging a mutiny backstage.

Mankind (in reference to all the bad booking on Raw): Then we've got this top rope topless match going on. To me it's just a cheap excuse to see as much cleavage from Terri Runnels and BB.

*roster applauds*

Okay, that one was pretty cool, but I think we're all in agreement, do any of us really need to see the Mean Street Posse seven times in a single evening?

*roster erupts with nos*

Hey Pete and Rodney, no offence but you guys should be cutting our lawns at this stage of your careers.

The Mean Street Posse were at their best around this time. Just the ultimate butt monkeys who took their lickings whenever they were dished out. Their role on the show was to have Kaientai wrestle on their behalf against Jeff Hardy & Christian. They had a neat sprint, with the babyfaces going over and Kaientai getting one over the Posse.

All in all, the big question coming out of the show was whether or not the Outlaws can trust the McMahon-Helmsly faction. They appear to be on the same page for now, but both were used like pawns for the ultimate goal. Also, how is the roster going to act now that Stephanie has entered the point of no return?

WWF Raw Is War
12/27/99
Greensboro, North Carolina

Chyna def. Crash Holly (w/Hardcore Holly) in 1:15
The Dudley Boyz def. The Godfather & D'Lo Brown & Edge & Christian & The Acolytes in 2:33
Kurt Angle def. The Headbangers in 1:00
Al Snow def. Chris Jericho via DQ in 1:15
The Rock def. Mankind in 6:11
Ivory/Prince Albert def. The Cat/Venis & Luna/Gangrel & Jacqueline/Viscera in 2:02
X-Pac def. Jeff Hardy (w/Matt Hardy & Terri Runnels) in 4:05
The New Age Outlaws def. Too Cool in 2:45
The Big Show def. Triple H in 5:56

The final Raw of '99 saw the 'retirement' of Mick Foley, after he lost a pink slip on a pole match against The Rock. The way the angle played out was really well executed. The show started with D-Generation X cutting a promo, with HHH promising he would end 1999 as WWF Champion. Stephanie mentioned the mutiny at SmackDown and warned that there would be severe consequences if anybody tried to rally against the McMahon-Helmsly faction. Cue Foley who voiced his disappointment about what D-X had become and mentioned the role they had played in his WWF Championship victory a year prior. He then warned all the members of D-X that HHH was only interested in winning the Championship and reminded the Outlaws what happened to them on SmackDown. Foley then entered the ring and got too ahead of himself, telling Stephanie that the Godfather had a message for her and that she needs to get ready with all the other hos. D-X attacked Foley, causing The Rock to come out and clean house. This led HHH to make the pole match later on the show, where the loser would be fired. Before the match, Foley warned The Rock he would do anything to end his career on his own terms and that he wasn't going to let his children down. They had a match and just as The Rock was gaining the upper-hand, Al Snow laid out The Rock, giving Mankind a golden opportunity to win the match. Mankind refused to take it and ultimately The Rock won after Foley took a nasty spill off the top, onto the apron and then hit the ground. The way they sold the result was great. The Rock just threw the paper down and left the ring in disgust. Foley then cut a deflated retirement promo and would spend the bulk of the show thanking the roster and the crew for all their work. HHH and Stephanie then called the police to escort him out of the building in lieu of the main event. The Championship match descened into a farce quickly with D-X all interfering and just as it appeared HHH was going to win, Foley interfered to a nice pop and the Big Show won to send the fans home happy. Everybody played their parts well, particularly JR and King who sold the weight of what was happening. After weeks of being an after thought on the roster, Foley got over more in one night than most do in an entire career and it goes to show just how talented he and the company was back then.

The other story on the show saw Kane turn on Test and squash him in the ring. This angle sucked, the acting was terrible but really Laurence Olivier would have struggled with the material. The general gist is that Tori set Test up as a rapist because he innocently touched her on the shoulder while they were standing at catering. The best part of the segment was Tori giving her take on the situation and Kane responding with a Darth Vader esque NOOOOOOOO. This angle sucked and not only did it give Tori way too much exposure but it hurt too many promising careers. X-Pac, Kane & Test all suffered and for what? So X-Pac could get his win back at No Way Out?

The other big series of skits saw Mark Henry & Harvey Whippleman wine and dine Mae & Moolah. This was silly, but like the LaVar Ball segment on a recent Raw, it was just the WWF trying to cash in what was trending. Tom Green was picked up on MTV in January of 1999 and had made absurdist humour popular with the youth of America. As pointless as it was, even at the time, horny, violent, foul-mouthed ladies was just par for the course.

On a brighter note, X-Pac/Jeff Hardy worked a fun sprint. It was exactly what you'd expect from these two and despite it just being thrown together, the crowd got into it and they had some creative ideas. There was one moment where X-Pac tried his sleazy stalker shtick on Terri and lured her into the ring. Pac backed her into a corner, but before he could touch her, Jeff laid him out, setting up the human stepping stone spot the Hardys often do, except with Terri playing the role of Matt. For the most part, Terri has been a useless addition to the Hardy Boyz, so Pac gets credit for bringing her into the match. Neat finish too, Hardy looked like he was going to go over, before Pac just muled kicked him in the groin, set up an X-Factor and scored the get out of jail win.

The other highlight was the short but sweet Outlaws/Cool match. They sold it like there was going to be a title change, before Pac interfered and screwed Sexay over. Too Cool still got to stand tall after the segment was over and do their dance which is over on every show they're performing. Watching them evolve from a obnoxious hip hop duo into fan favourites has been one of the highlights of this late '99 period. They're still not quite there yet, they haven't quite built up the Worm just yet and the commentators are referring to it as the Centipede.

WWF Notes

Unfortunately there wasn't a lot to report. I don't have the PWTorch that covered this show and Meltzer was too busy celebrating the year 2000 to give his thoughts on what was happening. The only real piece of news centres around Ken Shamrock and the uncertainty surrounding his future. Shamrock has been cleared to return for two weeks, but he wants to return to the UFC. The WWF were OK with this, but couldn't come to an agreement with co-promoting his next fight. In the end, Shamrock ended up working in PRIDE on May 1st. I'm sketchy on the details, but for both parties, I thought it was the best move. Shamrock had an awful 1999 and whatever potential he had built in 1998 was long gone.

Raw did a 5.85 rating (5.55 for the first hour, 6.12 in the second hour). Big Show/HHH (6.65) and Rock/Mankind (6.42) were the highest rated segments on the show while the first fatal-fourway and Angle/Headbangers was the lowest rated segment on the show (5.37). Meanwhile Nitro drew a 2.86, with the Karaigis/Vampiro vs David Flair/Crowbar being the highest rated head-to-head segment (2.57). I've criticised David Flair, but according to Meltzer, behind Bill Goldberg, David Flair was the biggest ratings draw in WCW. Like father, like son I guess?

Since I don't need to fill anymore blanks, I'll quickly cover SmackDown. Through out the show, they played highlights of Foley's time in the WWF. This display sent HHH into a rage and he set up a non-title match between X-Pac and the Big Show where Pac's career was on the line. Of course this was all just a set-up and the main event ended up being D-Generation X versus the Big Show where they left him a bloody mess to end the final show of the year. This show also marked the beginning of the co-Intercontinental Championship lines. Instead of just declaring the match a draw, the referees decided to be cute. This angle sucked and did nothing for the promotion or for either competitor. Chyna really should have taken time off or found herself in the thick of the McMahon-Helmsly angle, she had no business working an angle with Jericho. Meanwhile Chris' run was a joke and he's been made to look hopeless as a champion. In every match he's just about to lose the title only for Chyna to come and save the day. It just goes to show how much heat he had, because the roster really needed somebody like Jericho to fill time while Austin, Taker, Shamrock etc. were off television. Speaking of potential main eventers, this show also saw Al Snow's rub with the main event come to an abrupt end. They ran an angle where if Snow defeated Jeff Hardy, he would receive a WWF Championship shot down the line. The pair worked another good match, but Jeff ultimately won and Snow would fall into mid-card obscurity not long after.

So after 52 episodes of Monday Night Raw, 14 Pay-Per-Views and a handful of SmackDown episodes, it's time to make sense of it all.

As crazy as 1999 was, there was a method to the madness. After riding the McMahon-Austin-Taker gravy train as long as they could, the company pivoted and became a heel promotion. Suddenly Triple H became the focus of the show and the WWF spared no suspense building him up. He went over the biggest babyface in the company, he married the boss' daughter and was on his way to a third championship reign.

By getting heat on HHH, it gave guys like Mankind and The Rock time to get over as babyfaces. Whenever HHH was getting one over the babyfaces, the fans would constantly chant 'Rocky, Rocky' hoping their hero would come and save the day. This despite the fact HHH & The Rock had faced off so many times, you'd think the fans would be sick of it.

While all that was going on, guys like Edge, Christian, The Hardy Boyz, The Acolytes, Kurt Angle, The Dudley Boyz, Too Cool etc. received healthy pushes. You just knew the future was going to be safe and when the Radicalz made the switch it was effectively game over.

Now if we were basing each individual year on the basis of quality matches, 1999 would easily be the worst of all-time. I had two matches in that 7/10 category - Mankind vs The Rock at the Royal Rumble and the No Mercy ladder match. While there were plenty of good television matches, the WWF style at that time was all about brawling and usually matches revolved around outside interference to keep the fans interested.

Of the guys on the roster, the best worker was X-Pac. Not only was he a great singles guy, in the tag team division him and Kane worked together really well and he was able to help Kane acclimatize to the rest of the roster. Otherwise the Hardy Boyz were usually fun to watch.

If I had to do this again, I wouldn't have stuck with the idea of doing a calendar year. Depending on the era I was interested in, I would have started from SummerSlam '98 and gone through until Fully Loaded '99. If I wanted to do the latter half it would have been Fully Loaded '99 to Backlash 2000. By only recapping one calendar year, you miss the opportunity to see why one act was able to get over, while others didn't.

If I was to recommend a show, I'd say any of the shows around the Corporate Ministry were red hot. The May 10th 1999 episode in particular is a must watch. Meanwhile that awkward period around September/October maybe the worst. The WWF were really struggling with the introduction of SmackDown and it would ultimately result in a big creative upheaval which left Vince/HHH to book themselves on top.

1999 is a year that gets piled on due to Russo's legacy, but in spite of his work afterwards there was still plenty to celebrate and more to revisit. It was a hot time in the business and to see a company enjoy such unparalleled success was nearly worth the 66 episodes I sat through.

Here are my picks for stand-out Raw/PPV matches.

WWF Raw Is War 1999

Mankind vs Rock – 4/1
Road Dogg vs Al Snow – 4/1
Mankind vs Kane – 11/1
Chyna vs Pat Patterson & Gerald Briscoe – 18/1
The Rock vs Mankind – Royal Rumble 1999
Owen Hart & Jeff Jarrett vs Ken Shamrock & Big Bossman -25/1
Al Snow & Road Dogg vs Edge & Gangrel – 25/1
Triple H vs Kane – 1/2/99
The Rock vs Steve Blackman – 2/13/99
Triple H & X-Pac vs Kane & Chyna – St. Valentines Day Massacre
The Rock vs Mankind – St Valentines Day Massacre
Steve Austin vs Vince McMahon – St Valentines Day Massacre
Big Bossman & Test & Ken Shamrock vs Mideon & The Acolytes – 15/2
Kane & Shane McMahon vs Triple H and X-Pac – 15/2
Hardcore Holly vs Bart Gunn – 22/2
Steve Austin vs Kane – 1/3
Test vs X-Pac – 8/3
Billy Gunn vs Hardcore Holly – 15/3
Steve Austin vs Paul White – 22/3
X-Pac vs Shane McMahon – Wrestlemania 15
Steve Austin vs The Rock – Wrestlemania 15
The Rock vs Billy Gunn – 29/3
Kane & X-Pac vs Jeff Jarrett & Owen Hart – 5/4
New Age Outlaws vs Edge & Gangrel – 5/4
X-Pac & Kane vs Triple H & Test – 12/4
Ken Shamrock vs The Big Bossman – 19/4
Al Snow vs Hardcore Holly – Backlash 1999
The New Age Outlaws vs Jeff Jarrett & Owen Hart – Backlash 1999
Mankind vs The Big Show – Backlash 1999
The Undertaker vs Ken Shamrock – Backlash 1999
Steve Austin vs The Rock – Backlash 1999
Triple H vs Billy Gunn – 26/4
Billy Gunn vs X-Pac – 3/5
Cactus Jack vs Viscera & Mideon – 10/5
The Stooges vs The Mean Street Posse – 10/5
Jeff Jarrett vs Val Venis – 10/5
Steve Austin & The Rock & Vince McMahon vs The Undertaker & Triple H & Shane McMahon – 10/5
Mankind vs Billy Gunn – No Mercy
Steve Austin vs Triple H vs The Undertaker – No Mercy
Michael Hayes & The Hardy Boyz vs The Brood – 17/5
Triple H vs Steve Austin – 17/5
Kane & X-Pac vs D’Lo Brown & Mark Henry – Over The Edge
The Hardy Boyz vs Kaientai – 24/5
Triple H vs Mankind – 31/5
Steve Austin vs The Undertaker – 31/5
Al Snow vs Droz – 7/6
The Rock vs The Undertaker & Triple H – 14/6
The Undertaker vs Triple H – 21/6
Steve Austin vs The Undertaker – 28/6
The Hardy Boyz vs The Acolytes – 5/7
The Rock vs Triple H – 5/7
Steve Austin & The Big Show vs Kane & The Undertaker – 12/7
The Road Dogg & The Rock & X-Pac vs Triple H & Mr Ass & Chyna – 12/7
Christian vs Jeff Hardy – 19/7
Edge & D’Lo Brown vs Gangrel & Mideon – 19/7
Jeff Jarrett vs Edge – Fully Loaded ‘99
The Acolytes vs X-Pac & Kane – 2/8
Tag Team Turmoil – SummerSlam ‘99
Shane McMahon vs Test – SummerSlam ‘99
The Unholy Alliance vs Kane & X-Pac – SummerSlam ‘99
Triple H vs Mankind vs Steve Austin – SummerSlam ‘99
Triple H vs Mankind – 23/8
Triple H vs Billy Gunn – 6/9/99
Test vs Joey Abs – 13/9/99
The Dudley Boys vs The New Brood – 20/9
D’Lo Brown vs Mark Henry – Unforgiven ‘99
Jeff Jarrett vs Chyna – Unforgiven ‘99
The Rock vs Chris Jericho – 4/10
X-Pac vs Farooq – 11/10
The New Brood vs Edge & Christian – No Mercy ‘99
X-Pac vs Kane vs Bradshaw vs Farooq – No Mercy ‘99
Triple H vs Steve Austin – No Mercy ‘99
Val Venis vs Al Snow – 18/10
Mankind vs Triple H – 25/10
The Hardy Boyz & Edge & Christian vs The Holy Cousins and Too Cool – 1/11
Shane McMahon vs Triple H – 1/11
Chyna vs Chris Jericho – Survivor Series ‘99
Kane vs X-Pac – Survivor Series ‘99
Kane vs X-Pac – Armageddon ‘99
Chris Jericho vs Chyna – Armageddon ‘99
The Rock n Sock Connection vs The Dudley Boyz – 13/12
The Big Show vs Kane – 20/12
X-Pac vs Jeff Hardy – 27/12

And here was the SmackDown list from 2012/13

X-Pac/Kane vs. New Age Outlaws – 29/4/99 – 3/10
The Rock vs. Triple H – 26/8/99 – 3/10
Rock n Sock vs. Shane McMahon/Triple H – 2/9/99 – 2/10
Unholy Alliance vs. Rock n Sock Connection – 9/9/99 – 3/10
Shane McMahon vs. Joey Abs – 16/9/99 – 3/10
Vince McMahon vs. Triple H – 16/9/99 – 3/10
New Age Outlaws vs. Rock n Sock Connection 23/9/99 – 3/10
Edge & Christian vs. Hardy Boys – 30/9/99 – 3/10
Edge & Christian vs. Hardy Boys – 7/10/99 – 4/10
The Rock vs. Val Venis – 7/10/99 – 4/10
Rock n Sock Connection vs. New Age Outlaws – 14/10/99 – 3/10
Steve Austin vs. Val Venis – 21/10/99 – 4/10
Edge & Christian vs. Too Cool – 28/10/99 – 3/10
Hardy Boys vs. Too Cool – 4/11/99 – 3/10
HHH/X-Pac/New Age Outlaws vs. The Rock/Kane/Test/Shane McMahon – 11/11/99 – 3/10
Edge & Christian vs. Too Cool – 18/11/99 – 3/10
The Hardy Boys vs. New Age Outlaws - 25/11/99 – 4/10
HHH/X Pac vs. Shane McMahon/Test – 25/11/99 – 3/10 – Wicked post match segment
Big Show/Hardy Boys vs. X-Pac/New Age Outlaws – 2/12/99 – 4/10
Mankind vs. Al Snow – 9/12/99 – 3/10
Mankind vs. Al Snow – 16/12/99 – 3/10
Jeff Hardy vs. Matt Hardy – 16/12/99 – 4/10
Al Snow vs. The Rock – 23/12/99 – 3/10
Jeff Hardy/Christian vs. Kaientai – 23/12/99 – 3/10
Al Snow vs. Jeff Hardy – 30/12/99 – 4/10