4-26-99: Do You Believe In Stone Cold?
This week’s episode of RAW was sadly pre-empted by the tragedy of the Columbine High School shooting of 1999, and as I’m opening up this file I’m certain that the producers of RAW will make sure to acknowledge the tragic events tastefully while continuing to entertain (because they are professionals people!) Surely the staff of RAW will make sure to keep things light and tip toe around anything that could upset the families of the victims of that horrible massacre. The best way to do that would probably be to just not refer to anything that isn’t an actual tragedy as a tragedy. We can probably make it through an episode of RAW without hyperbole. Right?
To bring you up to speed: Last night (in 1999) the PPV “Backlash” was held and Stone Cold retained his fancy belt and The Undertaker kidnapped Stephanie McMahon under the guise of limo driver. Ghost of future past much? Other, less important things also probably happened. Possibly involving Triple H, X-Pac, Val Venis, D’Lo Brown, and maybe Jeff Jarrett. But I can only guess as I refuse to go and watch. I still have to buy Christmas presents for everyone in the office!
BOOM! Three minutes in and we’re already throwing around words like tragedy and horrific about Stone Cold keeping his title. Well played JR. Get it out of your system and it won’t happen again, it’s like laughing at a funeral. Now that The Rock has been beaten by Stone Cold for the fiftieth(?) time I’m curious if The Rock is going to start feuding with anyone else. I remember some of the beats that come up but I can’t remember how things play out. At some point there’s going to be a triple threat match between The Rock, Stone Cold, and Triple H but how do we get there? And where does Shane McMahon play into this? Does he really weigh 200 lbs? That’s so many pounds! I might be getting up to Shane McMahon’s fighting weight in a few days, as of the writing of this episode it’s Christmas eve eve and I just ate a piece of an entire chocolate pecan pie that was baked for me. The whole thing is for me! How am I going to eat that? I need to a tag team partner for this pie. A big red Kane to my scrappy pie eating X-Pac.
After everything that’s happened, all of this Undertaker sacrificing malarky has just been a ruse so he can get controlling interest in The WWF and from what I can surmise a title match with Stone Cold? Don’t sacrifice me or anything but that seems a bit elaborate for an undertaker that’s also a ghost cowboy. To quote Steve Austin
“You ain’t makin’ no sense.”
Onto the boring D-X fallout/rivalry portion of the show! The music of Triple H and Billy Gunn has changed from the usual Degeneration-X entrance music to some new weirdly recorded songs that work their names into their respective themes. It’s a real sea change. I wonder if there was a 21 dudes doing the “suck it” motion salute when they finally had to retire the music. I guess it’s not completely retired. X-Pac is still using his incredibly annoying entrance theme and I think the Road Dogg (ugh) is still coming out to himself acting like an asshole. We’ll save our reverence for when the last bastion of sucking it has passed.
One thing that I find interesting about this tag team match up between good and boring dudez is that in one corner you’ve got Man Kind and The Big Show, two athletes that are still immensely popular and who seem really nice (The Big Show cries at least once an episode on modern day Smackdown and Man Kind is now defacto Santa Claus for the WWE) against The Big Bossman and Test, a couple of guys that seem to have the people skills of a cheese sandwich. Are there even any Bossman or Test fans? These dopes probably don’t even have any merch.
I think that The Godfather just won Debra in a match. Can the WWF officially sanction a match that involves human trafficking? They do have their own channel so I guess they can do whatever they want. The only interesting thing about the Jeff Jarrett/Owen Hart matches (so far) is that their manager, Debra/your stepmom, has no problem agreeing to the insane stipulations of these matches. Last week she agreed to not one but TWO matches where if the man in her corner lost she would have to show her breasts. Fine, whatever. It happens all the time. But this week the stipulation is that if Jeff Jarrett loses she’ll have to become a prostitute. RECORD SCRATCH! That is fucking bold you guys. I know that The Godfather isn’t an actual pimp (or at least I’m 95% sure) but should this really be a storyline on a family show? Or at least a show for young boys that are already really bad about objectifying women? If Owen Hart wouldn’t have come out to escort Debra away from the ring just before she was set to join the ranks of The Godfather’s Hoe Train we surely would have had this discussion.
Please take note of this amazing prop:
It looks to be The Undertaker’s very own brand of Necronomicon that includes all sorts of fancy spells and even a wedding ceremony. “A wedding ceremony!?” You say. “But Jacob how can a monster like The Undertaker who kidnaps women and sacrfices everyone on a giant T with an X on it looking thing believe in the sanctity of marriage?” You ask. Stop interrupting, I’m getting there. First I have to get through this growing pains section of X-Pac and Kane’s relationship. For some reason tonight’s episode has felt wildly disjointed. First you’ve got The Rock getting fired from The Corporation (which is just falling apart) and challenging Shane to a match only to have said match (and almost every other match) interrupted by Triple H and Chyna. Then you’ve got Vince McMahon goofing off in a warehouse waiting on The Undertaker and we’ve also got this (a fore mentioned) mess of a storyline between Kane and X-Pac. Friends means never having to say you’re sorry (for choke slamming someone) I guess. On top of those three messy story lines I can’t forget to mention that Val Venis is afraid of a rather muscly Nicole Bass who wants to do him (don’t you hate it when muscly ladies want to do you?) and HardcoreXHolly is really mad about something.
By the end of the night it seemed like most of the story lines had run their course but somehow most of them (the ones that don’t include Jeff Jarrett or Val Venis) intersected when The Undertaker tried to marry Stephanie McMahon on his rape symbol in the middle of the ring. Ken Shamrock, you may remember him from one of my favorite segments “Ken Shamrock hits people with a baseball bat” got belly flopped on while trying to break up the Unholy Union (YOU’RE WELCOME!) and then The Big Show kayfabe kicked a guy in the face but it wasn’t until Stone Cold showed up (even though you didn’t think he was going to show up except you totally knew he was going to show up) that things started looking up for the annullee to be. Thanks for tying up some of those loose ends Mr. Austin.
God Bless Us Everyone.
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