Exposer

Awesome segment. Sarge is interview is says there has to be law & order in the WWF & he's there to make sure of it. He says Austin's actions at Ground Zero were unacceptable reminds him & the fans that he's still suspended until doctors say he can wrestle. Therefore, an IC Title tournament as been announced & the finals will take place at Badd Blood. Sarge expects Austin to be there to hand over the title to the new champion. Sarge has tremendous heat here. Austin comes out & mocks Sarge about law & order & talks to trash. He then stuns him to a huge pop. The fans love him so much it's amazing. I loved Austin doing push-ups & crunches after the stunner. Vince is livid & gets in Austin's face reprimanding him. Austin looks like he's about to strike at Vince at one point. Vince is great here. Austin goes over to the announce booth & takes Vince's seat & intimidates JR. Officials eventually get Austin to leave. The heat & buzz for this segment is great. Austin is special.

Oh my God this is a mess. The video package & entrances are outstanding. Shawn's entrace is treated with utter contempt by the Louisville crowd. His dancing down the aisle is amazing. He makes some hilarious gestures at heckling fans during this. I loved his pyro not starting during his pose & his reaction. It seemed fitting with his alignment change over the last month. Taker's entrace is spectacular. This is one of his better ones since I've been doing this project. I loved the camer shot from behind a fan's lighter. Awesome visual. The pre-match stuff is great with Shawn bumping around like a madman & trying to open the IYH set door. Once the match started this turned into a trainwreck within a few minutes. They lost heat because Taker took way too much in this & never worked underneath for any considerable amount of time. The crowd couldn't care less by the end of the match. The excessive ref bumps & DX interference was so overbooked it became comical. Total clusterfuck. To make things worse, a fucking fourth referee showed up just the throw the match out. That ticked the Louisville fans off. The post-match is just as messy with an average brawl that doesn't have much intensity. The locker room fills up the ring with guys the DOA, Rocky, & Savio standing side by side trying to hold off Undertaker. I don't want to be Wade Keller, but three groups in a gang war shouldn't be so nonchalant about being in one another's prescence. Taker's dive is cool & got a nice pop, but this is pretty much an utter disaster as a match in the way it's worked & booked. Not good.

This is amazing. Sarge is interviewed about the Austin suspension & defends it saying the WWF doesn't want Austin to hurt himself any further. Dude Love comes out & surrenders one half of the tag belts saying he couldn't team with someone else if that was an option because Austin helped him win the belts. Then Austin comes out to surrender his half of the titles to a thunderous pop. I mean he is as over as ever. Incredible to the reaction he gets. He cuts a scorched earth promo on Vince, JR, & Sarge before surrendering the belt. Instead of handing it over he drops it at Sarge's feet & tells him to drop down & give him 20 if he wants the belt. He then threatens Sarge if doesn't get down & pick the belt off the ground. Sarge does so reluctantly & leaves. JR still wants an interview & to say a few things to Austin about his situation. Austin tells him to go ahead & say what he has to say & calls him a fat ass! JR thinks Austin should take care of his health & looks forward to seeing him compete again when he's ready. Austin acts like he's about to leave, but then turns around & stuns JR to an amazing pop! The place came unglued! The heat for this is insane. Officials come out to separate Austin as Dude Love tries to restrain him & calm him down a bit. Vince leaves the announce booth to check on JR. Austin leaves on his own as the crowd chants "Slaughter sucks!" while JR is being taken to the back. Tremendous segment. Austin is a megastar at this point. He's pretty much the guy now.

This wasn't in the video I found of the show. Seems rather unimportant. Austin unloading a gun on the photos is insane. Likely a step too far. The crossbow stuff is perfect. Crazy & intimidating but also playful & fun. With a gun, not so much.

This was fun. Rude & Sunny flirt. I liked Sunny trying to sex herself up more when she realized that Rude was being extra flirtatious only for Rude to sort of call her out on it. Fun bit.

The first obvious Russo feud is here. This is absurd. Pillman tells Goldust Dakota is his love child. Jesus Christ. If Pillman wins at Ground Zero, Marlena has to be with him for 30 days. If he loses, he'll leave the WWF forever. The video is all serious with Dustin sharing his thoughts saying how much he loves his family. Dramatic music plays as the narrator goes on about the possibility of a child being separated from their mother. I'm torn on using children in angles. I like the Raven-Sandman feud, but this seems much worse. Pillman's interview is funny though with lots of good sexual innuendos & Sunny has great facial expressions in response.

This is hilarious. Austin shows a get well package he received from the WWF with "signed" photos from Vince, JR, Gorilla, & Owen. He suspects some office clerk signed them. Him randomly threatening production & crew members is never not funny. I laughed out loud when he said he's beat the cameraman's ass if he tripped down his porch step. He lines up the photos on a deer target & put's Owen's on the ass. He shoots all of them with his crossbow & talks trash while doing it. This is so great. Austin is amazing.

Sarge announces that Austin has been suspended so that he doesn't risk further damage to his health by trying to compete at Ground Zero. He asks that Austin come to Ground Zero to forfeit his half of the tag team championship. A crew is sent to Texas to get Austin's thoughts & he's pissed off that WWF had the gall to send someone to his house for an interview about this. This is pretty funny. Austin doesn't want to do the interview at first, but changes his mind. I had a discussion with my brother about whether or not Austin being healthy would have been better & he made a strong argument that the neck injury ended up making Austin more special in the last few months of 1997 because he was so out of control & looked extremely tough for even showing up, mess less getting physical a lot, for such a bad injury. I think he's probably right.

I couldn't find this. Is this Superstars? The Network doesn't have Friday Night's Main Event from those two weeks up so I had to find YT's version. There seemed to be some editing in the video I watched so maybe it was cut. Sounds like a fun segment.

I sort of understood the "story of the Undertaker" comment. One soul to be left unscathed to tell of the damage he's done. I don't know. He never explains why Shawn was the guy who was exempt from his wrath before. Otherwise, this is a solid promo. He says the blood he drew last week was basically Shawn signing his own death wish with Taker's blood. I liked that. Taker isn't a great promo by any means, but I still want to see Ground Zero out of this & that's what matters.

Shawn has insane heat. My goodness. I liked this promo actually. Yeah, Shawn puts himself over first & foremost but that's his gimmick now. The promo was good enough to make me want to see Ground Zero. He basically says he's the loose cannon of the WWF & that it's a big problem for the Undertaker. Loud "Shawn is gay!" chants which he responds to in kind. Shawn makes out with a woman after the interview like an asshole. I enjoyed this.

Shawn suggesstively dancing & dry humping around Chyna who does nothing but stand there with her arms folded is hilarious. Solid tag match. Mankind takes a few big bumps & works FIP. Taker has a great hot tag & cleans house. Rude gets involved again & tries to hit Taker with a chair. Taker catches him & stalks him into the ring. Rude has him distracted though & he turns around into an absolutely wicked chair shot from Shawn. He blades & bleeds a good bit here. This has got to be the first blade job in the WWF in years. At least the first obvious blade job as show in the replay of the first chair shot. Shawn whacks him with the chair again. These chair shots are brutal. Taker sits up though & DX (I'll start calling them that for now) scatter as the show closes. Good main event with a great post-match angle to build to Ground Zero. This Shawn-Taker feud is hot.

Great Austin interview with Vince going over his injury in a video & JR interviewing him in his hotel room. Austin is hilarious here cursing & burying the hotel room he's staying in. I love him getting annoyed with JR during the interview. Austin seems legit pissed at Owen. I can understand being pretty upset about that spot. He says somehow, someway he's going to kick Owen's ass. This was great stuff.

I couldn't find this promo on The Network version of this RAW. Weird. Sometimes they edit things out. I did watch the Vader turn for posterity. Too little, too late for Vader & it is definitely a step down for Bret.

Faarooq cuts a really good promo on Ahmed Johnson explaining why he kicked him out of the group. The Rock explains why he joined the faction saying the WWF fans never respected him for being the good guy so now he's joined The Nation & will do what he wants by any means necessary. The signs of a great promo are there in Rocky, but he's far from there as of yet. DOA interrupt & challenge them to a parking lot brawl essentially. Good segment.

Rude is back in the WWF! He does his famous shtick at the start but says "....what a real man has to say" instead. Not much of a promo with him just talking in insurance speak about paying premiums & the job will get done. Rude in the WWF at this time is weird.

Really good match. Mankind coming out with a trashcan is hilarious & the spots they work with it are really fun. At one point Mankind is wrestling with the trashbag over him like a poncho. All of the table spots are chaotic & brutal. Shawn's flying elbow is especially crazy. HHH & Chyna show up mid-match & Rick Rude shows up a few minutes later to some nice buzz in the building. Mankind makes a great comeback, but HHH trips him up & Rude wallops him with a sickening chairshot to the head. Sweet Chin Music from Shawn & it's over. After the match, Taker comes out to a big pop, but Bearer shows up on the screen screaming about Kane coming soon as the lights turn red & fire bellows out at the entrance. The show closes with a graphic of engulfing flames. Great main event with a hot post-match & strong build to Ground Zero & Kane's debut down the line.

Really good quick promo from Mankind. The liver line is great. I don't care about Bracchus at all.

The match is nothing. We got this for Rocky Maivia returning & helping Faarooq win joining The Nation in the process. The Rock as we know him is pretty much born here.

This is awesome. It's really amazing to see the love Bret has from his fellow Canadians. It's pretty remarkable. Their really passionate about it. Great video.

Hey, Colette is one of the groupies. The Dude Love promo style isn't as engaging as Mankind or Cactus Jack but he does get in a few good lines. He predicts Mankind will beat Shawn Michaels later tonight. Shawn comes up on the screen & calls him an idiot for pretending he & Mankind aren't the same person. The highlight of this is the groupies coming into the ring & dancing with Dude. Foley dancing with these sexy women is hilarious.

Shawn is an amazing asshole here. Some do cheer him here but most hate him & even start a "Shawn is gay!" chant. Solid promo from Shawn barking at Vince for hiring Sarge as Commissioner & saying that he will do whatever he wants. Sarge comes out & assures Shawn he's in charge & Shawn makes fun of Sarge's chin & spitting the whole time which is funny. Shawn disrespects Sarge some more on the mic & says he's got an insurance policy for tonight in his match against Mankind. Good segment to establish Shawn a big player again, but this time as a heel.

Slaughter drags Pillman out to the entrance in Marlena's dress. Fun match with Pillman working in the dress & getting embarrassed multiple times. The crowd loved it. Pillman is distracted by Goldust & Marlena at ringside which gets him counted out. He has to continue wearing the dress until he wins a match in it. The pop for the loss is great. Fun, but also stupid. Not the biggest fan of this angle.

Shawn is amazing here. I hate him so much but now I'm supposed to. He's no longer playful here with Vince & constantly runs him down. I loved his response to Vince asking if he & Bret were in cahoots. He even sends Vince out of the ring! He's got insane heat here & cuts a promo on the Undertaker. Taker's music hits to a huge pop & Shawn scatters. Taker says he's tired of talking & wants to take souls & make people rest in peace. He says he'll do so with Shawn Michaels at Ground Zero. I liked this promo. Short & sweet. Bearer comes up on the screen & says he was with Kane the previous night at Summerslam. He makes it clear that Kane is coming to the WWF! Bearer is completely obnoxious at this point. I am looking forward to the Kane feud proper though.

A similar vignette to the first one, but this time he calls out HHH. Not very interesting.