[1998-11-02-WWF-Raw] Big Bossman, Pat Patterson & Jerry Brisco

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

The story is that Vince is going to make someone suffer in the cage tonight, but we don't know who he's going to make suffer just yet. Vince wishes he could put every fan in the building in the cage to get beaten up. He screams at Patterson and Brisco to wheel him over to the announcers. He is on quite the roll tonight. For the record, this is the blue bar cage, to add to a conversation that people spend way too much time thinking about. Vince claims that all he asked for was a cup of coffee, which is a great bit of continuity and Boss Man beats up all three guys. This is a great way to re-establish him, build up Austin-Boss Man and get Vince over as the ultimate asshole. Vince does house mic cheerleading over all of this which is priceless. Vince insists that they all bow in allegiance to him which they aren't doing so Vince orders Boss Man to rip their clothes off. This brings Austin out to climb the cage and put the boots to Boss Man. Patterson ends up attacking Austin which distracts him long enough for Boss Man to do a number with his nightstick. CRAZY heat for this. Shane comes out and unlocks the cage. Boss Man is about to attack Shane, but Vince spares him. Then Shane flips his dad off and Undertaker's music kicks in. He enters the cage with Austin and they end up brawling. Austin makes a good showing but Undertaker gets the better of him. Then Kane's music kicks in and HE comes out and sets the cage on fire. Austin and Kane end up doing a number on Undertaker. This was a tremendous segment and an amazing visual, and it wasn't even the go-home for Survivor Series yet.

[soup23]

Wow, this was really good and this Raw overall doesn't get talked up enough for all the seeds it planted for Survivor Series. We first had the stooges paying for their part in the perils of McMahon two weeks ago. This is good enough for McMahon to make good of his guarantee. Then, Austin comes in and Patterson remains loyal. Bossman takes it to Austin and that is a good side feud that has a ton of heat on it. Shane comes in to save Austin and we get a great moment of Boss Man asking Vince, thumbs up or down in regards to Shane. Vince spares him but here comes Taker to beat up Austin. Finally, Kane sets the cage on fire and Austin/Taker team up to beat him up as we fade to black. So much intertwining stuff here that all made sense.

[PeteF3]

Vince sparing Shane is *almost* enough for me to think that my hypothesis, desperately trying to explain away why Shane re-hired Austin just to fuck him over, might actually be true. This was awesome and Vince was awesome--amazing how the WWF has again crafted a segment revolving around 3 old retirees and a WCW also-ran into something far more compelling than anything WCW could put together with its gaggle of legends.

[Migs]

Laser pointers were stupid.

 

That Undertaker music was awful.

 

The cage on fire looked cool.

 

This was good but really long.