[1998-11-16-WWF-Raw] Road Warrior Hawk climbs the Titantron

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Ugh. This. Hawk comes out with no face pain on and climbs the Titantron and threatens to jump off and kill himself. Animal and Ellering try to talk to him down. This was all the culmination of an angle where Droz was revealed to be dealing drugs to Hawk in order to throw him off his game and ease his way into Hawk's spot in the LOD. Droz climbs up and tries to talk him down. He ends up pushing Hawk, who falls backwards off the Titantron and everyone freaks out before Hawk is carted away in an ambulance. This is one of the worst segments in the history of pro wrestling. No one wants to see this on a wrestling show.

[Zenjo]

They may as well have had a picture of Russo on the Titantron whilst this crap was going on. Ellering calls Hawk 'Mike' at one stage because this is a shoot. Tasteless in the extreme and quite dangerous with two guys climbing up there. Hawk then gets pushed off by the pusher (geddit?) and plunges to somewhere we can't see. About as believable as when Hulk pushed the Giant off the roof that time.

[soup23]

This was awful and the most tasteless thing of 1998 which is impressive considering the Val Venis shit we have seen this year.

[PeteF3]

And there's your 1998 Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic Award, right there. Well, unless the Ric Flair fake heart attack is worse than I remember. Yes, asking Droz and Hawk to climb around up there is totally irresponsible, borderline criminal, and that's one of about 907 things wrong with this segment. Like the cliffhanger commercial break, and the SHOOT NAMES, and the Owen Voices. A silhouette falls behind the TitanTron and a loud crash is heard. Crowd completely shits all over this and my respect for Attitude Era fans just increased about 75%.

[Dooley]

This was dreadful. Why both WWF and WCW decided to go with drug/alcohol abuse angles in late '98 is beyond me. But ripping the announcers for using "Owen voices" while Owen Hart is still alive is silly.

 

I actually hate the term "Owen voices" even post-Owen. It seems to imply that the announcers should never treat any situation with any sort of gravity ever.

[PeteF3]

I should have used "Pillman Voice" because the gun angle is where that really started, but I figured no one would know what that meant.

 

But at least with the gun angle they kept it up for the rest of the show, instead of treating it like a standalone segment like this.