[1998-11-23-WWF-Raw] Interview: Steve Austin

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

This is several segments throughout the show. Austin is in the hospital with a concussion and is in a testy mood. The doctor tells him to take a couple of weeks off and he seems unwilling. Austin says Undertaker won't make it to their Buried Alive match at Rock Bottom. A hearse shows up outside the hospital and Undertaker tries to smother Austin with a pillow and choke him out. THAT would not happen now but they end up holding it over him until he's unconscious. He ends up dragging Austin out of the building and loading him into a hearse before taking off. They end up dragging Austin somewhere and throwing him in a grave. Undertaker then sets out to embalm Austin. Then we end up at a funeral home where Undertaker and Bearer can do the deed. Undertaker starts making Satanic chants. Kane shows up at the funeral home to make the save and Austin wakes up at the last second and takes off. This is the single worst thing to appear on WWF TV all year, and one of the worst series of segments all time. HORRIBLE. I can't believe this stuff saw the light of day.

[Zenjo]

WTF is going on here? Unlike some Wrestlecrap this doesn't even have 'so bad it's good' appeal. The stupidest thing Austin has been involved in since the Brian Pillman gun segment.

[soup23]

This is the single worst thing to appear on WWF TV all year, and one of the worst series of segments all time. HORRIBLE. I can't believe this stuff saw the light of day.

 

 

Spot on here. I couldn't believe my eyes at how bad and ridiculous this was and this is from someone that will go to war over the Jake and Taker segments. This had 0 ounces of believability and felt so contrived. How did Kane know where they were at exactly? Just completely stupid on every level.

[tim]

Awful, awful, awful. Dumb, boring, long, not interesting at all ... WWE excess at its worst. The level of bad where it's legitimately unbelieveable that it even happened. In a series of segments this bad it should be hard to pick out what the absolute worst part was ... but here, the award goes to Undertaker speaking in tongues.

[PeteF3]

How the fuck did Undertaker and Bearer just get in and out of the hospital like that, dragging an unconscious patient with them? Why are cameramen filming and following this instead of calling the police? This is Russo's ego run amok and a bad sign for what's to come with this company. JR deserves some sort of weird props for going along with this and trying to sell this as best he can, but yeah, this is absolutely moronic and nonsensical and not really over-the-top enough to be entertaining, either. The Austin-Vince stuff after Judgment Day was bizarre and unsettling, but you at least sort of know what they were going for and it had a payoff that the crowd liked. This...no one could have derived entertainment from this. The upside is that the company is still hot enough that this segment is mostly forgotten about, rather than living on in infamy. They wouldn't be so lucky with something like Katie Vick.

 

The one positive for me is I get to play spot-the-local-flavor with these bits--even though this is supposedly in San Jose, this Raw and these segments were in Columbus, and the funeral home (it's gone now) was one I drove by frequently. The hospital may or may not have been the one about two blocks from my current apartment. I love the idea of Kane walking the streets of Clintonville, casually strolling his way to making the save.