Minneapolis, MN - August 1999
CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into this show, Steve Austin was the WWE World Champion, the Intercontinental Champion and the European Champion was D'Lo Brown, the Women's Champion was Ivory, the Hardcore Champion was Bossman, and the World Tag Team Champions were Kane and X-Pac. Duane Gill is listed as the Light Heavyweight Champion though he mostly "defended" the title on the indie circuit and wouldn't lose it on WWE TV until February 2000.
Our opening contest is Jeff Jarrett vs. D'Lo Brown for both of D'Lo's championships. These two had good chemistry and Jarrett was a real heat magnet with the way he treated Debra, which was near-identical to the Marc Mero/Sable dynamic from a few years prior. I'm not sure if Vince Russo was still the head writer, but its important to note that Brown had been the Intercontinental Champion for less than a month as he'd defeated Jarrett for the title just 3 weeks earlier. The big "swerve" of the match comes when Mark Henry hits the ring to seemingly prevent Jarrett from striking D'Lo with a guitar...but then telegraphs the turn by taking the guitar and, instead of crushing it over Jarrett's head, taking his time to back up behind D'Lo so he can hit him instead. There was also a pseudo-fake-out with Jarrett banishing Debra from ringside only for Debra to come out with D'Lo. Regardless of the questionable booking, this was over with the crowd and moved at the right pace. (2.5/5)
Next up, a Tag Team Turmoil match to declare the number one contenders for the WWE Tag Team Championships. The Hardys, who were now going by the name "The New Brood" and managed by Gangrel, start off against Edge and Christian, who were the babyfaces. Their stretch - which runs maybe the first 3-5 minutes - is easily the best, most crowd-pleasing, and most innovative of the whole match, foreshadowing both teams' eventual rise to the top of the division. There's a great sequence that sees Edge and Jeff Hardy running the barricade and Edge catching Hardy with a spear that gets a HUGE pop from the crowd but was barely captured by the cameras only for Christian to hit a springboard splash to the outside followed by a Matt Hardy moonsault. Edge and Christian eventually get the win thanks to a Christian splash and its time for their next challengers - Viscera and Mideon. Fortunately, the two Ministry of Darkness jobbers don't take up too much time getting eliminated as Viscera gets dropkicked out of the ring and Mideon eats the pin. Next in we get Droz and Prince Albert, who also (thankfully) don't last too long, possibly even less time than Viscera and Mideon. Then its finally time for a real challenge - The Acolytes, Bradshaw and Ron Simmons, not yet doing the "APA" gimmick. Simmons and Bradshaw survive some of Edge and Christian's best offense, including a huge tornado DDT from Christian on Bradshaw. Speaking of Bradshaw, he gets the pin after a Clothesline from Hell and its time for the final entrants: The Hollys, Crash and Hardcore. This is a physical couple of minutes as everyone - except Crash - is known for working snug and not pulling their punches. Crash and Hardcore both want to get to the victory, which leads to them fighting eachother and Hardcore beating Crash's ass and giving the Acolytes the win. This wasn't a great match, but it was effective. (2.5/5)
"The Road Dogg" Jesse James comes out and cuts a promo about how he will be challenging the winner of tonight's Hardcore Championship match the next night on Raw and then gets completely owned on the mic by Chris Jericho, who comes out to a huge pop. This is Jericho at his best in terms of mic work. According to his book and various other sources, Jericho had heat backstage because he was too good on the mic and the rest of the boys thought he was upstaging them. (+1)
Al Snow vs. The Big Bossman for the Hardcore Championship is next, with Road Dogg providing running commentary and following them around. This is your typical brawl with Snow and Bossman never even making it into the ring and ending up across the street from the arena in a bar. Even at the time I found this type of "action" to be tiresome, though I will admit that the right performers can make it work. Snow and Bossman are not those workers, though. Al Snow ends up winning the title after placing Bossman on a pool table and hitting him in the balls with some pool balls. (1/5)
The Women's Championship match is next - Ivory vs. Tori. Tori was one of the more veteran wrestlers on the roster in 1998 but you wouldn't know it from this match as she does not look great out there. Maybe her and Ivory wanted to put on a really physical match that resembled an actual fight? If so, then they nailed it because this really seems like two people who are not cooperating to put on a phony wrestling match. They were given less than 5 minutes and showed absolutely no chemistry, which is kind of a shame because Ivory could be quite good at times. (0/5)
Backstage, The Rock cuts a promo about his upcoming bout against Billy Gunn. This was a placeholder feud as The Rock had only semi-recently turned face and Billy Gunn had won the King of the Ring. After The Rock's rap, Gunn is shown backstage too, walking around with some sort of mystery person under a sheet.
Ken Shamrock vs. Steve Blackman in a Lion's Den Match is next. This is basically a match held in a UFC-like octagon cage but with weapons legal because...well...why not? Its not a concept I found to be particularly fruitful and I'm not surprised this didn't lead to a whole slew of similar matches. Shamrock is the babyface (based on what I've read) but i don't remember Blackman really being a heel. Blackman starts the match off by using nunchucks, which is an awful way to start a bout because it means either Shamrock has to basically no sell them or he has to "die" in the first minute. Shamrock chooses the former and ends up tossing the 'chucks out of the ring before grabbing a kendo stick. From here, we basically just get weapon shots with the occasional big throw or strike mixed in. There's no escalation of violence or story to this. Growing up, I 100% bought Steve Blackman's gimmick that he was basically a martial artist who joined the WWE right off the street so I was shocked to learn that his wrestling career actually dated back to the late 80s and he was trained in the Dungeon. Anyway, these two should have much better chemistry but don't. (1.5/5)
Test vs. Shane McMahon in a Greenwich Street Fight is next. Shane would go on to have much bigger and more dangerous matches than this, but could this be his best actual match? It starts with the right kind of energy as Test tackles McMahon with full force and controlling most of the next few minutes until Shane's buddies, the Mean Street Posse, get involved. Good psychology there as it protected Test a bit to not have to eat Shane's offense until he was getting beaten up 4-on-1. I liked Shane using a framed photo of himself with the Posse too as it reminded me of the stuff we'd do in my old backyard wrestling league, which was 90% promos and comedy and maybe 10% actual athletic contest. Shane does some acrobatic things in this match but doesn't connect with them until after a ref bump and another attack by the Posse, who place Test across the ringside table. In one of the more historic bumps of its day, Shane does an elbow drop through the table that gets brilliantly captured and put on highlight reels for years to come. In a sense, that's the ironic downfall of this match as more people remembered that moment than Test's actual victory, which comes minutes later thanks to some extra help by Vince's Stooges. There's a post-match moment between Test and Stephanie too that pops the crowd but is completely forgotten as Shane stole the match and arguably the whole show. (3.5/5)
The WWE Tag Team Championships are on the line next as X-Pac and Kane defend the titles against The Undertaker and Big Show. The WWE's tag team scene was maybe at its all-time low in 95'/96' but, by this point, the titles at least had had somewhat of a resurgence thanks to the New Age Outlaws in 97'-98' as well as somewhat memorable "thrown together" teams in Owen Hart and Jeff Jarrett and Kane and Mankind. Now, it was X-Pac and Kane who topped the division as Kane had been turned babyface over the previous few months. I didn't have very high hopes for this match but was pleasantly surprised. The crowd was into this and X-Pac was more than capable of taking the ass-beating he needed to in order to get Taker and Big Show over as a pair of individually unbeatable monsters who had now teamed up. What also worked in this match was the pacing, which was purposefully kept brisk, and the fact that, at certain times, there is action going on all around the ring too. The match's momentum never lets up, but because there's 4 guys out there - and one of them is a human pinball - everyone who needs a breather can get a breather without having to slow the whole thing down. This isn't necessarily a career highlight for anyone, but it had the crowd engaged and I didn't find myself searching for the fast-forward button either. Good match. (3/5)
The Rock vs. Billy Gunn in a Kiss My Ass Match is next. The build-up for this was based on Billy Gunn winning the King of the Ring tournament a month or so before this and getting his first and only singles push. Unfortunately for Gunn, it never really took because his gimmick was so lame and he'd been essentially a comedy sidekick for the past 3 years (and a tag jabronie before that). His opponent, meanwhile, was The Rock, the effortlessly charismatic "1B" face of the company who could crush any and all of another wrestler's credibility in one 15 second promo. This wasn't a total squash or anything, but the finish was never in question. They basically ran through the bag of tricks that The Rock had mastered in better and more exciting matches against Mankind and Austin throughout 98', namely brawling all over the arena and doing some goofy spots like spraying water in Gunn's face. I'm not sure what else these two could've done considering the stipulation and Gunn's lack of credibility as any sort of threat, but that's the wrestlers, agents, and writers' job. Not the worst match ever and it should be noted that the crowd was into it - because they were into anything The Rock did - but I wouldn't recommend this to anyone looking for proof of The Great One's...err...greatness. (1.5/5)
Main event time - Triple H vs. Mankind vs. Steve Austin with special guest referee Jesse Ventura for the WWE Championship. There was lots of things going on during the build-up to this match, both on-screen and off. On-screen, Steve Austin was the WWE Champion but there wasn't a clear number one contender, so, over the course of several weeks, Triple H, Chyna, and Mankind all competed to earn the right to challenge for the gold and Shane and Linda McMahon, as well as Shawn Michaels, got involved. This all led to Jesse Ventura being called in to serve as the non-bias Special Referee. Off-screen, Ventura was the Governor of Minnesota and had come under some fire for taking part in SummerSlam, which seems kinda quaint in 2021 after having a former reality TV show host as President. More importantly, though, there were rumors floating around about backstage politicking going on with Austin refusing to do the job for Triple H, rumors that were eventually, essentially, confirmed by Bruce Pritchard in recent podcasts; Vince's right hand man went on record saying that while it was ultimately Vince's decision, the feeling among the agents (and Austin) was that the future McMahon-in-Law wasn't ready. Plus, as Pritchard would add years later, Ventura was uncomfortable counting the fall for a villain. And, if that wasn't enough backstage drama, there were reports coming out that, win, lose, or draw, Austin would be taking some time off soon after to nurse long-ignored injuries, suggesting there was no way he was leaving Minnesota with the belt...So, with all this going on, we get a match that plays out like the kitchen sink of controversy and overbooking that it was. There are good moments of action and the crowd is very much into things, but there are also moments that work against the crowd's expectations in confounding ways. At one point, Mankind and Triple H team up, which would make sense if Foley and Austin had had bigger issues in the build to the match, but because Foley's desire for the title always seemed secondary to a desire to be accepted by the fans, it actually works less than if Triple H and Austin had teamed up (a partnership that goes unexplored in the match). Chyna gets involved early, but the seeds planted of a split with Triple H (Chyna had actually pinned him in the build to SummerSlam and was momentarily Number One contender) is also ignored in favor of her getting banned from ringside after a little bit of interference. Mankind took some big bumps on the floor (because of course he did), all three men did some brawling outside the ring, and Triple H brandished a chair and took out both of his opponents. Inexplicably, Ventura refused to call a DQ...but then also refused to count Triple H's pin. Ventura's refusal gets a huge pop but still confused and bothered me. Shane McMahon showed up to complain but got stunned and sent out of the ring by Ventura. I would've preferred that same spot happening with Triple H and then have Mankind catch the champ with the Mandible Claw, though I'd imagine that would've basically turned Foley heel. Instead, we get a series of switcheroos and finishers, all building to Austin eating a pedigree and, moments after, Foley's double-underhook DDT. This is a better match than the one that precedes it, but its still not a "must watch." After the match, Triple H attacks Austin, which was used to write him off for awhile. (3/5)
Even when I was 15, and watched this show in real time with my buddies, it felt like the WWE was about to go through a real decline. The Kwang Score, a measly 2.17-out-of-5, is an accurate portrayal of the level of wrestling action you'll find here, which is a mixed barrel of outright bad, mediocre-at-best, and saved-by-bells-and-whistles brawling. There are glimmers of the more exciting action that would come in 2000 in the tag team turmoil match, the opening contest, Jericho's promo, and Shane McMahon's high-risk heroics, but the top of the card does seem surprisingly shallow considering that the three top matches feature no less than 6 first-ballot Hall of Famers (I'm going to go ahead and leave Kane off that list). By 99', though, Taker and Show had already been slayed by both Austin and The Rock, Foley had also exhausted his rivalries with the two, and Triple H was still just "almost there" (and never would truly reach the heights of the guys he shared the ring with this night).
FINAL RATING - High Risk Maneuver
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