After a video package hyping tonight's first-ever Inferno Match, the show begins with an old school six-man tag: The Rock, D'Lo Brown, and Mark Henry of the Nation of Domination taking on their former leader Farooq (Ron Simmons) and the MMA specialists, Ken Shamrock and Steve Blackman. This one starts out hot with the babyfaces on top and Farooq whipping D'Lo with a strap. Blackman plays the face-in-peril for awhile. We don't get to see much out of Mark Henry, who gets very few minutes in the ring (no surprise there). As would become a pattern over the course of the whole evening, the crowd is into the match until...they're not. Compared to today's wrestling style, there are nowhere near as many twists and turns and way fewer high spots. Honestly, your average Will Ospreay match has roughly 3x as many moves and shifts in momentum in the first 4 minutes than this match has in its 13-minute runtime. (2/5)
In the build-up to this show, Vince McMahon had basically promised to screw Austin the same way he screwed Bret (he even helped Dude Love beat Steve Blackman on an episode of Raw via a "phantom" submission), so "Stone Cold" makes his way down the aisle and threatens the timekeeper not to ring the bell unless someone actually loses or he'll whoop his ass all over the arena. Austin was incredibly over at this time that any excuse to have him pop up on screen was a tremendous boost to the overall show.
Triple H vs. Owen Hart for the European Championship followed. This is more of an "interesting" watch than a good one. Chyna was in a shark cage hanging over the ring. DegenerationX were still technically heels but were gaining popularity with the live crowds. Triple H was still sporting some of the pompous ring attire that he'd donned months earlier (the ring jacket with huge shoulder paddish things is not cool) and Owen Hart's character really doesn't work (he was supposed to be a babyface, but because his whole motivation was really about Bret getting screwed and not actually about him turning a new leaf, there was no real reason to cheer for him 5 months past the Survivor Series). Owen takes the fight right to Triple H, which is good psychology considering how personal this feud had become. Triple H bumps and sells his ass off. Unfortunately, once Triple H takes over and the match goes beyond its initial 2-3 "shine" sequence, the audience doesn't seem to care about any of it. There aren't any "boring" chants to be heard, but they may have been warranted once Triple H started applying submissions. What could've and should've been some sort of story built around a double-turn - again, by the next month, if I'm not mistaken, DX would be full-fledged babyfaces and Owen would be in the Nation - ends up being a boring match that climaxes with Chyna escaping the cage and distracting the referees so that X-Pac can do a run-in and hit Owen with a fire extinguisher. Oh, Road Dogg gets to interfere too by lowering the cage at one point too and, as far as I recall, suffering no consequences. After the match, Owen cuts a promo where he says "Enough is enough!" (which became a big part of his entrance theme). Not a good night in the office for Hunter and Owen, as good as he was, couldn't get the crowd into it because his character was still unlikeable. (1.5/5)
Jim Cornette came out next with The New Midnight Express ("Bodacious" Bart Gunn and "Bombastic" Bob Holly) to take on the legendary team of The Rock n' Roll Express. For all the talk about how brilliant Cornette is and how much his version of pro-wrestling is supposedly "the best" version, this was a career low for everyone involved and the North Carolina could not give less of a shit about the action here. There was some goofy nonsense with referee Tim White that came across as very hokey and dated in 98'. The four competitors work hard, but none of it connects and it becomes a loooong 7 minutes to get through. (0.5/5)
An Evening Gown Match follows: Sable vs. Luna Vachon (with TAFKA Goldust in Vachon's corner). Jerry Lawler spent most of the previous match hyping this encounter with all sorts of awful, crude jokes. Even as a kid, I found this stuff to be gross and "lowest common denominator" stuff. Not a single wrestling hold is performed in this match until after its over and Sable, in nothing but her underwear, nearly cripples Vachon with a very sloppy-looking powerbomb. Embarrassingly bad and neither competitor looked like they were at all happy to be performing in this match. Who could blame them? (0/5)
Vince McMahon and his Stooges make their way down the aisle. Vince again promises some sort of "cataclysmic" event and hints that, in the end, Austin will "screw" Austin in the title match later on.
And then somehow things get worse as The New Age Outlaws defended their WWE Tag Team Championships against the Legion of Doom 2000. After the introductions, which includes the Outlaws bringing out a blow-up doll dressed up to look like legendary UNC basketball coach Dean Smith, this match very quickly turns to total shit. Boring stretches. Hawk botches a powerslam at one point. Road Dogg doing annoying shtick that draws crickets. Animal playing the face-in-peril. An unnecessary false finish featuring one of the weakest-looking belt shots that I've ever seen. This match goes 12 minutes and isn't entertaining for a single one. Then you get to the actual finish - Hawk hitting a german suplex but getting his own shoulders counted and the camera not getting the correct angle on it at all - and the lame post-match (the referee getting Doomsday Device'd) and its almost impossible to think of a worse way to spend a quarter hour. (0/5)
Jeff Jarrett joined Sawyer Brown on stage to perform a country song. Jarrett was obviously lip syncing, which makes me believe that the rest of the band was too. The song they play, "Some Girls Do," was a hit...in 1992. After they're done performing, Jarrett gets attacked by Steve Blackman. Tennessee Lee (Robert Fuller aka Colonel Rob Parker) made the save by smashing a guitar over Blackman's head.
It was then time for the WWE's first ever Inferno Match as Kane took on The Undertaker. The visual of this match was incredible, no doubt, but the work inside of the ring was nothing great. I didn't like that, at one point, Paul Bearer interfered with the guy controlling the flames as it took a little bit away from the feeling that this match was "unscripted" and that Kane and Taker's huge blows and power moves were the cause of the occasional "flare up." The highlight of the match was Taker flying over the top rope and the flames to hit a dive on Kane and Vader (who had come to prevent Kane from walking out). Clever booking to have Taker beat down on Paul Bearer on the stage to allow Kane to clearly put on some sort of special cast that prevented him from actually burning his entire arm. I would've liked to see more teasing of either man being nearly set ablaze, but this wasn't too terrible, maybe just a few minutes too long. (2/5)
Main event time - Steve Austin defending his WWE Championship against Dude Love. With Foley in this match, you know that you're going to get at least two big hardcore spots. The first occurs when he takes a nasty fall onto the concrete off the stage and the second happens when Austin suplexes him and his legs hit the steel steps. Between these two moments, though, the match is very basic and runs a touch too long. The crowd is rabidly behind Austin, but there is a noticeable lull in the "meat" of this match when Love is in control. Going nearly 20 minutes, this match needed a few more memorable moments to make it stand out. Vince McMahon and his Stooges show up towards the end, but even his involvement is unexpectedly minor compared to how involved he'd become in the future. I was shocked to see that this got 4-stars from Meltzer. As expected, we get a clusterfuck ending involving the ref and a wicked chairshot to Vince by Austin. Austin ends up hitting the Stunner and covering Foley, but there's no ref to make the count so Austin makes it himself and his music plays. With McMahon knocked out cold on the outside of the ring, the official announcement is that Austin has lost by DQ, but by this point, he's well and gone. The commentators play up the severity of Vince's injury, which, at the time, seemed like a reasonable way to handle the angle. Unfortunately, over time, and the death of Owen Hart the following year, the way the post-match angle is treated is really distasteful as Vince gets wheeled out on a stretcher. Too long and lacking in the big spots and moments that one might expect. (2/5)
With a very low Kwang Score of 1.14-out-of-5, Unforgiven 98' is a surprisingly weak show despite how much the WWE was heating up. Taker/Kane is a "spectacle," but not a transcendent one. Austin and Foley would have much better matches in the future. The Owen/Triple H match is a drag and there are multiple matches that are hard to watch and impossible to enjoy. This might actually be one of the lowest-rated shows I've ever review and, as I write this in the summer of 2024, I've reviewed hundreds of shows including many from the end days of WCW and the not-so-great days of TNA.
FINAL RATING - DUDleyville
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