WWE Badd Blood 97'
St. Louis, Missouri - October 1997
CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Bret Hart is the WWF Champion, the Intercontinental Championship has been vacated (a new champion will be crowned on tonight's show), and The Headbangers are the recognized WWE World Tag Team Champions.
COMMENTATORS: Vince McMahon, Jerry Lawler, and Jim Ross
When Badd Blood kicks off, Vince notes that Brian Pillman had passed away that afternoon but doesn't go into too much detail (this would wait till the next night's RAW episode). JR and Lawler help him transition to tonight's first bout, The Nation of Domination vs. The Legion of Doom in a handicap match. Ken Shamrock had originally been penciled in to compete with the Road Warriors, but the WWE was selling Shamrock's internal injuries strong. D'Lo Brown, Kama Mustafa, and Rocky "Not Yet The Rock" Johnson represent the NOD, using the numbers game to their advantage. The St. Louis crowd is alive and rocking for this, popping huge for the Warriors' offense, especially Hawk's late in the match hot tag. By not overstaying its welcome and thanks to a 97' crowd that had obviously not tired of the LOD as much as history tries to tell us was the case, this was a pretty good opener. (2.5/5)
After a hotline commercial from Sunny and Michael "Dok Hendrix" Hayes, Vince McMahon notifies fans that, in place of the scheduled Dude Love/Brian Pillman match, we will now be getting Mosaic and Tarantula vs. Max Mini and Nova, a battle of "minis." As expected, the crowd is somewhat dead for this but do audibly laugh, groan, and cheer for the broad comedy and high-flying spots. Nova botches a whole bunch of spots while McMahon, fairly late in the proceedings, finally explains why there have been no tags (the match is being fought under traditional "Mexican" wrestling rules). The finish, as sloppy as many of the other sequences, underwhelms a crowd that had already moved on. (0.5/5)
Sunny makes her way down the aisle to introduce tonight's World Tag Team Championship match, welcoming the challengers, The Godwinns (with Uncle Cletus, aka T.L Hopper aka "Dirty White Boy" Tony Anthony), and then the reigning titleholders, Mosh and Thrasher, The Headbangers. McMahon tries his best to put over the Headbangers as counterculture heroes, but it is obvious by how small their applause is that they were not remotely popular with the audience. The Headbangers' work here is atrocious, Phineas nearly paralyzed by a particularly poorly-executed double back-body drop. As the match goes on, the teams do end up on the same page, but it still doesn't make for a good match at any point. Half-point credit for smart booking as the 'Bangers just weren't a capable enough team to hold the titles. (0.5/5)
Before we get to our next contest, we get an extended video package hyping Steve Austin and his recent run-ins with authority figures like Vince McMahon, Sgt. Slaughter, and even Jerry Lawler. Its an excellent video package that summarizes Austin's rise to infamy in 97'.
This is followed by an absolute BOREFEST of a ceremony in which Jim Ross hands plaques to some of St. Louis' most cherished wrestling figures from yesteryear - namely Gene Kiniski, Harley Race, Dory Funk, Terry Funk, Sam Mushnick, and Lou Thesz. Lest you think this was a "thrown together" idea, there are video packages for each honoree (meaning that this boring, unremarkable segment was planned all along). People, like myself, paid real money to order these pay-per-views and this is the crap WWE was throwing at the wall in the fall of 97'. (-1)
The vacant Intercontinental Championship is on the line next - Farooq challenging Owen Hart. Steve Austin makes his way down the aisle to not only hand over the title but to also serve as guest commentator. Austin's involvement makes this a passable match for the lucky viewers at home that got to hear and see his interactions with McMahon, Lawler, and the other announce teams, but the in-ring action is absolutely heatless (which is not surprising considering both guys are heels). Obviously needing to make up some time, this one stretches for longer than it should. A solid, intriguing ending is the only thing that boosts this one even close to average. (2/5)
In a funny way, the next match suffers for featuring too much hard work. Bret Hart and The British Bulldog square off against The Patriot and Vader in a Flag Match (that can, for some reason or other, also be decided by pinfall or submission) that exceeds expectations, but also exceeds the patience of the audience, going what feels like at least 30 minutes (it actually goes 25). Vader and Bulldog always had an odd chemistry that is on display again here, while Bret Hart's heel work brought heat into a match that didn't seem to have much going for it on paper. In fact, at one point, McMahon himself interjects on commentary that the match is "a lot more fun" than he expected. Unfortunately, the positives are outweighed by the negatives - the confusing booking that negates the flag stipulation, the fact that the match stretches well beyond the 12-15 minutes it should have been, the occasional mistiming or poor selling. You could edit this match into a 4-5 minute music video that would make it seem like an absolute gem, but as a whole, its actually a bit of a chore to get through. (2/5)
Main event time (and it couldn't come any sooner) - Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell with the winner going on to face champion Bret Hart at Survivor Series. Like at the previous month's Ground Zero show, Undertaker dominates the early going, tossing Michaels into the cage with ease and dishing out as much punishment as possible. When Michaels does take control, he instantly begins to use everything he can to even the score, including some high-flying and the steel stairs, driving them into the back of the Phenom on the outside. After initially struggling to get him up, Michaels then hits a nasty piledriver on the Undertaker on the exposed steps. Minutes later, the Showstopper has a chair in hand and you almost get the sense that the match is building towards its finish considering that the chair had been such a key item in the storyline building to this bout. The Deadman won't stay down, though, and the match continues, with Shawn Michaels eventually getting tossed out of the ring and into a cameraman (who he then attacks). The cleverness of this part of the match can not be oversold - it is sheer brilliance. Earlier in the match, various shots had been shaken up or hindered by the competitors, making Michaels' attack on the cameraman come off as believably motivated, not just a random attack on an innocent bystander. This leads to Sgt. Slaughter making his way down the aisle to help the cameraman out of the ring and, in a shocking turn of events, Taker and HBK ending up outside of the cage. Michaels' gets busted open from a catapult into the cell wall and then eats steel again (and again) from a pair of battering rams. Had the match ended here (or within a few minutes of their brawling outside the cage), you'd have a contender for one of the better cage matches ever...but, instead, they take the match to, literally, another level by finding their way on top of the cage. Michaels takes a terrifying a back body drop on the cage as the crowd gasps, absolutely losing their minds at what they are witnessing. Again, one can not oversell how tremendous the scene is, especially once Taker hits him with a press slam and, in one of the most legendary falls in WWE history, Michaels finds himself crashing through a table from halfway down the cage. In a world where Mick Foley doesn't exist, Shawn Michaels' bump is the one fans would associate with the Hell in a Cell. Back in the ring, Michaels, a bloody mess, gets chokeslammed from the top rope in a spot that is more symbolically awesome than visually devastating before taking the kind of chairshot that you just don't get in the WWE post-Benoit. With the match all but won, the Undertaker having secured his rematch for the WWE World Championship shot, we get one of the most iconic debuts in the history of wrestling to close out the show. It is a tremendous moment that, at the time, seemed a bit corny, but now, 20 years later, thanks to hindsight and the fact that Kane would eventually live up to his own pre-debut mythology, serves the match quite well. (4.5/5)
While I may no longer view the main event as the best cage match ever, I'll also admit that, having watched it more than a dozen times, the more shocking elements don't have my jaw dropping the way it used to (or certainly did when I was a 13 year old kid). Though Hart/Austin from WrestleMania 13 stands as the year's best match, the inaugural Hell in a Cell is a close second and quite possibly the best match the Undertaker had been involved in up to that point in his career (an argument might be made for it being Shawn's too). As an overall show, though, Badd Blood is tedious, boring, and forgettable. Its Kwang-o-Meter score of 1.83-out-of-5 nudges it just .02 points above WCW Starrcade 94' and only .06 or so above all-time crapfests like WWE Rebellion 2002 and SuperBrawl V. The epitome of a "one match card"...but boy is that one match special (so special that I can't bear to put this in the DUDleyville category).
FINAL RATING - High Risk Maneuver
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