<> Mankind defeats Duane Gill
<> Al Snow defeats Jeff Jarrett
Debra picked up head and distracted the referee; Snow goes to the
corner, but instead of head he finds the guitar. Snow swings the
guitar at JJ, who ducks, and retaliates with head; ref has turned
back around by now,as he's simply holding Debra on the ring apron
and has been there long enough to learn a new profession. Snow
just dumps the guitar right in the center of the ring. Jarrett
asks the referee, while still holding head, to put the guitar out
of the ring; the befuddled official does so,as Jarrett decides to
walk towards Snow at a slow pace in the corner until snow kicks
him in the (actual) head. Snow picks up the falled "head" and
knocks Jarrett in the face with it, leaving it in plain view of
the official in the center of the ring. He makes the cover and
gets the pin. Just horrible stuff, the kind of action that makes
me wish I chose to cover baseball instead of wrestling.
<> Steve Austin defeats the Big Boss man
<> Ken Shamrock defeats Goldust
<> X-Pac vs. Steve Regal goes to a count out
After the match, Vince McMahon insisted that the encounter go
on another five minutes, as with that results, Austin would get
a bye;Slaughter talked to Fink about it,but X-Pac was on his way
to the back and just kept going, seemingly with no idea what was
going on at all. Regal had no idea what was going on, eventually
chasing X-Pac to the back. Very strange indeed.
<> Rock defeats the Big Boss Man
<> Undertaker defeats Kane.
2. Use the knees
3. Punches. Lots of punches.
You get the picture. Paul Bearer screwjob finish,
he held Kane's feet.
<> The Rock defeats Ken Shamrock
<> Sable vs. Jackie (WWF Woman's title)
<> Mankind defeats Steve Austin
Mankind brings a chair into the ring; series of spots, where
Austin supermans all of Foley's best offense, all with terribly
scripted setups (which at least shows they put SOME effort into
the match.) Austin hits the stunner... 1....2... NO! The ref is
knocked out by Vince McMahon, who recovers from his "James Bond
Arch Villan" syndrome and uses his ankle rather well. McMahon
storms the ring and knocks the ref unconscious. Foley gets back
up and hits Austin in the back of the head. Foley's pants fall
down. Austin hits the Stunner. No ref. Shane McMahon does a run
in. 1...2.... why didn't he count three?
Two birds for Austin from Shane.
This is where any sense of reality truly went right out the window,
and any respect I had for this evening's events went beyond the point
of no return. Patterson and Briso get in the ring and beat up Austin
with a steel chair. Foley gets a pinfall from Shane McMahon
"He just got screwed at the Survivor Series....
where have I heard that before?" - Jim Ross
Austin chases the McMahons out of the arena in a car.
<> The Rock defeats The Undertaker
<> NAO defeat D-Lo/Mark Henry and the Headbangers
The Outlaws win it. I was covering my eyes by that point.
<> The Rock defeats Mankind (new WWF champion)
It was pretty obvious that these guys were scheduled for the
final, as they both had squash first round matches. The two put
on a solid-ish affair,second to Shamrock and Rock for best match
of the night(Keep in mind that "best" is a comparative term).One
thing that must be said is that Rock gets too much criticizm for
his "one-dimensional wrestling ability". At least on a compara-
tive scale, he's not bad.
Foley took the signature bump from the top rope, through the
announce table, along with assorted other mini-bumps. He nailed
it with expert percision, hitting the table just right to absorb
the blow. Very impressive.
McMahon and Shane came down to ringside.
Rock hit the "Rock Bottom" but Foley kicked out.
Rock gave McMahon the "People's Eyebrow".
Rock locked the Sharpshooter on Foley.
McMahon rings the bell.
A horrible evening of screwjobs and below-par matches ends
with the ulitmate screwjob. As if Vince woke up this morning
and said "I want a different federation, I'll turn it around
tonight". The fans were lost. They had no idea who to cheer
or boo. "I told the world that Dad, I'm just like you after
all, aren't I dad? Whoo!" Shane was full heel again.
Whether this achives the goal of seperating Austin and Rock,
who were in danger of having their careers step on each other,
is yet to be seen. However, whether anyone who bought this
un-planned and unresolving pay per view (McMahon got on the
mike at the end and said he'd "elaborate on Monday") will ever
purchase a WWF ppv event again is a much more serious question.
It's at this point that all the obvious questions come up; why
didn't McMahon help Rock earlier in the evening, when he nearly
got beat on many other occaions? Why bother to bring Foley to
the finals in the first place to turn on him? Why, if he was
working with Vince, did Shane give Austin a new contract? The
last one could have been explained by McMahon saying that he
couldn't fire Austin because of the revenue he brings in,but he
still hates him, which would have made the whole angle much
stronger; the whole angle being the whole federation, as the
federation is simply one giant angle now.
While this editor has a horrible tendency to enjoy wrestling
on a mark-like level, there's no doubt that to any fan of the
sport that tonight's event was a black eye. Halloween Havoc
totally destroyed this effort; it's only to be hoped that
this new low in wrestling history is not revisted any time
soon. Ten years ago, Wrestlemania IV was something special,
because it told a story of honesty and courage. In 1998, it's
disgusting to see how far the sport has degraded, and the
lack of effort that can be put in as every event is a promo
forthe next and every star wears their own shirt and wrestles
whatever way will make most money. Tonight, in my personal
opinion, the whole business just took one huge step too far.
(c) 1998 Bagpiper Publications
© 1997 flawless316@usa.net
Vince McMahon made his presence felt from the beginning. After
announcing previously that the mystery man would not be the Brooklyn
Brawler, he introduced Duane Gill. Short match. Toúché.
One of the stupidest and sloppiest endings in wrestling history.
Naturally, it involved the guitar and The Head, both of which are
now offically contracted to be a part of every match their owners
wrestle.
Not the return we'd hoped for; Bossman dominated the five
minute match with right hands and chin locks (literally, those
two moves) until being thrown to the outside; he promptly picked
up the nightstick and began to hack away for the dq. The shots
really looked very week and unbelievable. In '98, ameuter stick-
swinging really doesn't cut it in the same federation as Foley.
No momentum whatsoever, a very dissapointing match. Totally
unprepared for. If one is shoot and ten is totally scripted, this
was a zero. Neither even looked like they knew who their opponent
was going to be until tonight.
Techincally a sound match, but like all the encouners this
evening, it reeked of being unprepared beforehand. When the pair
hit the outside. It was obvious to everyone that a double count-
out was in progress; you could just smell it. Both seemed intent
on simply suplexing each other until the time ran out.
Brisco and Patterson come to the ring and announce that
Hunter isn't in the building; but that Rock will still have
to face a man. Bossman erks his way out for his second match
of the night. Rock cradles. Pin in four seconds. Seems that
they weren't kidding with these "short openers".
1. Ram your oppoenent's head into the turnbuckle
The first solid match of the evening. By half way through
they'd developed some rhythm, as the crowd were drawn into it.
Longer match than most. Just when you thought we'd had enough
of the whole McMahon saga, it goes one step further; Bossman
AGAIN re-emerges.In the best and most fluid move of the night,
Rocky intercepts a stick-toss from Bossman to Shamrock.It was
adacemic from there.
One of the better matches of the night. Surprisingly stiff,
though there was the expected lack of technical ability employed.
Sable powerbombs Mero on the outside. That's one hokey looking
spot; it could be forgiven if the rest of the card wasn't a joke
too. Sable got the powerbomb and the pin. Clean match. Wow.
More stupidity. Half way through, the McMahon entorage comes in
and convinces Foley to keep going after he bails out. Foley takes
some good bumps as usual, but the match is completely forgettable,
again reeking of tardyness and not direction. The finish has to
be seen to be believed.
Nonsensical brawling with no match direction here. Hmm.
Sounds familliar. Kane comes in after eight minutes or so and choke
slams Rock, thereby giving him a DQ victory (not sure why... . if
using a guitar, bringing a chair into the ring and knocking out the
designated official isn't enough for a dq, I don't see why this is).
Nevertheless, the decision was made on the spot, as Taker and Kane
brawled into the sunset.
The pinnacle of horrible booking. The worst of the worst.
Even good ol' JR conceded that he had trouble calling it.
Three teams. Between three and four people in the ring at one
time. Nobody seemed sure how many were legally allowed. For some
reason, the only man who the ref tried to keep out, and the only
man who stayed out,was Billy Gunn, as Road Dog was demolished for
the duration of the entire match by the other two teams. At one
point near the end,Gunn was pinned in the clearest of clear views
of the official, with the ref on the mat looking at his shoulders,
nothing else; and he doesn't count. He waits for the break-up man
to get into position. My lord, it gets no worse. J.R. explained
it by saying that the ref was waiting to see if Gunn was still
breathing. Nice try J.R.
There are no words to describe the kind of contempt one must have
for this finish. Perhaps the rest of the entire card wasn't rigged
to hell it would have made some sort of passing sense; but on with
the match.
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