Loss

Taz says later in the show, he's going to cut a big promo on Vince McMahon. Taz is great, but his motivations in this angle don't make sense, and I don't really understand why his anger toward Lawler is focused on Vince.

Good Lord! Lawler cuts a pretty scathing promo on ECW.

Recap of the tag match from the previous week's TV. Bill Alfonso stops a three count on his team, and RVD ends up attacking Tod Gordon with a chair. Sabu then puts him through a table. This is followed by a Sandman/Dreamer comeback. Maybe I'm old school, but a non-wrestler commissioner being attacked like that should be a big enough deal that it is the angle that closes things out. But the eventual planned finish was a much bigger deal. The lights go off and when they come back on, Lawler is in the ECW Arena and helps Sabu and RVD clean house. Sandman and Dreamer do make a comeback, but wow that is some hokey stuff. Lawler has his back turned in all of this and then Sandman and Dreamer are about to attack him. But then the lights go out again. When they come back on, JIM CORNETTE is in the ECW Arena and attacks Dreamer from behind with the racket! Dreamer takes the awful balls shot.

Devil Masami doesn't peak as high as some of the others -- or at least she doesn't peak as high as often -- but she's remarkably consistent and was good for a very long time. Not sure about Mariko Yoshida, but I'll think about that after finishing the 1999 Yearbook. Manami Toyota doesn't really work a style most of the time that I personally enjoy that much, but she has been in too many great matches and had too many strong performances to rule her out. If I had a gun to my head right now, I'd probably pick Mayumi Ozaki. Kong and Hokuto aren't terrible picks, but neither quite feels right. Bull Nakano should be in the conversation.

The first person to say The Fabulous Moolah gets banned. I might even come throw eggs on your house.

Bischoff calls Lex Luger "a skinny piece of garbage" and he and Hogan mock the Package for giving workout tips on Regis and Kathie Lee that morning. Hogan and Bischoff get doused with drinks and trash just for talking. Luger and Giant finally come out to confront him. The drinks are out of control. Eric Bischoff ends up in the torture rack for so long that I think he kills the hold! Hogan bails after Bagwell and Vincent eat chokeslams. Kind of a lame, rushed segment, and control the fans. Jesus.

Raven still isn't talking. Mike Tenay is so awkward. Stevie Richards interrupts, back in his subservient role. Was Stevie jumping a surprise at the time? Stevie sends Tenay packing so he can conduct the interview -- which makes him a babyface in my eyes -- and tries to do the interview himself to no avail.

Lawler chants! This angle is set up so well and not telegraphed by the announcers at all. Hall leaves the ringside area to go troll Larry Zbyszko, and La Parka unmasks as DDP! Hall missed the whole thing. DDP got one in on them. Good angle, but did it really deserve an entire chapter in Positively Page?

Curt Hennig is interviewed by Gene about his reasons for being in WCW and immediately heels on the Memphis crowd. I'm already tired of him. He promises that he will have a role at Bash at the Beach. Gene suspects that he'll team with DDP against Randy Savage and Hall. Hennig says not to jump to conclusions and says he's a free agent. Ric Flair comes out and seems happy that Hennig is here and thinks it only makes sense for him to join the Horsemen. Hennig won't commit, but Flair puts the pressure on and starts flailing around.

HHH looks really good here, not looking completely out of his league working opposite Austin (which I think would be easy for most guys during this time) and taking a huge bump to the floor. He shows good aggression too. Mankind tries to save Austin from eating a chairshot and eats it himself for his trouble. This distracts HHH long enough for Austin to hit the stunner and get the pin. After the mic, Austin yells at Mankind and tells him to get up. Austin confronts him on the PICK ME STEVE stuff. Austin agrees to team with him after a handshake, but Mankind wants a hug. They hug, and then Austin gives him a stunner. "You ain't never gonna be my partner, 'cause you're a long-haired freak and you suck!" Mankind isn't happy and promises that he's going to take drastic measures next week, and the WWF will never be the same.

Ok, let's recap what we have established so far in this story: - Time period: 1977 (20 years ago) - There was a funeral home, sitting on a hill, surrounded by beautiful oak trees - It was a family-owned funeral home with the family upstairs - The father was the mortician who ran the funeral home, the mother was the receptionist and there were two children, one was Undertaker and the other was named Kane - The Undertaker's father was an excellent mortician - The Undertaker was Kane's hero - Paul Bearer was completing his apprenticeship and going to college at the same time. He worked for Undertaker's father, who taught him everything he knew - One night, Paul saw the Undertaker and Kane take chemicals from the embalming room and smoke cigarettes outside in secret as he was leaving for his college classes. They were also playing with matches. - Their father found them playing with matches and they were both punished. After Undertaker was punished, he was sent off to do his chores when he looked back and saw that Kane had the flammable embalming fluids in his hand. He saw smoke and ran toward Kane as fast as he could, but when he got there, the funeral home was engulfed in flames. - Undertaker was restrained and unable to enter the burning funeral home. - Paul Bearer returned from work to see the funeral home on fire. Undertaker killed his parents and his brother. Undertaker confirmed this. - The Undertaker was not at the funeral. Undertaker says this is because two nights before, Paul Bearer took him to a neighboring funeral home to see his family, and presumably his mother's burned body and it mentally scarred him. - The Undertaker feels a strong sense of guilt and remorse over this. - In order to cope, Undertaker had to embrace death. He had to understand that without death, there can't be life. He draws strength from the spirit of the dead. This is what made the Undertaker the Undertaker. - Paul Bearer has no interest in apologizing since the Undertaker was the one who did the killing. - Kane is alive. But he can't go into sunlight because of his scars. Kane hates his brother the Undertaker.

Vince apologizes for Austin's attack in the previous segment. Brian Christopher makes an appearance and tries REALLY HARD to get over. His fa … um … Jerry Lawler invited him on the show to do commentary. Taka slipping on the ropes was horrifying, but they covered for it as well as can be expected. Agreed they did a better job laying out this match than the pay-per-view match because the highspots weren't just saved for the last few minutes. Vince steps in when Christopher says "these two Japs" and corrects him very quickly. We see the first Space Flying Tiger Drop probably in RAW history, but it gets almost no reaction, and I've always thought that was a silly move anyway.

These clips from Calgary of fans talking are awesome! Vince's narration is classic jingoistic propaganda. Bret mentions that he's not anti-American, just pro-Canadian, which sounds like Vince worrying about the heat getting out of hand. Bret talks about how Canada is a country that takes care of its elderly, has national health care, has gun control and has no racial hatred and prejudice. Bret promises to win the WWF title from the Undertaker at Summerslam, and goes as far as to say if he doesn't win the title, he'll never wrestle on American soil ever again. He then introduces Owen and Davey Boy individually and "Oh Canada" is played on the Titantron. Austin attacks them all with a chair during this to massive heat. Awesome!

I liked this match more than I ever have this time around. I think the atmosphere overcomes any points where the action is a bit dull. Bret and Austin (and Owen) are just fantastic in this, and the rest benefit from a hot crowd and a great layout. But those things alone are enough to put this over the top. This match makes me proud to be a Canadian.

The Mankind/Helmsley brawl before this match almost felt designed to ensure this wouldn't have any heat. I wish I could take the commentary from Jim Ross (and even Jerry Lawler -- who works hard to get this over) and make it the soundtrack to a WCW match. These guys should have worked a slightly more American (well, Canadian) style. This was weirdly worked in the sense that for the first several minutes, whenever they did pull out a highspot that got a reaction, they didn't follow up with a pin attempt. Covers are how moves get over as something that matters in U.S. wrestling, so this felt off as a result. The stiff shots from Sasuke looked great, but I wish they had more help laying out a show stealer that could have gotten over with this crowd. I can see watching this why the WWF thought Taka had more potential than Sasuke, as his style is closer to the house style and he does show some charisma. Good match, but nothing too special.

Footage of the Hart Foundation in a Calgary parade. Diana Hart Smith as Mrs. Calgary is one of the funniest thing I've ever seen, mainly because you just KNOW she wore her tiara around the house when doing laundry. The Harts are being interviewed by Dok Hendrix when Steve Austin tries to jump them on his own. Bret says they don't want him five-on-one, they want five-on-five and that's when they'll get the job done.

Goto having a ringside second cut off Tenryu's boot with a pair of scissors so he can beat Tenryu over the head with it and attack Tenryu's bare ankle? Then, we can watch Tenryu make a half barefoot comeback? Sign me up! I'm not sure what the other weapon is. Is it a lint roller? I hope it's a lint roller, that would be awesome. I'll pretend it's a lint roller. Is the referee wearing a lei? Or is that seriously just blood splashed in the shape of a lei on his shirt? Either way it's awesome. This is a match with no wrong answers. Everyone is right. Everyone wins the prize. Tenryu goes all Jerry Lawler on the microphone mid-match, then gets back in the ring and is ready to throw down! But he's met with a barrage of headbutts. He tries fighting back with chops, but not so much. The ref puts his ref t-shirt on another guy at ringside who comes in and starts officiating the match. There's nothing more ostensibly Late 90s Pro Wrestling than a t-shirt that gives the wearer referee superpowers. This is illogical, sloppy as hell and weirdly paced. And Tenryu nearly kills poor Goto with a nasty elbow drop from the top. All for taking his shoe? Holy overreaction. This was a blast, though.

Spectacular mat-based match that builds to some great high-flying. Santo can be formulaic, so it's great to see him spice things up. The detail work here in how they counter holds is superb -- almost like a Regal match, but also worked like a main event epic on top of that. Some might gripe about a New Japan juniors layout, but the work is consistently engaging and at this point, I am so high on the NJ juniors that I don't even see that as a diss. I could watch a full set of matches like this and be perfectly happy. Screwy finish that I guess builds to their match later this month, which is fine by me.

Will jdw eventually blame me for that?

It's interesting that he generalizes to the point that he thinks that's the preferred style of most diehard fans.

People have talked for ages about Hogan being unwilling to step aside, but Flair is a far more extreme example of that. Most old wrestlers get to a point where they want to work less and pursue other interests, even if they stick around. Ric still wishes it was 1985 and that he was working 300 nights a year. Hogan may miss his glory days to a certain extent, but I don't know that he misses being The Man quite like Flair does.

A solid B+? Maybe Stephanie was right after all.