WWF: Raw is War
February 23, 1998
Waco, TX
Heart of Texas Coliseum

The current WWF champs are as follows:
World Champion: Shawn Michaels (11/9/1997)
Intercontinental Champion: The Rock (12/8/1997)
World Tag Team Champions: The New Age Outlaws (11/24/1997)
European Champion: Owen Hart (1/26/1998)
Light Heavyweight Champion: TAKA Michinoku (12/7/1997)

TIME TO GET RAW! Your hosts are Jim Ross, Michael Cole, and Kevin Kelly.

• WWF World Tag Team Champions The New Age Outlaws vs. Legion of Doom
  

Road Dogg and Animal start us off here. Animal dominates and sticks Road Dogg with a powerbomb. Tag to Hawk, he beats Road Dogg out to the floor and continues beating him up over on the Outlaws side for some reason. Gunn charges Hawk and sends him into the steps to turn the tide. Now Hawk is your Road Warrior in peril. After a minute or so of the Outlaws owning Hawk, he hot tags Animal. They go to put away Road Dogg and deliver the DOOMSDAY DEVICE. Instead of counting the pinfall, ref Earl Hebner is too busy getting Hawk out of the ring to count. Gunn knocks Hawk to the floor and wallops Animal with one of the tag belts. Road Dogg lays on top of Animal and gets the pinfall – thus continuing down the horrible road the LOD is on. (4:58) I think the real money is going after the NWA stable anyways. Animal and Hawk get involved in a recess fight rolling around on the mat. Refs and agents come out to try and stop this. C’mon guys, no one wants to see this. *½

• Ken Shamrock vs. Jeff Jarrett (w/Jim Cornette)
  

Jarrett’s NWA North American title isn’t on the line here, which should tell you who’s going over. He shows up Shamrock to start and angers him as Shamrock delivers a roundhouse kick and a bridging German suplex for two. Shamrock applies a rolling kneebar, but Jarrett goes to the ropes. He sends Jarrett to the floor and tries to suplex him back inside, but Cornette trips him up as Jarrett lands on top for two. Shamrock grabs Corny and pulls him up to the apron, but Jarrett saves the day with a back suplex. Bossman straddle and a standing dropkick gets two. Jarrett did have a good dropkick. He comes off the middle rope with a fist drop, but Shamrock brings up his feet to block. Double KO ensues. Shamrock comes back with a dropkick and a hurracanrana. Powerslam gets two and Corny is back on the apron. He slides the racket in while Shamrock grabs him, but Jarrett collides with Cornette. Rollup by Shamrock gets two. The ref takes a back hand from Shamrock by mistake. That allows Cornette to come in and whack Shamrock with the racket, but he misses and KOs Jarrett. Whoops. Shamrock applies the ANKLELOCK on an unconscious Jarrett for the win. (5:44) On the way back to the dressing room, Michael Cole grabs a word with the loser. Jarrett says that maybe it’s time he and Cornette go their separate ways. *½

Jerry Lawler is backstage trying to get us an update on the Legion of Doom. Animal says he doesn’t have a brother (referring to Hawk) and the fight continues.

• The Disciples of Apocalypse vs. The Truth Commission & Kurrgan (w/Jackyl)
  

So apparently the Truth Commission now is just Sniper and Recon as a tag team instead of a stable. They do a few shots on Shotgun Saturday Night together and appear in the tag team battle royal at WrestleMania 14, but we thankfully no longer see them wrestling on Raw as these characters after tonight. Ross announces that 15 team battle royal for WrestleMania 14 during this match. I’m skipping ahead to the finish. The match breaks down and it takes both 8-Ball and Skull to slam Kurrgan although it doesn’t really seem to bother him all that much. He boots down one of the twins and applies the CLAWHOLD for the win. (3:57) Sniper tries to nail Jackyl, but Kurrgan won’t let it happen and puts him down with the CLAWHOLD as well. Recon is just trying to keep the crew altogether, but Jackyl makes Recon backpedal. ½*

We are sent to a video message from the home of Shawn Michaels in San Antonio. Triple H, Chyna, and some blonde girl are all there in his pool room. This reminds me of the Freebirds doing the same thing fifteen years earlier in Dallas. Helmsley talks about how tough they are and how if all hell breaking loose is your idea of must-see TV, DX will be setting the Nielsen books on fire. Shawn says next Monday in Cleveland is a great place to start: Owen Hart, Steve Austin, and Mike Tyson is all be there. The perfect place for it all to end is at WrestleMania. From this day forward, Helmsley says WrestleMania will be now stamped X-rated. Viewer discretion is advised, but will be completely f—ing ignored.

• TAKA Michinoku vs. Barry Windham (w/the NWA)
  

Because she has nothing better to do, Sunny is *your* special guest ring announcer. It’s safe to say that the Light Heavyweight title is not on the line. Jim Cornette joins us at the announce table. Now we have FOUR commentators. TAKA connects with a couple moonsault presses on Windham, but he’s got no chance. Windham drills him with SUPERPLEX and the LARIAT. As he goes for the pinfall, the lights go out and here comes Kane and Paul Bearer. (2:30) While the NWA have left the building, TAKA is left to take a CHOKESLAM and a TOMBSTONE by Kane. Bearer says there is only one WWF superstar he is interested in and that’s Stone Cold Steve Austin. He challenges Austin to meet his Kane in the ring next week in Cleveland. OH SNAP. ¾*

ENTER THE WARZONE! Your hosts are Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler.

Michael Cole is out in the parking lot trying to get a word from the New Age Outlaws concerning the problems of the Legion of Doom. They just say the same old stuff about how they are old and out of date. Road Dogg is documenting the whole thing with his handicam. They don’t have time to talk to Cole, so they get in their rental car and start to leave when they’re ambushed by Chainsaw Charlie and Cactus Jack. Chainsaw Charlie has his chainsaw (hence the name) and Cactus has a ball bat. Cactus smashes their windshield pretty good, but the NAO manage to escape without too much harm done.

In a pre-taped segment, Goldust does a decent imitation of his father Dusty Rhodes. Every time he mentions how many times he’s won the world title, it goes up by about 25,000. We only hear Goldust’s imitation, we never see him. All we see is a silhouette of a man wearing a cowboy hat in between clips of Dusty Rhodes when he was the common man in 1989 to 1991. Dustydust says his greatest hour was making it to WrestleMania 6 and joining Sapphire (rest her soul) on the big stage. Hahaha. Now back to Raw.

• Bradshaw vs. Dustydust
  

Goldust comes out wearing the polka dots and stuffs his outfit to make it fit. He’s even got his arm all scarred up like Dusty. It’s funny too because on the other show, Dusty has just turned heel and joined the nWo, so people might not exactly cheer for the man as they would have maybe two months ago. Ross says a WWF official called Dusty and he had a good laugh with about this. Luna is nowhere to be seen. Ross understands that she’s in the building. The match isn’t anything special. Bradshaw isn’t amused with the Dusty Rhodes joke and doesn’t take the Flip Flop and Fly as he drills Goldust with the LARIAT for the win. (3:37) Cole grabs a word from Goldust afterwards to see if he can understand why he did what he did tonight. Goldust says these tights aren’t working of him. He’s going back to the Goldust look. ½*

Meanwhile, Kevin Kelly grabs Road Warrior Hawk (without makeup and in street clothes) to talk with him. Hawk doesn’t say a word and keeps on walking.

• Steve Blackman vs. The Rock (w/the NOD)
  

Blackman does the karate rave show again this week. This is a non-title bout. They remind us that Blackman upset Faarooq on Raw Saturday Night. D’Lo trips up Blackman causing Rock to take control and hit the People’s Elbow for two. While Blackman comes back with a bicycle kick, Rock hits him with a powerslam and looks to have had the win when Faarooq gets up on the apron to discuss something with ref Jack Doan. Blackman runs Rock into Faarooq and rolls him up for 1-2-NO! Rock hits a DDT and covers Blackman, but again Faarooq is on the apron. D’Lo grabs Blackman’s nun-chucks and tosses them over the Rock (by mistake) into the hands of Blackman. DOWN GOES THE ROCK! Blackman covers Rock and picks up another upset win over the Nation of Domination. (4:16) And everybody is confused. D’Lo places the blame on Faarooq saying he was told to do it. Rock tries to have a conversation with Faarooq, but Faarooq walks out and tells the rest of the NOD to follow behind leaving Rock in the ring. ¾*

Kevin Kelly is backstage talking with Luna. He wants to know why she didn’t come out to support Goldust earlier. She’s waiting for Sable to make her grand entrance. Luna plans to take her Estee Lauder face and turn it into an Andy Warhol original. From this point on, Luna will be on Sable like maggots on roadkill.

• NWA World Tag Team Champions The Rock N Roll Express (w/Jim Cornette) vs. The Headbangers
  

Commissioner Slaughter comes out and switches refs from NWA official Tommy Young to WWF official Earl Hebner. It seems Hebner gets a little too excited for getting rid of the NWA ref. Jim Cornette joins us at the commentary table to tell us that he and the NWA will sue the WWF for what they have done here tonight. Morton starts off strong against Mosh, but then Gibson comes in and the RNR Express run each other down several times. Whoops. Lots of miscommunication between two of the most legendary tag teams of all time tonight. However, Morton and Gibson make up. The Headbangers punch them and Cornette down, but then Mosh gets tripped up to turn the tide. The RNR Express go for the DOUBLE DROPKICK, but Mosh is able to avoid it and tag in Thrasher. The match breaks down and Mosh throws Gibson over the top rope, which would be a DQ under NWA rules. While Hebner is paying attention to Mosh and Gibson, Corny whacks Thrasher with the racket who then falls on top of Morton for the three-count. (4:23) Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got *NEW* NWA world tag team champs. It seems the RNR Express boys are ready to nail Corny, but instead he pitches a temper tantrum. ¾*

It’s announced that the all-hit leader in baseball Pete Rose will be at WrestleMania. If you’re a fan of baseball history, you should already realize that he’ll be working heel coming into Boston for the show.

Once that’s over, they show an extended video montage highlighting Stone Cold Steve Austin’s time spent here in the WWF.

• WWF European Champion Owen Hart vs. Marc Mero (w/Sable)
  

Mero immediately sends Sable back to the dressing room. Owen controls things to start, but Mero quickly turns them around with a sitout powerbomb for two. That’s when Sable comes down to ringside to a huge pop. Owen tries to gain a pinfall with a few fancy rollups, but Mero kicks out. Spinning heel kick and the inverted atomic drop leads to the missile dropkick and the kip-up. Enziguri Kick! Cover, 1-2-NO! Mero avoids a corner charge causing Owen to take the Bobby Eaton bump. Mero starts unloading on Owen and shoves the ref away when he gets too close. With the ref down, Mero is able to low blow Owen in peace. Owen counters the TKO to the DDT and applies the SHARPSHOOTER. The ref calls for the bell without checking Mero and awards the match to Owen via DQ for Mero shoving him down. (4:10) Out comes Luna down to the ring to get at Sable. Goldust tries to keep her at bay. Refs and agents come down to help out. Sable shoves Mero down again causing Goldust to have to step in and restrain Sable. Well, Mero doesn’t like anybody touching his “property” and starts punching on Goldust. Crowd chants for Sable while Goldust and Luna back up on the ramp. Sable gets on the mic and tells Luna to get her ass back in the ring and calls her a female dog. Luna is infuriated, but Goldust picks her up and carries her to the locker room. This was a Jerry Springer Show segment if there ever was one. *

This show just felt like an extension from Raw Saturday Night without any new ideas. Everything and anything interesting happening is all being pushed onto this Raw from Cleveland next week. So we’ll see.

Until next time, so long for now.

M&Ms presents WWF WrestleMania XIV: dX-Raided LIVE ON PPV on March 29 from the Fleet Center in Boston, MA.
MAIN EVENT
WWF Championship (w/Mike Tyson as Special Enforcer): Shawn Michaels (c) vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin
WWF Intercontinental Championship: The Rock (c) vs. Ken Shamrock
WWF European Championship: Owen Hart (c) vs. Triple H
The Undertaker vs. Kane
15-Team Battle Royal