Roy's Review: Survivor Series 1998

Survivor Series

November 15, 1998

St. Louis, Missouri, Kiel Center

Here is my review of Survivor Series 1998

In Ring: Vince McMahon comes out in a wheelchair with Pat Patterson, Gerald Brisco, Sgt. Slaughter and Big Boss Man. McMahon proceeds to put over Mankind's mystery opponent in WWF Title Tournament big time. Out comes Duane Gill.

Match 1: Mankind defeated Duane Gill to advance in the WWF Title Tournament

This was a massive squash. Mankind wrestled in a tuxedo, trying to impress Vince McMahon and show him he would make a great corporate champion.
0/10

Match 2: Al Snow defeated Jeff Jarrett w/Debra McMichael to advance in the WWF Title Tournament

This match was kinda dumb. The end came when Debra stole head and gave it to Jarrett. At the same time Snow got Jarrett's guitar but Jarrett hit him with head before the guitar was used. Snow basically no sold getting hit with head and then hit Jarrett with head for the win. With the win Snow faces Mankind in the next round.
4/10

Match 3: Steve Austin defeated Big Boss Man by DQ to advance in the WWF Title Tournament

This match started out hot but then settled down to rest holds and the ending quickly at about the 3 minute mark when Boss Man attacked Austin with the nightstick causing the DQ.
4.75/10

Match 4: X-Pac fought Steven Regal to a double count out in the WWF Title Tournament

This match was boring and didn't really do anything for me. With the double count out finish Steve Austin gets a bye in the next round. This pissed off McMahon so he sent Sgt. Slaughter out to tell Howard Finkel that the match would be restarted and go another 5 minutes but for some reason X-Pac just walked to the back and it was still ruled as a double count out. Awful finish.
3/10

Match 5: Ken Shamrock defeated Goldust to advance in the WWF Title Tournament

This was really average and only went about 6 minutes. Shamrock got the win with a ankle lock.
5.5/10

Match 6: The Rock defeated Big Boss Man to advance in the WWF Title Tournament

Rock was supposed to face Triple H but he was injured. They played Triple H's music but Pat Patterson and Gerald Brisco came out instead. They informed us of Triple H's injury and that Big Boss Man was the replacement. Boss Man ran into the ring and Rock got him in a small package for the win. What a waste of a segment. Rock advances to face Ken Shamrock in the next round.
0/10

Match 7: Undertaker w/Paul Bearer defeated Kane to advance to the Semi Finals of the WWF Title Tournament

Undertaker and Kane both received first round byes because their match for the vacant WWF Title at Judgment Day was a no contest. This match was really average. Undertaker won with a tombstone after Paul Bearer distracted Kane.
5/10

Match 8: Mankind defeated Al Snow to advance to the Semi Finals of the WWF Title Tournament 

Mankind was still wearing the tuxedo in the match. They brawl outside the ring for a few minutes then Mankind finds Mr. Socko tied around Head. It was revealed in a split screen that Vince was the one that hid Socko. Mankind gets pissed and attacks Head. He then gets the win shortly there after with a mandible claw.
4/10

Match 9: The Rock defeated Ken Shamrock to advance to the Semi Final in the WWF Title Tournament

Some good brawling at ringside to start then they head back into the ring where Shamrock puts on a chin lock. Boss Man comes for his 3rd appearance. Rock fought out of the chin lock but ended up in the ankle lock. He got out of that too and managed to hit a People's Elbow but Shamrock kicked out. Shamrock hit a bell to belly suplex allowing Boss Man to introduce the night stick but Rock intercepted it and hit Shamrock for the win. Rock advances to face Undertaker.
6/10

Match 10: Sable defeated Women's Champion Jacqueline w/Marc Mero to win the title

This match was terrible. Sable did manage to hit a Sable Bomb on Mero on the floor.
3/10

Match 11: Mankind defeated Steve Austin to advance to the Finals of the WWF Title Tournament

Great brawl that started off hot. Austin stripped the tuxedo off Mankind, inadvertently creating his new ring gear. Midway Vince McMahon is wheeled out by Pat Patterson, Gerald Brisco, Sgt. Slaughter and Big Boss Man. Austin hit a Stunner and had the win but McMahon "recovers" from his ankle injury, leaps out of his wheel chair and attacks the referee, screwing over Austin.

Mankind attacked Austin with a chair but Austin fought back and hit a 2nd Stunner. Shane McMahon comes out to take over as referee but only counts to 2 then flips off Austin. This distracted Austin enough for Patterson and Brisco to attacked him allowing Mankind to get the win after a terrible Brisco chair shot.
8/10

Backstage: The McMahons and their henchmen high tail it out of the arena, hop into a limo and exit the arena. Austin chases them, stealing a vehicle and going after them.

Match 12: The Rock defeated Undertaker w/Paul Bearer by DQ to advance to the Finals of the WWF Title Tournament

A slugfest starts the match that spills into the crowd. They fight back into the ring and Boss Man comes out making his 5th appearance of the night. Rock went for a People's Elbow but Boss man prevented it. Undertaker then attacked Boss Man. Taker then goes for a chokeslam on Rock but Kane comes out and hits the chokeslam instead getting Taker DQed.
5/10

Match 13: Tag Team Champions: The New Age Outlaws: Road Dogg Jesse James & "The Bad Ass" Billy Gunn defeated The Headbangers: Mosh & Thrasher and D'Lo Brown & Mark Henry in a Triple Threat Match to retain

One member from each team was allowed in the ring which caused this match to be a gigantic cluster. Road Dogg took a super long beating which made the match boring. Gunn got the win with dumpy piledriver on Mosh, thus ending this pile of garbage match.
3/10

Match 14: The Rock defeated Mankind to win the Tournament and the WWF Championship

Good main event with lots of good brawling. Midway through Vince and Shane make their way to ringside. Mankind laid Rock on the announce table, then jumped off the 2nd rope but Rock moved and Mankind annihilated himself. Rock hit a People's elbow but only got a 2 count. Mankind gets Rock in the mandible claw but Rock countered into a Rock Bottom but again only got a 2 count. Rock then locks in a dumpy looking sharpshooter and Vince immediately calls for the bell.
7.75/10

In Ring: Vince and Shane celebrate with Rock. Mankind doesn't understand why he lost because he wasn't pinned and he didn't submit. Rock then attacks him. The pan to the entryway where Steve Austin is standing ready to attack. He charges the ring and Vince and Shane run away leaving Rock by himself. Austin beats the hell out of Rock and giving Mankind a Stunner too.

This show scored a 59 out of 114 for an overall score of 51.75%. While the wrestling sucked for the most part, this was still a fun show to watch as the storylines and shenanigans were entertaining. Check this show out because its a fun watch and its historically significance. 

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The Last Match: WWE World Champions

This edition of The Last Match features former WWE Champions.  I don't need to saw a whole lot about the wrestlers featured in this post as their names speak for themselves.

"Stone Cold" Steve Austin
March 30, 2003 WrestleMania XIX Seattle, WA
defeated by The Rock

"Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels
March 28, 2010 WrestleMania XXVI Glendale, AZ
was defeated by The Undertaker

Bret "Hitman" Hart
January 10, 2000 WCW Nitro Buffalo, NY Marine Midland Arena
wrestled Kevin Nash to a no contest

September 12, 2011 WWE Monday Night Raw Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Scotiabank Place
with John Cena defeated Alberto Del Rio & Ricardo Rodriguez

Sgt. Slaughter
March 29, 2014 Northeast Wrestling Loch Sheldrake, NY
with Jeff Starr defeated Dalton Castle & "Man Scout" Jake Manning

Mick Foley
August 12, 2011 JCW Legends & Icons Cave-In-Rock, IL
with Terry Funk was defeated by "Rowdy" Roddy Piper & "Cowboy" Bob Orton

Mick Foley also competed in the 2012 Royal Rumble being eliminated by Cody Rhodes.

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Roy's Review: WWF No Way Out of Texas

February 15, 1998

Compaq Center, Houston, Texas

Match 1: The Headbangers (Mosh and Thrasher) defeated Marc Mero and Goldust w/Luna Vachon. Solid match but nothing great. Sable was sent to the back by Mero before the match started. Thrasher got his head busted open on the ring steps. Sable came back out near the end causing a distraction which allowed The Headbangers to switch places and get the win. Afterwards Sable and Luna got into a fight.
5.75/10

Match 2: Light Heavyweight Champion Taka Michinoku defeated Pantera to retain. Solid match but again nothing great. Sunny was special ring announcer for this one. Some good high spots. Brian Christopher was on commentary which made for some good one liners from him and Lawler. After the match Lawler and Christopher tried to attack Taka but he took them out with a cross body off the top.
6.25/10

Match 3: The Quebecers (Jacques and Pierre) defeated The Godwinns (Henry and Phineas). Awful. Jacques did have a sweet bald spot though.
2/10

Match 4: Bradshaw defeated NWA North American Champion Jeff Jarrett w/Jim Cornette by DQ. This was a decent match. Jarrett came to the ring with Barry Windham and The Rock N' Roll Express but they were sent to the back because they didn't have a "manager's license." Jarrett worked over Bradshaw's leg for most of the match. Near the end Cornette got involved and was bodyslammed for his trouble. This allowed Jarrett to get the tennis racket and hit Bradshaw causing the DQ. After the match Windham, Morton and Gibson came out and beat up Bradshaw until The Legion of Doom made the save.
6.5/10

Match 5: Ken Shamrock, Ahmed Johnson, Chainz, Skull and 8-Ball defeated The Nation of Domination (Faarooq, The Rock, Kama, Mark Henry and D'Lo Brown) in a War of Attrition Match. This was a surprisingly good match, mainly because the dumpy guys only had minimal ring time. D'Lo did the majority of the work for the Nation.
7/10

Match 6: Kane w/Paul Bearer defeated Vader. This seemed like it was the first real test for Kane. Vader did well considering how strong Kane was booked at the time. As for the match, it was kinda boring because it was just a bunch of moves. Kane won with a tombstone. After the match he hit Vader in the head with a huge wrench.
5.75/10

Match 7: Steve Austin, Cactus Jack, Chainsaw Charlie and Owen Hart defeated Triple H, Billy Gunn, Road Dogg and Savio Vega w/Chyna in a Non-Sanction Match. Savio was the mystery replacement for Shawn Michaels. What a letdown. This was a crazy brawl with tons of weapons and everyone taking a bunch of damage. After about 5-7 minutes it settled into a typical tag match, just with weapons. Funk took quite a beating as did Foley. Austin got the hot tag, cleaned house, then hit a stunner on Road Dogg for the win. After the match Chyna shoved Austin multiple times, then flipped him off. She received a stunner for her trouble. If you haven't seen this match before check it out. Its a good fun brawl.
8.25/10

There were a couple dumpy matches but overall a decent show.

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WrestleMania 32 Review

I always get excited for WrestleMania every year and leading up to it this year was no different.  Sadly though I must have watched a different show than others in my Facebook food because I didn't watch a show that was awesome, insane, spectacular, amazing or any other accolade that makes a blanket declaration stating the entire show was tremendous, because it wasn't.

The pre-show started at 5pm with the first match starting around 5:45pm and the main event ended about 10 minutes of midnight.  That's pretty near a 7 hour event which is very long.  I'ts a good thing I had coverage at work until 1am and not midnight.  

Including pre-show and the Rock's impromptu match the card featured 12 matches.  The three pre-show matches were better than I thought they would be.

United States Champion: Kalisto defeated Ryback

10 Woman Tag: Team Total Divas: Brie Bella, Paige, Alicia Fox, Natayla, & Eva Marie defeated Team Bad and Blonde: Lana, Tamina, Naomi, Summer Rae, & Emma when Brie made Naomi tap out to the Yes Lock.  It also seems as thought it's Brie's last match. 

The Usos: Jimmy & Jey defeated The Dudley Boys: Bubba Ray & Devon

As much as I hate to admit this, the sequence that Brie used to set up the Yes Lock was actually really, really good.  Lana makes her in ring debut, didn't do a lot boy she looks different with her hair down.

The main show was kicked off with the 7 Man Ladder Match for the Intercontinental Championship.  It was a good match, the last guy I thought was going win it did in Zack Ryder.  He's worked hard for the company for a long time and deserves to have this big moment at WrestleMania.  I can't imagine he'll have a very long title run. (Note: He lost it to the Miz the next day on Raw.)

It's was bullshit that Jericho got the win of Styles.  First off it looked like Jericho purposely had a bad match.  It was more than just the timing was off, or they weren't clicking because when it came time for Jericho to look good he was spot on.  However when it was Styles turn Jericho was slow and off a step.  This is their 4th singles match, one we didn't need to begin with, so does this mean we have to watch them have 1 more match together at the next PPV, god I hope not!

League of Nations beat New Day, it was Four on three they should win.  As much as I loved seeing HBK, Austin, & Mick Foley come out and beat down the League it basically made their win look worthless.  I will say I marked out big time seeing HBK in his wrestling gear. 

Brock Lesnar defeated Ambrose in a Street Fight.  Not much of a street fight, some chairs, a kendo stick, and a whole bunch of suplexs.  It was basically an extended squash.

Triple Threat Match: Women's Champion: Charlotte defeated Sasha Banks & Becky Lynch when Becky tapped to the Figure-8.  In my opinion this was the best wrestling match of the night.  It was damn good and it stole the show.  Charlotte came to the ring with the Diva's Championship and left with the Women's Championship officially ending the Diva's name that I have hated since they started it.  Sasha got the big entrance with her cousin Snoop Dog rapping her to the ring.

Hell In A Cell: Taker beat Shane, I found surprising because storyline wise it seemed Shane was destined to win so he could take over Raw.  If you take out the part where Shane jumped off the top of the cage to elbow drop Taker on the announce table, it wouldn't be as good of a match.  It was a spectacular spot and I really enjoyed the match but it wasn't great.

I would never guessed that Baron Corbin would win the Andre the Giant Battle Royal, he had no build up, just walked to the ring with the others that were unannounced and came away with the win.  I wonder if this means he is on the main roster now?

Rock had a really long segment where he announced the attendance of the event.  Then the Wyatt Family interrupted which lead to an impromptu 6 second match where Rock beat Eric Rowan.  Then Cena made a surprise return aiding Rock in yet another Wyatt Family beat down. I could have done with out the whole segment.

Roman Reigns beat Triple H for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, of course that's not a surprise to anyone.  The crowd booed Reigns after his win and during his celebration.  The only pop for Roman is when he accidentally speared Stephanie, because if there is anyone they hate more than Roman is Stephanie McMahon.

I realize there are a lot of people that really like WrestleMania, and that's cool, I just don't agree.  There were aspects that I really liked about it, aspects I didn't like at all, It has nothing to do with the outcomes not being what I wanted them to be.

The best part about Mania was Paul coming over and us watching it together and that chat group with the other guys.

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Wrestling Podcasts

I’ll spare you the history of podcasts, but let’s just say they really started to take off in 2004.  In 2011 Colt Cabana launched his podcast “The Art of Wrestling” and even though there was been dozens and dozens of wrestling podcast since then Colt’s although may not be the first is definitely the best. 

I had heard about it before but I didn’t start listening until May 2014 and that was because I wanted to listen to episode 193 the live Wrestling Road Diaries Too show as I was very excited to watch the Wrestling Road Diaries Too DVD when it was released. 

After that 1 episode I was hooked and since then have listened to all available episodes and am currently downloading episode 240.  This weekend I will be attending the Boston Pro Wrestling Marathon with featuring a live Art of Wrestling podcast taping.  I couldn’t be more excited about that!

Some of my favorite episodes feature Cliff Compton, Luke Gallows, CM Punk, Cesaro, and too many to mention.  I really like the format of Cabana’s podcast, it always starts out with a brief add, the opening theme, a monologue by Colt that leads into to song of the week which is wrestling related, then another well done ad by Colt and then the podcast begins.  The average time of this opening is usually less than 10 minutes and goes by fast.  The average conversation, not an interview, last about an hour, and then Colt concludes with a summary plugs and upcoming events. 

What I like the most is Colt never interrupts the conversation with advertisements and he is really good at getting people to open up but mostly it just sounds like two friends chatting.  Also all of Colt’s podcasts are done in person and not over the phone.  To me the quality this brings to the product far exceeds that of simply audio but enables them to interact much better off of each other’s body language and lessens the chance that they will talk over or interrupt each other.  By far this is my favorite podcast. 

There are so many other wrestling one’s out there that it’s hard to keep track.  My podkicker app doesn’t have the greatest search feature for podcasts, and it also depends on the show is posted to the internet as well. The other wrestling podcasts I have or currently listen to are;

Chris Jericho: Talk is Jericho

Jim Ross: The Ross Report

Steve Austin: two shows a week, one family friendly and one unleashed

Roddy Piper: Piper’s Pit-pod

Taz: The Human Podcast Machine

All of the podcasts are pretty good The Human Podcast Machine is just getting off the ground.  They all utilize interviews over the phone, so the audio can be tinny, and sometimes they have interview in person.  But these are interviews for the most part, not conversations, the only one that does more of a conversation is Christ Jericho. 

Also these do not exclusively have wrestling guest on them, Taz does to date, but people from all walks of entertainment, so I don’t listen to them all.  My biggest issue with all but Taz is the number of commercial breaks, they start with an ad, have a long intro, another ad, then during the interview a couple ad breaks and they conclude with more ads.  These podcasts can be anywhere from 90 minutes to over 2 hours long with the interview being only an hour of this time.  Ross is the worst for rambling and it just gets boring.  I find myself skipping ahead to the interview. 

Colt’s is the only one that I listen to the whole thing from beginning to end and the only one that I listen to every episode guaranteed, but his a strictly wrestling podcast.

Other podcasts that I listen to include:

The Nerdist Podcast – featuring Chris Hardwick and regular co-hosts Jonah Ray and Matt Mira featuring guests with celebrities and as well as episodes called hostfuls that have no guest at all.  They discuss and many topic from their personal lives and pop culture.

The Moth – a Public Radio show featuring storytelling taped at live events around the country.  They range from comedy to drama and can be pretty heart felt at times. 

How Did This Get Made – hosted by Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas each episode has different guest featuring deconstruction and mockey of bad films.  They have even featured Hulk Hogan films No Holds Barred and Mr. Nanny. 

All of them are worth checking out.

Later Readers