Grapple City Rewind
Taking you all the way back to the VHS era PPVs that shaped wrestling history. Created by Bradley Palermo & Aaron Fink.
Grapple City Rewind
I’m Tall and I Weigh a Lot - WWF Over the Edge 1998
Strap in for mayhem in Milwaukee as Bradley and Aaron rewind to WWF In Your House: Over the Edge 1998 — a night of wrecked cars, power plays, and Stone Cold bedlam. But first, they unpack a wild weekend in the current wrestling world, from AEW’s Double or Nothing (with Bradley in the second row) to NXT Battleground and a shocking TNA title shake-up.
Then it's back to '98: Vince dons the stripes, LOD 2000 fumbles through a biker beatdown, and The Rock delivers a masterclass in neck injury dramatics. With plenty of crotch chops, diva drama, and Lawler being peak Lawler, this one’s an Attitude Era time capsule.
This episode brought to you be Weber4Law - your tag team partner when life body-slams you out of nowhere. Call (818) 502-9200 or visit https://weber4law.com/
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Music by Bradley Palermo & The Shadow Queens.
Created by Bradley Palermo & Aaron Fink.
-1:59:59.100
Aaron
Hey, this is Aaron Fink from Grapple City Rewind. If you like what you hear this episode... He fucking diverted my attention. Sorry. Hey, this is Aaron Fink from Grapple City Rewind. If you like what you hear on this episode, give us a follow, leave us a review, cut a promo on us, anything goes.
00:00:20.92
Bradley Palermo
Hello and welcome to Grapple City Rewind, the show that takes you all the way back to the VHS era pay-per-views that shaped wrestling history and our warped little wrestling brains along the way. Today, we are rewinding to WWF, In Your House, Over the Edge, 1998, where corporate conspiracies, destroyed cars, and stone-cold...
00:00:48.19
Bradley Palermo
Chaos and stone cold chaos ruled the night that night in Milwaukee. The show had biker twins, prosthetic legs being used as weapons, Vince McMahon cosplaying as a referee gigolo thing. So yeah.
00:01:01.92
Bradley Palermo
Buckle up, but before we fire up the old rewind machine, let's take a quick look at the current product. I'm Bradley Palermo, by the way, here as always with Aaron Fink.
00:01:12.28
Bradley Palermo
And Aaron, I know you've watched a lot of wrestling this past week, and I have too.
00:01:15.91
Aaron
I did.
00:01:16.15
Bradley Palermo
It's been a great week weekend for wrestling, but...
00:01:18.68
Aaron
i believe they call that rewind machine a VCR, by the way.
00:01:22.29
Bradley Palermo
Oh yeah, that's what it is. It's been a while since it was relevant, so I'm losing the language here. um know, I was about to say tape machine, it kind of got combined with...
00:01:31.70
Aaron
The old tape machine. Yeah, so you were at Double or Nothing this past weekend in Glendale, Arizona.
00:01:33.34
Bradley Palermo
and all
00:01:37.89
Aaron
I was watching. I had fun watching, but I want to hear more about your experience being in the crowd. You were in the sixth row, were you not?
00:01:46.04
Bradley Palermo
Second row, I, yeah, I, um, second paper, uh, AW pay-per-view in a row that I've been in the second row for, um, the price jumps up considerably when you sit in the front row versus the second row.
00:01:47.35
Aaron
Second row. Really?
00:01:59.22
Bradley Palermo
Although the girl sitting next to me talked her way into the first row and somehow just got bounced around the first row.
00:01:59.57
Aaron
Really?
00:02:05.85
Bradley Palermo
And so she ended up in the one seat. i was like, you know what, that's just way too much. to fight for i was like i could slap like shivani from where i was sitting like i don't really need to be like any closer i got into an argument with a playful argument with mvp which was was cool um
00:02:11.50
Aaron
Yeah.
00:02:15.39
Aaron
Correct. Yeah. Reasonable.
00:02:23.37
Aaron
I saw you. I saw you. ah You were making a ridiculous face in the Anarchy in the Arena match, and there you were.
00:02:29.25
Bradley Palermo
well
00:02:29.66
Aaron
did you Did you go back and watch it to see yourself?
00:02:43.60
Bradley Palermo
like i don't know what. He he was like singing that song. I was like, I'm not going to fucking sing that song. So I just make like the dumbest face I can and stare right at the camera while I'm texting you like a wink face or whatever.
00:02:53.13
Aaron
Yeah. it is it
00:02:54.65
Bradley Palermo
is it Did you text me first, like, lol, when that was happening?
00:02:58.33
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. I text.
00:02:59.16
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:02:59.77
Aaron
So I texted you. i texted you just at how funny it was and, and that it just so happened that I texted you and five seconds later, I saw you just going on the screen.
00:03:04.65
Bradley Palermo
Oh, I see. Yeah.
00:03:12.34
Aaron
It was great. i I got to say,
00:03:13.92
Bradley Palermo
was i ah Was I pretty prominent on the on the screen?
00:03:16.27
Aaron
Oh, yeah, dude, you're like, I mean, yeah, I mean, it was when Kenny was, you know, having somebody say and you're just in the background making ridiculous, you know, wide eyed face um that.
00:03:16.44
Bradley Palermo
Like, it's pretty obvious.
00:03:24.61
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
00:03:27.86
Aaron
So let's talk about the pay-per-view as a whole. I mean, well, actually, you tell me, did you did you have fun as a whole overall?
00:03:30.70
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:03:34.35
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, so I i bought it like a last-minute ticket out there, a ticket to the show, and I just drove my ass out there. um And it was cool. I mean, it was super long.
00:03:46.96
Aaron
It was.
00:03:47.08
Bradley Palermo
um The crowd was... really enthusiastic before it even started i mean the amount of shouting the amount of bullshit going on like i don't know if the los angeles crowd where i'm usually out it's like a little bit more reserved they are i mean they are for music they are for everything but the the arizona crowd is a little more like um getting into it and uh
00:04:07.42
Aaron
I don't think they've had an AEW pay-per-view before. That's probably why.
00:04:10.78
Bradley Palermo
phoenix hasn't or
00:04:12.17
Aaron
I don't think it was it was Glendale, right?
00:04:14.00
Bradley Palermo
yeah Yeah, but Glendale is like a Phoenix thing, like a suburb, but
00:04:14.45
Aaron
Or is Glendale by Phoenix? I don't i can't remember. i don't know. They might not have.
00:04:21.47
Bradley Palermo
i um I thought like my favorite match of the night was Okada and s Speedball Mike Bailey.
00:04:27.94
Aaron
Okay.
00:04:28.77
Bradley Palermo
Speedball has done you know a ton of like indie shit over the years. You see him like everywhere you go but to see him up there with Okada seemed kind of huge for him and they were doing like a Japanese strong style match.
00:04:36.22
Aaron
Mm hmm.
00:04:40.00
Aaron
Yeah.
00:04:41.46
Bradley Palermo
Those hits were so hard and so loud i haven't seen anything feels that that real in a while when i've been at a match um speedball did in fact lose but i still feel like he was kind of put over in the sense of like he got to have a really cool match on a pay-per-view with okata um i
00:04:43.54
Aaron
yeah
00:04:56.07
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. That was a good match.
00:04:59.18
Bradley Palermo
um Anarchy in the Arena was entertaining. I mean, it's sensory overload because you've got like guys and girls fighting in every quarter of the building, but I've never seen a crowd stand and just like sing and move. like
00:05:10.89
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.
00:05:11.03
Bradley Palermo
you know You really don't see a crowd stand for an entire match, so to see that entire arena, don't know how many people were there, but that was like, it was still like kind of like a fun moment. um But like, it was too long. I mean, the fucking thing was, i think I showed up at three.
00:05:24.76
Bradley Palermo
And I probably, again, got back to the hotel at like 11pm. And that's like, almost inexcusable like after everything was hyped up and and going crazy they put like this like pointless six-man match with like uh adam cole and a bunch of his cronies versus like um don callus and a bunch of his cronies or or his his team or whatever and i was i think i texted you at that point like are we seriously not to the main fucking event by the time i got to the main event you know it was a great match but like
00:05:36.38
Aaron
yeah
00:05:50.93
Bradley Palermo
you kind of don't care anymore. I was just sitting there shouting like CM Punk because I was like fucking like i don't you guys I don't know what's happening anymore. You know it's like this is
00:05:59.27
Aaron
Yeah, you've lost all sense of time and space. You know, the discourse, ah whenever AEW has a pay-per-view, there's always a very similar discourse online.
00:06:07.09
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:06:10.30
Aaron
um Everyone's really happy with it, but they also do say that it feels a bit long. And i so I think I understand Tony's you know method of thinking here.
00:06:16.39
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:06:22.30
Aaron
Not that i speak with Tony Conner anyone who works in AEW, but he's all about giving back to the fans. and i'm So I'm sure that a part of him is like, well, ah we got to make it ah a big card.
00:06:28.50
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:06:32.06
Aaron
We got to have a lot you got to make sure you see as many people as you possibly can. And while I have respect for that, I agree with you that um there were some matches that...
00:06:41.95
Aaron
I just wasn't as emotionally invested in as others, despite Okada and Speedball being a really good match.
00:06:45.18
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:06:50.34
Aaron
I just didn't care because I knew Okada wasn't going to lose to Mike Bailey.
00:06:53.100
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:06:54.62
Aaron
You know, it was a great match.
00:06:54.80
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:06:56.14
Aaron
I'm not taking anything away from them, but I wasn't emotionally invested in it. um the only match that I really was emotionally invested in was probably the main event.
00:07:05.54
Aaron
And as you said, by that point, I was tired and I was on the, you know, I'm on the West coast and I'm just like, Oh my God, I've seen four hours straight of wrestling.
00:07:09.10
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:07:14.54
Aaron
So I actually didn't watch the main event Sunday night. I watched it Monday morning.
00:07:18.03
Bradley Palermo
Noah.
00:07:19.23
Aaron
And in the, in the light of day, that was a fucking awesome match.
00:07:19.21
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:07:23.34
Aaron
Like one of the best AEW matches maybe I've ever seen. Um, because,
00:07:27.57
Bradley Palermo
I can't wait to, oh, ahead.
00:07:29.41
Aaron
No, I'm assuming you're going to say watch re-watch it on TV, right?
00:07:33.18
Bradley Palermo
Right, yeah.
00:08:06.17
Aaron
Like while this match was happening, it was really cool.
00:08:06.18
Bradley Palermo
Right. Yeah, I think I, it's always so in an arena with thousands of people, it's, it's interesting, like what comes through and what doesn't because I've, from where I was sitting, it seemed like, yeah, there were some people like, come on, Will and stuff, but it's felt like hangman on the way out and everything like it felt like, like, I was like, damn, this crowd is
00:08:23.91
Aaron
It was
00:08:29.29
Bradley Palermo
To me, I mean, it crossed my mind that it felt less split than I thought. That it felt like a hangman crowd, not so much an Osprey crowd. And I was like, know, I'm trying to think of reasons.
00:08:39.36
Bradley Palermo
I was like, oh, is arizona is he from Arizona? Does he relate to Arizonans?
00:08:42.98
Aaron
Yeah.
00:08:43.21
Bradley Palermo
Like, is he like, because it cause they're both babyfaces.
00:08:44.17
Aaron
He had a... Yeah, well, they so i don't know if you watched Dynamite last week. I didn't, but I watched... They they had a they they had a promo, yeah.
00:08:53.07
Bradley Palermo
The promo.
00:08:54.72
Aaron
Did you watch that?
00:08:54.97
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I saw that. Yeah.
00:08:56.38
Aaron
Okay, yeah. So I think i think that probably helped.
00:08:57.04
Bradley Palermo
At least the beginning.
00:08:59.51
Aaron
um You know, we, as fans walking into it, were sort of like asking the question, is Hangman going to step up? Is he going to be... the hangman that we remember from 2022 or, you know, is he going to be the hangman that he's been the last year or two? And I think the, the promo sort of led you to believe that, Oh, maybe, maybe he is going to find like the fire within the fighting spirit, whatever.
00:09:26.08
Aaron
um So yeah, that was my my match of the night, potentially match of the whole weekend. What's insane is we had four and a half hours of AEW on Sunday.
00:09:35.27
Aaron
We also had Saturday night's main event, and the wwe WWE show on Saturday night. We had NXT Battleground at the same time as Double or Nothing on Sunday.
00:09:45.48
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I still haven't seen that.
00:09:45.65
Aaron
it was crazy.
00:09:46.72
Bradley Palermo
I went, yeah.
00:09:47.88
Aaron
Dude, Battleground was frigging good.
00:09:47.83
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:09:50.79
Aaron
ah my My God.
00:09:51.14
Bradley Palermo
Yeah,
00:09:51.91
Aaron
like So i I paused and kind of like hopped back and forth a little bit on Sunday. um Twitter spoiled you know spoiled some of the NXT Battleground stuff for me.
00:10:02.78
Aaron
And I see these clips and I'm like,
00:10:02.91
Bradley Palermo
yeah i I mean, I know the big, yeah.
00:10:04.48
Aaron
Yeah. I see the clips and I'm like, oh shit, like i gotta yeah I want to go see that match. So I watched the Sol Ruka-Khalani Jordan match. That was for two girls that combined probably had five, six years of experience.
00:10:17.83
Aaron
Amazing match. ah
00:10:19.43
Bradley Palermo
Right. Right.
00:10:20.11
Aaron
The Jordan Grace and Stephanie Vakera match was also very good. And then, yeah, the Trick Williams versus Joe Hendry match. Super, super shocking ending.
00:10:30.47
Bradley Palermo
right
00:10:31.25
Aaron
with trick Williams becoming the TNA champion, something that has never happened before and non TNA wrestler being the TNA world champion.
00:10:38.35
Bradley Palermo
I was wondering with the WWE w partnership with TNA, if they would ever drop the belt to the other, to a performer from the other promotion, because you kind of have to, they're doing like championship matches on each other's pay-per-views every fucking time.
00:10:50.54
Bradley Palermo
And they always have the person of their respective company retain.
00:10:51.02
Aaron
Yeah.
00:10:54.91
Bradley Palermo
or or not, you know, win, which depending they're challenger or the champion.
00:10:56.82
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:58.60
Bradley Palermo
And you kind of have to do it, you know?
00:10:59.12
Aaron
Yeah. Got to change it up. Yeah.
00:11:01.25
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. But now it's like you have this WWE guy.
00:11:02.48
Aaron
There was...
00:11:03.94
Bradley Palermo
He's going to have to, I guess, show up on TNA every Thursday and then work, you know?
00:11:07.75
Aaron
He is, yeah. And he's going to work NXT, too. I mean, there there were this... Up until... I mean, including last night, from Saturday to Tuesday, there were a lot of like shocking moments in wrestling.
00:11:19.51
Aaron
So Saturday night's main event...
00:11:20.01
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:11:21.60
Aaron
I don't know how shocking it was, but we saw the return of Cody Rhodes after not having seen him since WrestleMania. I didn't think we were going to see him that early. I'm interested to see what he says on SmackDown this week.
00:11:32.21
Aaron
ah We had Trick Williams beating Joe Hendry. And then ah yesterday, Stephanie Vaquer lost the NXT Women's Championship to J.C. Jane and I got to tell you, the when when they counted three, I've never seen people react. like Not only the crowd, but the ring announcer, the commentators. like The ring announcer just was like mouth agape for 10 seconds, and the PA had to like poke him to remind him that he needed to announce that JC had won.
00:12:03.20
Aaron
It's been a crazy few days, man. Like, Hangman.
00:12:06.17
Bradley Palermo
That's wild.
00:12:09.55
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:12:10.94
Aaron
lot of surprises.
00:12:11.08
Bradley Palermo
I thought so too. I was like, you know, Osprey will win and then at all in he'll, he'll take the thing out of mask Moxley's hand. But, um but yeah, I don't know.
00:12:17.100
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:12:20.44
Bradley Palermo
What was I going to say?
00:12:21.50
Aaron
did you read ah did you Did you read online that Hangman and Will apparently both wanted the other person to win? Like this super behind the curtain stuff.
00:12:29.38
Bradley Palermo
Oh, really?
00:12:32.03
Aaron
But yeah, apparently it's being reported that they both didn't want to win.
00:12:33.24
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:12:36.01
Aaron
And Tony was like, okay, well, I'll let you guys know as close to the match as can.
00:12:38.57
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:12:39.91
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:12:41.52
Bradley Palermo
I mean, know, that's the thing about wrestling is it's just an ongoing saga. So whoever wins, I mean, you know, they can have a shot at the other one or whatnot, like not that soon after.
00:12:50.32
Aaron
yeah
00:12:52.92
Bradley Palermo
um I see your dog there. and don't think I've met your cute.
00:12:55.07
Aaron
oh you see libby oh you haven't met libby yeah she's there she's hanging out with me
00:12:58.71
Bradley Palermo
Hi, Libby.
00:13:00.09
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it's been a crazy time for wrestling ever since WrestleMania. I've been going to so much shit. Like last week, went obviously, went to the thing we just talked about.
00:13:10.67
Bradley Palermo
Then this weekend, I'm going to an indie show. It's Prestige and some other companies doing an indie show in l LA. They have like Cameron Grimes and ah Cedric i was Alexander and bunch of ex-WWE guys.
00:13:19.24
Aaron
Oh, nice.
00:13:22.33
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:13:24.30
Bradley Palermo
And then the week after that, We'll both be money at Money in the Bank with everybody, you know, Cody Rhodes and John Cena and all them.
00:13:28.19
Aaron
Yes, sir.
00:13:32.24
Bradley Palermo
So it's like almost every week there's something crazy that we're like going to in person. um
00:13:37.76
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:13:38.26
Bradley Palermo
So I'm excited. It's a good time to be a wrestling fan.
00:13:41.56
Aaron
Agreed. Agreed. There's a lot of exciting stuff going on in the current product. And now I think it's time for us to turn to in Your House Over the Edge.
00:13:55.17
Bradley Palermo
um
00:13:55.87
Aaron
I just had to pull up my note again because my phone keeps, the screen keeps coming up.
00:13:59.57
Bradley Palermo
All right, let's crank up the new metal, light the pyro, and ride some Harleys on down the ramp because it's time to head back to May 1998 to the Milwaukee Arena for Over the Edge 98. to the milwaukee arena for over yeah ninety a This was, yes, this was, like I said, in Milwaukee with Jim Ross and Jerry thelin jerry the cleanon the Clean Lawler.
00:14:14.93
Aaron
Yeah, dude.
00:14:22.90
Bradley Palermo
Jerry the King Lawler.
00:14:23.27
Aaron
The Klingon?
00:14:25.73
Bradley Palermo
Jerry the King Lawler, Jim Ross on commentary. um The intro package is set to some sort of like rap rockish hype music centered on the Vince versus Austin.
00:14:38.38
Bradley Palermo
you know, ah you don't like that I drink a couple beers. You don't like that I use colorful language. And this there's like this woman like, you must obey to censorship.
00:14:48.26
Bradley Palermo
You must be censored. And, um you know, you have, yeah.
00:14:50.83
Aaron
Height of the Austin McMahon era, dude. this ah this is the This is the good shit right here. this um You know, this is like a month after WCW stopped beating WWF in the Monday Night Ratings.
00:15:03.05
Bradley Palermo
Oh shit. You can kind of see why.
00:15:04.27
Aaron
Yeah.
00:15:05.04
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. been sick, man. Who do you think you are? There's just like a lot of samples of the, of their, of their rivalry in this like song.
00:15:12.86
Aaron
Yeah.
00:15:14.33
Bradley Palermo
And the crowd is fucking rowdy. Suck it signs. This is the height of the suck it era.
00:15:20.00
Aaron
Yeah, dude, so many signs in the crowd.
00:15:20.07
Bradley Palermo
um like Yeah, this.
00:15:22.05
Aaron
It was insane. yeah Like more signs than not.
00:15:27.17
Bradley Palermo
Dude, Marissa showed me this thing her sister sent me i sent her yeah last night. She didn't even know what it was. her Her sister probably sent it to her because we all like wrestling shit. But it was this news story where they're interviewing this like little fucking big-toothed teenager like with braces, whatever.
00:15:44.04
Aaron
Hmm.
00:15:44.01
Bradley Palermo
Like, 12-year-old. And they're like, so yeah how does that work at school and in social settings when you're going around saying suck it to everyone and he's like well i don't mean like get on your knees and actually suck on it what i mean is like it just it's a saying it's a suck it and he does like the dance and it's like a it's like a and marissa's like what the fuck is this like she thought it was funny but ah was like do you know what this is that's degeneration x and i explained it to her that yeah no these kids are going around like gesturing and telling people to suck it on the playground and stuff
00:16:01.33
Aaron
yeah
00:16:08.66
Aaron
Yeah.
00:16:14.35
Aaron
Yeah. We all got in trouble for crotch chopping to our fellow students.
00:16:18.74
Bradley Palermo
Crotch chop.
00:16:19.83
Aaron
Yeah, it was good times.
00:16:20.39
Bradley Palermo
Yes.
00:16:21.23
Aaron
Good times back then.
00:16:23.46
Bradley Palermo
You've got like an entrance ramp on this pay-per-view that's littered with just destroyed cars. It's like Warzone.
00:16:29.82
Aaron
Yeah, little bit of set design. That was kind of fun.
00:16:31.82
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, a little. Yeah. um And we we kicked it off with match one was Legion of Doom, LOD 2000, they were calling it, with Droz and Sunny ringside with them versus Skull and 8-Ball.
00:16:40.86
Aaron
Yeah, what the fuck?
00:16:46.24
Bradley Palermo
The two, I looked these fucking guys up. They're
00:16:49.25
Aaron
DOA.
00:16:50.10
Bradley Palermo
They're Ron and Don Harris in real life. Ron and real life twins. They got a biker gimmick. um They're later known for their controversy where they wore swastikas on their t-shirts.
00:17:03.35
Aaron
Of course they did.
00:17:03.46
Bradley Palermo
and And when they were working for TNA, and they got moved behind the scenes because, you know, TNA thing. they They can overlook some of those things a little bit sometimes.
00:17:14.19
Aaron
I guess they can, Mr.
00:17:15.48
Bradley Palermo
I don't...
00:17:15.87
Aaron
Dreamer, Mrs. m Blanchard. um Yeah, that there this was a strange presentation for the Road Warriors or the Legion of Doom.
00:17:26.20
Aaron
um
00:17:26.53
Bradley Palermo
Yes.
00:17:26.78
Aaron
I was not really ah fan. it just, you know, didn't feel, i mean, once they got to WWF, they were never really the same because they couldn't call them the road warriors.
00:17:38.42
Aaron
They had to call them road warrior Hawk and road warrior animal, the Legion of doom.
00:17:38.80
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:17:42.98
Aaron
Um,
00:17:42.98
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:17:43.56
Aaron
So yeah, something felt a little off about this match. For me, I think Hawk and Animal by this point in their careers are kind of a little worse for wear. You know, they're they're not spring chickens anymore.
00:17:53.41
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:17:55.32
Aaron
i felt like DOA lacked charisma. They're just big tattooed biker guys who drove to the ring on bikes doing that The Undertaker, I guess, took from them because he was not the American badass yet, as we saw later.
00:18:05.72
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:18:09.10
Bradley Palermo
Yes. Yeah.
00:18:10.27
Aaron
Yeah, you know, the crowd was occasionally chanting for the Legion of Doom, but they were kind of like pretty. I mean, we talked about Road Warrior Pops, you know, that we saw in in like late 80s, early 90s WCW.
00:18:20.30
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:18:24.14
Aaron
That didn't happen here ah in in this match. You know, JR was talking about how the winner should get a title shot against the New Age Outlaws of Degeneration X.
00:18:34.65
Aaron
um But this was kind of like, I know it was meant to be like a fun, exciting match, but it just didn't. It was a weird way to open a show for me.
00:18:42.70
Bradley Palermo
And they were kind of called out on commentary too. Like JR and Lawler were kind of saying like... You know, in the 80s, they were the AWA champions. And Lawler's like, yeah, so what? I was the fucking heavyweight champion back then.
00:18:56.42
Aaron
Yeah.
00:18:56.69
Bradley Palermo
never And he was like, you know, they they would like to be restored to their former glory. And Jerry Lawler's kind of basically more or less, yeah, good luck with that, you know?
00:19:06.55
Aaron
Yeah, and then...
00:19:06.97
Bradley Palermo
And I was like, you don't have to call it out. And they're like, you don't even call them Legion of Doom. They're LOD 2000. Like,
00:19:12.38
Aaron
Right.
00:19:13.05
Bradley Palermo
I don't know. it's It's just kind of because they were such a big fucking deal in the 80s. It's kind of sad to see them towards the end.
00:19:20.86
Aaron
Yeah. Plus, the way the match ends is that draws interferes, which like allows Animal to get the win with a power slam, and I'm thinking like, okay, it's the late 90s, it's the Attitude Era, but...
00:19:34.59
Aaron
It's kind of a weird finish for what I assume is a babyface team.
00:19:38.41
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, i don't I don't know. It was kind of weird. um I was more interested in Sonny in this match, which, because Jerry Lawler is like so horny over Sonny.
00:19:49.84
Aaron
Yeah.
00:19:50.08
Bradley Palermo
He's like, does anybody got a quarter? My mom told me to call her the second I met the girl in my dreams. You know, it's like I mean, he had probably like 10 things to say about Sonny.
00:19:59.38
Aaron
Yeah.
00:19:59.32
Bradley Palermo
Oh, she could look good doing anything like he just I mean, she probably will his commentary on her was probably the most interesting thing.
00:20:06.76
Aaron
Such a perv.
00:20:06.82
Bradley Palermo
Sonny, of course. Yeah, he's a perv. And Sonny, of course, celebrated as WWE's first diva. And I always when I see her on screen, I i look her up and reread her Wikipedia because it's just crazy that.
00:20:19.51
Bradley Palermo
you know she's serving uh uh 17 plus years for her dui manslaughter and she won't be out she won't be out till uh 2039 and you know here she was like a young beautiful girl of course and you know and you look her up you see her at her arraignment or whatever and um
00:20:25.20
Aaron
Oh, wow.
00:20:31.38
Aaron
Geez.
00:20:38.88
Bradley Palermo
in like you know prison jumpsuit and we all age but like seeing someone with like no makeup you know fucking however many 25 years later versus as when she was 25 it was just like and when she's in prison it's just so like it's such a fucking fall from grace so um I feel like they should do a dark side of the ring on Sunny i think um why not right I mean there's got to be some interesting stuff there
00:20:39.69
Aaron
Fall from grace.
00:20:56.63
Aaron
Yeah.
00:21:02.92
Aaron
It'd be interesting. Yeah. um
00:21:05.32
Bradley Palermo
um
00:21:05.96
Aaron
So after this match, we had The Rock come out and do a little promo.
00:21:06.42
Bradley Palermo
Owen Hart.
00:21:10.32
Aaron
He was talking some trash. ah This was, you know, he was referring to himself in the third person at this point, but he's still a bad guy. He's the intercontinental champion and he's feuding with Farouk, who used to be the head of the Nation of Domination, which is the faction that The Rock is now the head of, which includes Kama Mustafa, D. Lo Brown, and the world's strongest man, Mark Henry.
00:21:31.96
Aaron
um This was...
00:21:32.94
Bradley Palermo
and owen hart
00:21:33.99
Aaron
Oh, yeah, I know. That's right. How could I forget? Owen Hart, the token white of the nation of domination.
00:21:39.63
Bradley Palermo
So can I, can you say the nation of domination originally, i don't know about at this point, but it's, it's, it's a nation of Islam, Black Panther, cartoonization of yes, of like a black power militant group.
00:21:44.86
Aaron
Yeah.
00:21:47.86
Aaron
Yeah. They're like a militant black group. Yeah.
00:21:52.81
Bradley Palermo
So why the, how is this Canadian blonde white guy in this?
00:21:53.96
Aaron
They're not...
00:21:57.24
Aaron
So I think they're just calling it the nation now, right? So if you notice, they never said the nation of domination.
00:22:00.53
Bradley Palermo
Okay. Right.
00:22:03.32
Aaron
It was just the nation.
00:22:03.33
Bradley Palermo
There are no, right. But I mean,
00:22:05.80
Aaron
So maybe it's different now. i don't know. This is a funny, a funny little thing. You know, Rock and Farouk are having a feud. Farouk hits him with a pile driver on a chair. And, you know, Rock is grievously injured and all the nation members come by.
00:22:21.90
Aaron
i heard Owen yelling, get Francois, which made me laugh super hard. Do you know who Francois Prinsloo is? Have you ever heard of this guy?
00:22:30.22
Aaron
He's like the WWF's like massage therapist, like miracle Mr.
00:22:35.08
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yeah.
00:22:35.22
Aaron
Miyagi guy. And like, I've heard Mark Henry and Bubba talk about him. like, you know, he would just be the guy that would come out and check on you. He's like the Doc Samson, you know, in AEW.
00:22:45.36
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yeah. No, yeah, I've heard of this. Yeah.
00:22:48.28
Aaron
Um,
00:22:48.38
Bradley Palermo
You know...
00:22:48.99
Bradley Palermo
why why are these wrestlers trying to put on the neck brace on the rock because like there's no emt at like a wwf show in the 90s like i think i think jr even said like we do have emt it's like they're like looking at each other like all right don't move them move them call you know i just like what are these idiots doing yeah
00:22:53.46
Aaron
I don't know. it was it was very silly.
00:23:09.72
Aaron
Yeah, it was it was very silly ah and it took it a little bit too long for my liking. I mean, the point was to make it seem like Rock was going to be at a disadvantage for the match that he has later with Farouk.
00:23:25.07
Bradley Palermo
And then we get into Jeff Jarrett with Tennessee Lee versus Steve Blackman. I feel like Blackman's been on everything we've watched lately, huh?
00:23:34.03
Aaron
Just the last two things, I think. um
00:23:36.12
Bradley Palermo
It's like the third one in a row, maybe? No?
00:23:38.05
Aaron
Is it the third one? It could be. we He was definitely in the last one. And maybe it's just two in a row, but you know.
00:23:41.93
Bradley Palermo
Okay.
00:23:44.74
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, who knows? Maybe I just watched this twice and counted it. um So Jeff Jarrett struts to the ring. Jeff Jarrett is like a country country singer
00:23:54.55
Aaron
They call him a young man.
00:23:54.67
Bradley Palermo
gimmick
00:23:55.79
Aaron
He's 30 this point.
00:23:57.20
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, he was, he'd spell his name, J-A-R-R-E-T-T.
00:23:57.87
Aaron
I thought that was kind of funny.
00:24:01.82
Bradley Palermo
That's double J, Jeff Jarrett. And he, you know, when I was a kid, i was always like, how is, this guy shows up in a tour bus with his face on it, like he's fucking Lucinda Williams.
00:24:12.05
Bradley Palermo
And I'm, I'm always like, where is this single? Why don't I hear this guy on the radio if he's got the fucking, you know, the hit single on the tour bus?
00:24:17.71
Aaron
Yeah.
00:24:20.01
Bradley Palermo
Like, I feel like they should have at least put some music out.
00:24:21.11
Aaron
Mm hmm.
00:24:22.87
Bradley Palermo
But he, you know, and don't think he knows how to play guitar. He comes out there.
00:24:26.40
Aaron
No.
00:24:26.36
Bradley Palermo
All he all he ever did in the gimmick was use it to hit people and it explodes because guitar and stuff.
00:24:30.48
Aaron
Yeah.
00:24:31.94
Bradley Palermo
um
00:24:32.05
Aaron
He has some nice pyro.
00:24:33.83
Bradley Palermo
he He may have.
00:24:34.37
Aaron
Very fanciful pyro didn't you you know, with his name behind him while he was in the ring.
00:24:36.15
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:39.09
Aaron
That was kind of abnormal for the time.
00:24:41.10
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, Blackman has this like kind of goofy martial arts stick. said he I don't know what they're called, but he swings those things around.
00:24:47.40
Aaron
Yeah.
00:24:48.05
Bradley Palermo
um
00:24:48.35
Aaron
Found out he was trained in the heart dungeon by the commentary team, which I did not know.
00:24:48.69
Bradley Palermo
ah
00:24:52.91
Aaron
That's actually an interesting factoid about Blackman.
00:24:56.14
Bradley Palermo
That is interesting. Yeah. I, you know, on this match, I didn't, I didn't have like a ton of notable moments that I wrote down, but um Jerry Lawler kept being like, this is like an old country song the whole time.
00:25:01.58
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:25:06.64
Bradley Palermo
Like using these country song lyrics, he said um to describe things.
00:25:08.39
Aaron
yeah
00:25:11.10
Bradley Palermo
Jerry Lawler, you know, obviously worked as a wrestler in Memphis. And so did Jeff Jarrett because his dad like owns the promotion down there. Right.
00:25:20.30
Aaron
Yeah, Jerry Jarrett, correct.
00:25:26.35
Aaron
Yep.
00:25:31.88
Aaron
That was a good one.
00:25:38.47
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:25:48.08
Aaron
Funny.
00:25:48.74
Bradley Palermo
country songs. So I learned something that Tom Waits, I don't think he even put it in a song. It's just something he would, he repeated. um but Oh yeah.
00:25:56.54
Aaron
There were other I wrote a couple of Jerry ah quotes from this match because so my favorite was if my nose were full of nickels, I'd blow it all on you.
00:26:01.01
Bradley Palermo
I'd like to hear him.
00:26:07.68
Aaron
i don't remember what he was talking about, but it was what?
00:26:10.67
Bradley Palermo
I heard that, yeah. And I was kind of wondering, I was wondering what the fuck that, I think he said that this reminds, I think he said this reminds me of an old country song on that one too.
00:26:15.07
Aaron
What is that?
00:26:19.60
Bradley Palermo
If my nose is, and and I don't know that has anything to do with it.
00:26:19.81
Aaron
Yeah.
00:26:23.93
Aaron
The other one was, I don't Tennessee leaves doing something or he was nervous about the match. And Jerry says, Tennessee is sweating butter over there.
00:26:34.91
Aaron
Sweating butter.
00:26:35.38
Bradley Palermo
I like that one.
00:26:36.65
Aaron
That's pretty funny. Yeah. uh,
00:26:37.91
Bradley Palermo
Those like southerners have the best, uh, like kind of one-liner sometimes, you know?
00:26:41.70
Aaron
Yeah, they they really do. ah this This match, again, was just okay. ah Blackman's offense as a whole felt really quick, a little rushed.
00:26:54.85
Aaron
And I noticed that because as every time Jeff Jarrett was in control of the match... Things slowed down. It felt like a really comfortable pace. And time was being given to allow the moves that were being done to one another to have enough impact.
00:27:09.77
Aaron
And i think, you know,
00:27:12.33
Aaron
it was just another okay match. Again, we i said this last time, Steve Blackman is... you interesting. I just don't think that he ever really ascended to the level that people thought he would.
00:27:19.09
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:27:25.16
Aaron
um Mark Henry once said that Steve Blackman like that dude wanted a reason to actually beat someone up. So, you know, maybe that's not the best mentality to have if you're trying to be a professional wrestler.
00:27:38.08
Bradley Palermo
right
00:27:39.89
Aaron
This match ended with Tennessee Lee hitting Blackman with one of the sticks that he brought to the ring.
00:27:46.62
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:27:47.27
Aaron
Blackman falls right in front of the referee after being hit with the stick. The referee is like, oh, he just fell for no reason. Cool. And then Jared wins with a pin. So, nah.
00:27:57.96
Bradley Palermo
yeah i don't I got nothing to add there. Match three, we go on to Sable and Mark Merrow.
00:28:00.32
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:03.72
Bradley Palermo
Mark Merrow, who are in my day, he looked like, and they and and they mentioned this so to make fun of him in the match, but he he was like a Little Richard gimmick.
00:28:14.36
Aaron
Yeah.
00:28:15.53
Bradley Palermo
I mean, he looked just like Little yeah just like little Richard.
00:28:15.91
Aaron
In WCW.
00:28:19.84
Bradley Palermo
Now he looks less like Little Richard, but he's still...
00:28:23.04
Aaron
Now he's marvelous. Mark Merrow, a golden glove boxing champion or whatever bullshit they said.
00:28:29.74
Bradley Palermo
Right, so Mero in this story, it's got Sable under, Sable the famous valet, um another another pretty blonde lady.
00:28:39.15
Bradley Palermo
um He's got her under like a personal contract. She wants out.
00:28:41.89
Aaron
Personal services contract. Yeah.
00:28:43.58
Bradley Palermo
Personal services contract.
00:28:44.88
Aaron
I don't know what the hell that means, but sure.
00:28:45.77
Bradley Palermo
So some kind of, yeah, whatever. And which kind of reminds me, there was an AEW storyline a few years ago where, um,
00:28:53.91
Aaron
Oh, with Wardlow and MJF?
00:28:54.04
Bradley Palermo
ah ward Wardlow was under MJF's as sort of a, I don't know, whatever.
00:28:57.76
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:28:58.17
Bradley Palermo
So they do this sort of thing in wrestling and she wants out and he's like, we'll find a guy to beat me and you can get out. well She comes out to to announce, I guess, who she's going to have beat Mark Merrow. And she tells Mark, you know what? i don't need men fighting my battles for me.
00:29:14.03
Bradley Palermo
I'm going to do it myself. Now, if she loses, she has to leave WWF forever. If she wins, she can be released from her contract with Meryl. So now you have this woman, Sable, you know, in her like Everlast boxing sort of shorts and like this tiny like top or whatever.
00:29:28.21
Aaron
Yeah.
00:29:30.36
Bradley Palermo
And, you know, it's the nine. It's like imagine Pamela Anderson versus little Richard here, I guess, with muscles. And.
00:29:39.21
Bradley Palermo
And yeah, I mean, you know, I guess you want to tell them how it went down, Aaron. Go ahead.
00:29:43.56
Aaron
Sure, yeah. So Mero, wasn't really a match so watch so much as it was sort of like an extended promo that turned into a match.
00:29:44.28
Bradley Palermo
man
00:29:53.31
Aaron
After Sable said that she was going to fight her own battles, Mero basically says like, I respect that. I'm going to let you out of your contract. So he lays down to let Sable pin him, and then reverses it like a true asshole to win the match.
00:30:08.80
Aaron
And Sable is, quote-unquote, out of the WWF permanently. We know that's not true. She comes back later. But yeah, this was... a big fat nothing burger of a match that I assume was something that people were interested in at the time, just because Sable had huge tits and was good looking.
00:30:27.11
Aaron
i mean, that that was, I, I, I respect Sable for what she did, but s Sable was eye candy and little else. Uh, so that's probably why this was, was popular at all.
00:30:33.93
Bradley Palermo
you know
00:30:37.60
Bradley Palermo
JR said, um I thought it was funny. He made a comment like right before the match started. like oh I don't know if we're ready for this inter intergender business here.
00:30:47.29
Bradley Palermo
I'm sure it was happening on the indies and stuff.
00:30:49.82
Aaron
Of course, yeah.
00:30:49.85
Bradley Palermo
He kind of like sort of um said kind of what happened.
00:30:52.60
Aaron
Saw a bit of that in Anarchy in the Arena.
00:30:54.66
Bradley Palermo
yeah we did and then um i thought uh uh it was interesting that jerry lawler you know the second like eye candy lady of the night he didn't get all like horny and weird he was laughing at her like haha bye sable you know like like thought it was so hilarious i was like yeah right dude like doesn't look that different than the other one i can't hardly tell the fucking difference but
00:31:07.72
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:14.24
Aaron
Right. I wonder if if she wronged him in storyline in some way, because I have to imagine that there was a point at which Lawler was, you know, slack jawed that Sable was like, yeah, well, you just shut up.
00:31:20.03
Bradley Palermo
oh okay
00:31:23.03
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:31:29.47
Aaron
I feel like that happened at some point, something like that.
00:31:32.46
Bradley Palermo
I was curious if s Sable actually left the WWF at that point because she walked out like she was. um She actually came back that summer for some appearances from what I read.
00:31:45.48
Bradley Palermo
um Well, no. um Yeah, and then stayed until the next year where she filed her 1999 sexual harassment lawsuit against the company, which ended
00:31:55.90
Aaron
Yeah, which in hindsight is probably true.
00:32:00.88
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and it hold on is she the one that married Lesnar who's been named in the ongoing lawsuit or criminal investigation, I guess?
00:32:03.65
Aaron
She's married to Lesnar. Yeah. Yeah, she's married to Brock Lesnar.
00:32:10.39
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:32:12.79
Bradley Palermo
Has that been dropped? I don't know.
00:32:14.41
Aaron
No, it's still, the lawsuit is still active.
00:32:14.42
Bradley Palermo
With the company?
00:32:17.37
Aaron
And in fact, ah I just saw a post that one of the people named in the lawsuit, John Laurinaitis, has flipped and is now going to give evidence against Vince.
00:32:30.16
Aaron
So this will be pretty interesting. um
00:32:34.08
Bradley Palermo
Did you know that Laurinaitis' Laurinaitis' brother was the road warrior?
00:32:34.57
Aaron
Johnny Ace...
00:32:39.39
Aaron
I did not when you texted that, that yeah, that road warrior animal is a Laurinaitis.
00:32:39.37
Bradley Palermo
No.
00:32:43.95
Aaron
I was like, what the fuck?
00:32:44.60
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:32:44.79
Aaron
And I had to look it up and i was like, wow, I did not realize that at all.
00:32:47.23
Bradley Palermo
I've been meaning to tell you that. And i was like, I might as well tell you that now. Cause I found that out like a couple months ago and I was like, I'm surprised i never made it. And no one ever talks about that. you just assume the road warriors are related to one another, but I'm good for Lauren it is.
00:32:59.20
Aaron
Yeah. Interesting.
00:33:01.20
Bradley Palermo
I'm sure there was some pressure to, to talk.
00:33:03.03
Aaron
Yeah.
00:33:03.89
Bradley Palermo
What a fucking mess over there.
00:33:04.84
Aaron
I bet you his family was like, bro, if you don't say something, we're leaving if they haven't already.
00:33:10.43
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:33:11.34
Aaron
so yeah.
00:33:11.24
Bradley Palermo
I mean, it's weird because, I mean, from where whatever ends up happening with that, you know, for better or worse, probably worse, Vince McMahon is forever tied into all of this shit, you know, wrestling history.
00:33:11.83
Aaron
Yeah.
00:33:24.03
Aaron
yeah Yeah, I was watching this with my wife who um you know is sort of a wrestling fan by association because she's married to me. ah And you know i yeah was like talking to her about like people really, really loved this time of wrestling. It was arguably the time that people look back on with the most fondness.
00:33:47.69
Aaron
And you know i said to her, I mean, he's still a piece of shit, but at least now I think you can see why it was so popular then because he is so hateable.
00:33:57.66
Aaron
and it is he And he knew that him getting like people getting the better of him and him looking like a fool was what everybody wanted to see.
00:33:58.27
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:34:07.43
Aaron
And it was the thing that that drew the most money.
00:34:07.65
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:34:09.34
Aaron
at Who doesn't want to... punch and talk shit to their boss. Everybody does.
00:34:13.99
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:34:14.53
Aaron
Right. So it was really, really interesting to kind of like have her perspective next to me ah while I was watching this because she knows Vince's
00:34:14.96
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:34:24.25
Aaron
know, being in charge, being a character and then being a rapist.
00:34:29.10
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:34:29.43
Aaron
So there's, you know, the it's a, it's a weird thing to be a wrestling fan from the nineties to now, because I feel like I almost compartmentalize Vince McMahon. Like, did you watch the Vince Netflix thing?
00:34:45.31
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah, of course.
00:34:46.25
Aaron
Do you remember how the whole premise of that was like, that's the character.
00:34:49.68
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, right.
00:34:49.79
Aaron
What's fucked up about that is that's how I deal with it in my head. That's how I compartmentalize it.
00:34:53.74
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:34:54.99
Aaron
When in reality, I shouldn't be acknowledging anything that he did as being good because he is, if the allegations of this lawsuit are true, Vince McMahon is an irredeemable human being in my mind.
00:34:55.51
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:35:08.64
Bradley Palermo
Right, I think wrestling, well, a lot of entertainment is just riddled with like fucked up, power hungry, abusive dudes.
00:35:15.23
Aaron
Yeah, very true.
00:35:17.15
Bradley Palermo
And it's why some things I continue to view or watch or think about fondly but not other things. I don't know like where exactly, when I can separate, when I can't separate.
00:35:29.78
Bradley Palermo
It's like, I don't, I think you know Michael Jackson's early records, thrillers, some of the best music ever made in the world.
00:35:37.30
Aaron
Yeah.
00:35:38.64
Bradley Palermo
attribute lot of that to Quincy Jones, but certainly a lot of a lot that to Michael Jackson. When I hear it now, I think about like child abuse and I don't want to fuck, it doesn't make me happy anymore. And like when I see Woody Allen, I think,
00:35:51.17
Bradley Palermo
you fuck your daughter. You married your daughter.
00:35:53.34
Aaron
Yeah.
00:35:53.88
Bradley Palermo
Like, I don't want to see him. And and those are great films. Like, used to be like, if you're bored, you're like, well, can always put on an old Woody Allen thing.
00:35:56.69
Aaron
Yeah.
00:36:00.64
Bradley Palermo
Like, this is going to be cool. um But like wrestling, like I don't know Maybe it's because there's Vince isn't, because he's an evil character and because there's so many other people involved like i it doesn't put me off to the point where i can't like enjoy wrestling but i can enjoy i can watch rick flair but i don't like chami dreamer when he talks about rick flair so who fucking knows dude i mean it's confusing right
00:36:09.80
Aaron
Yeah.
00:36:18.40
Aaron
yeah
00:36:23.46
Aaron
it's fandom is strange. Fandom is strange. And why we make the choices that we do to like, or dislike at any given point, don't necessarily have a rhyme or reason.
00:36:33.91
Aaron
Cause it's our personal preference. Right. Um, you know, I felt the same way with the Michael Jackson music for a while after watching whatever that finding never, or something never land, whatever that show was.
00:36:44.74
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Right.
00:36:47.21
Aaron
Um, And then, you know, like, actually, i feel like I heard it on the radio a couple weeks ago and I didn't turn it off. You know, I enjoyed it.
00:36:53.59
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:36:54.32
Aaron
so I think there's a world in which we can all, where the two things can coexist. um I think it's very difficult to separate the human being from their art, but you know, um yeah, it's it's tough.
00:37:05.14
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:37:09.14
Aaron
I mean, i really had a great time watching this pay-per-view and yet, you know, you see Vince McMahon playing a prominent role and being an asshole.
00:37:18.72
Aaron
And I'm reminded of the fact that he is in real life a tremendous asshole, somebody who helped a lot of people, broke barriers and like turned a small company into a billion dollar company.
00:37:18.74
Bradley Palermo
Right. Right.
00:37:23.18
Bradley Palermo
right
00:37:30.92
Aaron
You can't deny that those things happened. But the way that he did it and the way that he treated people on the way. Maybe some would say that that was a requirement to get to the place that he got, but I would argue that that's just not how you treat human beings.
00:37:44.27
Aaron
And maybe that means I'm not meant to be a billionaire, but so be it.
00:37:44.57
Bradley Palermo
right
00:37:47.85
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I know if really meant to be a billionaire, but that's a whole other topic.
00:37:52.31
Aaron
but Yeah, let's go on to the next match. ah This was an interesting, strange one. It was more Japanese wrestlers, Kai and Tai, which was a ah tag team versus Taka Michinoku, the person that we've seen a few times now, and Bradshaw, John Bradshaw Layfield. So this was a weird pairing. ah
00:38:12.50
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:38:12.96
Aaron
Bradshaw is easily over one foot taller than everyone else in the match.
00:38:18.19
Bradley Palermo
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
00:38:18.56
Aaron
um It was fun. It was impressive, but it just felt like a strange place for Bradshaw to be And so when I went and did a little bit of Googling and Wikipedia-ing, I found out that this is actually six months before him and Farouk formed the tag team APA because Farouk is currently feuding with The Rock and they didn't know what to do with Bradshaw. And once they come together as APA,
00:38:43.06
Aaron
things really start trucking for both of them. um They do that corporate ministry thing that we saw in No Mercy. And I'm pretty sure they go on and like win the tag champs championships a couple times. So um most of the match was between the Japanese wrestlers here.
00:39:00.11
Aaron
ah It was fun. Bradshaw got the hot tag. um But unfortunately, the heels, Kai and Tai won with some tomfoolery. What did you think of this one?
00:39:09.21
Bradley Palermo
I felt like, I mean, they called it a bonus match, which kind of like takes some steam out of the match right away. You're like, what? This isn't like a real thing. But it felt to me like Kai and Tai were there or working nearby and they needed Bradshaw on the thing.
00:39:24.17
Bradley Palermo
And Mikanoku was like... um you know I got some guys. I don't fucking know. not going to try to pronounce their names.
00:39:33.92
Bradley Palermo
I guess like the Kiantai guys, they show up in streetwear, right? Like hoodies, quicksilver t-shirts.
00:39:38.28
Aaron
Yeah.
00:39:40.57
Bradley Palermo
like It was like It was like they found, it's like he ran into him at Target and then just like brought him over. So it's like zero zero ring gear.
00:39:49.51
Aaron
Yeah.
00:39:50.44
Bradley Palermo
um And then, yeah, obviously Brad shows out of place. It kind of had like an indie scramble energy. Like when you go to an indie show, um we'll do like an eight man scramble where whoever gets the pin first wins.
00:40:00.08
Aaron
yeah
00:40:00.13
Bradley Palermo
um and And they kind of just bring in like, it seems like, you know, you kind of got your local guys and you got a couple guys that you didn't have anywhere else to put them on the show. um I'm not saying it was bad. I was just saying it was kind of like, what is all this?
00:40:12.20
Aaron
It fell out of place.
00:40:12.80
Bradley Palermo
It's three guys on two guys. It's three versus two. um
00:40:17.28
Aaron
Oh, that's right.
00:40:17.48
Bradley Palermo
Handicap match.
00:40:17.93
Aaron
It was three on two.
00:40:18.84
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:40:19.37
Aaron
Yeah.
00:40:19.72
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:40:20.00
Aaron
Okay. Yeah. This was, this, this, this is like the, the, the 1998 WWF equivalent of the Adam Cole trios match from double or nothing.
00:40:21.02
Bradley Palermo
So, so I don't understand like,
00:40:30.39
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:40:31.06
Aaron
You're like, why is this here?
00:40:31.13
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. I don't, I was like, I don't know what's happening here. I know like, yeah, I, I mean, it's cool to see everybody or whatever, but like, I don't really know what was going on.
00:40:39.87
Bradley Palermo
And then with um this match and with the post-match, we got a little bit of Sunny walking out of the arena saying goodbye to her fans, but we already, um oh yeah, sorry, Sable.
00:40:47.55
Aaron
Sable, you mean.
00:40:50.22
Bradley Palermo
we got Sable walking out of the arena saying goodbye to her fans and then there was okay there was a commercial type promo like a pre-recording like uh me I guess you'd call it a video package that I thought was funny because it's like a wrestling is real montage and uh the wrestlers are all talking tough like
00:41:00.28
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:41:07.59
Bradley Palermo
I've been through four neck surgeries and I'm the first, I'm the first woman to ever hold the intercontinental title. And, you know, I I've done this eight times and I've, I've conquered my demons and, and then undertaker comes in and he, he basically says like, I'm tall and i weigh a lot.
00:41:26.02
Bradley Palermo
Like he doesn't say any accolades he just says I'm six foot seven three hundred and four pounds or whatever I was like that is hilarious to me
00:41:28.48
Aaron
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:41:35.33
Bradley Palermo
um And then somebody in the crowd had a sign, Milwaukee, birthplace of Austin 316, which is true.
00:41:44.27
Bradley Palermo
Milwaukee is where someone called Steve Austin made fun of Jake the Snake for citing John 316, because Jake the Snake was a born-again Christian, saying, Austin 316 says, I just whooped your ass.
00:41:51.25
Aaron
huh
00:41:56.44
Bradley Palermo
And did I tell you I came out of the movie theater the other night and there was a soapbox preacher in Burbank and he was dude right when I came out he goes and John it's it's like signs all over that say you're going to hell and stuff and he was like and and there was like I mean there was probably 50 people around me like it's like that Burbank mall area and he was like and John 316 says blah blah blah and I said Austin 316 says I just whooped your ass and
00:42:02.03
Aaron
No, no.
00:42:13.07
Aaron
Oh, dear God. Yeah.
00:42:22.35
Bradley Palermo
ah god I wouldn't say I got a pop, but like people in the in the in the crowd were amused, know?
00:42:22.89
Aaron
ah
00:42:27.60
Aaron
Nice.
00:42:27.94
Bradley Palermo
And I was like so stoked.
00:42:28.42
Aaron
Nice.
00:42:29.10
Bradley Palermo
I was like, I just got to say that to some fucking idiot shouting that shit from a fucking soapbox.
00:42:31.98
Aaron
Yeah.
00:42:34.47
Bradley Palermo
um Match four, Rock versus Farouk for the Intercontinental Championship.
00:42:40.37
Bradley Palermo
um Yeah, it was short too. Five minutes, but good.
00:42:43.85
Aaron
lot of drama, though. You know, rock Rock is grievously injured from the attack by Farouk, and he doesn't want to show up. So Sergeant Slaughter, who is the commissioner at this point in time, orders Rock to come out or he will give the championship to Farouk. So Rock comes out last minute wearing a cervical collar, and very soon it seems like his neck injury disappears.
00:43:07.28
Bradley Palermo
Yes. now we've had Commissioner Jack Tunney, Commissioner Sergeant Slaughter. Do we have any other commissioners? Yeah.
00:43:14.49
Aaron
I don't know. Did we watch something with Gorilla Monsoon as the commissioner yet?
00:43:18.43
Bradley Palermo
I don't think we have.
00:43:19.78
Aaron
Maybe not. Yeah.
00:43:21.02
Bradley Palermo
But yeah, it was it was hard-hitting match. It was fast. you know These guys are both ex-football players. and um ah Rock is shady in this.
00:43:31.31
Bradley Palermo
I guess he was for most of his career. putting his foot on the ropes.
00:43:33.05
Aaron
yeah
00:43:35.60
Aaron
Yeah, wins with a leveraged pin.
00:43:37.80
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:43:38.14
Aaron
but that's But then the match just doesn't it doesn't end like a normal match, you know? Farouk gets mad, he hits Rock with two more pile drivers, and then The Nation comes out to protect Rock, and then DX comes out.
00:43:45.63
Bradley Palermo
Ooh.
00:43:50.26
Aaron
Huge pop, no music for the run-in, just at the end once they've successfully gotten The Nation out, ah you know really showing how popular DX was at this point. Because like you know you think about the WWE wwe now,
00:44:13.81
Bradley Palermo
right
00:44:22.95
Bradley Palermo
yeah the reactions are know unparalleled with any other the old stuff we watch or today it's like crowds are just you know electric yeah um
00:44:31.46
Aaron
Bananas. Yeah. Yeah, they they like who they like. And you know what's funny? They like who they like a lot. And then everyone else that they just don't care for?
00:44:41.49
Aaron
Dead fucking silence. Like this next match, Kane versus Vader, loser must unmask.
00:44:42.85
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:44:46.74
Aaron
What you would think on its face is what Big E says, two meaty men slapping meats, you know?
00:44:52.57
Aaron
um But the crowd's behind Vader and literally no reaction at all for anything that Kane does. It was really weird.
00:45:01.80
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I guess, you know.
00:45:03.27
Aaron
Once I heard that it was a loser must unmask match, I was like, okay, it's 1998. Kane doesn't get unmasked for like five years. So, so Vader's obviously losing.
00:45:13.09
Bradley Palermo
You know, but Vader, um did you see the Dark Side of the Ring on Vader?
00:45:17.21
Aaron
i did. Yeah. I just watched, it just came out like a month ago or something.
00:45:18.32
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:45:19.97
Aaron
yeah I watched it.
00:45:20.13
Bradley Palermo
He's kind of a gnarly guy and apparently very stinky. Now I think about how much all the wrestlers hated to work with him because he stunk. And it makes it more interesting to watch back.
00:45:27.39
Aaron
Yeah. And then, well, the,
00:45:29.23
Bradley Palermo
You're like, ew. You know, I mean, obviously in wrestling, you've got each other's bodies all in your fucking nose and shit.
00:45:30.94
Aaron
and
00:45:35.80
Aaron
Yeah, and you know, and it's funny that you brought up the Dark Side of the Ring ah episode about him because this... the After Vader loses the match, he has a little... um interview and I remember that interview from the dark side episode because it's like the last time we see him and he's dejected and think he said in the in or in the interview like I'm just a fat piece of shit and if you remember that's what Vince called him so like this was clearly the point at which
00:45:48.98
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:46:02.64
Bradley Palermo
Oh, right.
00:46:04.90
Aaron
He was done. He was fed up. He was dejected. Sean had already shit all over him for being smelly and not wanting to work with him because Sean was gone by this point. So yeah, it was actually it was pretty sad.
00:46:13.03
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:46:15.74
Aaron
um you know Kane was not very good as a wrestler at this point. i suppose Vader has a part to play in in the way that the match looked, but...
00:46:25.01
Aaron
um Yeah, i didn't I didn't love it. vader and Vader grabbed a wrench, I think, when they were outside at some point.
00:46:32.56
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:33.68
Aaron
He hit Kane a couple of times. That got the crowd excited. um
00:46:36.43
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:46:37.09
Aaron
And Vader set up for moonsault, which we've seen him do before. crowd was super so excited for that, but he missed it. And Kane hit him with a tombstone and game over. And then we got that sad promo um that just reminded me that this was the end for him.
00:46:49.03
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, he said, I'm, he I was kind of shocked when I heard it on that pay-per-view. Just, I'm a fat piece of shit. Vader time is over.
00:46:57.57
Bradley Palermo
was like, whoa, that's like somebody that needs like some fucking help saying that shit.
00:46:57.69
Aaron
Yeah.
00:47:02.06
Aaron
Yeah, he did.
00:47:02.41
Bradley Palermo
like You don't really hear people call anybody a piece of shit on WWF that often. I mean, that's...
00:47:08.06
Aaron
Yeah, and he was calling himself that too. Mm
00:47:09.94
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. He retired shortly after.
00:47:10.59
Aaron
so
00:47:13.02
Bradley Palermo
Paul Bearer did come out and put Vader's mask on himself to add like a little insult to injury after he was unmasked. So, yeah, dark dark times. I think... you know part of what i like about wrestling is you know learning about the people behind you know the character and oftentimes the real life characters are just dark and tragic and it's super fascinating you know um but uh yeah um let's see we did get what we get a uh
00:47:35.03
Aaron
Yeah. Fascinating and sad, but
00:47:41.58
Aaron
next was the mad dog Vashon and the crusher thing.
00:47:42.08
Bradley Palermo
That's some kind of some kind of legends appearance and Jerry Lawler antics. I don't know if that one's fresh in some kind of legend thing.
00:47:48.35
Aaron
Some kind of legends.
00:47:51.78
Bradley Palermo
and don't know what their their point was. I'm going to let you take this segment because it's not fresh in my brain.
00:47:56.72
Aaron
Sure. Yeah. So After the Kane and Vader match, we had a strange little segment um that felt like something that would happen before the WWE wwe Hall of Fame existed, but that was invented in 1993.
00:48:09.52
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:48:23.56
Aaron
Um, so the crowd was into it. They were respecting them. Uh, they got some plaques to commemorate, you know, how important they were in the business. But, uh, Jerry, the King Lawler can't stand it anymore. He gets offended and comes into the ring, starts talking shit.
00:48:39.33
Bradley Palermo
ah yeah.
00:48:39.59
Aaron
Eventually crusher. Who's probably like 80 something years old, hits him a couple of times. Crowd goes wild and King, uh, just can't leave it alone. He comes back in eventually to take mad dog Vachon's like prosthetic leg off to attack Crusher with it.
00:48:54.22
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah.
00:48:55.80
Aaron
And then that, and then nobody seemed to enjoy that at all. Like it didn't even, it didn't even get booze. It was just like, what the fuck are you doing? You can't pull off a dude's for prosthetic leg.
00:49:06.18
Aaron
could barely stand.
00:49:07.32
Bradley Palermo
You know, I wonder what part of wrestling using prosthetic legs as a weapon started. Cause I'm reading Ballyhoo, like the history of like professional wrestling in the United States from starting at the 1800s and I'm probably like 1930 and I haven't, haven't seen it come into play yet.
00:49:20.28
Aaron
Yeah.
00:49:23.80
Bradley Palermo
But, um but like at indie shows,
00:49:25.18
Aaron
Feels like a 70s, 80s territory thing to me.
00:49:27.93
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I was going to say, like, at indie shows for sure, we've already already seen it, right, while doing this podcast. Like, people say, use his leg, use his leg, and, like, fans will...
00:49:34.43
Aaron
ah
00:49:37.39
Aaron
Well, that's that's from The Wrestler, but we saw... ah There was a TLC match on SmackDown like a month or two ago where...
00:49:45.72
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:49:46.34
Aaron
ah What's his name? Shit. He's from the Street Puffets.
00:49:49.39
Bradley Palermo
Well, they do that in The Wrestler, huh?
00:49:51.28
Aaron
Yeah, they do it in The Wrestler, but ah why can't I? Oh, Montez Ford. Montez Ford saw a dude in the crowd and and he threw his prosthetic leg to him and he used it as a weapon and then threw it back to the guy.
00:50:03.00
Aaron
Guy caught it perfectly. It was like incredible an incredible impromptu moment on SmackDown.
00:50:04.73
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:50:08.94
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I mean, i think it's a thing for sure. Yeah.
00:50:11.98
Aaron
Yeah, this was a very old school wrestling angle. It felt to me like this is something that Lawler would have done in Memphis in the 70s, you know?
00:50:15.59
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:50:20.85
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and this is like his homies lived in this town and he was like, I'm going to bring you guys out. We'll do a little old time thing. Right. i think, you know, I mean.
00:50:26.87
Aaron
Yeah, something like that.
00:50:28.88
Bradley Palermo
Right. um Match six, we got DX. So Billy Gunn, Road Dogg and Triple H versus The Nation. Owen Hart, D'Lo Brown and The Godfather.
00:50:39.00
Bradley Palermo
um
00:50:39.58
Aaron
Kama Mustafa is what they call him now.
00:50:40.58
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, this crowd. Oh, oh, they didn't call him the godfather at that point.
00:50:45.08
Aaron
He's not Godfather yet.
00:50:45.43
Bradley Palermo
Right. Yeah. All right.
00:50:46.48
Aaron
He's gonna be the Godfather very soon with the Ho Train.
00:50:46.68
Bradley Palermo
yeah Okay.
00:50:49.29
Bradley Palermo
Right, right, right. um The crowd hates Owen.
00:50:53.46
Aaron
They do.
00:50:53.39
Bradley Palermo
Owen sucks chants. We're loud and proud. um We've already talked about the Owen's odd inclusion for being in the nation, but yeah, big dudes.
00:51:03.80
Bradley Palermo
um Oh, Owen's gear has got the caution tape, which is similar to what Naomi does as like a nod now to Owen Hart, I believe.
00:51:10.74
Aaron
yeah yep you know weird uh tidbit factoid the next over the edge was the one that owen died in it was like a the over the edge 1999 was the was when he had the accident so crazy yeah yeah oh my god that's crazy
00:51:12.04
Bradley Palermo
um
00:51:23.79
Bradley Palermo
Oh, that was the Kansas City one, huh? Yeah. I know someone who was there. um he We've talked about it a couple times. He said, you know, when Owen Hart fell from the ceiling and to his death because of his harness that was incorrectly hooked up or whatever for his entrance.
00:51:42.32
Bradley Palermo
Um, he said that no one, if anyone, he said anyone that tells you they were there and they saw him fall from the sky, he's like, no one's looking at the, at the ceiling. He's like,
00:51:50.11
Aaron
Yeah.
00:51:50.57
Bradley Palermo
all we saw was like you hear a sound and you just see a guy ah and he's like the whole thing was just like there's a guy on the on the you know and it's like you didn't really know it was owen hart it was just the whole thing was just like super confusing and obviously like he said that they didn't really know until afterwards you know and that it was a death that he fell to his death it was you know but um but yeah that's interesting to uh everyone's everyone's in a blue moon i i when i run to that guy oh yeah
00:51:53.12
Aaron
Boom. Yeah.
00:52:02.54
Aaron
Yeah.
00:52:16.51
Bradley Palermo
You were fucking there.
00:52:16.71
Aaron
Yeah.
00:52:17.27
Bradley Palermo
Like, what the hell?
00:52:17.98
Aaron
Crazy.
00:52:18.47
Bradley Palermo
um
00:52:19.01
Aaron
Was this match of the night?
00:52:19.10
Bradley Palermo
It's also kind of...
00:52:20.51
Aaron
i think this was match of the night in this pay-per-view.
00:52:25.36
Bradley Palermo
don't
00:52:26.35
Aaron
Maybe paint. I guess main event maybe. But this was a close second for me.
00:52:28.46
Bradley Palermo
know. Main
00:52:29.72
Aaron
I mean, this was fun. It was fast paced. Everything looks good. Everyone's doing their best work. DX are super confident in everything that they're doing. How over all of their stuff is.
00:52:40.65
Aaron
Like, remember Road Dogg was about to do a leg drop and did like a little dance and the crowd like popped for the dance and not for the leg drop, you know?
00:52:47.24
Bradley Palermo
Dude. Yeah, these guys... know for sure. It's like, they all look like fucking superheroes. They're all like big dudes. They're all over. It's like...
00:52:57.09
Bradley Palermo
it's the kind of pro wrestling that I like. I mean, i know I say I like, I don't like six man tags, but these are like the, these are like the kind of fucking wrestlers and the kind of wrestling that like, you know, like good old fucking American wrestling, you know, like that's what it is.
00:52:59.38
Aaron
Yeah, and you don't like six-man tags. This is is a good six-man tag.
00:53:12.84
Aaron
Yeah, it...
00:53:13.47
Bradley Palermo
And there's like, like there was a cool like spike pile driver on D low. I like where the, you know dx like one guy's got him in pile driver position the other dude's on the top rope and they do it i mean there was cool shit happening um owen hit triple h with his own pedigree on the belt um don't know there were yeah it was like a lot of a lot of cool shit i mean the nation ultimately prevailed in this but it was like damn near 20 minutes of a fun shit
00:53:24.82
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:53:31.11
Aaron
Yep.
00:53:39.75
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, you know, it was very fun to watch because all of these guys have an explosive quality to their moves. They moved with such urgency and intensity and intention.
00:53:53.78
Aaron
You know, like, every, there was not a single point in this match where I feel like somebody was not confident in what they were doing, and I kind of felt like, sure, there was a, you know, when when it comes to putting a match together,
00:54:07.26
Aaron
I feel like something like this, sure, they had an overarching plan, you know, of like, we have control for a little while, you have control for a little while, Owen gets the pin, pedigree on the belt, blah, blah, blah.
00:54:20.77
Aaron
But I also felt like... They were just going with the flow. Like it didn't feel like there was a plan in terms of every single move here.
00:54:25.06
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:54:29.59
Aaron
This felt like the kind of match that the the guys, the wrestlers always talk about calling it in the ring, just going with the flow. It's not that we heard them calling spots, but like...
00:54:40.48
Aaron
There was never a point in time where I felt like whoever was receiving punishment was not open to and ready to receive it and and that the person giving it wasn't ready to make it look really good.
00:54:50.84
Aaron
It was just like, honestly, i think it was a it was as close to a perfect six man tag as I've ever seen.
00:54:51.21
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:54:56.15
Bradley Palermo
I think that's so, I mean, not I don't know how it works um from the wrestler's perspective, but it's so fascinating to me to see people when it when it looks like they're really hurting each other and you know they're not hurting each other and you know that it's not planned out every single move.
00:55:30.68
Bradley Palermo
um And that feels like a cool, magical, like spark in my brain when I'm able to,
00:55:31.66
Aaron
Yeah.
00:55:35.13
Aaron
Yeah. And they could just do that with their eyes. Like how insane is that?
00:55:37.17
Bradley Palermo
But like somehow, yeah. And I don't, yeah, I don't know how that, I don't know how that works. And I, maybe I don't need to. I mean, maybe that's part of the magic, but when it, you know, sometimes with with indie stuff, you'll see them go real slow, like slow motion fighting so they can kind of predict.
00:55:46.34
Aaron
Yeah.
00:55:51.36
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:55:53.74
Bradley Palermo
And that's, I'm sure, but that's not like what, when you see like a really killer match, like, no, it's just going fucking fast. It's explosive. Like they just feel out what's happening ah somehow.
00:56:03.48
Bradley Palermo
And, you know, I, as a fan.
00:56:03.91
Aaron
Yeah, it just comes from experience, I guess.
00:56:06.31
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:56:07.43
Aaron
It's not like I have the secret to it either. i've I've spent a lot of time listening to stuff and reading stuff because I find it really fascinating.
00:56:10.22
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:56:15.70
Aaron
And not not because I want to expose the business, but... Because when I learn this stuff, it makes me appreciate it more. Like, these guys are going out and improv-ing fights.
00:56:22.22
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:56:26.13
Aaron
Like, that's fucking nuts if you think about it.
00:56:26.34
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:28.49
Aaron
They know what's in their moveset. They have to be loose and ready to just, like, take anything, you know? Like, it's it's insane.
00:56:35.68
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:56:37.50
Aaron
It's really, really impressive. And this match... was 20 minutes of just like absolute top-notch wrestling in every sense of the word.
00:56:48.38
Bradley Palermo
Right. And for the main event, we have a really cool matchup. It's Steve Austin, who's the WWE champion. And then we have WWF championship, sorry, versus Dude Love, one of the alter egos of Mick Foley.
00:57:03.32
Bradley Palermo
this This version, he's under Vince McMahon's spell, and he's, you know, got his tie-dye stuff, and he's got that disco song he comes out with, which I really like, you know, that Dear love, dear love, baby.
00:57:08.74
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:57:13.92
Aaron
Me too. Yeah.
00:57:18.41
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. um It's, yeah.
00:57:20.85
Aaron
it's ah it's There's a lot going on. So we ah we got a recap before the match started, which did a really good job of showing us some of the Austin and McMahon feud and what led up to this.
00:57:33.35
Aaron
um Austin hit McMahon with a chair at the last pay-per-view, I believe ah it was you know like a month before this. and that you know in storyline oh he hit it he hit his bosses with a chair and so vince isn't really the like crazy evil egomaniacal villain that is most remembered but he's on his way there at this point so mcmahon tries to stack the deck against austin
00:57:59.31
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:58:03.59
Aaron
in this match against Dude Love. he has his two McMahon has his two lackeys, Gerald Briscoe and Pat Patterson, participating as the timekeeper and announcer, respectively.
00:58:14.92
Aaron
And then Vince himself is the referee. And right before they come out and give these extremely long-winded introductions, which I thought was kind of funny, but also took too long, McMahon said something really interesting in the back. He said,
00:58:30.82
Aaron
I've told everyone, you know, like there won't be a second referee. This match will end by my hand only. And so we get the introductions.
00:58:37.31
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:58:39.48
Aaron
Patterson introduces Briscoe. He introduces Vince. He introduces Dude Love. I thought something that made me laugh really funny was that Mick Foley had his teeth in.
00:58:50.75
Aaron
and had his hair, his hair slicked back. And I just thought it was so funny because he usually doesn't wear the tooth.
00:58:53.84
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:58:57.94
Aaron
And like they made the tooth part of the match, which made me laugh.
00:58:58.72
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:59:02.16
Aaron
Um,
00:59:02.36
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, lot going on here, you're right.
00:59:04.34
Aaron
So after about 10 minutes of all this dumb heel shit, then we get the glass break, the Austin entrance, and just pure, pure awesomeness.
00:59:14.52
Aaron
Crowd is hot. They love Austin. And then we got The Undertaker coming out to make sure that Vince called it fair and square, which was kind of funny throughout the match, just seeing him standing ominously nearby.
00:59:27.59
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, dude. um Yeah, they also introduced Austin. Pat Patterson introduced Austin in like a derogatory way.
00:59:33.59
Aaron
and
00:59:44.84
Bradley Palermo
And...
00:59:45.31
Aaron
But it's a terrific match because of how everything comes together. You've got an excited crowd.
00:59:49.61
Bradley Palermo
Dude, it's... I mean, it's incredible. I was...
00:59:52.23
Aaron
Everyone's over.
00:59:53.17
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I was like wondering, i was like is everything in the Attitude Era? Because this is where I was into some other shit. i don't know. I was probably at like a fucking Less Than Jake show that night or something. But I was i was i was on to musical things and not into wrestling this part of the ninety s And And I'm like, is this normal? I mean, is is this kind of... Because this is really good.
01:00:13.59
Bradley Palermo
like and
01:00:14.28
Aaron
Yeah.
01:00:14.62
Bradley Palermo
And obviously, Mick Foley and Steve Austin are not normal. They're like two of the most like you know special wrestlers of our lifetime.
01:00:23.97
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
01:00:25.06
Bradley Palermo
And they're fighting each other. i don't know if they do all the time. Or like is this just like...
01:00:28.48
Aaron
A few times.
01:00:29.18
Bradley Palermo
Is this like... with the level that the Attitude Era is like always operating at or is this like you know um just like a yeah yeah
01:00:35.40
Aaron
i think it happens... more often than not, I would say like, you know, this, uh, this was probably above average for like a pay-per-view main event.
01:00:37.74
Bradley Palermo
yeah
01:00:44.53
Aaron
But the thing is when you had Austin and McMahon, it just was gold no matter what. I mean, this is what everybody came to see.
01:00:50.26
Bradley Palermo
yeah
01:00:52.02
Aaron
The crowd was super raucous. Um, and it's like you said, i mean, that they're, these guys are over.
01:00:54.88
Bradley Palermo
Epic. Yeah. Like the...
01:00:57.73
Aaron
They're eliciting reactions from the crowd. That's all you can really ask.
01:00:59.86
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
01:01:01.48
Aaron
And, and the,
01:01:01.83
Bradley Palermo
Were they shouting...
01:01:02.87
Aaron
What?
01:01:02.98
Bradley Palermo
Oh, go ahead. Were they shouting Vince is gay at Vince?
01:01:07.00
Aaron
Dude, I thought that's what they were shouting too, but I couldn't i couldn't make it out.
01:01:09.04
Bradley Palermo
That would be like a very 90s thing. to
01:01:11.26
Aaron
It is...
01:01:11.37
Bradley Palermo
Well, they were like, I think it was Vince is gay. vince i mean Vince comes out in a... I mean, he's jacked.
01:01:16.56
Aaron
cutoff referee shirt.
01:01:18.27
Bradley Palermo
He's wearing cut-off referee shirt, but he's jacked.
01:01:18.57
Aaron
Yeah.
01:01:20.62
Bradley Palermo
But his pants are like 90% of him. like They're up to like his...
01:01:24.98
Aaron
Yeah.
01:01:25.25
Bradley Palermo
belly button like it's and he walks kind of bow-legged and he's he kind of i don't know he just he does have kind of like a like I said like a gigolo like village people vibe but um he's got like wristbands that are like striped like a referee like he's he's looked super awkward and in the ninety s
01:01:26.10
Aaron
yeah
01:01:35.71
Aaron
Yeah.
01:01:42.41
Bradley Palermo
if you wanted to make fun of someone you do it in like a homophobic way because that was for some reason okay like you know and i'm not supportive of it but like in the 90s like gay was kind of just like you're a fucking nerd or something um which
01:01:46.86
Aaron
yeah
01:01:55.38
Aaron
Well, it was like, it was it wasn't, people started using it in place of other words, right? It like, you know, yeah, stupid time.
01:02:02.14
Bradley Palermo
right right but i i think
01:02:04.42
Aaron
But ah he he did he did look pretty silly. i mean, his hair was a little different from like, just a few months later, his face and his facial reactions were different than like, when he really became the evil Mr.
01:02:08.36
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
01:02:18.63
Aaron
McMahon, you know, like,
01:02:19.72
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.
01:02:20.32
Aaron
It was just kind of a... He was begging to be laughed at. And I think that the crowd was like, yeah, sure. um And, you know, I think another reason why this all works so well is because of how the match escalates.
01:02:27.33
Bradley Palermo
so
01:02:32.65
Bradley Palermo
Right.
01:02:32.92
Aaron
So, like, you know, it starts off as a normal match. And then when things start to not go the way that Vince had hoped they would, meaning when it becomes clear that maybe Dude Love McFoley is not going to win this match...
01:02:46.71
Aaron
Vince walks up to the announcer, his friend Pat Patterson, and reminds him to tell the crowd that this is a no disqualification match. It was not a no disqualification match when the bell rang.
01:02:57.57
Aaron
So this happens this happens another time.
01:02:57.72
Bradley Palermo
right
01:03:00.41
Aaron
i think ah they make it a Falls Count Anywhere match after a few more minutes. But yeah, like everything Austin is doing is getting cheers.
01:03:05.33
Bradley Palermo
yeah
01:03:09.95
Aaron
The odds are just getting stacked against him more and more. Yeah.
01:03:14.88
Bradley Palermo
Vince keeps moving the goalpost. Yeah.
01:03:17.33
Aaron
Yeah, and and i just I wrote EXCELLENT in all caps, and the ending to that match was EXCELLENT.
01:03:22.96
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
01:03:25.81
Aaron
Holy shit. And you made me think that I've heard a lot of people, a lot of former wrestlers say... that Pat Patterson was the best at coming up with finishes to a match.
01:03:38.42
Bradley Palermo
ah
01:03:38.68
Aaron
And this to me very much felt like a Pat Patterson finish. So the the way that it ends, if I remember, I don't remember exactly, but I do remember like the key moment, you know, eventually Austin gets the best of Foley.
01:03:53.68
Aaron
He hits McMahon with a chair in the head and McMahon is out cold. Um, Austin hits Foley with the stunner. He's ready to pin him, but McMahon's knocked out. So, you know, he can't he you can't get the pin. And then what does Austin do? He pins Foley. He grabs McMahon's hand and he counts the one, two, three.
01:04:15.61
Aaron
And I thought it was perfect because it called back to that thing that McMahon said. This match will end by my hand only.
01:04:20.04
Bradley Palermo
right Yeah.
01:04:22.21
Aaron
So technically... What happened was correct. Like you said, he's the only one that could count the three. He didn't say he had to be conscious. It was fucking brilliant.
01:04:30.13
Bradley Palermo
Undertaker. It was great. an under choke under choker Undertaker chokeslams fucking everybody. um Austin. yeah Yeah, he got the stunner and hit used Vince's unconscious hand, like you said.
01:04:42.76
Bradley Palermo
um But the crowd lost their minds, you know? And I wrote but i wrote that um Aaron is going to love this one because it's loud, which is your thing, right?
01:04:45.24
Aaron
Yeah.
01:04:51.46
Aaron
Yep.
01:04:51.73
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. So, yeah.
01:04:52.22
Aaron
I love loud crowds. Yeah.
01:04:54.08
Bradley Palermo
And this crowd was nuts. And I don't know i don't know if many people can elicit reactions like these guys at that time.
01:05:02.53
Bradley Palermo
So I fucking loved it.
01:05:03.11
Aaron
yeah
01:05:03.85
Bradley Palermo
I was, you know...
01:05:05.97
Bradley Palermo
can't always get the bangers but I think this was was one of them and that was my goal was to find something I hadn't seen that was like really fucking good and I'm kind of i'm kind of I can't wait to see more of like um attitude era chaos I mean obviously I've seen ah bunch because I watch wrestling like every fucking day but like focusing and yeah right
01:05:22.48
Aaron
Sure.
01:05:24.70
Aaron
But just sit down, yeah, and watch, yeah.
01:05:26.17
Bradley Palermo
yeah
01:05:26.67
Aaron
So, you know, when this was over, i enjoyed it so much that I was like, I wonder what happens next.
01:05:26.76
Bradley Palermo
right
01:05:32.54
Aaron
You know, so I started looking, and I'm going have to pull it up again because I don't want to get it wrong.
01:05:33.63
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
01:05:42.26
Aaron
But hold on, please. So the next pay-per-view, like in the pay-per-view chronology of WWF, the next pay-per-view,
01:05:51.91
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
01:05:53.06
Aaron
is King of the Ring 1998. And I don't know if you know what happened to King of the Ring 1998.
01:05:55.11
Bradley Palermo
um
01:05:58.01
Aaron
That was Foley and Undertaker, Hell in a Cell.
01:05:57.91
Bradley Palermo
Is that the one?
01:06:00.44
Bradley Palermo
Oh shit, yeah.
01:06:02.43
Aaron
So like a month after what we just watched, you've got Mick Foley as Mankind, and he's feuding with The Undertaker, and they have that famous Hell in a Cell match. um Just kind of really crazy...
01:06:25.55
Aaron
you know Because like...
01:06:36.29
Bradley Palermo
But in my notes in parentheses, I was like, Aaron previews the next show example King of the Ring 98, you know, cause I was looking at things that were like, you know, um, we could, I think it's fun to jump around because i get to sort of,
01:06:43.93
Aaron
We definitely could go that way. Yeah.
01:06:54.01
Bradley Palermo
not be i mean i guess you get fresh groups of people here and there you're like oh yeah a bunch of attitude era oh yeah i want to go watch the fabulous free birds again and then you know it's like if you watch in chronological you kind of start to see a lot of the same stuff but but yeah it is a story you know an ongoing story so um it's whatever you want to do but i you know i think we should probably go now to the grapple grade um
01:07:07.93
Aaron
yeah
01:07:17.14
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
01:07:28.25
Bradley Palermo
um
01:07:28.84
Bradley Palermo
between the three ratings, fast forward play or rewind, fast forward being the worst, rewind being the best. I think we've already kind of described where we're at, but I'm going to go with rewind because I actually did watch this twice.
01:07:40.90
Bradley Palermo
And I would say from my perspective, it's something I'm really happy that I watched. And ah I hope that if you hadn't seen it, y'all would give it a give it a play once or twice. And where are you at on that, Aaron?
01:07:54.79
Aaron
I'm in agreement. i I'm sure that it's probably not as exciting that we always agree, but I think that means that we try to be as objective as we can. This is a rewind for sure. This is, as I mentioned earlier in the episode, this is ah just a few weeks after ww wf finally reclaimed the number one spot in the ratings of the Monday Night Wars.
01:08:18.06
Aaron
So um the tide has turned in WWF's favor by this point. We've got Austin versus McMahon. We've got the second incarnation of Degeneration X. This is peak WWF. So yeah, rewind, check it out. It is on Peacock. It is worth your time.
01:08:34.48
Bradley Palermo
Cool. um Side note, I don't know if your audio, I would assume it's going to be good on the download. um Because from my my perspective, your screen is frozen and your audio is barely coming through. But I think the waveform looks OK.
01:08:49.52
Aaron
The waveform looks okay for me and I've been having issues with you the exact same thing where it's like sounding to me like you're stuttering and yeah, your your video is kind of shitty.
01:08:55.06
Bradley Palermo
OK. All right.
01:09:01.63
Aaron
So hopefully it's okay.
01:09:02.43
Bradley Palermo
okay so we're it's maybe yeah it's somewhere in between us that's happening because like everything sounds good and it's smooth for ourselves which means first recorded okay all right so um all right let's see should we um yeah
01:09:11.70
Aaron
Yeah, I think it'll be okay. We'll find out.
01:09:15.71
Aaron
Emails.
01:09:23.31
Bradley Palermo
need to reset myself with that sound a little bit.
01:09:31.04
Aaron
You and your ominous dial-up modem.
01:09:33.28
Bradley Palermo
Yes. All right. So let's see. We have emails. I've got, uh, hold on. Before I get to the email, I got a guy on Tik TOK. His name is, or her name or their name is Alf was racist.
01:09:46.14
Bradley Palermo
I assume they mean the alien. I don't know. Um,
01:09:48.08
Aaron
Yeah, the show.
01:09:49.15
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, Alpha was racist. hu i'm If I am betting where tapping out became a thing in pro wrestling, it was probably UWF. As for popularizing it, I would not say it was Taz.
01:10:00.57
Bradley Palermo
Shamrock probably popularlarized popularized it in the States in WWF. I think it's because we I mentioned like, oh, Taz popularized tap outs maybe.
01:10:08.56
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
01:10:09.98
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah, dude. i looked to i mean I was trying to look that up. I'm always kind of interested because when I watched wrestling, ww WWF didn't really have tap outs.
01:10:17.62
Bradley Palermo
Your arm gets raised until you can't raise it anymore.
01:10:18.83
Aaron
Thank
01:10:20.35
Bradley Palermo
You pass out or you say you quit. um I know that UFC had tap outs and then wrestling got some UFC guys um probably Taz and Shamrock had some some sort of play and and being big names that were like UFC style right
01:10:36.84
Aaron
Yeah, UWF. I actually don't hadn't heard about this, but now that I'm reading about it, it makes sense. This is a Herb Abrams company. I remember seeing, I feel like maybe there was a Dark Side episode about this.
01:10:50.26
Aaron
This guy looks very familiar to me.
01:10:50.94
Bradley Palermo
about Oh, about him tout him bringing Tapping out into wrestling?
01:10:55.10
Aaron
about No, just about UWF, this guy, Herb Abrams.
01:10:58.45
Bradley Palermo
Oh, UWF. Yeah.
01:11:00.36
Aaron
Yeah, I remember this guy.
01:11:00.75
Bradley Palermo
Oh, right. He was like a he was like um ah like a money mark that all the wrestlers were going to take ah jobs with him for some wrestling company that never really went anywhere, right?
01:11:11.55
Aaron
Yeah, I think so.
01:11:11.96
Bradley Palermo
It was a disaster.
01:11:12.67
Aaron
I think i think think it was UWF.
01:11:12.64
Bradley Palermo
It was like a dark side of the ring.
01:11:15.28
Aaron
I'm pretty sure that that this is what he's talking about.
01:11:15.46
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
01:11:17.55
Aaron
Yeah, so appreciate that insight. Thank you. Alf is racist.
01:11:21.21
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. um Let's see. I have an email here from Mark mark D in Leeds United Kingdom. His subject is that Gilbert gburg Pop though.
01:11:29.13
Aaron
Oh, nice.
01:11:33.33
Bradley Palermo
um He said, ah and in reaction to our last episode, He says, hi hey guys, just wanted to say I love the latest episode on No Mercy UK 99. ninety nine That one's always been a weird soft spot for me. I was actually in the crowd up in the cheap seats with my mates blowing the obnoxious whistle. Sorry, not sorry. He He mentions the Gilbert entrance.
01:11:54.76
Bradley Palermo
It felt like a joke that went on for too long with the crowd totally ate it up. British fans are weird like that. Um, Totally in agreement with green in agreement with the glorified house show take. Fun vibes, but yeah, not essential viewing unless you're nostalgia tripping.
01:12:06.28
Bradley Palermo
Appreciate the nod to Nicole Bass too. What a wild and tragic figure. Keep it coming. Hope you hit one night only 97 at some point. That one's got some sleeper greatness and rest in peace.
01:12:15.01
Aaron
yeah
01:12:17.67
Bradley Palermo
Sabu. Damn. Cheers. Mark leads UK. um yeah um rest in peace sabu and indeed and one night only 97 i guess that was probably in the uk also can look that up um okay
01:12:33.74
Aaron
Undertaker versus Bret Hart for the WWF Championship. that's and That's a decent main event.
01:12:38.20
Bradley Palermo
that sounds good yeah and 97's
01:12:41.39
Bradley Palermo
an era I'd be interested in, 96 and before Bret Hart left. Yeah, i'd i'd be that'd be cool. have a ah document where I'm trying to write down everything everyone suggests to us, and always appreciate hearing from you guys. Oh shit, I do have um someone from a Denton, Texas number left us a voicemail.
01:13:36.75
Bradley Palermo
All right. Lou from Texas. That was, you're very poetic with the, with the voicemails. um
01:13:42.71
Aaron
Yeah, thank you, Lou.
01:13:43.14
Bradley Palermo
Maybe he was, so maybe he was actually at an EC, was ECW in bingo halls? Or was it all just in, in, they're in like Pennsylvania.
01:13:51.95
Aaron
No, they, um I mean, they they did a lot of shows in Philadelphia, but they they did a bit of traveling. I mean, you know, Philly's pretty close to a lot of other major cities. So I do i do think that when, I mean, I've heard ECW described as being like a bingo hall promotion, or at least that's how it started, you know?
01:14:03.06
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
01:14:10.41
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, that's cool. All right. Well, thanks for listening out there in Texas, Lou. And thanks for calling, man. Fucking, we love to hear from you guys. You can always leave us a voicemail, 626-657-SLAM. That'll go straight to voicemail. You don't have to worry about us picking up, being awkward or anything.
01:14:25.83
Bradley Palermo
um Let us know what you thought of the show. Call that number. Let us know your favorite Attitude Era memory, perhaps. Or just call us and yell, suck it into the receiver. That'd be okay, too.
01:14:48.21
Bradley Palermo
um For our next episode, Aaron, what are you thinking about? What should we cover? What do what do you say? This one's yours.
01:14:54.28
Aaron
So i despite being excited about continuing the Attitude Era storyline ah that we just saw in Over the Edge we had a conversation a few weeks ago about what I think is one of the most fun pay-per-views of my childhood, I guess my teen years.
01:15:11.83
Aaron
So we're going to watch ECW One Night Stand 2005, the most recent of all the things that we've covered so far.
01:15:12.08
Bradley Palermo
yeah
01:15:20.15
Aaron
ah This is the...
01:15:20.82
Bradley Palermo
Cool.
01:15:21.48
Aaron
The one-off ECW show that was put on by WWE, but features almost entirely former ECW wrestlers. It's at the Hammerstein Ballroom.
01:15:30.41
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
01:15:31.78
Aaron
The crowd is insane.
01:15:32.22
Bradley Palermo
Oh, cool. That's sick.
01:15:34.12
Aaron
It's one of the most fun little two, two and a half hour pay-per-views I've ever seen. um I'm going to recommend that we try to watch the non-peacock version wherever we can find it on the internet because, as I told you before, all of the music that they used, which was unlicensed, was was cut out of the peacock version, including the Sandman's entrance to Enter Sandman, which is arguably the best part of the entire pay-per-view.
01:15:46.65
Bradley Palermo
OK.
01:16:02.47
Bradley Palermo
Oh, shit. All right.
01:16:03.52
Aaron
We're going daily motion that shit.
01:16:03.55
Bradley Palermo
We'll we'll find it.
01:16:05.42
Aaron
Yeah, we'll daily motion it.
01:16:05.71
Bradley Palermo
All right, cool. Send me a link when you find it. And um yeah, man, I'm stoked. um So that's it for this week's episode of Grapple City Rewind.
01:16:15.65
Bradley Palermo
Again, if you're enjoying the show, leave us a review. Leave us a five-star review wherever you listen. It helps more people find us, helps us out with those little algorithms or whatever we got to do to... um keep this thing rolling. Um, shit.
01:16:28.28
Bradley Palermo
I guess that's, um,
01:16:29.89
Aaron
It's the whole kit and caboodle. That's all she wrote.
01:16:31.71
Bradley Palermo
yeah. All right. Until next time, we'll see you ringside. Bye.
01:16:36.41
Aaron
right, let's hope that that didn't sound as bad as it sounded.
