WWF King of the Ring ‘98
June 28, 1998
Pittsburgh, PA
Reviewed on June 7, 2014

We are in the Attitude Era! The WWF had just taken over the Monday Night ratings War…but it was still a dogfight. The WWF was pushing new guys, and that fresh edge was helping over the same old on Nitro. Only The Undertaker was held over from the top of the card. Stone Cold, Kane, The Rock, Triple H, Ken Shamrock and Mick Foley were all guys getting their chance at the top or near the top.

The thing about the Attitude Era is that it was riveting television. Anything could happen at any time on any given Monday. As long as the card was headlined by Stone Cold in some way, it didn’t really matter what the rest looked like (as this card will show). Honestly, how many people can even name a match that wasn’t one of the three big matches on this show? (Some even forget about Shamrock vs. Rock).

Let’s watch some classic WWF Attitude!

The Card

There’s an awesome opening video hyping up the Austin vs. Kane and Taker vs. Mankind matches.

The Headbangers and TAKA Michinoku vs. Ka ent ai

I was always surprise that the Headbangers somehow got lost in the shuffle in the Attitude Era…since they seemed tailor made for it.

This was part of the long running Taka and random vs. Ka ent ai. Most notably teaming with Taka later was Bradshaw.

Ka ent ai is Togo, Funaki and Teioh. I think it’s interesting that of the six men in this match, it was Funaki who had the longest WWF/E career.

While I think Taka is a good wrestler, all of his pre-1999 WWF matches followed the SAME exact formula.

Togo and Funaki with a great facebuster-bulldog sequence.

Taka and the Headbangers win when Taka pins Funaki in 6:44. Michinoku Driver for the win. Short fun opener here. Good thing to get the crowd going.

Sable time!

She introduces Vince! This was part of the Vince re-hired Sable angle after Marc Mero beat her. Pat Patterson slaps Sable’s ass, which JR of course makes a subtle gay joke. It’s also pretty funny now that I know Patterson’s orientation.

Vince runs down Austin on the mic of course. Time waster here.

King of the Ring Semi-Final
Ken Shamrock vs. Jeff Jarrett

This easily could have been an early NWA-TNA World Title feud.

I’m a Jeff Jarrett fan, but the mid 90s Double J persona was waaaaaay dated here. He’d change gimmicks by Summerslam.

“Ain’t I Great?” Not really at this point Jeff.

Ken Shamrock advances via submission in 5:29. Shamrock hits his bad ass frankensteiner, then the Ankle Lock wins it. No surprise. Match was what it was: Jarrett putting Shamrock over.

King of the Ring Semi-Final
Dan Severn vs. The Rock

It was smart to have Shamrock winning 1st, as at least it’s somewhat believable Severn can win here.

Severn’s WWF legacy would be causing D’Lo Brown to wear a chest protector.

Severn doesn’t throw punches. Pretty much the opposite of the Attitude Era style.

The Rock advances via pin in 4:25. D’Lo with the Lo-Down…new chest protector and all! Rock gets the pin. Match sucked. Severn was about 15 years too late as a top bad guy. He might have been a real life bad ass, but he was an awful sports entertainer. Rock cuts a solid promo and was well on his way to being a top guy.

If Al Snow wins, he gets a meeting with Vince McMahon
Al Snow and Head vs. Too Much

Head is a mannequin head, in case anyone doesn’t know.

Al Snow had just returned with the Head gimmick after developing it in ECW.

If you were to tell me Too Much would be WWF World Tag Team Champions as a kid watching in 1998, and that they’d win the titles two years later, I’d laugh my ass off.

There is a story here. Al Snow was trying to get a job, and somehow that led to stealing Jerry Lawler’s crown. Apparently Lawler can get Snow a meeting with Vince.

Snow: “Boys, get ready, you’re about to get a little head like you’ve never gotten it before”. WWE Attitude folks!

Lawler is revealed as ref!

Al Snow alternates beating up Scott Taylor and talking to Head. Good stuff.

Of course Lawler blatantly cheats.

Al Snow with a ridiculous long running clothesline on the outside…then Scott Taylor “hits” a springboard chop? Ugly.

JR can’t even take the match seriously.

Tag to the Head! JR even justifies Lawler not counting a Snow pinfall because Head was legal.

Too Much wins when Brian Christopher pins Head in 8:26. Oh man. Snow hits the Snowplow on Taylor, but Christopher attaches a bottle of Head and Shoulders to Head and pins it for the win. Ok the match was awful as you’d expect, but let me say something about this. This match is a great example of why WWF ’98 worked and WCW 2000 didn’t. This match furthered Al Snow’s character. As silly as this all was, storywise this actually made sense. Now, that’s not saying this should have been on PPV, because this is a RAW match if I ever saw one, but there is something positive to gain from it.

Owen Hart vs. X-Pac

Rematch of the ’94 KOTR here.

Sad storyline decent for Owen here. We went from shoving HBK through a table, to jobbing to HHH a lot, to fighting X-Pac. Clearly Owen wasn’t getting the main event push.

What a 12 months before this for Owen. He was feuding with Austin at one point.

I didn’t watch a lot of Syxx in WCW, but this I believe is the debut of the mat wrestling X-Pac. This was because of his broken neck he suffered at the end of his WCW run.

Owen’s gimmick was that of a guy who was done being taken advantaged of and was done being a nice guy. This just didn’t work for Owen. He was a lot better as the whiny heel.

Terrible Bronco Buster there. I wonder if Own purposely didn’t want X-Pac’s nuts in his face.

Owen with a terrible fall off the top, clearly messed that up.

X-Pac pins Owen Hart in 8:30. Mark Henry comes out and splashes X-Pac…to which Vader (talk about someone who’s really fallen from 12 months prior) attacks him. Owen locks X-Pac in the sharpshooter, but Chyna takes him out with a DDT (and busts Owen’s nose, wonder if that was a botch). X-Pac wins it there. Okay match, surprising small screw-ups near the end with the Bronco Buster and Owen’s top rope fall.

Paul Bearer comes out. He cuts an awesome promo about how proud he will be of his son Kane when he wins the World Title, and how Kane always wanted to be The Undertaker when he was young.

WWF World Tag Team Champions
The New Age Outlaws © vs. The New Midnight Express

Dirty little secret: the WWF Tag Team division absolutely blew in the early Attitude Era. Outside of the Outlaws, the division as made up of the Express, the underused Headbangers, the Godwinns/Southern Justice, the DOA and a washed-up LOD. That’s why the following makes up the list of non Outlaw champs: Kane and Mankind, Taker and Kane and Bossman and Shamrock. The division wouldn’t really pick up to mid-99, then of course in 2000.

One interesting storyline here: The Smokin’ Gunns are on opposite sides.

This was Bob Holly’s first repackaging. Could have been worse I guess.

Pretty awesome landing on the feet from Bart on a Billy hip toss.

Road Dogg is your Outlaw in peril.

Cornette gets involved with the NWA Tag Title, but Billy survives a pin attempt.

Cornette famously ranted about this. Cornette threatened to hit Billy with the title belt again, but Billy cornered him. Chyna was on the wrong side of the ring and was supposed to low blow Cornette…and she takes forever doing it, leaving Billy Gunn standing there.

New Age Outalws retain when Gunn pinned Holly in 9:34. A double stun gun gets the pin (what an awful finish). Not a bad match, but I mean, there’s a huge difference in statue for the Outlaws and the New Express, even at this stage. Match was solid.

King of the Ring Finals
The Rock vs. Ken Shamrock

HHH, last year’s winner, comes out for commentary.

There is a story here. Shamrock had chased Rock’s IC title for the first half of the year, but kept coming up short.

Rock-HHH get into a shoving match on the outside, as they were feuding. Good touch there.

The commentary is pretty distracting with HHH making dick jokes every 20 seconds.

Shamrock clearly leaps into a powerslam, but impressive enough I guess…

Nice reversal of the Floatover DDT into a Northern Lights suplex from Shamrock!

Ken Shamrock becomes King of the Ring via submission in 14:09. Rock argues with the ref and gets rolled into the Ankle Lock for the win. Very good match, probably the best of the Rock’s career at that point. Of course, hindsight being 20/20…I’m sure Vince wishes Rock won this tournament now. By the way, HHH’s commentary was horrible and annoying. I get that was the character, but it was just unnecessary.

Hell in a Cell
The Undertaker vs. Mankind

Story here: Where do I begin? Probably the first real Attitude feud that really began in 1996. Undertaker vs. Mankind was an amazing feud and that only added to the intrigue here. For recent storyline, Mankind cost Taker a title shot against Austin.

On the real life advice of Terry Funk, the match begins on top of the cage.

Mankind’s climb to the top of the cage does have some comedic value. Foley himself mentions how he wasn’t even sure if he’d make it to the top, and he lost feeling in his hand to get up there.

You can see Taker limp down to the ring when he goes down the rampway…he had a broken foot here (and still climbs the cell better than Foley).

Taker’s gimmick was getting a lot darker at this point. He had also shown some signs of the 2000 American Bad Ass as well.

Three minutes in…and Taker throws Foley off the cell through the table! It’s still one of the damnest spots I’d ever seen, especially since it was so sudden. There was absolutely no build-up. One second Foley was punching Taker. The next he’s flying off the cell.

Kayfabe is broken everywhere by Funk and Vince.

The crowd reaction is pretty nuts too. He literally hear people screaming in horror as Foley flies off.

Undertaker looks pretty damn bad ass standing on top of the cell.

Foley gets up and comes back…also one of the damnest things ever in wrestling.

30 seconds later Taker chokeslams Foley and the ceiling caves in…and Foley slams hard, and I mean hard on the canvas. I still cringe when I see that. Somehow the match continues. Taker chokeslams Funk, buying Foley time.

The match somehow continues. Foley causes Taker to crotch the top rope when Taker tries Old School, which in reality was Taker trying to buy Foley more time.

Ha, Taker clearly blades on camera after missing a dive and crashing headfirst into the cage.

Piledriver on a chair by Foley! Somehow Mankind might win this thing!

Thumbtack time! Unfortunately Foley’s the one who goes back first into them after a Mandible Claw attempt.

Undertaker pins Mankind in 17:00. Foley gets sent into the tacks again with a chokeslam! Tombstone wins it for Undertaker. Ok, there are two trains of thoughts with this match generally: it’s one of the greatest matches in WWE history, or it’s the most overrated match in WWE history. I’m in one of the greatest ever camp (2nd best HIAC match behind the original). This is because the brutality of the match matched the rivalry. If Undertaker had done this to HHH or something, I’d be like wtf? But Mankind and Undertaker had already done everything to one another over the past two years. Even though it wasn’t completely intentional, it made sense that something like this had to happen. This match is also one of the most influential matches in WWE history. Every huge table bump in the future really started here. And Of course, this was the major league thumbtack debut. This match also helped solidify Mankind as a main event player (although, Mr. Socko was needed to finish that process). It also was the match that made Undertaker’s heel turn a lot more effective, as a real mean streak was established. Lastly, anytime fans talk about a match for years and years after it takes place, then the match didn’t suck. Not all matches have to be artistically perfect. Amazing match. Probably in my top 10 all time.

WWF World Championship: First Blood. If Kane Does Not Win the Title He Will Set Himself On Fire
Stone Cold Steve Austin© vs. Kane

I wish the whole Kane setting himself on fire deal wasn’t a part of this…as it made it clear Kane was winning (then again…after the Cell match it wouldn’t shock me to see Kane light himself on fire).

Austin had a bad staph infection here, if you are wondering about the white elbow brace.

The cage actually comes down when Kane is dominating, and raises when Austin is winning. Not sure why that was done.

I don’t know if it’s because of Austin’s injury, but this brawl really isn’t that good.

Ref bump in a First Blood match? Sure why not.

Mankind comes down to the ring with a chair. I hate this for the record.

Stunner on Foley!

Stunner on Kane!

Here comes the Undertaker!

Kane wins the WWF Title by blood draw in 15:58. Taker aims for Mankind…but nails Austin with the chair on accident? Maybe? Austin blades on camera, and is busted wide open! Taker revives the ref (good way to do shades of grey here). Austin cleans house, but the ref finally sees the blood and awards the title to the KOed Kane. I do hate this finish, but I get why it happened this way. Match was not good though. It seemed like Austin was in slow motion here, and with his injuries he probably was. I also hate Mankind coming out here. Kinda demeans the Cell match a little…real as it was. As for Kane…well, he’d have a long title reign. 24 hours is more than most can say.

Really tough show to grade. It’s known today for one match and one match only. To be fair, that match owns. Too bad the main event was all over the place. Shamrock-Rock was pretty forgotten (because in hindsight, the wrong man won) and the rest of the card, while by no means bad (except for that Too Much-Snow thing), I wouldn’t call it good. Or memorable. The New Midnight Express? Headbangers teaming with Taka?

But when your PPV has one of the most talked about matches in wrestling history, the other stuff doesn’t really matter THAT much, right?
Final Grade: B+