Sunday, June 28th, from the Pittsburgh Civic Center Arena
~ Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler are at ringside. Kane's gas cans are on either
side of them on the table.
~ SIX MAN TAG MATCH: The Headbangers & Taka Michinoku vs. Kaientai (with
Yamaguchi-san). This was one of two matches added just today to the card.
Taka wore a Headbangers t-shirt and skirt under his ring robe, but took
them off to wrestle. Mosh starts and proceeds to dominate the match against
one of the Kaientai. Two Kaientai make the tag, Mosh leans the second
Kaientai on the ropes and tags in Taka who continues to control the
matchfor his team. Dick Togo gets tagged in and dominates Taka for a few
seconds and boasts about it before getting flipped by the Light Heavyweight
Champ. The Kaientai that started the match gets tagged back in, whips Taka
but gets bodyslammed. Togo is tagged back in but another Kaientai is in the
ring helping to double team Taka. Togo tries a belly-to-back suplex but
gets blocked. All three Kaientai gang up on Taka who sneaks away and tags
both Headbangers in. Mosh and Thrasher double backflip the second Kaientai
member and clean house. Taka gets the win over the second Kaientai after a
three-man move with the Headbangers, followed by the Michinoku Driver.
Winners: Taka Michinoku & The Headbangers.
~ Sable came out in a skintight black outfit to a huge pop. She introduced
Vince McMahon who came out with his kept boys/yes men Pat Patterson & Jerry
Brisco to the exact opposite reaction. Brisco and Patterson try to order
Sable out. Patterson tries to get a handful of Sable's butt, and for his
trouble, Sable slaps the taste out of Patterson's mouth. McMahon asks how
many people came here to see the WWF World Title and gets a very poor
reaction. He asks how many people came to see Kane set himself on fire if
he loses, and gets a huge cheer. He then told the audience that they were
in for a dissapointment, but they should be used to it because their lives
were dissapointments. [At this point, a few hundred projectiles hurled in
McMahon's direction would have not only been appropriate, but worth it!]
~ KING OF THE RING SEMI-FINAL MATCH: "Double J" Jeff Jarrett (with
Tennessee Lee) vs. Ken Shamrock. Shamrock came out to the ring second and
went right to work on the George Strait wanna-be, and controlled the match
for the first several minutes in and out of the ring. When they reentered
the ring, and the referee was distracted, Tennessee Lee struck Shamrock's
injured ankle from the outside a couple of times. Shamrock hit a
huracanrana (or as Joey Styles would say, a Samrock-canrana) and then
locked on the anklelock submission, forcing Jarrett to tap out. Lee jumped
in and got suplexed for his troubles. Shamrock stated to Michael Cole right
afterwards, "I got one more peak to climb, and I didn't come here to be
second-best!"
Winner: Ken Shamrock
~ KING OF THE RING SEMI-FINAL MATCH: "The Rock" Rocky Maivia (with The
Godfather Kama Mustafa & Mark Henry) vs. Dan "The Beast" Severn. Mustafa
and Henry were ordered to the back by the referee. Severn came to the ring
with no emotion whatsoever on his visage. Severn dominated the early
moments with his mat skills. Maivia only got control after an elbow to the
side of Severn's face, kicked him a few times, and made fun of NWA and UFC
champion. Severn threw a punch to Maivia's gut and some brawling ensued.
Both men went down, and Mustafa and Henry came out to distract the ref.
D-Lo Brown, wearing some sort of brace, climbed up to the top rope and hit
a frog splash on Severn and then split, allowing "The Rock" to get the pin.
Winner: Rocky Maivia
~ HANDICAP MATCH: Al Snow (with The Head) vs. Too Much (Scott Taylor &
Brian Christopher). A piece of print in the contract came up after Al Snow
and The Head came to ringside, as Howard Finkel announced that there was a
special guest referee: Jerry Lawler, who set up the match in the first
place. The King took off his robe and put on a striped referee's shirt. Al,
of course, did all the wrestling for his "team". As would be expected,
Lawler favored Christopher whenever he was the legal man for his team, even
doing a very slow, anal-retentive check of the shoulders when Al made a pin
attempt on Christopher. Snow walked all the way from the ring and ran right
into Christopher on the outside. Taylor jumped Snow and threw him back
inside. Lawler stood by as both of Too Much double teamed Snow. Christopher
tagged in, hit a move or two, and gloated. Taylor tagged in, but Snow
double-DDTed both men. Al 'tagged" the head and worked on both men, then
snowplowed Christopher. Of course, Lawler looked the other way. Lawler
jumped out of the ring, got out a bottle of Head & Shoulders Shampoo which
Christopher attached to The Head, and covered for the pin, while Al Snow
was busy with Taylor. Very stupid match and a poor WWF ring debut for Al Snow.
Winners: Too Much
~ X-Pac (with Chyna) vs. Owen Hart -- X-Pac began very agressively the
minute Owen Hart hit the ring, but the former Blue Blazer quickly took
control of the Kliq's young lion. Hart went for a Fisherman Suplex but
X-Pac quickly kicked out of it. Hart made a couple more pin attempts not
long after that. Both men went right outside with Hart continuing to
dominate; the Spanish commentator's table came into play for the first time
when Hart dumped X-Pac on it gut-first. X-Pac got his second wind and
jumped on Owen when he was slumped in the corner, then bodyslammed him.
X-Pac went on the top and Hart followed him. Hart got knocked into the ring
and X-Pac fell out. Mark Henry came out and splashed X-Pac, and Chyna,
after helping X-Pac back into the ring, got into Henry's face. All of a
sudden, Vader came out and attacked Henry. During the commotion, Owen had
applied the double-leg grapevine, but Chyna jumped into the ring and DDTed
Owen. A dazed X-Pac crawled over Owen and got the pin. Chyna then helped
her fallen colleague backstage.
Winner: X-Pac
~ Paul Bearer came to the ring and did a spiel about how Kane used to
"idolize" his "older brother" and tell Bearer, "Daddy, I want to be like
the Undertaker". Bearer was confident that at the end of the night, that he
would be both the father and manager of the World Wrestling Federation
Champion.
~ WWF TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: New Age Outlaws ("Road Dog" Jesse James & Billy Gunn, with Chyna) vs. The New Midnight Express ("Bodacious" Bob
Holly & "Bombastic" Bart Gunn, with Jim Cornette). Bob Holly & Road Dog
start the match. After a few normal spots, both men tagged in their
partners, and we get "brother against brother", or rather former tag team
partners against each other as both Gunns reignited their feud from over a
year and a half ago. Billy Gunn tagged in James who had control until Bob
Holly got in a cheap shot. Both NME members did some double teaming on the
Road Dog. Eventually Holly remained in the ring to work with James, both of
whom went down until James got enough wind to tag Billy Gunn. Cornette
attempted to jump in and strike Billy Gunn with the NWA Tag Belts, only to
get hit in the balls by Chyna. Holly got bounced off the ropes by both
James and Gunn, and pinned by Gunn for the win.
~ KING OF THE RING FINAL: "The Rock" Rocky Maivia vs. Ken Shamrock --
Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Chyna came out to do commentary for the match.
Both men stared each other down for several seconds, then got into fighting
position. Shamrock starts with a karate kick and proceeds to run the early
minutes of the match. Rocky jumps out of the ring for a breather. He
proceeded to do that for the next few minutes. The last time, he started
harassing Helmsley who reacted by spitting a mouthful of spring water into
his face. Rocky went to pound Triple H only to get intercepted by Shamrock
who threw Maivia around and back into the ring. Rocky threw Shamrock out of
the ring; the former UFC champion got his wrist caught in the ropes. Maivia
followed him out and dove Shamrock into the guard rail a couple of times.
Shamrock began to limp and Maivia took control of the match. Maivia made
several arrogant cover attempts. Shamrock hit a neckbreaker on Maivia that
also took the wind out of him. Both men got up at the count of 9, but
Shamrock got another wind and ran all over the current Intercontinental
Champion. Both men made several pin attempts before Shamrock locked the
anklelock on Maivia out of nowhere. After a few seconds, Maivia tapped out
and Shamrock became the 1998 King Of The Ring.
Winner and 1998 King Of The Ring: Ken Shamrock
_ HELL IN THE CELL MATCH: The Undertaker vs. Mankind. Mankind came out
first with a steel chair and climbed up to the top of the cage. The
Undertaker took off his leather robe and followed him up. Mankind attemped
to knock Calloway off before he could get to the top. Mankind struck the
Undertaker with a chair. As both men walked across the ring, small bits of
the cage that held the roof together popped off from the weight of both
men. The Undertaker then got Mankind to the edge of the cage and threw him
off the roof, where he fell into the Spanish announce table. After a couple
of minutes it was obvious that Mick Foley was injured and EMTs and
officials came out. For some reason Foley got up and climbed back onto the
roof. The Undertaker suddenly chokeslammed Foley through the cage roof,
where he fell the 12 or so feet to the ring itself. Terry Funk confronted
the Undertaker and got chokeslammed for his trouble. Foley's mouth was
bleeding. With Foley injured and barely moving from the two high-impact
falls, the Undertaker continued to work on Foley. Foley did several spots
but was unable to use the ring stairs because of his injured arm. The
Undertaker then became busted open. Foley pulled a bag from under the ring
and emptied its contents - it was full of thumbtacks. Foley applied the
Mandible Claw on the 'Taker; the Midnight Warrior stood up and dumped Foley
back-first into the pile of thumbtacks, then picked him up and chokeslammed
him into the tacks. Calloway then moved away from the thumbtacks to hit the
Tombstone and get the pin. While the 'Taker slowly walked away, the EMTs
came to the aid of Mick Foley. Foley refused the stretcher and was carried
to the back to a standing ovation by Terry Funk and the referee.
Winner: The Undertaker
+ WWF WORLD TITLE MATCH, FIRST BLOOD RULES: Stone Cold Steve Austin vs.
Kane (with Paul Bearer) -- Austin begins by running all over Kane before
getting his vest off, then ripping off one of the top turnbuckles. For some
unknown reason, the cage starts to come back down. Kane uses the cage on
Austin but he doesn't get busted open just yet. Austin throws Kane through
the door as the cage rises; Kane hangs from it by his waist but jumps off
in time. Both men brawl all over the hallway with Austin trying to
piledrive or suplex Kane who counters most of Austin's moves. Kane tries to
his Austin with a security rail but Austin gets his hands up in time. They
get back to the ring and for some reason the cage is still halfway over the
ring. Kane throws Austin into the referee who gets knocked out against the
guardrail at rignside. Austin dumps Kane into the announcers' table then
hits him in the face with a small plastic fan that is on the table. When
both men are back in the ring and Austin finally has the upper hand on
Kane, Mick Foley comes out with a chair and goes after Austin. The cage
starts to come down as Austin stunners Foley and then Kane. The Undertaker
comes out with his own chair and both men go to chairshot Foley; Foley
ducks and Austin gets clocked with the Undertaker's chair and thus busted
open. The Undertaker then takes one of the cans of gas and pours it on the
back of the ref to revive him. Austin is still working on Kane as the ref
gets up, sees Austin's forehead all bloodied, and calls for the end of the
match. The broadcast ends with a shot of McMahon, in his private box,
gloating over Austin's loss.
