438: WWF SummerSlam '98 Deep Dive

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
What's up everyone out there at the Internet land, and
welcome to episode four thirty eight of the Straight Shooters
available wherever podcasts are found. My name is Vaughan Johnson,
and I'm joined as always by my main man Pots
and Pans, Nicko Pocone and Fox phl the Gambler and
Philly Influencer. And we have yet another fantastic show ahead
of us here in episode four thirty eight.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
It is a deep dive. It is a Patreon request.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
What shall we diving deep into SummerSlam in nineteen ninety eight,
better known as the high Way to Hell? And we're
gonna dive all into it thanks to our Patreon patroon,
I should say Chris Johnson once again coming through you
hear from him in a little bit, but we're gonna
dive all into it. SummerSlam nineteen ninety eight a fun
time in the world of professional wrestling. But before we

(00:59):
get into that, I do my weekly check in my
main man Pots and Pans. Nick, How are you on
this balmy Sunday afternoon, My good brother, I'm great.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
I loved how much rain we're getting, you know, it's
kind of it's the polar opposite of the end of
last summer. You know, like, we went over a month
without rain and it sucks. So I'm fine with getting
you know rain, what five five days a week feels like.
But listen, like, it looks greener out there. I don't

(01:29):
know if you've noticed. I know you live in the
city limits. I don't know how much grass you see
out there in the city, but I know I've noticed,
you know, in Jersey and then here, it looks a
lot greener out there. So I kind of it doesn't
make me happy that we're getting like rain, but it
doesn't make me like super sad that we're getting it.

(01:51):
You know, hopefully it bodes well, I guess for this area.
I mean, we needed it for a while and now
we're getting it a lot. I don't though, is there's
such a thing as too much rain. Yeah, I'm afraid
to think I'm afraid of sinkholes, but you know that's.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
There's definitely a thing as far as too much rain,
well like flooding.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
Yeah, Luckily I'm on a hill that kind of just
goes down, so I'm lucky in that respect. But yeah,
I guess I see your point.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
What else is going on in the world Phillies are
beat the Yankees as the previous night, but they're about
to play today.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
The Yankees are just the East Coast Rockeys. So I'm
not even like getting enjoyment out of beaten. I mean,
take the bloody pulp.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
That is what happened Saturday night.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
I mean, I am getting enjoyment. I'm not gonna lie.
I am enjoying it. But it's like, damn, the Yankees
are brutal.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Rough times.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
They are a bad team right now rough times.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Eagles training camp is underway. There we go, so they're back.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
That was fast, Yeah, it was That's what happens.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
I guess when you play what do They played twenty
one games last year, and they played until the second
week of February.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yeah, four games, and then the seventeen.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Seventeen regular season games. It'll be eighteen soon enough. Don't worry,
don't don't don't tack it on yet. But at least
that's what the NFLPA is saying. Whatever the NFLPA is
saying right now. This is a lot going on with
the NFLPA actually right now too. Lots of controversy going
on over there. But the eighteen games going to happen.
It's already happening in the CFL. By the way, I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
I people, no, no, I would not have guessed that.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
They've been playing eighteen games for multiple decades.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
So it's a system.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
There's nine teams total in the league. Three teams from
East division makes the playoffs, so you have like the
top team gets to buy and then the two and
three play each other in the first round what they
call the uh semi finals, so the East and West
semi final. But they do have an interesting rule which
I don't know many people know about, called a crossover.
Oh right, where if let's say, and this typically happened

(04:12):
west to east, but it could happen east to west.
But let's say Division A, they're they have three teams
that are in, but the third place team is kind
of garbage, right, they're like below five hundred and the
other division. If the fourth place team has a better
record than that third place team in Division A, that
fourth place team can crossover and become the third place team.

(04:33):
So you've seen a lot of times, like I said,
it happens from west to east. Third pl fourth place
team in the West had the better record than the
third place team in the East. Man they will replace
the that third place team, and a couple of times
they've almost gotten to the Great Cup doing that, they
have it, they've gone to the East Finals. So you
see like a Western team in the East Final, but
they they have lost every time. They haven't won, but

(04:54):
so we haven't had I don't think a a a
non like a crossover team get to the Great Cup.
But yeah, interesting little little nugget there for those out
there about that.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
Yeah, maybe imagine the meltdowns.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
I mean it look yeah, but it only happens like
the bottom of the structure, right, so the division champs
are in automatically.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
I would assume they would keep that in the NFL.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
But let's say if you're the eight seed in the
NFC and that and you got a better record than
that seventh seed, you can you should be able to
maybe cross over. I don't know, it happens every I
feel like it happens a lot where there's a team
in one conference has a better record than the teams
in the other conference, but they're in the wrong conference,
so they didn't make the playoffs. Like it's happened. Yeah, yeah,

(05:39):
and it'll happen again.

Speaker 3 (05:40):
I'm sure something tells me the players would like that,
but the owners wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Uh yeah, probably I can see that.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
I can see owners putting up a fight against that
because it's like, hey, I'm getting playoff spot. Yeah, like
and I'm like, give it to somebody else. No, I
don't want that. So yeah, I can see I can
see uh owner's saying like, I just want I want
that seventh spot please.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
Man. What if the NFLPA was like, be like, listen,
next CB, let's make this happen.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Who knows how much leverage the NFLPA has at this
moment right now, given what's transpired in the last couple
of weeks with collusion and and trip strip trips to
the strip club.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
That wasn't easy to say that was expensed on the union.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
That was wild. I don't know if you looked into.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
That, that was not fully But yeah, I know there's
some turmoil going on there.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah, a lot of stuff going on.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
It is like too much for my brain to handle
right now along with everything else.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, there's just too much going on in the world
right now, and let's getting to the current day nonsense.
In the ward of pro wrestling. I guess we can
follow up again. We're recording this a couple of days
after the death of Hulk Hogan, who died. What day
was that was that? Thursday? Now Thursday, July twenty seventy one.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
Like I got the alert while I was still working
at work and I ended during the summers at twelve
and I got it like eleven something and he was
actually pronounced that according to the story on TMZ or
might have read New York Time or New York Posts.
I don't remember, but like eleven's it was seventeen or
something like that was like after eleven am, but before

(07:19):
eleven thirty. And I remember, like, oh my god. Like
that was instantaneous, you know, like as soon as he
died it was reported. It's like crazy sometimes like sometimes
you have a delay maybe like even you know, if
it happens in the morning, you don't find out till
that night. But no, this was like immediately reported. And
it's kind of crazy because I did some of my

(07:40):
coworkers obviously know that name, so I was kind of like, oh,
do you hear this?

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Like what, Yeah, everybody knows that name, Like we said
in a emergency podcast from Thursday, episode four, thirty seven, right, yeah,
episode four thirty seven, So you haven't listened to it,
go back and check it out.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
But those are pretty much our fresh thoughts about it.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
We literally recorded it, I think maybe a couple hours
after the news broke, once we got everything together and
everybody's schedules aligned. But still really fresh thoughts about the
death of an iconic figure in the world of pro wrestling, right,
and who's also an admitted racist too. So a lot

(08:24):
of people, including us, as complicated. I saw a story
that said it ain't that complicated, he was just a racist.
I understand that too, you know, I'm not. I just
know that there's a lot of people who still love
Hall Kolgan.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
That's the problem. Maybe that's a problem.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
I don't know. But there's a lot of people who
still love that man, and we're still wrapped up in
Hull Comania, so I can't tell them how to feel,
even though I think being an admitted racist should be
enough evidence for you to say whether you like the
person or not. But this also the nostalgia of it.
You grew up watching the guy for thirty years. In
some cases, whether it's WWF and w's w or even

(09:00):
like we said, Hogan, those best, but uh yeah, it's
still kind of it's still kind of shocking almost like
they did the It wasn't really until they did the
tribute on SmackDown on Friday, where one they did a
had everybody on stage to start the show, including you
spotted Jered Brisco and Brian Blair. B Brian Blair. I
thought I spotted Ted DiBiase and maybe I could be wrong,

(09:22):
but it looked like they had the entire roster out
there from what I could tell. I didn't really look
closely at who was out there, who wasn't didn't take attendance.
But they did the ten bell salute, which you don't
see very often for uh wrestlers that pass away. Uh,
you know, if you're gonna do it, Hogan is a
person you do it for obviously, just given a stature.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
But and then they did the video package, which is narrated.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
By Triple H, which I found interesting.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
Someone mentioned title winner at uh you know in two
thousand and two, wasn't in there.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
That's crazy, that's crazy. No, no, no, we will skip that
piece of history. Even he did win the undisputed title
in two thousand and two. Like you know, no big deal.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
Uh, but what did he beat again?

Speaker 2 (10:08):
That pop age guy?

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Apparently pop age? But they did the package and then
that's when it was like damn, and it kind of
like said in like, man, that that guy, that figure
who was pretty much the king of the world in
the eighties, right like as a list as you can get,
He's gone and that's that's done. It's it's I mean

(10:29):
that stuff. I know they said it. He'll live forever,
but the person who did that is gone. So it's
it's still kind of a little bit of a shock,
just given what he meant to the industry. But I
stand by what I said. If anything, I feel like
I wasn't strong enough about the racism aspect of it.
I'll kind of focus in on the union stuff. I
feel like the racism stuff is well documented and use

(10:50):
our stance is clear on that, and a lot of
other people's stances clear on that as well. But but yeah,
it doesn't change all those things. I stand by as
far as like, multiple things can be true. The more
I thought about it over the weekend after recording it,
it's just like, Yep, multiple things can still be true.
Legendary figure in the industry, he did an amazing amount

(11:12):
of things. Incredible, He accomplished an incredible amount over the
course of a long period of time. That longevity should
be commended. But he was also said that if he
had a nightmare that he woke up black one day,
that's that's pretty racist. So yeah, yeah, this is again

(11:32):
just a couple of things that we can't get past
when it comes when it comes to that, Oh, let's
not forget all the tall tales he told as well,
right when it comes to was it something what was
this related to SummerSlam ninety two a show he wasn't on.
What was what was the story with that? Oh man,

(11:52):
it was something about like a sick child and oh,
here we go. He recalls bringing Michael Simon Cowell to
the United States. It's just all these things that he was,
He's supposed to be in. He was supposed to be
in Metallica at one point, in which Metallica came out
and said that that wasn't true. Just easily verifiable things.

(12:15):
It was something about, uh again, him being at Wimbley
Stadium for some of someem ninety two and he wasn't
on the card. Who knows if he was even in
the same continent at that time. But all those things
I take into account. Just think about all those things
that the good, the peaks in the valleys as well.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah, I did listen back to our show a little
bit of it, not not the whole thing, but some
parts where I had mentioned watching him at like five
six years old kind of shade my character into knowing,
you know, right from wrong. Obviously my parents played a
huge role in that, but just watching on TV where

(12:55):
you know, they weren't always with me when I was
watching wrestling, so I was learning, you know, lessons through
wrestling as a child, like and it's not just haul Cocin.
It's like a bunch of babyfaces Brett Hart, Sean Michaels
in ninety six, you know, like that, that type of stuff,
you know, stuck with me through through the years as
I grew up. So I didn't want to make you know,

(13:15):
I think I sounded a little too like happy about
the legacy he left me, and I'm really I didn't
mean to, like kind of I don't know if it
came across that way. I didn't want to like be
like sound paying homage to him. I wasn't trying to.
I was just kind of trying to say, that's my

(13:37):
childhood experience. I like Brian kind of mentioned his, and
you mentioned yours with him and mostly WCW.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
But you're allowed to have those feelings, by the way,
It's not like you can't have this nostalgic feeling. He
raised a lot of people.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
You're not alone.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, there's no shame in saying. Haulk Cogan raised me
pretty much and taught me values because I watched him
on television and he said positive things. He preached up
measures of positivity, say your prayers, eat your vitamins, you know,
do the right thing, fight for the rights of every
man except black people. But but he said those things,
and I'm sure it resonated with you. It resonated with

(14:14):
a lot of people. That's the reason why Haulkomania was
a thing like you're not alone, and then you have
to apologize for that. It was a long time ago
and you didn't know who the things that would come.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
But I'm not like heartbroke at me, you know, like
I'm not like, oh, no, huge piece of my childhood's gone.
I rarely get like that nowadays, and maybe it's because
I lost my mother five years ago, and that was
like the realist thing I've ever felt and experienced. And
there's nothing else that compares to that, Like I lost
my mom, so like that's the realist thing I've ever felt.

(14:45):
So I don't think like if I had another childhood
hero that passed away, like if Shawn Michael's passed away,
Brett Harrp passed the away God forbid, like Randy Savage
already passed away. He is one of my favorites, but
he kind of passed away before I realized it, you know,
watching back his stuff, like I I'm going to watch,
you know, the wrestling I grew up with all the time.
I always watch old stuff. It brings me back to

(15:05):
that time, for sure, but I realized I'm in the
present day. It doesn't really you know, make me reflect
on my childhood as much, I guess, even though I
watch a lot it, wrestling today is much more. I
was like in a shell, you know, like a shelter
when I watched it growing up, because I didn't have
the Internet. I didn't have all these people saying bad

(15:26):
things about wrestling. The worst thing I heard was, oh,
it's fake, you know, It's like, Okay, I don't care,
but now, like it's so dissected today, and I just
that's why I don't like talking about it that much
online anymore, Like I talk about it mainly on this podcast,
because you're going to have people just getting into these
crazy discussions and putting words in her mouth. It's like, no, Like,

(15:48):
can I just enjoy professional wrestling and peace? No, you
really can't twenty twenty five. So that's why I watch
a lot of the old stuff because you know, that's
what I grew up with. But I'm not as nostalgic
as some other people, So it's hard for me to
be put in their shoes, as I'm sure it's hard
for them to be put in mine, just the way

(16:09):
I look at it, you know, like I mean, nothing's
going to ever affect me, you know, as much as
losing my mother. So if I lose it like a
childhood hero, it's like, well that's sad. But you know,
it's a little bit different when you your childhood hero
is not the greatest person in real life either. You know,
it's just different, Like you look at it differently, and

(16:31):
some people choose not to because it might bring them down,
you know, maybe they're struggling. You know, you don't know
what they're going through. So if it makes it easier
for them to view him and as to what made
them feel good growing up, I understand that as well.
But I definitely didn't want to paint the pictures like
you know, I'm you know, so losing a piece of

(16:51):
my childhood is like a stab in the heart or
anything like that. I just didn't feel that way.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Well, and I'm sure there's a lot of people who
did a lot to feel how you feel, but yeah,
doesn't change the facts of what happened as well. So
there's that any other current day stuff that's going on
I wouldn't discuss.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
So I did notice I didn't watch SmackDown like that closely.
I had other stuff going on. Obviously, the Phillies tattoo
and the Yikes kind of took up a lot of
my time on Friday night. But I did catch Subba
Cody's promo where he kind of paid tribute to Hogan,
but he also did mention, you know, he understands complicated,
So I thought that was interesting to say on the

(17:33):
mic out loud when most people were just avoiding that,
you know, they just wanted to focus on Hogan's you know,
history and wrestling and not exactly outside wrestling. But you know,
I thought it was interesting Cody said that, you know,
like out loud, so it you know, he's done a
kind of a good job recently and even the press

(17:56):
conferences when people were asking Triple h about certain things, uh,
and he didn't want to go into it, I think
a lot of events stuff, and Cody was kind of like,
I understand it's difficult, but you know, like at least
he mentioned it, you know, so I feel like Cody
saying that was kind of like a hey, like we

(18:16):
hear you, and I hear you, but you know, this
is also just a weird thing to have to deal with,
you know, like it's we understand the different views, and uh,
I don't know if like again, I don't know if
it needed to be said, but I just thought it
was interesting that he did. Like I didn't expect someone
on a microphone and live TV and SmackDown in the

(18:39):
middle of the ring just say yeah, it's complicated, like whoa, Okay,
just surprised so.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Well, specifically I missed what specifically said.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
It was complicated.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
It's just like his legacy, like I don't. I don't
remember word for word, but like his own legacy, Hogan's.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, Ogan's like, yeah, yeah, it's complicated.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
He got a black wife, bro.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
Yeah. One of the first things I read on Twitter,
you know, as I was trying to put that together,
the Phillies Yankees videos. You know, That's why I was
in and out and I didn't I didn't get a
chance to go back and listen completely, but I did
hear that, and I did see people being like, oh.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
If Brandy Rhodes wasn't offended by Hogan's right admitted racism
and then lack of apology that followed, Like, I'd be
surprised if she wasn't offended by that. So if she's
offended to damn well, Cody better be offended too. He
should be offended anyway regardless. But even more so, we

(19:40):
got black queen in the home. So uh so, yeah,
at the very least for Cody should be complicated, if
not more than that, maybe he'll say other stuff off screen,
but on screen is complicated.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah. So the quote, and I have this for messiscoops
dot com is yesterday, ww and Pro Wrestling lost one
of its giant names, Haul Cogan. I know there are
complicated details here, but what is not complicated are his
contributions to WWA that is undeniable. Thank you, Haul Cogin.
So I it doesn't sound great the way, but the

(20:14):
fact that he said there are complicated details here, I
thought it was interesting because I doubt somebody else could
say that, you know what I mean, Like.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
I'm glad he did. Look, you can't have like seth
Rollins has been on a record talking about how much
you don't like Paul Cogan. Seeing Punk promo.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
He can't do it now because he's coming back next week.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
So it's that's funny. But seeing Punk said in a
promo that he'd whip up on Hogan and something like that,
Like he wasn't lying when he said that, Like like
they've been open about their dislike of him in recent years.
The current generation of wrestlers basically don't mess with him
like that. It's really the older guys. Obviously, people know

(20:57):
who he is, they know his stature to respect what
he did, like Cody said, he gave a lot to
the industry, and a lot of people in the industry
may not exist in this current form without Hogan, right
let's not again, multiple things can be true. But it
is interesting because I don't remember him saying that, honestly,
it probably just went by me. But and also the

(21:20):
story just isn't that exciting between Cody and seeing him
to be honest with you, So it wasn't like.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
I needed to like be locked in for totally.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
But it is interesting that he said it on TV
because WWE typically is all about Hogan. They're not gonna
talk about even like the backstage politicing he did. You know,
even that stuff isn't like that bad really in the
long run, and the stuff that's been talked about in
other forms of media when it comes to even Hogan

(21:49):
when they talk about stuff that happened with in WSW
and he would politics here and there, and you know,
they talk about bashing the B two thousand. I feel
like they talked about that on ww programming at some point,
and what Hogan, I need to win the title type
deal and they throw the title at his feet. They've
talked about that. So for the most part, it's but
now it's like mostly positive, like he's a hero kind

(22:12):
of deal. We love him go out there and get
booed by thousands of people because we think people still
love you, you know, and they gotta love you, your hull Cogan.
And then he went out and got booed obviously, but
again from w W standpoint, he's cool. But to hear
a wrestlers say it's a complicated facts of the situation,
yeah I would. I was also curious what he meant

(22:34):
by that, Like, what specifically did he mean by that?
Wasn't talking about his legacy? Was talking about like the
facts surrounding his death, you know, because that would have
been been alluding to.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
I don't know, But I don't know that because that
would be weird. It would be weird because what I mean.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
The cops have already said that there's no foul play
or anything like that. The police said that, so there's
no like, as far as we know, murkys around what happened.
So I assume that he's also talking about the legacy. Yes,
my dad as well, Halkogan slash Terribilea leaves behind now
that he's passed on. And yeah, at the very least,

(23:13):
it's complicated. And like I said, for some people, it
an't complicated. So for some people it's it's not complicated.
In the fact that they still love them or that
they dislike him even in death, or for some people
it's like, hey, I can acknowledge the good times, you know,
and all the good he did, but also acknowledged the
bad you know, and at the same time.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
So and it's definitely easier for people who didn't grow
up with him that became after like his they'd be like, oh, yeah,
like they don't have those like nosalgic feelings. Yeah, the
people do which.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
Like me, Like I didn't grow up in the Pikahall commania,
so I didn't. I wasn't around for eighty five, eighty six,
eighty seven, when he was again an A list celebrity
in this country, he had his own Saturday morning cartoon.
Like you are massive if you can get that. When
back in the day there was only like three channels, bro,
it wasn't like we had everything like HBO. I think

(24:08):
cable was just beginning, so you might have had more
than three. But like like today, we got a million
streaming platforms, so it wouldn't be so crazy today. If
let's say like a Johnson or Cody Rhodes or Rumman
Rains had a Saturday morning cartoon, ww's produced cartoons already,
so it's not like it'd be out of this world
today before in the mid eighties. Yeah, man, that's a

(24:28):
different level, bro. And everybody's watching it because you again,
the options are limited, so well now you can you're
pretty much out of carte watch whatever you want. You
had to watch what was on back in the day.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
It was on TV the TV Guide channel. Like if
you didn't have the TV Guide or the guy that
came with the paper, it was like TV Weekly or
something like that. I don't look at everyone like we
had like three and then the TV Guide, I guess
got too expensive, so we stopped it. But I love
the TV Guide. Just on the coffee table man with

(25:02):
the remote, everything looks so cool. I was like, oh,
this looks like at home. It's great, man. Like I
was like obsessed with how everything looked back then, Like
how does my family room look up? The coffee table
needs to go here, and this needs to go here
on the coffee table, Like I I detailed everything. I'm
surprised I didn't become an interior decorator or something.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
There's still time. There's still time. Don't count yourself out
just yet. You might have found your calling right here
on episode four thirty eight of The Straight Shooters Interior
decorating to your design. Never too late, but it's never
too late to transition to our deep dive. Are you
ready to go back in time to this summer of

(25:43):
ninety eight?

Speaker 3 (25:43):
Good sir, on the highway to Hell?

Speaker 4 (25:46):
Yeah, finally wait, get to the truth.

Speaker 5 (25:59):
It is fat Undertaker and Kane come by, make the
most awesome, the most destructive force in the history of
the world, rustling prection.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
How do all in the history that together?

Speaker 3 (26:13):
And we're trying to kill each other once.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
Literally and Summer Slam.

Speaker 6 (26:21):
I will take what is rightfully by I.

Speaker 3 (26:25):
Would have burned your lass.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
That's it. Six s the hell. That's one man, even
at Austin turn that talent? Are these two? Even a
Steve Austin?

Speaker 7 (26:40):
This night ends, You will come face.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
To face with your destiny.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
Putting Kate at your side. You will be the world bustling.
So many sound effects in these videos once again and
Summer Slam?

Speaker 3 (27:03):
What is what is this music? It's supposed to be
the highlight of hell and we get.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
This thanks thanks Peacock generic rap.

Speaker 3 (27:13):
That's why I left it in Ooh, what is this man?
It doesn't have the same thing with Generalross.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
It sounds like it's actually playing though in the arena.
It doesn't just sound like dubbed over music. I don't know, man,
I would not be surprised if that was the actual
music played in the arena. I again, I did not
watch this show. Yeah, find it because I don't know

(27:45):
what I'm to do. Oh well, damn, I guess so much.
There's somebody out there, somebody that has an original copy
on the internet somewhere that you can like daily emotional
YouTube or something. I don't know. But but they also
on Peacock skipped the like graphic opening that did also
feature the ac DC song Highway to Hell. So, but
that particular song, like that intro that we heard there

(28:06):
sounded like that music sounded like it was in the arena.
We've done plenty of shows where you can tell the
music is dubbed over like and they put generic crowd
sounds like a generic noise over the sound over the music.
I should say, but that didn't sound like it. But again,
I could be wrong, But let's get into a WWF.
SummerSlam took place in August thirtieth, nineteen ninety eight. As

(28:29):
you heard there. The show emanated from Madison Square Garden,
the world's most famous arena so called in New York City.
No it is, It's true. The slogan, though of this
show is one of the best of all time, one
of the most memorable slogans of all time. People still
say it whenever you refer to the show. The high

(28:50):
Way to Hell and WWF up the End even licensed
the song by ac DC. They had a vignette where
they used the song would undertake to Steve Boston Undertaker,
and I think they played it on RAW one time
and it was incredible whoo fire. If you didn't get

(29:12):
pumped up for this show after watching that, you must
not have had a pulse, because even as a kid,
I was like, oh my god, I can't wait to
watch the show. And we didn't watch the show.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
We knew no bad. If I couldn't watch this, I
would have been in shambles.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
Look, I was in shambles many night because I didn't
watch Sumer Slam ninety eight, Summer Slam ninety nine, Summer
Slam two thousand, Some Slam two thousand and one. I
don't think I watched a live Summer Slam. Oh man,
it's a long time. I ordered one show a year,
and it's usually WrestleMania. Yeah, and except that one year
for some reason in two thousand, I got backlash somehow,

(29:52):
like my mom forgot and I was like, oh wait ah, yeah,
you gotta we will go get the next the next
month or something.

Speaker 3 (29:59):
But two people it.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Was a better ending. It was, so I'll take it.
But ninety eight we did not get the pay per
views just yet. We wasn't that rich yet, not ninety eight.
But they didn't need my money because WWF was in
the midst of arguably its hottest period. And that's why
they could afford to use ACDC for Livin Yette and

(30:22):
for the theme song of this show, Highway to Hell,
because they were rolling in the dough, and that's part
of the reason why they were more than allegedly the
more than twenty thousand people packed into Madison Square Garden
that night according to Wikipedia, and the show garnered his
second most pay per view bys of the year according
to wrestle Nomics. From ww from WrestleMania to SummerSlam, WWF

(30:44):
was pretty fun to watch in nineteen ninety eight. I
think things kind of took a slot small step back
and the latter part of the year, but this time
from WrestleMania to Summer Slam. It was man Steve Auston's
title run at ninety eight when he has goes from
WrestleMania they did do fully Loaded the next month, they.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
Did fully the next July it was it was unforgiven,
and then over the Edge kick of the Ring.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
Over the Edge was the show that did did uh
we do love.

Speaker 3 (31:16):
And yeah, unforgiven and over the Edge it was too less.
Over the Edge was when you know, Vince's the ref.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yeah, and Pat Pattison has the ring announcer and he's like,
I would not introduce this food. I won't do it.
And Derrek Briscoe has got he's like promoting the brisco
Brother's body shop during his entrance.

Speaker 3 (31:34):
And then which was also promoted on SummerSlam.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
By the way, yes it was. I have a clip
for that, Yes it was. And then Steve Awston takes
mysic Man's hand by the by this hand like that
come on that classic stuff by this hand.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
Only dude that it's so funny watching that back because
even you know, twelve thirteen, I didn't know like, oh,
words matter, like, like, by this, I was like, why
highlighting that phrase, like I just didn't understand it.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
Then he also, I don't know if it was the
title run where he also kidnap Mes McMahon and Steve Auston.
I'm talking about a lost right after Okay, yeah, I'm
just gonna shoot him, now.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
What in the middle of the ring.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
For one, he had the bow and arrow. He's gonna
shoot him like he was an animal. He's gonna Then
he takes him out into the ring. Vince is literally
crying and please his pants.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
That's dedication, bro, that is dedication.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
To the craft. You can say a lot of things
about Vince, and all of them are true, probably, but
you can't which you cannot say he wasn't dedicated to
the craft of making himself a good heel because p
and his pants in the ring is incredible, and then
the thing says bang three sixteen.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
Man, dude, I was like kind of freaking out that
whole by w I'm watching them, I was like, God, like,
my mom's never gonna let me watch this again.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
Just had the Pilman thing last year, they had an
actual gun. They're doing it again. I'm just wrong with them.
They're taking it too far.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
This time, Austin's gonna be the one shoot instead of
gotta got shot at.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
We gotta do a deep dive in that episode of
Yes we do that particular episode that was.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
The first episode of them switching times. So it was
like an hour earlier, and I totally missed the entire episode.
I was so angry.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
So wait, they started an hour earlier and had a
gun angle.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
You're earlier in prime time and let's break out the
guns now.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
Vince McMahon on the next episode of Live Wire the
following Saturday, had to admit it was a ratings ploy
because USA Network executives, you know, made that.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Work something silly. It was so silly nonsense.

Speaker 3 (34:06):
Yeah, weave to cover that, and I gotta find that
live wider episodes.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
Oh absolutely, we'll watch. We'll do both. We'll team it up.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
But as much as this time period was a lot
of fun to watch, not everything was great, but pretty
much everything Steve Austin did was incredible. Like we just
talked about a couple of examples. Even after this time
with the whole Bang three sixteen thing, Man, I'm trying
to think of other things he might have done done
this time.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
This was the zamboni zamboni.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
Was this the also the cement truck time too, I
don't know, if I don't know, maybe that was later,
that was around like ninety eight ninety nine.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
That was corporation time. I think the cement truck.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
I think this is convertible or something.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
Yeah, yeah, I think that was corporation time. But yeah,
definitely zamboni time.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
The zambonie was I think before that was ninety nine.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yeah, it was ninety nine. But the zamboni was hysterical
because he jumped on top of it and then just
dove off and closed line Vince smaking Man.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
Only hit the ring too. The ring moved. I was like,
oh my god, he's gonna collapse.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
He closed on Vince and stands Inn he closed line
Vince and Undertaker and Cannon just watching this and then
people throw stuff in the ring like they're just they're
losing their minds when this happens. And that's just what
it was with Steve Awlston in nineteen ninety eight.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
Like you're watch because you knew something like that was
gonna happen when they didn't have the ramp, Like yeah,
I was like, well, you can't go down a ramp
with this, so we'll just not put the ramp up,
and then you're kind of like, oh my god, what's
gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
It's just that like everything he did was touch tender Gold,
like it was incredible. Like you watch these shows back
if in case you forgot why he was so popular
and why he's still this revered figure in the world
of pro wrestling, just go back and watch his title
run from ninety eight. You don't have to even watch
anything else. You can watch the early stuff like from
ninety seven, when we first became stone cold in ninety

(35:52):
six or whatever, but just watch ninety eight and you'll
see people just jumping out of their chairs to see
Steve Fawson when he comes out to peep the place.
You talking about pops who you got Road Warrior pops,
but they got to also they like the Steve Austin
pop too, bro, because the roof will come off and
you you just don't hear that anymore. There's so few

(36:14):
people who get those type of reactions today. Real Ripley, honestly,
Popaly gets the biggest pops in wrestling. I'm just gonna
just be totally real, totally honest. The only person that
really rivals her on the you know, day to day basis.
I think, I don't know if that's the right term.
Roman Reigns also gets massive ovations. Cody's up there to
j Usso, But like rear Ripley gets those types of

(36:35):
she's the one person when when you hear a song,
she gets the reactions that reminded me of Steve Austin
the Rock back in.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
The day, at least when the crowds were going crazy.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
But you just don't see it. Even though WW is
you know better than what it was five six years
ago when nobody was getting pops, It's still not quite
to the level of what it was back then. It's
just a different, different time, different era. But like I said,
he can simply do no wrong essentially. He even had
a feud with a baby Face essentially in the Undertaker

(37:05):
where they had sort of like this mutual respect, even
though that would run out very soon and that the
sam Bony thing happens after this and Undertaker and Kane
are gonna get rewarded the title. I think, oh, he's
going to reward one person with the title, and he
never got a chance to announce who's gonna get the
title because Steve Wawlston came down the clo close line.
That's an idea. He was so good. Remember the episode

(37:27):
where he Steve Alston's just running around beating everybody up,
like somebody bumped into him or something like that. He
started fighting people like or he's just running to the
ring and like he tried to get Jeft Jare at
one time, ject Jared runs away, but then Jeck Jair
has a match later on and here comes Steve Awston
again gets him.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
Anyway, it was like a bounty before the Royal Rubble.
There was like a bounty on Austin and he was
like getting them before they could get him all the time.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Even funnier to me is when Steve went on the
Undertaker and Kane started walking down and beating everybody up
during every match, and man, when they.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
Would just march down to the ring, it legit looks scary.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
It's like, oh no, he didn't come again.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
Great thing about that episode was it wasn't like a
Monday night. It was one of those Saturday night episodes.
It was from Thornton Tennis or something. So I don't remember, like, yeah,
we could, we could like throw away this episode. Let's
just make it like this and.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
Just do this and have Undertaker and Knes. It's marched
down angrily during every match, and you knew exactly what
was going to happen to everybody that was in there.

Speaker 3 (38:32):
That's annoying because it's not available to like stream because
it wasn't on a Monday, like they skip that one.
That's the annoying part. It's like, why not make these
available just because it wasn't on a Monday, Like really.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
But that wasn't only a big match on this card though,
Steve Alston in the Undertaker and the main event for
the w W Championship. There were others. You had a
ladder match between two future main inventors and Triple H
and The Rock. You had a Lions Didn't match between
Sharon Rock and Owen Hart, and a couple of matches
that I think quite fit the bill. Well, let's just
say they fit the bill quite well. Of hidden gems,

(39:10):
I think there's two candidates here that we can mention.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
Well, it makes me think that the one he just
mentioned is not which is one of mine because you
mentioned it, But.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
Well, we'll get to it. We'll get to it when
we get to it. But I know our patron for
this episode, Chris Johnson, has a lot to say about
this show. So Chris, it's your time. Take it away
with your thoughts on SummerSlam nineteen ninety eight.

Speaker 6 (39:35):
What's going on? Straight shoes, your boy, Chris Johnson back again,
give you my thoughts on a deep dive from SummerSlam
nineteen ninety eight, The Highway to Hell. Give you my
match of the night, worst match of the night, so
on and so forth. My match of the night for
this show was easily the ladder match for the Intercodom
title between Triple H and The Rock. The one weird
thing I thought happened in this match was the bell
actually wrong. Before the bell was suspended and raised up

(39:56):
to the ceiling, we had the Rock attack Triple H's
knee on some night heat hit him with a belt.
At one point early on in the match, Triple H
knocked the Rock off the ladder, but the ladder then
fell on Triple H. Looked like h him in his
upper back area. The Rock will continue to work on
Triple H's knee with the ladder, with the chair and
steel steps as well. Mark hanwore get involved trying to
grab Triple H from getting back in the ring, and

(40:17):
then China neutralize them hit him with a nasty form shiver.
Triple H hit a mean baseball slide into the ladder
into the rock's head, caused him to bleed. Triple H
was knocked off the ladder into another ladder and then
pushed the rock off the ladder onto the top of
we thought it was pretty cool spot. Triple H would
then use the chair to hit the rock with the
rock hat of the ladder, hit the ladder with the
rock was holding, and then repeated chair shots the ladder

(40:38):
with the rock underneath it. The rock would then hit
people's little on Triple H after he body slammed him
on top of the ladder. Rock hit Triple H with
the rock bottom. After Triple H jumped off the ladder,
rock caught them hit him with the rock bottom. The
rock would then pull Triple H or excuse me. Triple
H would pull the rocks trunks down, exposing his booty
and then hit the pedigree. Afterwards, Mark Henry would throw

(40:59):
power on Triph's eyes, blinding him temporarily. China would then
hit the Rock with a low blow as he was
as sending a letter to grab the Interncountental title, leading
Triple H retrieving the title and becoming the new IC Champion.
This was the best match on the show in my opinion,
was a fantastic match. My runner up for Match of
the night would probably be Stone Cold and the Undertaker
for the WWF title the main event of the show.

(41:20):
There was a lot of technical exchanges earlier between the two.
Caine would come out a few minutes into the match.
A lot of takers sent him back to the lockerroom,
said he wanted to do it on his own. Undertaker
would choke slam Austin from the outside of the ring
to the inside and the ring in a pretty good spot.
Their spot with Undertaker leaping off the top rope lead
dropping Austin through the table was my spot of the night.
I thought that was a pretty wicked spot. Austin would

(41:43):
get choke slammed, then counted the tombstone. Austin would hit
the Undertake with a low blow after an old school attempt.
Shortly after hit the stunner to retain the title. Afterwards,
the Undertaker handed to de belt to stone Cold and
a sign of respect after the match. Thought it was
a pretty good match, one of the better matches these
two had at one point. The worst match of the
night from me in my opinion was the handicap match

(42:05):
between Kayan Tai and the Oddities. I guess it was
four on three, not really much to write home about
in this match, it happened cool. There were a couple
I think I had more than one hitting gym on
the show. The Hair versus Hair match with Jeff Jared
XPOC I thought was really really good. X pok ended
up getting the win after he used the guitar on Jarrett.
Previously earlier on Heat Jeff Jarrett and Southern Justice would

(42:29):
shave Howard Finkles had bald the That was probably my
pin gym for that match, and also the lions Den
match between Ken Shamrock and Owen Heart was really really good,
very physical from the get go, some MMA and wrestling
mixed in and Shamrock climbed the cage multiple times. It
hit a couple offensive offensive moves on Owen Hart. Also,
you climbed the cage to use the sharp to break

(42:50):
the sharp shirt when he was in it. Shamrock would
then at the end of the match, used the cage
once again to count of the dragon sleeper that Alan
Hart had him in forced him to tap out to
the ankle lock with seven walking away instead of throwing
away the towel. My favorite non wrestling happening from the
show was the interview backstage with Mankind before he went
out for the tag title match against the Outlaws False
count Anywhere, which eventually became a handicap match, and then
Vincementman came out convincing him he would get him in

(43:13):
the Madison Square Arn Hall of Fame if he won.
I thought that was a great moment. Random thoughts from
the show. Method man in the crowd was, you know,
all up in the show having a great time. You
had Valvinius Delo Brown for the European title, which I
thought was a good match between these two. Delo with
his chest protector after partially tearing his peck. I believe
a couple months prior, in a match with Dan Severn,

(43:33):
if I remember correctly, he had the mixed tag with
Mark Merrow and Jacqueline against Sable and her mystery partner Edge.
It was a basic mix tag match. Thought it was alright.
Tag team title match Mankind against the Outlaws. Outlaws one
after a spike pile driver on the title came magically
appeared from the dumpster hit Mankind in the face with
a sledgehammer. Well, all in all, this was one of

(43:55):
the better summer slams that I could remember, maybe top five,
top ten all time. Watching it back, I really enjoyed
the show. Straight Shooters. Appreciate you guys allowing being back
on the greatest wrestling podcast out today. I hope you
guys are holding down in Philly. Stay cool up there.
I know it's probably hot as you know what up there.
Catch you guys soon, POOS.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Thanks again Chris for your patronage. We appreciate it. As always.
You too can be like Chris Johnson. Head on over
to patreon dot com Slash Shooters Radio, where you can
be just like Chris and make a cameo on the
show that we're talking about.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
They hang out a little bit with the Straight Shooters.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
I know Chris Johnson loves is talking about the stage
and the look and stuff like that. So let's talk
about it a little bit before we kind of get
into our categories of best match, worst match, and etc.
Let's talk about the branding of SummerSlam, which was a
departure from the mostly blue and yellow hues that they
used in the early years of Summer Slam. This scheme
was more of like a red, orange, silver type of look,

(44:54):
more of an edgy look. They incorporated black too into
the logo. The logo that the Tech SummerSlam was black
with two giantesses behind it, and WWF even kept the
logo the next year for Summer Slam. I don't know
about you. I didn't like this look.

Speaker 8 (45:14):
You.

Speaker 3 (45:14):
I wasn't say the logo or the look and the
colors like, uh.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
Not necessarily the colors. The colors were more of an
edgy I get it, but they also incorporated a lot
of black, which I didn't like this summer It's supposed
to be. To me, the blue and yellow kind of vibe.
Even the green, those are more vibrant colors for summer.
When I think summer, think blue waters and blue skies,
not hopefully not red skies.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
But about the Undertaker anything, well, yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
I mean he's a departure from that.

Speaker 3 (45:43):
But I honestly thought this was going to be a
one year only logo, So I was like, really, surprised
they brought it back the next year. Definitely didn't fit.
The next year, Uh that's what they had, Jesse Ventura
and special Reugh Like, it just didn't fit. But this
year I was like, oh, like, I like the look again.
Like growing up, I was tired of the old logos.

(46:04):
But man, like, they changed the Royal Rumble logo in
ninety six, but they kept the Summer Slam logo. It's
a great logo ninety six and ninety seven, and then
they changed it in ninety eight, and I was just
kind of like, oh, like, okay, okay, they're in the
Attitude era. So I kind of understood that they even
tweetd the WrestleMania logo. I mean, it wasn't the usual
WrestleMania logo, but it was, you know, a box of

(46:28):
wrestle and the Mania underneath it. But it was still
the same font. So I was like, okay, like, as
long as they don't go crazy and yeah, like I
didn't hate it, but looking back, like, man, it's been
cool if they just kept the regular Summer Slam logo
and maybe just changed the color up, like maybe made
it like a darker orange and then changed the blue

(46:51):
to like a darker maybe a black or something. I
don't know see how that would have done.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
But well, they went back to a more vibrant color
scheme in two thousand, which I think is the right
choice in my opinion. If I had to rank the
Summer Slam logos, which I have not, but this would
be as far as ninety eight ninety nine, this would
be probably near the bottom just because it's just, you know,
not that colorful. I think it should be more colorful.

(47:15):
I think the best one, in my opinion, might be
the original logo that Summer Slam on one line and
that like yellow and orange type font. That's that's the
classic logo. That logo looks great like on print, it
looks good in digital, you put it on the ring apron,
it looks great everywhere. It's a great logo. But there's
I mean, there have been some others. You know, there's
one from ninety four. It was like a little slight

(47:36):
change to it there, like a squidly line underneath Summer Slam.
Kind of weird, but it's like, okay, it's still kind
of the same color scheme they did. They went away
from it right after that, which was I found like
an interesting decision. Then once they got it to two thousand,
they got a different look. I guess it was more
like it felt like a more two thousands look to
it very two thousands. I don't think the logo would

(47:58):
work today. The fond least very unique font.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
I hate it.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
I understand if you don't like the font. As a kid,
I didn't mind it. It just felt like very current,
which could be bad. It's not doesn't have any staying
power right. You see a lot of teams, like in
the NFL, or in sports in general, I feel like
they make their jerseys and their uniforms two of the times,
and then ten years from now they become outdated. And
you shouldn't do that. You should try to get something

(48:23):
that's a little more timeless, you know. Or even if
you make it more of the times, you can tweak
it to us. It's still more timeless, I think. But
not those summer Slam logos from about two thousand to
two thousand and nine. They kept that logo for a while.
I side a few minor tweaks here and there. They
would like stack the words or put them side by side,
you know, stuff like that. So maybe strip away the
color one year, which is always a step back for me,

(48:46):
and keep the color. And in twenty ten they went
to that more of like an LA theme with that
simpler font. I didn't like the font they used, like
twenty ten to twenty eleven, ugly font. It's like a
Sans Sara font. It was weird. And then like Comic Sands.
I would say, not saying say it was like a
Comic Sands font, which is bizarre. But then they changed

(49:07):
it to like that star logo and it kept that
logo from like twenty twelve all the way through like
twenty twenty one apparently, which I was doing research for this.
I was looking through the logo history, so come on
take a ride with me here. But through twenty twenty
one it kept that same exact logo, never changed until
they finally changed it in twenty twenty two when they
went to Nashville. This would be my second favorite logo. Honestly,

(49:30):
I thought this was a great logo for the show,
and I was like, man, I love the Nashville theme logo.
It's colorful, it's vibrant, it fits the town. If they
can change it every year like this, we'd be in
great shape, and they did it again the next year
in twenty three, they kind of changed it specific It
looked like specific to Detroit. It was silver, It kind
of had the Motor City theme to it, like an
exhaust pipe and the logo, and then they kept it

(49:52):
mostly the same, just few minor tweaks with Cleveland and
now New Jersey they pretty much put like the city
skyline or the state the logo.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Pretty much what they do for the Super Bowl, especially from.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
Like twenty ten to like twenty I guess, fifteen sixteen
or whatever it was when they would just put the
stadium in the background. It was like all silver and
they would just put the stadium in the background. Very
boring stuff. Even the super Bowl that the Eagles won
in seventeen, it was just purple LI and the Super
Bowl underneath it, and it's just like that's kind of boring,
but we won, so I don't care. But the more recent.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Ones though, have been way more vibrant, like.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
Super Bowl fifty nine with the LX with like the
one ons I guess themed color scheme and design to it.
I thought it was a great logo. It looked great
on the jerseys, It look great on the field, and
I think then four and four Super Bowl sixty. It
also looks good with like the California skyline in it
and stuff like that. But I'm still in the camp
of unique logos every year for these events, like especially

(50:52):
the Super Bowl. I want a different look every year.
I don't want the same look but just tweaks to
the depending on where you are. I know that's probably efficient,
but it's not good for me as a creative person.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
I want to see a new logoever year, damn it.

Speaker 3 (51:06):
Yeah, I don't like the top of them now. I
don't like it at all.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
I don't like it either.

Speaker 3 (51:11):
My favorite is obviously the original one, but my second
frame for it is the Star one that was like
a twenty fourteen. Yeah, maybe twenty thirteen as well, but
that's actually my second favorite.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
I like twenty twelve to like twenty twenty one.

Speaker 3 (51:24):
Honestly, Yeah, I like the I like when it's one
word because that's how they write it, like it's one word.
It's summer, then a capital less Slam, just one word.
I don't like when they break it up in the
Summer Slam. But the Star is I guess an exception
to my rule. Because I thought that was kind of cool,

(51:44):
you know, the summer Slam being two different fronts and
the summer being like orange or yellow.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
I like that.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
The twenty twenty two one was definitely the best one
of the modern era of like the last five years.
But yeah, I mean bring back the old.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
One just honestly. I just bring that a little bit,
like honestly. Same for the war Rumble bro or maybe
the word yeah, the ward Rumble. I can do the
war Rumble. They had like the early nineties where it
was yeah, that original one like the block letters.

Speaker 3 (52:18):
Right, not the original and then the big R and
the big.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
Yeah yeah, yeah exactly, or they wanted to use like
in a new generation.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
It was like yellow and blue. I have to get
the color schemes like red.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
And yellow and blue.

Speaker 4 (52:32):
One.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
You don't like that one they used for ninety seven, Yeah,
pretty much.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
I don't mind that one.

Speaker 3 (52:38):
This is a little color. I remember ninety six when
we first saw the logo, I was like, what are
they doing? Because as a kid, like I love the
Royal Rumble logo. I loved all their logos, so whenever
they changed it, like I'm gonna be annoyed, but I
was like, this looks so bad. I guess they felt
the original one was too plain, but like I like that.
When the ninety five when they were in Tampa, they

(52:59):
kind of made it like a beach theme and stuff
like that. I was like, that's cool. Just do that
and I'll keep you that.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
But are you gonna use the same logo ever? You
go back to the best one, Just use the best
one and then stick with it if you're gonna use
it like the same one ever.

Speaker 3 (53:12):
Did draw these logos, So that's part of why I
fell in love with them, because I would just draw
them in school in my downtime. Obviously, like just the
Roarer Rumble logos, WrestleMania logos, SummerSlam, just Survivor series even
was a great logo. Yes, start is so.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
The current Roara Rumble logo is kind of boring.

Speaker 1 (53:30):
It's just text royal rumble with the blue with a
line in between royal and rumble. I'll take made of
blue this year because it was in Indianapolis.

Speaker 3 (53:37):
I'll take that boring change.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
It's boring. It's just still boring. You had more excite
excitement with the logos back this year they.

Speaker 3 (53:47):
Put the skyline and like the words like they didn't
do that.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
Cool that same thing they do with the Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
It's not exciting than the thing is. The WrestleMania logo
changes up quite a bit. The font of like WrestleMania
generally stays the same, but everything else around it kind
of changes, including the color U. The WrestleMania forty logo
was kind of it was okay, you know, for what
it was. I thought the WrestleMania forty one logo was
dope for Vegas. I thought it perfectly encapsulated with the

(54:17):
divibe of Vegas. Have you seen the WrestleMania forty two logo.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
I have.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
It's terrible what happened. It's like it threw it together
at the last minute, because maybe that's how the show
came together at the last minute. It was threw and
out there with no color. It's like a skyline ass
It looks like it was drawn by chalk almost, And
it was like, I get it, Like that's not like
a bad design necessarily, but it doesn't fit Vegas whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
Like Vegas is colorful and vibrant and this is not.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
It's black. It looks like he uses logo for like
a New York show when we're trying to look talk
about the grittiness of New York. I can sort of
see that, but for Las Vegas just doesn't fit for me.
Maybe they'll change it, but I don't think they will.
They usually don't. When they come up with a logo,
they put it out there, that's the logo, Jen.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
And if they change anything, it's usually like minor tweaks, right,
not a full facelift.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
To me, it's a real step back as far as
the logo.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
You know, it's not like a horrible one, but it's
just a step back because it's not as vibrant and
cool as the one that did this year for WrestleMania
forty one. But let's go back to Summer slid In
ninety eight, because the look of the show overall was
also cool, just the way I loved, always loved when
WWF we used a short aisle at Madison Square Garden
for their shows. I love that a WRESTLEMANI attendment at

(55:34):
the sliding X right that would open up and close
a virus series ninety six, when they had like a
skyline that would open up.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
I thought that was pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
And then they upped the ane because you're in the
Highway to Hell, so naturally you got to have a
gate to Hell right there.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
I loved it.

Speaker 1 (55:50):
It's so good and the wrestlers open up the gate
on their own, like, I thought that was cool. I
thought the ring apron looked great, the red ring apron,
the silver text, everything it looked looked It was a
unique look for sure.

Speaker 3 (56:02):
You see the difference when the entire ring apron is
one color, you know, you don't have the trim at
the top that's black, and just make that just makes
the aesthetic less appealing to me, Like, just make the
ring apron one color, and when it sits on the
mat and the canvas, you see how it just pops.

(56:23):
Like if that ring apron had a black trim at
the top, it just wouldn't have popped as much as
it did. Like, and they didn't. They didn't really do
that even in that era that much. So when they
did do it, you'd be like, oh, man, like this
looks really cool. It was also the first show where
they debuted their new guardrails. Oh I didn't no security

(56:47):
barricade whatever you want to call it, not the old school,
you know, steel barricade looking a bike d yeah, where
all they did was painted black out during the advent
of the attitude Attitude. But this is the first show
where they debut that I remember being like, this looks
really really cool, like this is a great presentation, you know,

(57:07):
like I enjoyed all that.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
I feel you on that, I feel you on that.
It was a good looking show overall. I thought, just again,
Madison Square Guarden with the short aisle was always a.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
Unique even was like really cool.

Speaker 1 (57:21):
Yeah, just a very memorable looking show from an aesthetic standpoint.
But let's get into our format here, our categories. We're
gonna have worst match of the night, I should say
match of the night, worst match of the night. We're
also gonna have a top non wrestling happening, a worst
non wrestling happening, any hitting gems. And I'm also incorporating

(57:43):
best spot and worst spot. Wouldn't do that, Nick.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
Oh sure I don't. I don't think I have a
worse one.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
But I got one.

Speaker 3 (57:52):
I didn't even think of it.

Speaker 1 (57:53):
But and of course we got random thoughts, which I
got some random thoughts for you, some good thoughts that
up it together.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
I thought one of my random ploughts, just one of
my random ploughts. We just talked about the h the
aesthetic of the show.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
So ah, I figured I started off with this as
we talking about Yah, I know Chris is going to
talk about it as well, so we'll started in the beginning.
But match of the night from SummerSlam nineteen ninety eight, Nick,
what you.

Speaker 3 (58:20):
Got, It's got to be that ladder match for the
Intercontinental title.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
We agree.

Speaker 3 (58:25):
I wasn't sure how it would hold up because I
haven't watched it in a long time, and surprisingly it
held up well. The crowd was hot, you know, there
were spots there like it wasn't like the crowd was
hot for the entire match. It's like you built to it, right,
And that's what I love about pro wrestling. I don't
need the crowd to be like hot for the whole match.

(58:47):
You kind of built to that, built to certain spots.
And there's a lot of spots here where I was like, oh, like, okay,
we're nearing me under the match, but no, we're not.
Like there's more, you know, and I forgot how good
it was, honestly, like, yeah, it was a great ladder match.
I also love the fact that the ladder was yellow
instead of red and that added to the aesthetic of

(59:08):
the show. And you you know, it's not just blending
in with the ring apron or the gate of Hell
in the aisle. It's yellow and it's kind of popping
out a little bit, and I thought that was cool.
I'm assuming this is the first time they used that
color because usually their ladders were always like red on
the side. But I noticed that the yellow, and I
was like, this is so awesome.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
It's funny. They had red, then they went to yellow,
then they went to like a black. Yeah, and now
to use silver, all silver, it's interesting, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (59:35):
Yeah, yeah. So you know, there was some great spots
here where you know, Mark Henry got involved and then
China got involved, but they didn't obviously take away from
the match. They didn't. There wasn't always interference. You know,
it was good when it needed to be. They had
I'm pretty sure the Rocket Triple As didn't want a

(59:56):
lot of interference in their match. But I think the
interfer her is that they got was well placed. It
didn't overwhelm anything. And I'll tell you, man, people's elbow
on the ladder. I totally forgot that was that happened.
It's just the crowd obviously was falling in love with
the rock, so they weren't really doing anyone. They love

(01:00:19):
the rock. So that spot got a really big pop.
This spot where Triple H jumped off the ladder and
then the rock rock bottomed him got a really big powers.
That was a great spot. I was like, man, like,
this is a lot, a lot I forgot about, honestly
because I just haven't seen it in forever. Then when
Triple H pedigreed the rock, the fans are still going

(01:00:42):
out so thin. That's when you read, know like, oh,
there's no heel in this match. The only heel is
like Mark Henry. You know. It was just great.

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
The thing that made this so good. For one, they're
not high flyers.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
You got a lot of match with two guys who
don't jump off the top rope, even though Triple Ah
did one time, which is like, oh, jump off the
top roope, and he did, but he also knocked the
Rock off a ladder an other time too, So but
the thing was they used the ladder. They only had
one ladder, but they kind of incorporated it into their offense.
So like a body slam on the ladder and you

(01:01:14):
throw somebody into the ladder like little things that they did.
They didn't take a bunch of like effort, they didn't
have to fly through the air to do it. But
it still worked because it was a ladder match and
you're using a ladder, and you just upped the anne
from the stuff you normally do. But now we have
a ladder, you know, So it's like it's not like
everything is like surrounding the ladder as much as it's
like the ladders complimenting the match they're already having, right,

(01:01:36):
which I think to me worked. They also did a
lot of selling bro like like you said, they rock
a hit a rock bottom. Triple Ah followed up with
a pedigree and they're both down for a while, and
that's when you hear the fans rise to their feet
and they're cheering for what they're seeing. Also adding to
it with JR and the call, I think he did
a great job of adding stakes to the match, at

(01:01:57):
least from a from a viewership standpoint. The people in
the building in here. JR. Obviously I love the spot
where Triple H was knocked off the ladder somehow, but
he stumbled back into a ladder that had the Rock
on it and knocked the Rock off, and people were
just going crazy over the spots that they were doing
and things they were doing in the match that didn't

(01:02:17):
like put their bodies at some egregious risk right like
you would see maybe today with ladder matches. They did
a lot with without having to do a lot, And
the ending was huge. China hit Rock with a little
blow causing him to fall off the ladder. Rock, by
the way, the slowest climber ever for the for the belt,
like he had multiple times. So he's right there.

Speaker 3 (01:02:39):
I thought he was solid, that he really is.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
Bro one more wrung, you got it? You're like six six,
just get one more. Maybe maybe that's part of the
story and that that I don't remember. I don't think
I don't think so either. But but Triple As eventually
gets up there there and grabs a title to win
the Intercontinental Championship. D X comes out to celebrate with

(01:03:06):
Triple H even though they were heels in the match
with Gainst Mankind. The New Age Outlaws are out there too,
but now their baby faces. Yeah that, yeah whatever. After
the match, we got home video footage on Peacock. We
get this of the Rock making his way backstage. You're
hearing people, I think Bruce Pritchrick calling out like Where's
Where's Taker? Where's Undertaker? Where is he? Like? Where was Undertaker?

(01:03:31):
Why wasn't he around?

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
Gorilla? You're going up?

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
Man Ain event is next? Where is he? He is
nowhere to be found?

Speaker 3 (01:03:40):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
And then you you followed the Rock backstage. Uh, he's
cussing out the doctor for some reason. And then he
even the doctor's there to help him, obviously, and then
he cuts the promo on Triple H for the home
video audience. But you didn't see that live obviously, But
honorable mention here, I'll throw in. I think the event
was really really good still, despite Austin getting concussed pretty

(01:04:04):
early on. I thought, and I know they may say,
I've heard Austin say like the match could have been better,
but given the circumstances, because Austin got knocked out in
the match and he took a he took a tumble
to the ground like somebody like hit him in the
in the chant bow cole cock. H. He hits the match,
he doesn't know where he is, He's seeing stars right

(01:04:27):
to be able to finish it under those circumstances and
still finished the match in an exciting fashion and the
fans were happy with it. I still think to be commended.
So I'm gonna give Austin an Undertaker the honorable mention
here because it was still a really good match despite
a little mishap there early on in the match between
Undertaker and Steve Austin.

Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
I agree that is my honorable mention as well.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
Look at that you.

Speaker 3 (01:04:52):
Have Steve Austin getting concussed. I timed it from when
the bell rang to when that spot happened, and it
was roughly to minutes and thirty five seconds into the
mix where he had so that match is like twenty
almost twenty one minutes, so that's about eighteen minutes of
a concussed still Steve Boston trying to make the most

(01:05:14):
the situation, the Undertaker obviously realizing it like he's communicating
in Austin's telling the ref. The ref doesn't really do
anything because it's Earl Hebner. But I'm sure the Undertaker
took control, and I think that's a huge reason why
you got a good match out of that. You know,
it could have been, man, it was like already a
good show you know, the ladder match obviously, but like

(01:05:37):
when you're just watching that and you're like, oh, I
need to watch SummerSlam, you don't really care about if
something sucks, you know, in the moment, especially me as
a kid, I was like, I'm taping this shit, like
if something sucks, I can fast forward through it, Like
I don't care. I just care about, you know, the
main event stuff or the high mid card stuff, like
that's any the only thing I cared about back then.

(01:05:59):
So I was just like, this match was actually a
lot better than I remember it being too, because it's
been a while since I watched this match. I remember
being annoyed that maybe not annoyed, but didn't really understand
like the build, which was weird for me because two

(01:06:22):
baby face like stone Hold just got done his few
with do Love, who was a heel, and now I
got to choose between Undertaker and him when he's just ascending,
you know, just won the title and he's like ascending,
and now I gotta like. This was also a main
event at an in your House a year and a
half ago, so you know that May ninety seven in
your House was Undertaker when he was champion versus Stonehold.

(01:06:44):
Steve Wolston, who was basically a babyface just turned baby
face because I was after wrestle Mady at thirteen, So
it's like I kind of seen this already. So to me,
it wasn't like a huge main event that I needed
to see because I'd seen it, you know, and then
not to dis past, so I just wasn't as into
it in terms of like a story and a match

(01:07:07):
that I needed to see. I was just like, oh, like,
I wonder how Alston's gonna win because you know, the
Undertaker's not gonna beat him, you know, Like I just
didn't expect it, especially because the Undertaker beat him, you
know that in your house the year before. So yeah,
I kind of that's how I was looking at it
going into it. But man, that they did a lot
of really good spots. I know, like the end was

(01:07:29):
a little messy with a few botches, but obviously chalk
that off to Austin being concussed. So there's a few
botches here and there, but nothing to derail the match.
And it also included my spot of the night, So
how could I be bad about that match?

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
I also I would agree with that as well. We'll
talk about it when we get there. But I would
say that I was making a point here. Oh Steve
Austin SummerSlam two years in a row, he gets hurt. Yeah, yeah,
SummerSlam ninety seven obviously far more serious injury. He broke
his neck and his future, his career was in jeopardy.

(01:08:10):
This one is a concussion, which is still pretty bad.
You know, you know it's a brain. But I don't
think his career was in jeopardy, especially by nineteen ninety
eight standards, when he just got his bell rung. He
can wrestle the next night. But yeah, man, what's what's up?
What's up with Steve Austin. And then the next year
at SummerSlam he got remember he got caught in the ropes.

(01:08:31):
He brace got caught in the ropes, and I think
mankind had to free him from the ropes. Ye, always
something with him in SummerSlam going.

Speaker 3 (01:08:36):
He wound up having surgery a few months after that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:39):
There he goes like, damn, damn, so we had I
don't think we've talked about it enough. Like some Steve
Austin's rough history with SummerSlam, getting hurt in the middle
of the ring at SummerSlam but what was your worst
match of the night, good sir? From SummerSlam nineteen ninety eight.

Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
I'm gonna be honest. I didn't think there was a
bad match, Like, I didn't think there were good There
were there were like matches that weren't good, But I
don't think anything was like terrible, and I don't. I mean, like,
I just I feel bad because I'm picking between two here,
but I guess I'll list both of them. I didn't

(01:09:20):
think the Oddities and versus kind tie was like bad.
It was bad, but it wasn't obviously one of the
better matches.

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
That was a raw match at best.

Speaker 3 (01:09:30):
Why is it on summerlad Kirkan dancing? And that was
funny as hell.

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
It didn't belong to me. I'm sorry it did not belong.

Speaker 3 (01:09:38):
Yeah, that's minutes and ten seconds. I mean that I
get out here. I did not think. I thought about
maybe seven minutes in I was like, why damn this is?
That's just going on pretty long. So yeah, I do think.
I don't know, it was kind of funny seeing let
them play around with each other. I don't know. I

(01:10:03):
don't know, man, Like I didn't. I didn't hate it,
I guess maybe I hated it back then, like watching
it now like maybe I'm maybe I got soft.

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
I don't know, maybe I ain't there yet. So I'm
giving it my worse match of the night easily. Kayan
Thai versus the Oddities kayan Ti are represented by Dick
Togo uh Taka, Missionoku Shofu Naki and is it Men's
Tayo Yeah, Men's Tao and the oddities Giant Silver Golga
and Kergan of course Googa played by the artists formerly

(01:10:35):
known as Earthquake Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:10:37):
Great and the Shark and the Avalanche.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
Earthquake one half of the natural disasters are they They're
in the Hall of Fame now right? The natural disasters
I think they win in this year should have been
in the Hall of Fame, to be honest with you,
all time Great tag Team name too. At one point
he took a shoe off, had people sniff it to
just let the crowd know, Oh, it stinks, right, So

(01:11:01):
they go sniff and they go ooh, it smells so bad.
Then he poured water into it and then tossed it
into Yamagucci Son's face. Yamagucci for some reasons just in
the ring, like I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:11:11):
Like this, and then they threw it into his face and.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
He he just foolishly ran up on Googa for some
reason and then he goes out of the ring. Was like, no,
smells so bad, and it's like it's about to be sick,
and the crowd went mild. So there's that.

Speaker 4 (01:11:27):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:11:28):
Kai and Tai for me, looked like they would dressed
like generic street thugs from any generic nineties action.

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
Movie like name one, and they'd fit in.

Speaker 1 (01:11:36):
All of them. Okay, I could see John Claud Van Dam,
Steven Seagal, Jackie Chan, Chuck Norris, all of them whipping
up on any of them in any nineties action movie.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
Okay, you name it, any of them leath a weapon.

Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
Hell, Billy Blanks could have got an action movie in
and whipped up on him like you name it, any
nineties action buddy cop, serious, anything, you you name it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
That's what they look like to me. And Noddies.

Speaker 1 (01:12:09):
On the other hand, they were dressed like they just
grabbed whatever they saw at the thrift store and just
put it on, just put it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:16):
On, told them to be themselves, and they were.

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
There's nothing wrong with that. Just didn't scream superstar, but
got the sable was hanging out with the oddities too.

Speaker 3 (01:12:26):
Yeah. I got mad when uh the Insane Clown Posse
went to w c W.

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):
There were traders now they were I was like, dude,
made you guys. Meanwhile, they have fans all over the
world that they had a whole fan base and I'm
not really tapped into, but I know they got a
lot of fans. It's not kid ourselves about the Insane
Clown Posse. Uh, but uh Ki and Tai hit the

(01:12:55):
closest thing I've ever seen to a four post massacre.
Was ready to rumble.

Speaker 3 (01:13:00):
Yeah, I thought about the same thing. I was like,
that was cool, that was a good spot.

Speaker 1 (01:13:04):
They hit rapid fire splashes on Golga instead of the
the simultaneous one that did I'm ready to rumble, which
still doesn't make any sense. And they just made up
a move for the movie, like, who are the writers?
Like I got one? How about to do this ultra
super dangerous move where everybody jumps off the top of
at the same time and head butt them. Yeah, none

(01:13:24):
of the wrestler's like that doesn't work, doesn't make any sense.
Nobody said anything. It was like, yep, how much you
paying me, then I'll do whatever you want. Like you
get me a sad card, I'll do whatever you want.
I got you. Speaking of getting paid, the only silver
lining I got from this match, honestly was that everybody
got paid man, and they got paid the wrestle at

(01:13:46):
SummerSlam inside this Madison Square Garden and they could do
far worse things for a living, So kudos to them still,
But that's my worst match of the night from Summer Slam.

Speaker 3 (01:13:58):
For you, what was better about this that or what
was worse about this match than New Age out Laws
versus Mankind.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
At least there was people that were over evolved with
the matches. At the very least the match don't have
to be fantastic, but at least the crowd got to
be into it. This match just didn't have. The fans
weren't into it. I'm sorry, no disrespect to.

Speaker 3 (01:14:21):
Anybody dancing didn't do it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
No, I guess, not not as much as like Mankind
or the New Age Outlaws. Even though they battered Mick Foley,
they was still by.

Speaker 3 (01:14:33):
The way it's crazy to be.

Speaker 1 (01:14:34):
And they they just smoked Mankind for no reason and
then battered this man threw them in a dumpster and
everybody was like yay, like damn. Also more head chomer
for Mankind, like it's not necessary. Just just went got
thrown off the top of a cage like two months prior,
and it's getting battered by the New Age Outlaws. But

(01:14:57):
speaking of Mankind, my top non red happening is the
promo backstage with Mankind and Miss McMahon. I thought that
was hilarious.

Speaker 3 (01:15:05):
It is mine as well, and we have.

Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
The victory here.

Speaker 7 (01:15:10):
That's Summer slams.

Speaker 5 (01:15:15):
Michael Cole is standing by, I think with Mankind, Michael
take it away.

Speaker 1 (01:15:19):
So much has happened tonight.

Speaker 9 (01:15:21):
I don't know what else is gonna happen, but you've
had some time to think about it is that Kine
is not going to show up here tonight at SummerSlam.
So my question to you is, will you defend the
tag team titles tonight?

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Are you thinking of forfeit? Well, I don't know.

Speaker 7 (01:15:35):
I've lost my car, I've lost my tag team part,
I lost my sledgehammer.

Speaker 1 (01:15:40):
Maybe on a fourth of DM bill. Oh No, I
mean the people. I mean they want to get their
money's worth. They want to see this.

Speaker 7 (01:15:46):
People want their money's worthwhile by God.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
I don't want to disappoint the people.

Speaker 7 (01:15:51):
Michael, why don't you be my partner and we'll go
out there and we'll get our ass jicktole over masses
for Gordon.

Speaker 1 (01:15:58):
Better yet, I've got time. Let's go outside, the man
God and play in traffic. You'll w your money for it.
You traffic, My god, that's important to ever come down.

Speaker 4 (01:16:11):
It's okay then, so I'm gonna get killed out there.

Speaker 8 (01:16:17):
One person I understand that personally wants to see you
go play in the traffic. I don't think nobody wants
to see you come off the top of a cave.

Speaker 1 (01:16:25):
I don't think.

Speaker 8 (01:16:27):
It's competition at it's hiked, Okay. I mean, come on,
do you remember when you were just a little kid
and you hitch hiked to Madison Square Garden? You in
a minute, okay, you remember, like I used to hang
around thirty third Street and don't wait for the boys
to come out so you can get autograph. You remember
that it was a little bit different garden. It's history,
and this is where you belong.

Speaker 1 (01:16:48):
This is truly where you belong.

Speaker 3 (01:16:49):
Tonight.

Speaker 1 (01:16:50):
Oh my god, I got an idea, and it may
be insane.

Speaker 8 (01:16:53):
It may be just a little crazy, but just think
about it, if you If you can one man.

Speaker 1 (01:17:00):
Who is talking in the background being a.

Speaker 8 (01:17:02):
Tag team championship shut out one man in Madison Square
Garden again on one night, what will happen to me?
I can guarantee you you'll be in Madison Square Gardens
Hall of Fame by next week. I'll personally guarantee that then.

Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
So don't I don't have my sledgehammer.

Speaker 7 (01:17:18):
It's falls Count anywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:17:19):
I don't have your kind of match. I don't have
a weapon.

Speaker 8 (01:17:22):
It's no holes barred, you know, falls Count anywhere.

Speaker 3 (01:17:26):
It's you.

Speaker 6 (01:17:27):
It's you.

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
But where's my Sledgehammer's not here?

Speaker 3 (01:17:30):
I don't have a weapon.

Speaker 8 (01:17:30):
There's plenty of weapons around I need because if I
can find.

Speaker 1 (01:17:34):
Something of weapons around here, here you go, and.

Speaker 7 (01:17:37):
This is the biggest arena in the world. And tonight, man, God,
it's going to successfully defend against two people.

Speaker 1 (01:17:44):
Well, look, I can hand you.

Speaker 8 (01:17:48):
Look, I can hand you history in a silver platter,
in a silver platter, it.

Speaker 3 (01:17:54):
Gets whatever I don't like it.

Speaker 7 (01:17:56):
Well, I've got thirteen words.

Speaker 1 (01:18:00):
Go the wood chuck chuck.

Speaker 10 (01:18:01):
If a wood chuck chuck.

Speaker 9 (01:18:02):
Would right now a closer look at the Lions down.

Speaker 1 (01:18:07):
Oh my god, Vince handed him literally a silver platter
and like a candlestick or some sort like, yeah, there's
a series of candles here.

Speaker 3 (01:18:17):
You go aside, there's plenty of.

Speaker 1 (01:18:20):
Weapons around here, and he marches in the background to
grab the weapons. Mankind, by the way, got his ass
wood by the New Age Outlaws rather swiftly.

Speaker 3 (01:18:28):
It was right, he did not.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
Mankind got got duped. And it wouldn't be the first
time that Vince mcman talked somebody into doing something that
didn't necessarily want to do. Uh, And it wouldn't be
the last neither, it would not be the last. But yeah,
Mankind got whooped up on by the New Age Outlaws.

Speaker 3 (01:18:48):
By the way, what's he misson his sledgehammer.

Speaker 1 (01:18:54):
At the end of the match. After the match is over,
I should say, New Age Outlaws put Mick Foley of
Mankind in a dumpster and they're just like looking at
the dumpster, like, oh, there's a dumpster. He's in it now,
and then out of the dumpster.

Speaker 10 (01:19:06):
That that's that's gotta be can Oh my god, oh my.

Speaker 3 (01:19:24):
God, I did not hear it.

Speaker 11 (01:19:26):
By the way, there was a little sound.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
Damn Hill damn him, Damn Hill. I cannot believe that.
Damn him, that.

Speaker 3 (01:19:57):
Damn damon. I'm sitting there wondering why Jr's pissed because
technically mankind is still supposed to be a heel. It's
not like he turned face. Him and Kine were partners.

Speaker 1 (01:20:09):
JR. Has empathy and he would not like to even
see the bad guys get their head squashed by a sledgehammer.

Speaker 3 (01:20:16):
Oh okay, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:20:17):
Because his head should have been cracked open and can't
really hit him with a sledgehammer. Vick Foley would have
to be seen again. So there's that. I didn't have
a worse non wrestling happening necessarily. I don't know if
you did. No, it wasn't a non wrestling There wasn't

(01:20:42):
a ton of non wrestling happenings on the show. Maybe
you know what out throwing the fact that metha Man
got showed in the crowd. But he was way up
top somewhere. He wasn't even on the floor seats. He
was amongst the folks. Maybe he wanted to sit there.
I don't know, but I feel like even by ninety eight,
methan Man was a list sot On the front Road.
All right, what's going on here? Wu Tang. By the way,

(01:21:05):
I had the last content ever in Philly last week.
I was not in attendance for it. Unfortunately. I'm still
kind of sad about it. But it's all right. It's
all right speaking of metha Man and Wu Tang clan.
But any hidden gems for you from Summer Slam nineteen
ninety eight.

Speaker 3 (01:21:28):
That was pretty awesome. I'm not gonna lie. That was
pretty awesome. It's not my only hitting gem, but that
I had to highlight that because I thought we were
gonna get like a lame one, but I thought, dude,
that was intense. That was an intense sucket from Howard Finkel.
And it's so funny how Jeff Jared got like so
bad by it, So listen, that was funny. I have

(01:21:52):
two hitting gems, so my first one actually surprised me.
I thought, I was this was like a lame Before
I watched it, I was like, oh I remember this,
I wasn't it wasn't that great? I was. I was
pleasantly surprised by Delo Brown versus Valvenus. I thought that
was a really good match with the chess protector coming

(01:22:14):
in play, funny moment. Valve somehow getting like Jimmy corderos't
doesn't allow val to use it, like I guess because
it's Delo's.

Speaker 1 (01:22:24):
So Dilo had a medical reason, bro, he had a
medical note from a doctor. So yeah, it's his. You know,
I can't use it. It's a foreign object for you,
it's protection.

Speaker 3 (01:22:34):
For him, That's what I'm saying. He didn't even check
it if it was reinforced when I guess it was,
you know, like.

Speaker 1 (01:22:39):
It was also just a piece of foam. Was passing
off as a piece of I guess a plate metal
type deal, but it's clearly just foam.

Speaker 3 (01:22:48):
And I kind of got mad when he stopped wearing
it because I thought the chess protector bade Delo Brown
look better in terms of presentation.

Speaker 2 (01:22:54):
Maybe maybe because it.

Speaker 3 (01:22:56):
Made him look bigger, like in the chest, you know,
like I was like, damn this guy, August Hell. That's
how what I thought back then. And I believe he
was the first European champion, the like Teut. How many
European cities he was from, Yes, that was great.

Speaker 1 (01:23:12):
Italy, Germany, He's from a different country every week, France,
in Mark.

Speaker 3 (01:23:18):
It was like af magazine. He had a like the
painted all mustache with a beret on this week this France.

Speaker 1 (01:23:28):
Like he's the European champion.

Speaker 3 (01:23:30):
Man, I forgot how entertaining he was, honestly because we
haven't seen a lot of his matches, like doing deep
dives as much as others. But man, like that match.
I'll tell you, man, I'd watch it again. I don't.
I don't think anyone talks about that match.

Speaker 1 (01:23:46):
Yeah, this match is great. Uh, Delo Brown hitting a
low down on Valvenus as he came off the top rope,
great spot, insane, It's so good. Uh. People started chanting
Delo Brown's name at one point msg which should mean
a lot. And I guess he did get a little
bit of a push after this, like he was he

(01:24:06):
was both Intercontinental and European champion at one point, Right,
did he have both belts by like ninety nine or
something like that. I forget what it was.

Speaker 3 (01:24:14):
Oh you know what I think he did, because then
he gave the European title to Mark Henry, Right.

Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
Yeah, yeah, I think he went against like Jeff Jerrett
summers Land the next year or something like that for
one of those I think the ic title, but never
to the highest level, and I'm not totally sure why.
It seemed like he had the tools to at least
be in the main event scene, and it's not necessarily
went world titles all the time, but.

Speaker 3 (01:24:35):
Might have caught a glimpse a little bit during this dispatch,
he almost draws Valvenus.

Speaker 1 (01:24:42):
Oh Jesus, I did not see. I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:24:44):
Yeah, he tried to get him up for the running
power Bob and dropped a valve right on his neck.

Speaker 1 (01:24:49):
Yikes.

Speaker 3 (01:24:50):
Yeah, Luckily like for valve at that point, it didn't
hurt him at least seemingly too bad. So they did
it again the second time and he got a up
and did the running power bomb. But yeah, the first
time he dropped a vallance, Like you could see him
struggling to get him up and then he he just
drops him. It was like no, no, like, don't do that, dlo,

(01:25:12):
Like what are you doing? Man? Like just make make
his legs go back and then you know, retool and
and do it again. But no, he just dropped him.
He was like damn. So I was like, oh damn,
that's exactly what happened to Draws.

Speaker 4 (01:25:29):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:25:29):
I don't think there's any Well, I'm sure there's footage
of it from the camera in the in the arena
because it was a dark match, but yeah, there's no
footage of that happened. And what was that the so
next year, Yeah, it was a ninety nine, late ninety nine.
I think that happened to something like that with Darren
Dodge Draws Dog during a dark match before SmackDown or something.

(01:25:53):
So yeah, it was uh when that happened. I kind
of did like a gasp a little bit. I was like, oh,
did not remember that happening and we did not see
you know, the same thing happened to val that happened
to Draws. But I was like, oh, yeah, I guess
he wasn't as trusted in the ring to be giving
maybe like a rocket, but his wrestling persona and characters

(01:26:16):
certainly were like made event level for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:26:19):
Yeah, for sure. For sure. Valven is also super over.
You know, he kind of sucks today, but he was
hello over and they were always paying to this crowd
to see how women reacted to him. And by the
next ninety eight standards, I guess he was a sex symbol.
I don't know, I guess ladies, you were of age
at that time. Let me know, Like, tell me how

(01:26:40):
you felt about Valvenus in ninety eight, because people were
they were cheering for me. Was over so due the
Hello ladies and they go, ahh, I guess they like
him skip like day a lot though. I mean, look,
it's the upper body business. As Rick Root once said, pants,

(01:27:02):
I think he would eventually, but not at this time.
At the end of the match with one, Valvenus gets
its qualified. So it's kind of a strange ending to
a pretty fun match.

Speaker 3 (01:27:12):
Did not like starting off the show with a ending.
I thought, for some reason, I thought val won this,
But I did think that one. I didn't think it
was lame that the ref went and let him wear
the chest protectors.

Speaker 1 (01:27:28):
It's not his, but it's for protection.

Speaker 3 (01:27:32):
It's wrestling. It's funny. It's supposed to be.

Speaker 1 (01:27:34):
Rules, and I have got to have some type of
rules in this society. Where where would we be if
it didn't have any rules in structure?

Speaker 3 (01:27:41):
You know, So like if somebody took off Owen Heart's
cast and used it, that would be wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:27:47):
Yeah, hearts wearing it for to protect himself. He probably
shouldn't even be out there, so yeah, you're right. Valvenus though,
is a sour great and he takes it out on
the referee of all people, got the ref and body
slams the ref and hits him with the money shot. Pause. Uh.

(01:28:08):
And it's funny that it's called the money shot because
it should cost him some money, because he should.

Speaker 2 (01:28:13):
He should be fine for doing such a thing.

Speaker 1 (01:28:16):
Even Jr.

Speaker 2 (01:28:16):
Alluded to that. I also had that as a hitting gym.

Speaker 1 (01:28:19):
I will also want to mention the hair versus Hair
match X Pot versus Jeff Jarrett. I thought Howard.

Speaker 2 (01:28:26):
Fink was coming out and singing sucker.

Speaker 1 (01:28:29):
It was pretty good. He jagged it out for.

Speaker 3 (01:28:34):
A long time. He really did. He said, I'm gonna
do the h make sure it's not.

Speaker 2 (01:28:40):
Just like hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:28:43):
He might be onto something. I'm gonna start talking like
Howard Fink on now. I did love x Pot calling
Jeff jareded at BAC at one point, I got that
popular thing to say in the late nineties. At one point,
Xpot hits the X Factor, but Southern Justice comes out

(01:29:06):
with Jeff Jared's guitar in tow x Pot. Hets a
hold of it and hits Jeff Jared with the guitar
to win the match, blast him over the head.

Speaker 3 (01:29:15):
With doesn't hear it and he doesn't see the in
the ring.

Speaker 1 (01:29:18):
No, none of that, bro, none of that. Just bow
elkabong them and then won the match to keep his
hair and they get a chance to shave Jeff Jared's head.
The New Age Outlaws comes out right, they help x Poc,
so does the Head Bangers in Draws. It's like everybody
gets on forward. There's all these Ball Brothers except Billy
gunn right and x Poc. I guess, I guess all

(01:29:40):
the d X they had hair, but the Headbangers Ball
Brothers Draws are nearly bald. But yeah, they come out
to cut Jeff Jared's hair and he's all mad about
Everybody takes the hair and puts it on top of
their head and stuff like that. I thought that was
kind of fun, so that I will mention that it's
a little bit of a hitting gym, just because it
was kind of fun. Just mostly a fun moment on

(01:30:01):
the show.

Speaker 3 (01:30:02):
Funny you having the New Age out Laws appear as
baby faces and then turned heel and then their baby
faces at the end of the night.

Speaker 1 (01:30:08):
Really weird stuff, really weird booking of the Laws and
d X in general. I think d X in general
was weird booking. They wouldn't beef with the Nation and
be good guys, but beef with a lot of other
people be bad guys. They also did black face, like yeah,
and they were good guys.

Speaker 3 (01:30:23):
Just a few before this show.

Speaker 1 (01:30:25):
So it's like they were really confusing because ninety eight,
early ninety eight they were all they were heels. New
Age out Laws were heels, Triple As was a heel,
and then nothing they did really didn't to become baby face.

Speaker 3 (01:30:36):
They pissed up their motorcycles.

Speaker 1 (01:30:38):
Right, but I guess that that's what made them good
guys because they didn't like DOA. The fans never really liked.
Da DX is definitely cooler than these silent but deadly bikers, right.

Speaker 3 (01:30:51):
And crushed went to WCW. So now it's like damn who.

Speaker 1 (01:30:55):
Cares and anybody end of the year, they're helping make
mankind win the title.

Speaker 2 (01:31:00):
Like so they're baby faces, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:31:03):
All right, the Outlaws don'tn't act like baby faces like
the New Age Outlaws act like heels all the time, generally.

Speaker 3 (01:31:11):
Even Triple h before because before this, like he hadn't
wrestled in a while, he had a he had a
legit knee injury, and they, oh, well, you know what,
never mind, I'm thinking about after because he had to
forfeit the Icy title because of a knee injury. But
that was after this. I was no, I was gonna
say like he was acting heelish even you know then,

(01:31:31):
but this was after SummerSlam when he had to like
forfeit the Icy title, so he was he was acting
like a heel on commentary. Uh during this Icy Title
tournament or whatever. I think Ken Shamrock wound up winning eventually,
and then Shamrock became like a heel after that. So
it was a lot of weirdness going on in this

(01:31:53):
stage of the year in ninety eight because like you're
you're being told kind of a cheer for one, even
though Vince came out and said, we don't have good
guys versus bad guys, but it's very clearly obvious who
Jim Ross is telling you to cheer for.

Speaker 1 (01:32:07):
Yeah, it was. It was a weird time overall, specifically
with DX. It was weird with them. I guess they
were tweeners and I guess that was like the way
of doing like we're not, you know, doing good guys
or so there's bad guys, like Vince said, and I
guess d X was a prime example of that. Even
I guess Steve Austin was also an example because he
was definitely a bad guy that people just loved. It
wasn't necessarily a nice guy. But you know, this seemed

(01:32:31):
different with DX for some reason. But let's move on
to one of our new categories. We got best spot
from SummerSlam nineteen ninety eight. I think we'll agree on
this because we did kind of allude to it earlier.
But it has to be the Undertaker hitting a leg
drop from the top rope to Steve Austin through the
announced table, which was wild.

Speaker 3 (01:32:52):
I was shocked that he didn't move the other monitor
and the fan because he kind of landed on that
a little bit what his left cheek. It looked like
he moved one monitor, but he didn't move the other.
I was like, damn, that probably stung quite a bit.
And he Undertaker was already nursing like a bad ankle.
I'm pretty sure he had a broken ankle at that point.
And uh yeah, I mean like that was a spot

(01:33:16):
where you see you still like didn't see it all
the time, especially from the Undertaker, and then just anything
like that to Austin, you're just kind of like, oh
my god, and just like the being able to do
that while still closely all since concussed was kind of crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:33:37):
Pretty dangerous. Yeah, again, this is nineteen ninety eight, so
they're pretty much like what concussion so don't matter. But yeah,
that's definitely the biggest spot of the night. I won't
I wanted to give a shout out to Sable though.
We hitting a really clean Frankensteiner from the top rope
that was clean, So I gotta give Sabler props for
that worst spot of the night. Did you have a

(01:33:58):
worse spot?

Speaker 3 (01:33:59):
No, I you know what, Delo probably dropping Val is
probably pretty bad. Luckily no one got hurt on that spot,
but I think it kind of shows you, oh jeez,
like maybe Delo should have come up with another finisher
at some point. Maybe he had a little tough with
tough time with the bigger people.

Speaker 1 (01:34:21):
My pick for worst spot would be Edge spanking jacqu woman.

Speaker 3 (01:34:26):
That's yeah that yeah, that's pretty dumb, that's brutal.

Speaker 1 (01:34:33):
Yeah, it's pretty rough. All right, let's get into the
random thoughts. I got a couple uh that can run
through real quick. One nothing really to do with WW
or wrestling, but it got brought up. Donioddes match that
uh jr. Brought up the Little League World Series champs
from that year in nineteen ninety eight, and they were

(01:34:53):
the Little League team from Tom's Riven, New Jersey, the
Beast from the East. Tom's Riven, New Jersey for those
that don't know, it's about ninety minutes east of Philly,
so not far from us. And then I remember this
damn team being all over the news that summer of
ninety eight. Over all they talked about was to be
from the East, Tom's Viva New Jersey. The boys out

(01:35:15):
there was hitting dangers left and right. Boy, And this
was like my first little exposure to the Little League
World Series, and it just so happened to that happened
in the summer of ninety eight, which if you're a
sports fan, or a baseball fan specifically, that's particularly special
summer for baseball because that's the summer of the home
run race between Samy Soslo and Mark maguire, which brought
baseball back into like pretty much the social consciousness of

(01:35:38):
the country, like after the strike in ninety four, which
I still still laugh at the players, like saying, we're
shutting this all down. But when it came back in
ninety five, it kind of struggled to regain the footing
and had prior and in the NFL football was becoming
a juggernaut daily, and of course basketball, I I guess

(01:35:58):
ninety five they didn't have him, but he would eventually
come back, so you'd have Michael Jordan Nick attending with two.
So baseball kind of lost his footing a little bit,
and Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa helped put it back
on the map with that home run race. And then
at the same time, you have this little league team
from nearby Toms River, New Jersey, just raking out there
in Williamsport in Pennsylvania as well, and they will have

(01:36:22):
a lot of fun to watch all over the news.
Like I said, this team included one future Big leaguer,
by the way, in the name of Todd Fraser. You
might have heard of Todd Fraser before made his debut
in twenty eleven. He went to two All Star Games
twenty fourteen and twenty fifteen and won the Home Run
Derby in twenty fifteen, finished with two hundred and eighteen

(01:36:42):
homers and six hundred and forty RBIs and left with
one cool nickname, as he is known as the Todd
Father out there in Cincinnati. So do you have any
memories of this because I know you played baseball growing up,
so I know you were all in on the boys
from Toms River.

Speaker 3 (01:36:57):
I wish i'd kind of taped these games, but I didn't.
But yeah, it was all over the news. Like you said,
they won the Little League World Series the day before,
so it was a big wicket. It was a big
weekend for me, you know, I was tune in that
Saturday and then Summer Slam was Sunday. So yeah, I
remember just being all over the news and like, man,

(01:37:17):
I wish that was me because I was, you know,
playing baseball, but our season. Really I didn't play summer
baseball as much as I guess I would have liked to.
I don't know if it's just because my parents going
to afford you know, certain leagues or what. It's not
like I could just show up and play, Like you
gotta pay to get in and I paid well. I

(01:37:39):
didn't pay. But you know, I played township ball, which
started in like April and then went to June. So
I was like kind of done in June, and then
I was just ready for the next year. But I
didn't do any training though. I didn't go to batting cages.
I didn't do any of that. I just didn't have
the means to do.

Speaker 1 (01:37:56):
That or the people around you to tell you to
do that too.

Speaker 3 (01:37:59):
I know, like there was nobody, yeah, nobody I didn't have,
Like the friends that lived around me didn't really play
like I would have to, you know, walk ten minutes
just to get to somebody's house that was a teammate,
and it's just not something we did back then. I
played with some of the kids on my block. They
were you know, a few years younger than me. But

(01:38:20):
that's all I did, you know, Like I didn't again,
there was no direction that I had, you know, in
that but like when I played baseball at all, there
was really no directions like, oh, I could play here,
I could play there, I could play you know, during
this time or that time, it was just I was
waiting for someone to get me that information instead of

(01:38:42):
kind of seeking it out. And I guess my parents
didn't really know either because nobody told them. And it's
not like we had the internet to look up stuff.
So I mean there was at the time, but at
that time, I don't even know if there would have
been if we had the internet, if there was even
a way to get that information online. But yeah, I

(01:39:02):
just you know, I wish I had done a little
bit more so I could play a little bit more.
So when I was watching this, I was like, how
are these guys still playing? Like my season ended two
months ago, Like what's going on here?

Speaker 4 (01:39:13):
Well?

Speaker 1 (01:39:14):
You also played, like because it would be like the
area put together an all star team, right, maybe right,
because I don't I think like one individual team. It'd
be like a little area. I think, right, because I
know some teams are like all star teams.

Speaker 3 (01:39:27):
Like our Star team certain areas, and then they would
just play each other until there was like one winner,
and then he would represent.

Speaker 2 (01:39:33):
Right area and that region.

Speaker 3 (01:39:35):
Eventually you would represent the state if you want, you know,
against whatever, something like I actually had. I think it
was like over ten years ago, someone from East Greenwich,
New Jersey. A team was very close to the Little
League World Series. I think they lost the game that
would have put them at least in the first round

(01:39:55):
or something of that. But yeah, I remember there being
kind of a craze for that because it's right there
where I work, and yeah, you know, it wasn't didn't
pan out, but I got to coach some of those
guys because they played for the baseball team I coached
for it when they grew up. So that was really
cool to kind of like put two and two together
because I wasn't really following it closely enough, but I

(01:40:20):
do follow it now, like here and there, the League
World Series, especially if there's local ties. Obviously, the Phillies
went to the Little League World Classic or Little League
Classic two years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:40:30):
So yeah, they played in Williamsport.

Speaker 3 (01:40:32):
I was plugged into that quite a bit. So and
now it's picking up Steve. Now we're in that time
period that time, the League World Series and the Little
League Softball World Series.

Speaker 1 (01:40:43):
Well, I was watching that the other day. A team
in Pennsylvania's playing against a team.

Speaker 3 (01:40:46):
From Delaware who won that one.

Speaker 1 (01:40:48):
I didn't finish it, but I was watching it. I
was checking it out. But little League World Series area,
it's got some big moments. Is Tom's River team is
like super famous. I think they only lost like one, Like,
I don't know if they lost once they got to
I think they won every game in Williamsport. But also
remember the team from like twenty fourteen in Philly called
the teeny Dragons where they had a girl picture by

(01:41:09):
the name of Monette Davis, something out of a Disney movie.

Speaker 3 (01:41:11):
We have that sports illustrated by the way with her
on the cover.

Speaker 1 (01:41:15):
Incredible and she's trying to try out for the women's
professional baseball league that's starting up soon too, which should
be cool as well. But yeah, that was like a
Disney movie, like yeah, come to life, and it was
happening here in Philly. And I was working at the
Inquiry back then twenty fourteen, and man, you talk about
something that we was reporting on every single day that
swept the Biddy swept, the Biddy swept the city and

(01:41:38):
the Biddy but this city and the Biddy by storm
them teeny Dragons fourteen, Yeah, Biddy in the city. But
that was all the rage in twenty fourteen. Man, I
mean they was talking. I think the President was like
talking about them, because I think they played the team
from Chicago at one point and of course, you know,
at the time Obama was a president. He's a Chicago guy,

(01:42:00):
so he's probably talking about the Chicago team. And I
think they played against the Philly team straight out of
Philly to not like the area, but like South Philly.
So that was a pretty neat moment. Uh, it's pretty
speaking of Tom's River again, Let's get back to Tom's
River real quick. They're also home to the Lighter Brothers
al m Mark, remember them from back in the day
two great pictures. Also, Todd's brother Jeff was also in

(01:42:23):
the majors for a little bit. Uh. South Jersey in
general just turns out some big leaguers every now and then,
including of course Mike Trout, who is from Millville and
as a big Eagles fan. Every it's a shame to
see him every September and October in the stands at
Eagles games because you know that means he's not in
the playoffs again, but here he is in that front

(01:42:44):
row seat in October. Poor Mike Trout know that damn well,
he's not poor at all. It's the safe. He's the
exact opposite of the poor. But just from the standpoint
of winning and not winning, yikes. Show Hey got the
hell out of.

Speaker 3 (01:43:00):
Too. So yeah, he plays hard. So it's like you
don't see him take it easy, you know. So like
he's probably gonna have to start if he wants to
make sure his career is long and he can play
without getting hurt. But like he came and he mashed
when they played in a phillyate like a week or

(01:43:20):
two ago, and he was like stealing bases and stuff.
I was like, oh man, like he was one time
in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 (01:43:28):
One time the best player in baseball. I mean, show
had I think it's a guy now, but at one
time it's unequivocally Mike Trout and the Angels has never
put anybody on that kick both of them had, both
show Hay and Trout. Unless show Hey get out the door.
I mean, look, they probably can't pay what the Dodgers
can pay, but it's like, at least put a competitive
team on the field and maybe he would have stayed. Yeah, nope,

(01:43:51):
So that's unfortunate. But back to the Litle League World
Series two, I also think the Little League World Series
is just really cool. I've always just enjoyed seeing the
kids to be really happy when they win, or I've
always really sad for them when they lose. You know,
I always lead. I love seeing how much it means
to them, especially the kids from other countries who come
from all over the world to play in Williamsport. Even

(01:44:13):
though there's something going on right now, the team of
Venezuela who got denied visas because of travel bands that
we have in this country now, and it's affecting all
walks of life, not supposed to be sports. Apparently, that's
the exception. But except when this team, this team of Venezuela,
one of our teams from the white countries, got in.
I'm sure they pretty sure they got in pretty good.

(01:44:33):
But Venezuela, they got, they got they got held up apparently.
But if I do have a hot take about the
Little League World Series is that it's the one true
world series going to death.

Speaker 2 (01:44:46):
So they actually compete from teams from around the world.

Speaker 1 (01:44:50):
But I'm not one of those people that's like world champion,
because I know it is very American of us to say,
like our teams are the best in the world. That's
just like we have to have the best. But in
a lot of cases it's probably true, like especially football,
like name a better football team in the world than
the Eagles. I think the Eagles is gonna lose to
a team from Canada. No, the team from Japan, No,

(01:45:12):
a team from Europe that there's a European league right now.
The Eagles would beat the Ryan Fire by one hundred points,
like the Chiefs would beat the Nordic Storm by two
hundred points. It's just like it'd be a massacre, all right. So, yeah,
they're the best in the world. So when their rings
say super World champions on them, that's what my ring
says on it. And they just got their new ones

(01:45:32):
that's even bigger than the one I got and like
a child compared to theirs, But it also says world
champions on it. Yeah, more than likely they are the
best team in the world. Same for basketball. You're not
gonna find another club team that's gonna beat the best
NBA team. Generally, they're not beating a thunder. They'll probably
give them a goo game, but they're probably not gonna
beat them, right. A club team, not the national team.

(01:45:52):
A club team, right. Same for maybe you say the
team for hockey, but they don't really say world champions
in hockey. I don't think like they really say that
too many. They'll just say Stanley Cup champions. But in baseball,
it's the World Series, even though you're playing against teams
from the US and Canada. But those teams overseas in
Japan can play bro something like those these dudes can play.

Speaker 3 (01:46:15):
I would love to see that. I know they have
the World Baseball Classic, but it's uh, that's international competitions,
like all star teams, you know, like a right do
like the best team of the Japanese League versus the
best team in MLB.

Speaker 2 (01:46:27):
All right, club like they just did with the Club
World Cup.

Speaker 1 (01:46:29):
Here they had the Club team, so you had Chelsea
who won the Club World Cup. But in theory, you
could have had Chelsea go against the Union, which Chelsea's
gonna smoke the Union probably, But like, that's the type
of competition we're talking about, and we don't see that
in baseball, even though I would say that, especially in Japan,
that competition is a lot closer than to the Major

(01:46:49):
League Baseball. Then you say, like the CFL or the
ELF is to the NFL. H those guys can really play.
They take those guys from over there, paying a bunch
of money and they start right away in the majors,
like they don't go through the miners, like they get
straight to the big club more than likely, right at
least less, I'm tripping a show hate did show Hay
spend any time in the miners?

Speaker 3 (01:47:09):
I have no idea. I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (01:47:10):
I don't think so. And like you Darvish and other people,
there's another big name picture that the Phillies were trying
to get a couple of years ago from Japan. I
can't remember his name, but and they lost out on
him to the Dodgers. I think, yeah, Amoto, and they
lost out on him to the Dodgers, But I don't
is he Is he not in the big club? No,
he's there, Okay, So, like they're paying him a bunch

(01:47:31):
of money these paintings US millions and millions, and not
paying them that minimum to come to the majors.

Speaker 3 (01:47:37):
They're paying Like the one Japanese picture they signed this
year they just released, the Phillies did, oh, yeah, you
don't have great numbers. But yeah, it's like, I guess
we're never gonna tap into that market.

Speaker 1 (01:47:49):
Maybe I'm really.

Speaker 3 (01:47:50):
Good players, like they got some players better with yes,
Japanese players and Latino players and it's just.

Speaker 1 (01:47:57):
They got some ballers, bro. So's it's that's why I
understand what people were maybe for baseball, the like world champions,
but like, I'm not one of those types. I'm gonna
be like, oh, you know, not really, we don't play
the world. It's like, you know that the best team
in the world, bro, Like, come on, Like, I don't
want to sound like the sec of like the world.
Like people say, like, you know, the sc it's better
than the rest of it us, Like, well, let's prove it.

Speaker 3 (01:48:18):
But like.

Speaker 1 (01:48:20):
The Eagles versus the Frankfurt Galaxy, the Chiefs versus the
Winnipeg Blue Bombers, they got some ballers in Winnipeg. Don't
gonna be wrong. You know, I'm a CFL guy through
and through, but it's a little bit different. What other
random thoughts do I have outside of Little League World
Series nonsense? We got onwen Heart. I did love on

(01:48:43):
Heart and Ken Shamrock. The lead up to the Lions
den with On Heart going back to the Dungeon and
getting Dan Severn. The prepping for the match. The Lions
in itself was fine. I did like the unique setting
of the theater next to the Magiston square garden for
that match, more intimate setting. It felt like a more
like a almost more like a not only aggressive, but

(01:49:04):
like more of like a colosseum type setting where the
fans were more rabbit. It felt like there than they
did in the actual garden itself, maybe because it's just
a smaller environment.

Speaker 3 (01:49:13):
Better than the asylum match at Great America Bash two thousand.

Speaker 2 (01:49:19):
Well, it just lowered a circle into the ring and
they said, here fighting here.

Speaker 3 (01:49:26):
We don't have an celerity theater. Sorry, it's got to
be in the ring.

Speaker 1 (01:49:29):
Just lower this little cylinder into the ring. It just
make the space smaller. It's just so stupid. But yeah,
that's all I had here for Summer Slam nineteen ninety eight.
There's all of my random thoughts. What are yours?

Speaker 3 (01:49:42):
I did enjoy I'll just add one more. During the
ladder match, Jerry Lawler, they were using the ladder, obviously
we talked about that. Jerry Lawler says about Triple H
hitting the rock with a ladder. He swung the ladder
like Mark McGuire with swing a baseball bat. Oh, Current Events,
we love it.

Speaker 1 (01:49:59):
We love it, didn't know because that means yeah, Tiplaci's
head is flying out of the stands.

Speaker 3 (01:50:06):
We were literally just stays away from Bark Maguire breaking
uh the home run record, but.

Speaker 1 (01:50:10):
Oh we were. Man, it is August thirtieth, so yeah,
we're nearing the end of the baseball season.

Speaker 3 (01:50:15):
It's funny because Jibros's response, why don't we ever talk
about Sammy Sosa? Never mind, that's what he said.

Speaker 1 (01:50:23):
Damn.

Speaker 2 (01:50:23):
I mean, yeah, Sammy Sosa is right there with him
the whole.

Speaker 3 (01:50:25):
Time, crazy like yeah, I like.

Speaker 1 (01:50:30):
Saying he playing in the bigger market, playing Chicago, play
for the Cubs.

Speaker 3 (01:50:33):
I wanted him to break the record.

Speaker 1 (01:50:35):
I say for Sammy Sosa, bro, he was cooler to me.
So you would do the peace kissed the way he
would doing it like the kiss his heart kisses lis
like do the I don't forget what you call like
peace on the lips to the heart, and he would
do it like six times. And then Sammy Sosa was cool.
He was dark skinned Dominican brother man doing it, doing

(01:50:57):
a thing. Then he bleached his skin, man, what the
hell hell? Then he corked the bat and bleached the skin.
And we don't know what this war's going on, but
he was a guy I like Sammy Sosa.

Speaker 3 (01:51:08):
Yeah, and the great part about it was, uh, Mark
McGuire was all the cardinals at the side. I still
remember him from the Athletics and I were just I
was like, damn he kills us, so like I didn't
not that Sammy Sosa didn't kill us, but I was like,
I don't know, I just gravitated towards Sammy Sosi more
than I did Mark McGuire.

Speaker 1 (01:51:25):
He seemed like the more fun loving guy Mark McGuire was.

Speaker 2 (01:51:28):
He seemed like a nice and it seemed like a
mean guy right.

Speaker 3 (01:51:31):
Uh but it justs just big.

Speaker 1 (01:51:33):
Yeah, big dude, jacked up arms. Sammy Celsa would run
out of the dugout straight to the outfits, full sprint
and like wave to the fans as he did it,
like and it was like he was a showman right right.
He brought, he brought, He's smiling all the time. People
just he had a more viber personality than Mark McGuire. Again,
nothing against Mark McGuire. Wasn't like he had no charisma.
He was one of the Bash brothers. Like come on now,

(01:51:54):
it was dope back in the day and they were
doing dope, probably too bad in the day. People got
suspended and whatnot. That's why they're not in the Hall
of Fame, even though they probably should be. I picked
Mark McGuire and then yeah, and Sammy Sosa and Barry
Bond tell even the Jose canseeko, yes and put them
in there too, But uh, to me, yeah, I was
more of a Sammy Sosa kid growing up than the

(01:52:16):
Mark McGuire kid. Maybe that was like the Hogan and
Warrior of that time, like the side of the school yard. Yeah,
one side on Sammy Sosa and the other side on
Mark McGuire.

Speaker 3 (01:52:26):
It's funny because I obviously baseball was my first love,
like of sport growing up. So people were like, oh,
they're saved, they've saved baseball, and I was like, you know,
like baseball like me saved, Like I didn't understand what
they meant. And then obviously this strike, you know, a
couple of years prior, it's like, well, I'm mad that
baseball is not but it's like it's not like it's

(01:52:47):
gonna go away. It's just one league. Like I could
still play in my league, so it's not like baseball's
going away, you know, Like baseball never left me. I
was just like, oh, I just can't watch it on TV. Okay,
that sucks, but I'll watch rest like that's that. But yeah,
I mean like they were like, oh they say baseball,
and like I just remember going back and being like, man,

(01:53:08):
how incredible just watching those games were It's like the
first time I was like literally rooting for teams that
were not my own. Really it was just the players.
But yeah, you know, like I'm watching the Phillies were terrible.

Speaker 1 (01:53:22):
So yes, nice.

Speaker 3 (01:53:24):
I watched baseball now And I believe Maguire broke the
record the day before the first day of school I started.
I started eighth grade that year, and it was like
the night before it was like on Fox, you know,
and he.

Speaker 1 (01:53:35):
And they would do the live cuttings. Yeah yeah, yep
of him, and I don't think they did it for
Sammy too, but I think, yeah, at one point Mark
kind of got ahead of Sammy by a couple yep.
So it was really Marx race to win because I
think he hit seventy and Sammy.

Speaker 3 (01:53:49):
Hit like sixty six.

Speaker 1 (01:53:51):
Okay, yeah, so he got Mark got away from him
a little bit near the end, and so it was
really Marks race at the end and they would do live.
I'll never forget that you watched the sporting event, any
sporting event, and they would cut in to the sporting
event to show Mark McGuire's at bat. Because this record
was so historical. It's the all time single season home
run record, which had stood since I think nineteen sixty

(01:54:11):
one and is when Roger Maris hit sixty one home runs,
and they tried to put an asterisk next to his
record because he played more games than the guy who
had the previous record, which was Babe Ruth, right, Babe Ruth.
I forget how many. I guess he hit sixties something
like that, but I think he played he played in
one hundred games or something like that, and Maris played
like one hundred and twenty something like that. He had

(01:54:33):
more games, so people was kind of holding against him.
But by the nineties people didn't care. And it's like
they play one hundred and sixty two now and people
still hadn't done it. So clearly it was hard to
do and I think maybe as time went on, Roger
Marras had gotten more respect because of it, because again
it was fifty years I went by whatever, what thirty
years I went by between sixty one and ninety eight,

(01:54:55):
so were talking him almost forty years and then live
cuttings of this record its holy grail record too. It
was like treated like the biggest record in sports at
the time. And to see, you know, live cuttings of
a singular person, Pat, it's insane to see you you
might see it again and say, I show Hey goes

(01:55:16):
off or Aaron Judge and they hit seventy five the dude,
who there's a guy right now that is on pace though, right.

Speaker 3 (01:55:21):
Who's calm the Mariners?

Speaker 2 (01:55:24):
Yes, so you hit thirty five before the break, which
is insane.

Speaker 1 (01:55:27):
I don't know if he can keep up that pace
because it's just hard to do against these pictures with
this velocity.

Speaker 3 (01:55:33):
And it's not exactly like halfway through the schedule. They
played more right the first half that they do the
second half.

Speaker 2 (01:55:38):
So yes, yeah, but it's just it's a hard record
the top.

Speaker 1 (01:55:42):
So people were losing their minds over and to see
these live cuttings with his at bats and I think
everybody is pretty much watching it live when he hit
the homer and he nearly famous first base when he
hit the homer. Yeah, and then it just so happened
they were playing the Cubs too, yep, and they did
their they were same as so required didn't Wire's little
handshake deal. It was a really nice moment. It was

(01:56:02):
like the most touching sports moment of the twentieth century.

Speaker 3 (01:56:05):
Oh it really was. It was like it was, you know,
Sammy came in, gave the big hug and then Maguire
did the Sammy like kiss and the fingers and everything.

Speaker 1 (01:56:13):
Ye yeah, dude, I was like, I.

Speaker 3 (01:56:15):
Got chills, just I'm got chills just talking about it,
because yeah, dude, if if anything, I should have taped
that like live. And I know there's footage out there
like digitally, but I'm saying, like, man, that was a
moment that I didn't I didn't understand the gravity of
the moment.

Speaker 1 (01:56:32):
I remember.

Speaker 3 (01:56:33):
I was just like, oh, like I knew it was
a big deal, and I obviously watched it live, but
to be able to just relive that would be like incredible,
just because man, I'm glad the Phillies sucks because I
might not have cared as much if the Phillies were good.
Maybe I would just be paying attention to the Phillies.
But that was something that I could actually pay attention to.

(01:56:54):
And it's funny we're talking about this because you had
the Little League World Series, Toms River winning SummerSlam, and
then like the next week, within a week or two
all together and it's just like, oh my god, like
too overwhelming for me.

Speaker 1 (01:57:08):
Yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot going on. I
trying to look up the exact day of when he
broke the record.

Speaker 3 (01:57:16):
I'm gonna get September sixth.

Speaker 1 (01:57:18):
That's my yuesh September sixth, he hit the September eighth.
September eighth, he is when he hit sixty two, sixty
number sixty two. So that's my brother's birthday. But yeah,
so a couple of weeks after, no, not not even
a couple weeks, like a week after this show.

Speaker 3 (01:57:36):
I started in school late that year, September ninth, my
first day of school. Yeah, because that was a Tuesday,
right when he broke it.

Speaker 1 (01:57:45):
Yeah, I don't know, I didn't go back that far.

Speaker 3 (01:57:48):
I'll use this what is it September you said, September eighth, right, Yes,
I want to go back into this iPhone calendar to
nineteen ninety eight August. No, September eighth was a Tuesday, yep.

Speaker 1 (01:58:02):
All right, you go a school started on a Wednesday,
that's weird, but yeah it was a special times Jersey.

Speaker 3 (01:58:10):
Yeah my district it started on a Wednesday.

Speaker 1 (01:58:12):
That's fair forgot New Jersey. But summer of ninety eight,
what a fun time that was not even wrestling, like right,
just in general was a sports fan with you know, wrestling,
like you said, the home run Race, Little League World Series, football.
I don't know who won the Super Bowl that year.

(01:58:34):
The Broncos won the Super Bowl, so yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:58:37):
I think that great. But also this was like right
after Goldberg won the WCW title, So w CW wasn't
like terrible yet, it was like it was a little
rebound from their bad start to ninety eight and people thought, okay,
this is like w CW coming back. So goldbergad just
won the title the priors you know July. Yeah, so

(01:58:59):
you know, road Wild kind of sucked. But Jay that
was like Jay Leto and DDP versus bishof at Hogan.

Speaker 2 (01:59:06):
So we have done a deep dive on net so
go look back at that.

Speaker 3 (01:59:11):
So it's like wow, wwfside like WCW is probably gonna
get hot again. Goldberg is like carrying that company at
this point, man, it was like a time. It was
a time, time to live through.

Speaker 6 (01:59:22):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:59:22):
Yeah, nineteen ninety eight. But let's wrap it up for
a deep dive, So Nick, take us out with some
plugs please.

Speaker 3 (01:59:29):
You can follow us at Shooters Radio. We're on Twitter,
Blue Sky, Instagram, threads, and also on Facebook. We're at
facebook dot com, Slash Shooters Radio, shooters pod dot com.
Wherever you get your podcasts, check that out. Also, we're
at FOXPHL Gambler dot com. Just click on the podcast

(01:59:49):
tab Street Shooters Wrestling Podcast right there, right above the
Wrestling Ground table, which hopefully we'll have one this week
coming up for Summer Slam. You know, we'll figure that out.
You could also follow me at Underscore pecone on Twitter
and TikTok for my Philly sports and wrestling content. Follow
me at pocone on Blue Sky and at pocone Nick

(02:00:12):
on threads, which I believe is threads dot com. Now
I don't think it's threads dot net anymore, wow, because
apparently threads dot com is a thing. So how about that?

Speaker 1 (02:00:23):
How about that? I am at Vaughn M. Johnson on X.
I am at Vaughn Johnson on Blue sky at Vaughn
Johnson one six six on Instagram. You can catch us
again on Patreon, Patreon dot com slash Shooters Radio. Well
you can request a future deep dive. Pay the nominal fee,
you can make a request, and then you can join

(02:00:43):
us on the show that we're diving into again Patreon
dot com slash Shooters Radio. But until next time for
Nick Pocone, I am Vaughn Johnson. Thanks for listening to
episode four thirty eight of The Straight Shooters and we'll
catch you again very soon.

Speaker 3 (02:00:58):
Peace, Thank David.

Speaker 1 (02:01:00):
Wake Up the shore Lord? Oh yeah, Jiggy

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438: WWF SummerSlam '98 Deep Dive

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