King of the Ring

Sunday, June 28th, from the Pittsburgh Civic Center Arena

~ Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler are at ringside. Kane’s gas cans are on either side of them on the table.

~ SIX MAN TAG MATCH: The Headbangers & Taka Michinoku vs. Kaientai (with Yamaguchi-san). This was one of two matches added just today to the card. Taka wore a Headbangers t-shirt and skirt under his ring robe, but took them off to wrestle. Mosh starts and proceeds to dominate the match against one of the Kaientai. Two Kaientai make the tag, Mosh leans the second Kaientai on the ropes and tags in Taka who continues to control the match for his team. Dick Togo gets tagged in and dominates Taka for a few seconds and boasts about it before getting flipped by the Light Heavyweight Champ. The Kaientai that started the match gets tagged back in, whips Taka but gets bodyslammed. Togo is tagged back in but another Kaientai is in the ring helping to double team Taka. Togo tries a belly-to-back suplex but gets blocked. All three Kaientai gang up on Taka who sneaks away and tags both Headbangers in. Mosh and Thrasher double backflip the second Kaientai member and clean house. Taka gets the win over the second Kaientai after a three-man move with the Headbangers, followed by the Michinoku Driver.

Winners: Taka Michinoku & The Headbangers.

~ Sable came out in a skintight black outfit to a huge pop. She introduced Vince McMahon who came out with his kept boys/yes men Pat Patterson & Jerry Brisco to the exact opposite reaction. Brisco and Patterson try to order Sable out. Patterson tries to get a handful of Sable’s butt, and for his trouble, Sable slaps the taste out of Patterson’s mouth. McMahon asks how many people came here to see the WWF World Title and gets a very poor reaction. He asks how many people came to see Kane set himself on fire if he loses, and gets a huge cheer. He then told the audience that they were in for a disappointment, but they should be used to it because their lives were disappointments. [At this point, a few hundred projectiles hurled in McMahon’s direction would have not only been appropriate, but worth it!]

~ KING OF THE RING SEMI-FINAL MATCH: “Double J” Jeff Jarrett (with Tennessee Lee) vs. Ken Shamrock. Shamrock came out to the ring second and went right to work on the George Strait wanna-be, and controlled the match for the first several minutes in and out of the ring. When they reentered the ring, and the referee was distracted, Tennessee Lee struck Shamrock’s injured ankle from the outside a couple of times. Shamrock hit a huracanrana (or as Joey Styles would say, a Samrock-canrana) and then locked on the anklelock submission, forcing Jarrett to tap out. Lee jumped in and got suplexed for his troubles. Shamrock stated to Michael Cole right afterwards, “I got one more peak to climb, and I didn’t come here to be second-best!”

Winner: Ken Shamrock

~ KING OF THE RING SEMI-FINAL MATCH: “The Rock” Rocky Maivia (with The Godfather Kama Mustafa & Mark Henry) vs. Dan “The Beast” Severn. Mustafa and Henry were ordered to the back by the referee. Severn came to the ring with no emotion whatsoever on his visage. Severn dominated the early moments with his mat skills. Maivia only got control after an elbow to the side of Severn’s face, kicked him a few times, and made fun of NWA and UFC champion. Severn threw a punch to Maivia’s gut and some brawling ensued. Both men went down, and Mustafa and Henry came out to distract the ref. D-Lo Brown, wearing some sort of brace, climbed up to the top rope and hit a frog splash on Severn and then split, allowing “The Rock” to get the pin.

Winner: Rocky Maivia

~ HANDICAP MATCH: Al Snow (with The Head) vs. Too Much (Scott Taylor & Brian Christopher). A piece of print in the contract came up after Al Snow and The Head came to ringside, as Howard Finkel announced that there was a special guest referee: Jerry Lawler, who set up the match in the first place. The King took off his robe and put on a striped referee’s shirt. Al, of course, did all the wrestling for his “team”. As would be expected, Lawler favored Christopher whenever he was the legal man for his team, even doing a very slow, anal-retentive check of the shoulders when Al made a pin attempt on Christopher. Snow walked all the way from the ring and ran right into Christopher on the outside. Taylor jumped Snow and threw him back inside. Lawler stood by as both of Too Much double teamed Snow. Christopher tagged in, hit a move or two, and gloated. Taylor tagged in, but Snow double-DDTed both men. Al ‘tagged” the head and worked on both men, then snowplowed Christopher. Of course, Lawler looked the other way. Lawler jumped out of the ring, got out a bottle of Head & Shoulders Shampoo which Christopher attached to The Head, and covered for the pin, while Al Snow was busy with Taylor. Very stupid match and a poor WWF ring debut for Al Snow.

Winners: Too Much

~ X-Pac (with Chyna) vs. Owen Hart — X-Pac began very aggressively the minute Owen Hart hit the ring, but the former Blue Blazer quickly took control of the Kliq’s young lion. Hart went for a Fisherman Suplex but X-Pac quickly kicked out of it. Hart made a couple more pin attempts not long after that. Both men went right outside with Hart continuing to dominate; the Spanish commentator’s table came into play for the first time when Hart dumped X-Pac on it gut-first. X-Pac got his second wind and jumped on Owen when he was slumped in the corner, then bodyslammed him. X-Pac went on the top and Hart followed him. Hart got knocked into the ring and X-Pac fell out. Mark Henry came out and splashed X-Pac, and Chyna, after helping X-Pac back into the ring, got into Henry’s face. All of a sudden, Vader came out and attacked Henry. During the commotion, Owen had applied the double-leg grapevine, but Chyna jumped into the ring and DDTed Owen. A dazed X-Pac crawled over Owen and got the pin. Chyna then helped her fallen colleague backstage.

Winner: X-Pac

~ Paul Bearer came to the ring and did a spiel about how Kane used to “idolize” his “older brother” and tell Bearer, “Daddy, I want to be like the Undertaker”. Bearer was confident that at the end of the night, that he would be both the father and manager of the World Wrestling Federation Champion.

~ WWF TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: New Age Outlaws (“Road Dog” Jesse James & Billy Gunn, with Chyna) vs. The New Midnight Express (“Bodacious” Bob Holly & “Bombastic” Bart Gunn, with Jim Cornette). Bob Holly & Road Dog start the match. After a few normal spots, both men tagged in their partners, and we get “brother against brother”, or rather former tag team partners against each other as both Gunns reignited their feud from over a year and a half ago. Billy Gunn tagged in James who had control until Bob Holly got in a cheap shot. Both NME members did some double teaming on the Road Dog. Eventually Holly remained in the ring to work with James, both of whom went down until James got enough wind to tag Billy Gunn. Cornette attempted to jump in and strike Billy Gunn with the NWA Tag Belts, only to get hit in the balls by Chyna. Holly got bounced off the ropes by both James and Gunn, and pinned by Gunn for the win.

~ KING OF THE RING FINAL: “The Rock” Rocky Maivia vs. Ken Shamrock — Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Chyna came out to do commentary for the match. Both men stared each other down for several seconds, then got into fighting position. Shamrock starts with a karate kick and proceeds to run the early minutes of the match. Rocky jumps out of the ring for a breather. He proceeded to do that for the next few minutes. The last time, he started harassing Helmsley who reacted by spitting a mouthful of spring water into his face. Rocky went to pound Triple H only to get intercepted by Shamrock who threw Maivia around and back into the ring. Rocky threw Shamrock out of the ring; the former UFC champion got his wrist caught in the ropes. Maivia followed him out and dove Shamrock into the guard rail a couple of times. Shamrock began to limp and Maivia took control of the match. Maivia made several arrogant cover attempts. Shamrock hit a neckbreaker on Maivia that also took the wind out of him. Both men got up at the count of 9, but Shamrock got another wind and ran all over the current Intercontinental Champion. Both men made several pin attempts before Shamrock locked the anklelock on Maivia out of nowhere. After a few seconds, Maivia tapped out and Shamrock became the 1998 King Of The Ring.

Winner and 1998 King Of The Ring: Ken Shamrock

_ HELL IN THE CELL MATCH: The Undertaker vs. Mankind. Mankind came out first with a steel chair and climbed up to the top of the cage. The Undertaker took off his leather robe and followed him up. Mankind attempted to knock Calloway off before he could get to the top. Mankind struck the Undertaker with a chair. As both men walked across the ring, small bits of the cage that held the roof together popped off from the weight of both men. The Undertaker then got Mankind to the edge of the cage and threw him off the roof, where he fell into the Spanish announce table. After a couple of minutes it was obvious that Mick Foley was injured and EMTs and officials came out. For some reason Foley got up and climbed back onto the roof. The Undertaker suddenly chokeslammed Foley through the cage roof, where he fell the 12 or so feet to the ring itself. Terry Funk confronted the Undertaker and got chokeslammed for his trouble. Foley’s mouth was bleeding. With Foley injured and barely moving from the two high-impact falls, the Undertaker continued to work on Foley. Foley did several spots but was unable to use the ring stairs because of his injured arm. The Undertaker then became busted open. Foley pulled a bag from under the ring and emptied its contents – it was full of thumbtacks. Foley applied the Mandible Claw on the ‘Taker; the Midnight Warrior stood up and dumped Foley back-first into the pile of thumbtacks, then picked him up and chokeslammed him into the tacks. Calloway then moved away from the thumbtacks to hit the Tombstone and get the pin. While the ‘Taker slowly walked away, the EMTs came to the aid of Mick Foley. Foley refused the stretcher and was carried to the back to a standing ovation by Terry Funk and the referee.

Winner: The Undertaker

+ WWF WORLD TITLE MATCH, FIRST BLOOD RULES: Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Kane (with Paul Bearer) — Austin begins by running all over Kane before getting his vest off, then ripping off one of the top turnbuckles. For some unknown reason, the cage starts to come back down. Kane uses the cage on Austin but he doesn’t get busted open just yet. Austin throws Kane through the door as the cage rises; Kane hangs from it by his waist but jumps off in time. Both men brawl all over the hallway with Austin trying to piledrive or suplex Kane who counters most of Austin’s moves. Kane tries to his Austin with a security rail but Austin gets his hands up in time. They get back to the ring and for some reason the cage is still halfway over the ring. Kane throws Austin into the referee who gets knocked out against the guardrail at ringside. Austin dumps Kane into the announcers’ table then hits him in the face with a small plastic fan that is on the table. When both men are back in the ring and Austin finally has the upper hand on Kane, Mick Foley comes out with a chair and goes after Austin. The cage starts to come down as Austin stunners Foley and then Kane. The Undertaker comes out with his own chair and both men go to chairshot Foley; Foley ducks and Austin gets clocked with the Undertaker’s chair and thus busted open. The Undertaker then takes one of the cans of gas and pours it on the back of the ref to revive him. Austin is still working on Kane as the ref gets up, sees Austin’s forehead all bloodied, and calls for the end of the match. The broadcast ends with a shot of McMahon, in his private box, gloating over Austin’s loss.