by After one of the craziest WrestleMania’s in history at WrestleMania XV, fans could only imagine what wildness was ahead of them for Raw the next night. With plenty of shocking turns the night before, one of which that saw HHH join The Corporation, anything was possible as Monday Night Raw emulated from Continental Airlines Arena in the shadow of New York City.
It wouldn’t take long for the place to come unglued as Stone Cold Steve Austin entered the arena to start the show. The shocks began right away as Austin called out Mr. McMahon to hand over the WWE Title Belt. You’ll notice I said, belt and not championship as Stone Cold wasn’t giving up the throne, but rather the physical belt.
This of course, was the re-introduction of the custom made “Smoking Skull Belt” that Austin had made in late 1998. Mr. McMahon had stripped Austin of that belt back in October of 1998, and Austin demanded that someone go to McMahons house and grab his smoking skull belt off the mantle and return it to him. He was once again champion, and demanded to wear the appropriate belt. The drama would unfold over the course of the rest of the show.
This wasn’t the only irony of the night circling back to exactly one year earlier. This time it was XPAC coming to the ring and calling out HHH for turning on him. XPAC mentioned 365 days prior and how upset he was with HHH abandoning him and the other members of DX. It was emotional and one heck of a promo by Sean Waltman. The two would clash in the ring before the night was over as HHH officially joined The Corporation.
One last note on HHH joining the Corporation and Ministry before we close this chapter of history. Two weeks later when the two factions formed The Corporate Ministry, that meant that The Rock, HHH and The Undertaker were all in the same faction. Also, in that same group were Faroog and JBL. Has a great assembly of talent ever created?
Think about it, JBL, Faroog, The Undertaker, The Rock, HHH, Chyna and Shane McMahon all in one faction…..
Sable was as hot as ever and teamed up with Jacqueline to take on Ivory and Tori to start the in-ring action portion of the night. After a quick Tori and Ivory win, they wouldn’t have much time to celebrate however as The Ministry of Darkness entered the ring and attempted to abduct Sable. This all turned out to be a ruse as it was simply a distraction to draw Mr. McMahon away from the locker room so they could actually abduct Stefanie McMahon.
Once again this was tremendous writing by the WWF as they made McMahon a villain you rooted against in the first segment, to someone you almost felt bad for in the next. As Mr. McMahon tried to talk with The Undertaker, it allowed Takers goons to sneak in the back and grab Stephanie.
Here is where it gets really interesting and hindsight becomes 20/20. Left to guard her was Shane McMahon. For whatever reason he stepped out and allowed her to get taken. Now, this would all come to light two weeks later as Shane joined up with The Undertaker and it was revealed as to why.
Mr. McMahon suddenly had two major problems on his plate this evening. The first was a Stone-Cold Ass beating waiting for him if he couldn’t get his Smoking Skull belt back. The second, was his darling Stephanie being abducted by The Acolytes by the orders of The Undertaker. This was complete with a phone call later by The Undertaker to tease McMahon that he had Stephanie with him.
The freshly turned Big Show ( how many times we would go on to say that in his WWF career), entered the ring next to take on Test who was squashed in mere minutes. It was the kind of squash match that WWF Saturday morning superstars would be proud of!
Things were bizarre and about to get nuttier. Mr. McMahon assigned Ken Shamrock to patrol the building until he found Stephanie. Meanwhile, Jim Ross shows up with Dr. Death Steve Williams to challenge Hardcore Holly for the Hardcore Championship. Holly would retain and Williams would be gone from the WWF all together months later.
The Rock, who was supposed to be a heel, had everyone fan in the building get up a chant his name as he approached the ring next to face Badass Billy Gunn. It was becoming crystal clear, his days of being a heel were close to done as he was way to over to be booed.
Ironically both men would do full turns by Summer as Billy Gunn began a heel run while The Rock became one of the biggest babyfaces of all time. The Rock won a competitive match as the fans cheered his every move wildly.
Meanwhile, in the middle of his woman hunt, Ken Shamrock took some time out of his mission to wrestle Gangrel. Because apparently, he was not about to lose out on a match payday, despite there being a life on the line. And we ate it all up with a spoon. My goodness, I loved the Attitude Era! Not only did Shamrock destroy Gangrel, but he beat him up so badly that Gangrel had no choice but to tell him where Stephanie was stashed.
The only problem was before Gangrel could spill the beans, he was attacked by Christian and Edge. It wouldn’t matter however as Shamrock was on a mission, and even after a bloodbath, he twisted Christian’s ankle so hard that he slipped up and revealed that Stephanie was stashed away in the basement. Shamrock would find and return Stephanie a few segments later.
It was noted in the WrestleMania XV review that Road Dogg Jesse James with the InterContinental Belt seemed like an odd fit. WWF creative must have saw it that same way too as they used this episode to take the belt off him and place it back with Goldust who defeated James for the strap that night.
From there, the belt would play a round of hot potato going from Goldust to The Godfather, to Jeff Jarrett, to D’Lo Brown and back to Jeff Jarrett all in the course of the next few months.
Speaking of Jarrett, he and his tag team champion partner Owen Hart were up next to take on the original Legion of Doom of Hawk and Animal with Paul Ellering. This was after nearly a year straight of making Hawk look like a drunken mess.
Suddenly, all was forgotten and they were challenging the champs. Droz was gone, and as cool as it was to see the original twosome back together, they looked ancient. It was no wonder that they didn’t use this match the night before at WrestleMania. Legion of Doom simply couldn’t hang, and the champs put them away in under 5 minutes.
Earlier I mentioned 20/20 vision on the Shane turn away from his family, the next segment put even more touches on that one. As Vince McMahon was comforting the returned Stephanie, Austin’s belt arrived from Greenwich. The boss told Shane to give the belt back to Austin so he could take Stephanie home and end the night.
Shane couldn’t do it, and decided to stir the pot and make his fathers night even longer, and even worse. He called upon The Rock, and refused to hand it back over to Austin without atleast a little bit more drama. He instead, gave the belt to The Rock in the middle of the ring.
It was clear, the only way The rock was going to get booed is if he stood across from Austin, and they were going to play that card one more time. The two would clash for it later that month at Backlash after The Rock fake threw the belt in the river. He also had a funeral for Austin as well.
yeah that was a super cool faction only to be trumped a few years later by the greatest of all time….TOO COOL!