WCW Fall Brawl 1998

During the height of the Monday Night War there was a Wild West feel to professional wrestling that is hard to fully explain to anybody who wasn’t watching at the time. Each week in 1998 in particular, both WWE and WCW were pushing themselves further, crossing new boundaries and in general, doing anything they could to gain an advantage in the ratings battle that would define the era. In order to stem the flow of WCW’s runaway success at the beginning of the year, WWE had brought in Mike Tyson, at an extremely high price, to help solidify Steve Austin as the next major crossover star in the sport. In response, WCW had split the epoch making NWO into two separate, warring factions and created myriad new possibilities for future matches and rivalries. WWE in turn had broken new ground in violence with the infamous Hell in a Cell match between Undertaker and Mankind at King of the Ring 1998, while WCW had happened upon Bill Goldberg and ran with this new surprise mega star by putting the World Title on him despite legitimate questions existing as to his suitability for the role, having debuted less than 12 months before that faithful night in the Georgia Dome.

WWE In Your House: Badd Blood

WWE In Your House: Badd Blood is a fascinating snapshot of WWE at a time when everything was about to change in ways that couldn’t have been imagined at the time, mainly due to the fact that things already seemed to be changing in ways nobody could have imagined just a few months before. Going on air a matter of hours after the death of Brian Pillman and with details of what had happened to him still filtering through, there is an atmosphere of shell-shock that grips this show through the disjointed commentary, unconvincing undercard action and underwhelming crowd noise that pervades most of the matches. While it would be churlish to suggest that Pillman’s death was not a massively significant moment (to his peers, his family and to the wrestling world at the time- it was devastating), there is a sense that history remembers the night more for the events that would take place in the ring near the end of the broadcast, than the untimely death of a trailblazer worthy of celebration.