[1997-08-18-WWF-Raw] The Undertaker & Mankind vs Shawn Michaels & Hunter Hearst Helmsley

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Chyna standing there stone-faced during Shawn's dancing intro is pretty funny. Kind of a seminal match, as Shawn and Hunter are teamed against their wishes, continuing to build to DX. I love this match for Shawn being such an opportunist heel and scrambling every time that it appears Undertaker is about to get his hands on him. It's also interesting for Shawn and Hunter pretending like they don't want to team and suddenly working like a well-oiled machine. Shawn cracks Undertaker with the mother of all insane chairshots. Good Lord.

[Strummer]

t's also interesting for Shawn and Hunter pretending like they don't want to team and suddenly working like a well-oiled machine.

was this supposed to be a subtle nod to their friendship or did they make a change the next week when they were all buddy buddy? I can remember at the time knowing that both were in the clique and was confused why they acted like they didn't want to team. Kayfabe wise it made sense for them not to want to team but was it a wink-wink?... man was this confusing. But turned out awesome

[Gregor]

Shawn cracks Undertaker with the mother of all insane chairshots.

Undertaker gets to dish out the father of all insane chairshots later in the year.

[Kevin Ridge]

Michaels having to team with Triple H. Shawn keeps trying to grab Taker’s foot from the outside. He’s not too eager to face Undertaker head to head. Speaking of heads check out that chairshot. WWE has done a great job removing that stuff that when you look back it’s rather uncomfortable to see guys taking unprotected chair shots to the cranium.

[Cox]

This will always go down as one of my favorite Raws of all time, as I had managed to secure front row tickets behind the announcer's table, by far the best seats I've ever had at a wrestling show. I can't remember what happened at the last ten Ring of Honor shows, but I remember almost everything that happened on this Raw, including Taker's gnarly blade job off of that sick chair shot. Good times.

 

Like most idiot wrestling fans of the time, I brought a bunch of stupid signs. One was a plug for RF Video which we got on camera and was later confiscated. RF offered ten free tapes for getting a plug on WWF TV at the time, but I think I only collected on three of those. And I got Dave Prazak (a friend at the time) a lot of heat by getting a "Dave Prazak 12 & Under" sign on camera, about Dave's preference for younger ladies. In retrospect, kind of a dick thing to do.

 

Overall, I remember this being a great wrestling summer. ECW ran often in Philly and New Jersey, WWF ran a few Raws locally and SummerSlam was local, indies were running all over. It was a great summer to be 18.

[soup23]

Fun match seeing the genesis of DX, all of these feuds intertwine, and knowing the later history of all of these individuals. Shawn and HHH worked pretty good as a team and Shawn has fit right in as the scummy heel giving hellacious chair shots and giving the blowjob gesture to the front row.

[PeteF3]

I never liked DX and I doubt this Yearbook will change my opinion that much, but I can get behind watching Shawn and HHH work as a Nise Midnight Express, working some nice stooging spots along a few token slick double teams. Mankind seems really banged up at this particular point--even for him, I mean--and doesn't do much, though he does work a nice "babyface falls into the prone heel's groin" spot that's almost a guaranteed pleaser. Rick Rude makes his alignment perfectly clear as Shawn calls him out for backup. He distracts Undertaker long enough for Shawn to absolutely RUIN Undertaker with two sick chairshots. Really a fun match overall and very well laid-out, giving us just a tease of HBK vs. UT but not too much and making you want to see more.

[Exposer]

Shawn suggesstively dancing & dry humping around Chyna who does nothing but stand there with her arms folded is hilarious. Solid tag match. Mankind takes a few big bumps & works FIP. Taker has a great hot tag & cleans house. Rude gets involved again & tries to hit Taker with a chair. Taker catches him & stalks him into the ring. Rude has him distracted though & he turns around into an absolutely wicked chair shot from Shawn. He blades & bleeds a good bit here. This has got to be the first blade job in the WWF in years. At least the first obvious blade job as show in the replay of the first chair shot. Shawn whacks him with the chair again. These chair shots are brutal. Taker sits up though & DX (I'll start calling them that for now) scatter as the show closes. Good main event with a great post-match angle to build to Ground Zero. This Shawn-Taker feud is hot.