Category: WWE Television Specials

This isn’t going to take very long.

Mayhem In Manchester was a 1998 WWF event held in Manchester, England about a week after Wrestlemania XIV, featuring Steve Austin defending his newly-won World Wrestling Federation Championship against HHH as well as another encounter between the Undertaker (in street clothes) and Kane. It was apparently a UK-only PPV event, but comes off looking like a house show event with lower production values and overdubbed commentary from Michael Cole and Kevin Kelly.

Beyond this, I know little of the actual event itself. In all honest, typing in Mayhem In Manchester in the search bar brings up a couple reviews of the edited VHS tape and perhaps one review on the full show, but not much else. And, as far as I could tell, this isn’t even part of the WWE Network’s On-Demand service. A strange omission, considering it could’ve been a decent selling point for the Network to have these obscure overseas-only PPVs on hand, but perhaps one that won’t be missed if you didn’t already know about it… or even cared to.

For reasons that I can’t seem to find online – since details on the event are rather scarce to begin with – WWF Home Video would release the event on VHS in a severely edited 60-minute clip show. Some might recall the prior year’s One Night Only UK-exclusive PPV been released to VHS in edited form, but that version only omitted a couple matches here and there, where this video is obstensibly a clip show for all intents and purposes. I suppose it’s a cool idea that the WWF would film one of their overseas house show and turn it into a PPV event (or VHS release, for that matter), but in watching this video tape, I’m left wondering why they would even bother with this.

1997’s One Night Only event was a proper PPV of sorts with at least one significant event in the WWF narrative; Shawn Michaels defeating the British Bulldog for his European championship and attaining Grand Slam status. And while the overall production seems like a lesser deal compared to the typical WWF or WCW Pay-Per-View taking place at the time, at the very least, it felt like a proper event for Sky Box Office or whatever the UK’s equivalent of PPV was and it felt like stuff was happening on the show.

To go with a more recent example, WWE just recently held their Tokyo Dome house show in Japan that was subsequently aired as a WWE Network special called The Beast In The East. It had a totally different air to it compared to a typical WWE production, but was made to look like a top-notch quality production that was worth checking out. It certainly helped matters when the card featured an awesome NXT championship match as well as a rare appearance from former WWE World champion Brock Lesnar, who was booked to be the monster he’s supposed to be and not a bumbling idiot tossing suplexes for five years before finally getting to the point… or the win, for that matter.

Mayhem In Manchester, on the other hand, was just a glorified house show that just so happened to have a bunch on cameras on hand to film the event. Nothing of note really happened here beyond Steve Austin defending his WWF title against HHH (or as the tape calls him, Triple HHH – wow) in what felt like a logical progression in the storyline if Austin vs. McMahon wasn’t a thing, but even then, it just felt like a random wrestling match and, for what little of it was shown, it’s pretty clear that these two would have better days ahead of them. The rest of the show seem like matches thrown together for the sake of having a show on the card and as such, you generally miss nothing by skipping this.

Unless you really need your fix of Undertaker vs. Kane, that is.

With only the clipped VHS tape on hand and no means of tracking down the entire three-hour event, I can’t exactly pass judgment on a whole event when I only have a handful of clips nor is it my intention to do so. As a novelty tape showcasing highlights from an overseas event, it’s an interesting relic of the era, but that’s about all it really is. I suppose curiosity is the only reason anyone would want to track down the full event.

For the sake of “completion” or whatever, here are the results of the full card taking from a pro wrestling wiki;

Jeff Jarrett (w/ Tennessee Lee) defeated Brakkus (7:38)

Henry & Phineas Godwinn defeated Skull & Eight Ball in a “strap” match (13:45)

Justin Bradshaw defeated Marc Mero (w/ Sable) (10:17)

Ken Shamrock & Owen Hart defeated Rocky Maivia & D-Lo Brown (6:19)

The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust (w/ Luna) defeated Cactus Jack (13:23)

LOD 2000 (Hawk & Animal) (w/ Sunny) defeated The New Age Outlaws (Road Dogg & Billy Gunn) (c) via DQ in a WWE Tag Team Championship Match (12:51)

“Stone Cold” Steve Austin (c) defeated Hunter Hearst Helmsley (w/ Chyna) to retain the WWE Championship (29:13)

The Undertaker defeated Kane (w/ Paul Bearer) (21:32)

The WWE Network special, The Beast In The East, where they air a live house show from Tokyo. And this aired in the morning, live, which was surprising, but hey, it’s a nice surprise and one of those little things that makes the Network worthwhile. To tell the truth, they should probably do more of these. Just a random house show here and there.

But of course, there’re two things on this show that makes this worth turning into a televised special; the NXT Championship match between champion Kevin Owens and challenger Finn Balor… and Brock Lesnar’s first match since Wrestlemania… and – spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen it – the main event of this WWE Live show from Japan that has these two major talking points… is a nothing tag-team match that features John Cena… because that screams main event.

Continue reading “WWE Network Special: The Beast In The East”

This seemed to have been shot out of nowhere – probably because it was – but it looks like another WWE Network special featuring the final matches to crown a new King Of The Ring, a title that may or may not have some relevance depending on who’s doing the spinning. It’s a weird gimmick because what used to be a PPV stable during the mid to late 1990s became something of an afterthought in recent years, with the last tournament being held in 2010 on Smackdown. More often than not, they use the tournament as an excuse to give a heel wrestler a silly royal gimmick or something.

But in any event, four people compete in the semi-finals; Sheamus, Neville, R-Truth, and Bad News Barrett. Neville beat Sheamus thanks to some timely Ziggler distraction, Barrett beat R-Truth. And so the KOTR finals had a distinctly British flavour, with Barrett emerging victorious to become King Barrett… or something.

Here’s the thing. On the one hand, this was a nice little hour of wrestling and the whole thing certainly felt more refreshing than a typical piece of WWE programming. The matches were pretty good for what they were, they told a good story, and even the commentary was on point at times, being more tolerable than what the usual gang of idiots would provide on three-hour telecasts. It’s nice to listen to Cole talk about the match rather than shill some stupid thing.

On the other hand… it feels throwaway. Just to fill a taping time or something… I felt they could have done an extra hour and had the whole tournament on here instead of just half here and half on RAW.

Still, can’t complain, though. It was only an hour long, but it was an entertaining hour of television if nothing else. And you know what? As far as King Of The Ring being an annual WWE Network thing, I wouldn’t have a problem with that. On the contrary, it’s precisely the sort of thing they SHOULD be putting on the Network instead of having Jerry Springer host a shitty clip show that tries to be raunchy but ends up being lame. For flip’s sake, you can’t have a show called Too Hot For TV and then feature clips that were originally shown – wait for it – ON TEE VEE!

King Of The Ring, though? Not bad. Thumbs up from me.