TODAY marks 20 years since Mick Foley – as his alter ego Mankind – won the WWE Championship.
More than just a title change, January 4, 1999 is one of the most infamous nights in professional wrestling history.
It came at the height of the WWE v WCW “Monday Night Wars”, with Raw and Nitro going head-to-head with competing world titles matches.
On Raw, Mankind challenged WWE Champion The Rock in a no disqualification match, with DX and The Corporation in their respective corners.
On Nitro, rival NWO faction leaders Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash faced off for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship – the now infamous “fingerpoke of doom”.
As WWE legend goes, it’s a night that changed everything – an all-important moment in WWE’s ultimate victory over WCW in the ratings war. Here’s why it was such a legendary night:
It’s a peak Attitude Era Raw
The January 4, 1999 Raw sums up what the show was all about in the Attitude Era – exciting, unpredictable, and occasionally bad taste.
It had shenanigans from Mr McMahon’s crooked Corporation and The Rock during his meteoric rise – plus DX at the height of their babyface popularity.
Al Snow battled Road Dogg in a hardcore title match, which went around the arena and out into the snowy streets of Worcester, Massachusetts – a brawl that set the template for hardcore matches in WWE.
In one unpleasant angle, the supposedly pregnant Terri Runnels was knocked from the ring apron by D-Lo Brown and feigned a miscarriage.
But the big news was also a show-long storyline – something Raw did brilliantly during the Attitude Era and does terribly now – which built to Mankind’s title shot against The Rock.
Meanwhile, Nitro – a big three-hour show from the Georgia Dome – was dominated by more dreary NWO-based drama, a storyline that had been running for the best part of three years by this point.
Stone Cold’s entrance is the biggest pop of all time
At the finish of the Mankind v Rock match, DX and the Corporation erupted into a brawl around the ring.
Among the chaos the familiar sound of glass smashing hits for perfectly timed Stone Cold Steve Austin run-in – for perhaps the greatest, most skin-prickling crowd pop of all time.
Stone Cold clobbered Rock with a chair and draped Foley over the champ for the three- count, to another immense crowd reaction.
By now, the surprise return/run-in (and the crowd pop that goes with it) is one of most popular tropes in wrestling – moments that fans watch again and again. (See also: Jericho’s debut, Dolph Ziggler’s cash-in, and the Hardy Boyz’ return at WrestleMania 33.)
But the Stone Cold run-in/pop is the benchmark – a defining Attitude Era clip and the crowd reaction that every big wrestling moment since has strived to replicate.
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