In an effort to smooth out the potential loss of salary from missed games, the NBA and its players agreed on Friday to cut May 15 paychecks by 25 percent, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. This is a pre-emptive move to get out in front of the NBA having to invoke the “force majeure” clause, which would allow it to withhold player salaries entirely in the event of missed games.

By agreeing to cut pay by 25 percent a month from now, players will receive their May 1 paychecks as usual and prepare for the missed income. It also means that when and if the league invokes the force majeure clause, a portion of the lost salary will have already come out of players’ wallets.

Altogether, according to an analysis by Jeff Siegel at Early Bird Rights, the league could take away as much as 24.7 percent of players’ total salaries, if the entire rest of the regular season and playoffs were to be canceled. That seems relatively unlikely, after reports this week indicated optimism about the possibility of ending the NBA’s hiatus.

Player contracts also take various shapes based on agents’ negotiations with teams. Some are front-loaded, while others are more evenly spread across the season, so different players will have received different proportions of their total salary by this point in the year. Rather than writing a massive check to the league in a couple months, the players have agreed to spread out the losses over time, as it’s probable by now that at least some games will be sacrificed.

Michigan garage rockers Dogleg just released their debut record Melee, a nod to the popular Super Smash Bros. video game. The group previously debuted visuals to their unrestrained tracks “Kawasaki Backflip” and “Fox.” Now, the band returns with a clever visual to accompany the revved-up number “Wartortle.”

According to a press statement, the boisterous video was filmed “mere hours before the governor of Michigan declared a statewide, shelter-in-place lockdown.” A parody of the cult-classic film Clerks, the visual opens with vocalist Alex Stoitsiadis playing the lead character Dante. Stoitsiadis gets a call from his convenience store, asking him to come in on his day off. Begrudgingly, Stoitsiadis obliges. The black-and-white visual cuts between Stoitsiadis and other members recreating scenes from Clerk while also shredding on the store’s rooftop.

While Dogleg put on equally energetic live shows, they also offer fans a challenge before they get on stage. Anyone who can beat bassist Chase Macinski in a round of Super Smash Bros. Melee gets to walk away with free merch. To this day, despite the fact that they have played hundreds of shows and many fans have challenged Macinksi, only a few were able to claim victory.

Watch Dogleg’s “Wartortle” video above.

Melee is out now via Triple Crown Records. Get it here.

We’re all looking for things to listen to while we’re stuck in quarantine. With digital streaming platforms, we have all of the music in the world at our fingertips, but still can’t seem to figure out exactly what we want to hear. Lucky for all of us, Geoff Rickly is here to help with Making A Mixtape, the new video offering from Uproxx’s Indie Mixtape. As the singer for the post-hardcore band Thursday, Rickly has a unique and experienced perspective on what it takes to craft an epic mixtape.

Earlier this week, we launched the first episode of the series, which found Rickly collaborating on a “Moody” playlist with Dylan Baldi of Cloud Nothings. On this new episode, Rickly is joined by Avery Tucker and Harmony Tividad of Girlpool to collaborate on an “Energy” mixtape, a collection of songs to throw on for a run, or even when you just want to pump yourself up while you’re stuck inside all day.

Check out the new episode of Making A Mixtape above and follow the “Energy” playlist here.

Against Me! — “True Trans Soul Rebel”
Vundabar — “Montage Music”
LCD Soundsystem — “Tribulations”
Girlpool — “Like I’m Winning It”
Nine Inch Nails — “Closer”
Kelly Lee Owens — “Melt”
The 1975 — “It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)”
Perfume Genius — “On The Floor”

Follow us or subscribe to the Indie Mixtape newsletter to hear about future episodes.

When Patrick Patterson decided to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers this offseason, he, like many Angeleno transplants, had more than basketball in mind. The 31-year-old NBA journeyman was trying to plant the seeds of what might become his second act, turning a production company from a far-off dream to reality. Now, with the NBA season on pause amidst an epic Clipper season, Patterson finds himself unable to leave his home in the heart of the entertainment business.

Though Patterson can’t take the types of meetings with Hollywood power brokers right now that he might typically, he’s using the prolonged shutdown of the NBA to put more time into writing his next chapter. That doesn’t just mean Zoom calls and diary-keeping — Patterson is bringing fans into the experience, taking the movie screenings he has become known for among local fans to the internet.

Through Netflix’s virtual screening room, Netflix Party, Patterson has hosted two events, with the third coming on Friday at 9 p.m. ET. To choose the film, Patterson logs into Netflix and scrolls through the pages for his favorite genres — thriller and suspense — until he finds a few films with good reviews and a recognizable cast. Then, he lets fans vote to determine the final selection.

Throughout the movie, Patterson interacts with fans about the movie and life as a basketball player.

“I’ll keep them engaged and ask them questions about the movie, but then I give them free rein to ask about anything,” Patterson told me over the phone earlier this week. “People (ask) about my tenure in OKC, Toronto, talk about the season, the situation going on right now, teammates.”

These questions go far beyond basketball, too. At one point, he was asked his favorite Oreo — he’s a fan of the “OG original double stuf with vanilla” — and while those sorts of questions are silly on the surface, Patterson cherishes them.

“It’s random stuff we talk about, which is why I like the engagement factor,” he says.

The virtual film club led him to Good Time, the Safdie Brothers’ thunderous breakout starring Robert Pattinson. Though Patterson insists the selection was random — “I probably would have never watched the movie if not for the situation that we’re going through right now,” he says — the Safdies inserted themselves into the NBA conversation last fall with the release of Uncut Gems, which centered around Kevin Garnett and a gem salesman played by Adam Sandler whose reckless wagering on the 2012 NBA Playoffs led to him getting into a world of trouble.

Garnett is just one athlete venturing into Hollywood. While that list features guys like LeBron James rebooting Space Jam and starting SpringHill Entertainment, it’s not an endeavor limited to those who are able to take on projects that large. The way Patterson sees it, the entertainment industry is the latest obsession around the league.

“All these guys in the NBA have become wine connoisseurs going to Napa or wherever else and learning about wine and grapes and where they come, how to make it, how to taste it,” Patterson says. “Now, it’s athletes being more involved with movies, whether it’s acting, creating, writing or trying to start up their own companies.”

Asked who’s interested in the creative side that fans might not expect, Patterson points to teammate Paul George, who is more known for his work in the southern California community than for acting or creating. But George is just one of many who Patterson sees looking into Hollywood as an appealing business away from basketball. Athletes in movies is nothing new, but Patterson sees more high-profile hoopers looking into the creative side to tell their own stories.

“At the end of the day, all NBA guys are movie people as far as watching movies,” says Patterson. “There are X amount that want to be in front of the camera (with) their attitude, their demeanor, their likability. They can do the crossover. Then there are guys who want to create, who actually want to go into some type of film-making, writing, producing. Whether it’s movies, TV, animation, there are a handful of guys in the league who are interested in pursuing that.”

With time to dwell on the movie business, Patterson believes virtual screenings from companies like Netflix represent a pathway for theaters. With the closure of movie theaters and film festivals, transitioning to a virtual setup could allow content to make its way to audiences more quickly, especially if the pandemic jeopardizes gatherings into the fall. He imagines an AMC or Cineplex app with showtimes and virtual ticket stubs, which would allow studios to reclaim lost revenue while creating a more communal experience through social media. If everyone’s watching the same movie at once, it’s sort of the best of both worlds.

Before theaters across the country shuttered to encourage social distancing, Patterson was able to catch a showing of The Gentlemen, a pulpy action jaunt not unlike Good Time. Other 2020 favorites include the horror remake Invisible Man, as well as Bad Boys 4 Life, which Patterson says took entirely too long to put together but was still “solid.”

The recent alone time and bingeing of new movies and TV series has served as inspiration for Patterson as he thinks about what his first projects might look like.

“(We’re) using this time to write, so every single day, writing down ideas, writing down stories, things that could be adapted into screenplays and movies or even a TV show, whatever it may be,” Patterson says. “Right now, just taking this time to focus on life after basketball, creating the business, and hopefully when everything’s good, start creating and putting that out there for the world to see.”

Of course, the NBA season is still in flux. He may have to jump back into the daily routine of the season at a moment’s notice. He sees the daily updates like everyone else, but hasn’t heard a plan that he feels checks all the right boxes. In particular, he’s not on board with the idea of being separated from his loved ones in any kind of bubble league.

“It doesn’t have to be an individual athlete’s wife, kids, cousins, aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents,” Patterson explains. “It doesn’t have to be that drastic, it could just be you get four tickets and that’s it, but I definitely would not want to play without the important people in my life in that arena, which is my wife and my parents, and her parents as well.”

With safety far from guaranteed right now, thinking about basketball seems strange. Trapped in a haven of creativity with nothing to do but watch and think, Patterson’s mind has opened to the possibilities of the future and the limitations of our current reality. The future seems clearer now, but the present is as cloudy as ever.

For nearly a month, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness has been the most-watched title on Netflix. Not most-watched title about large cats or most-watched Lisa Frank inspiration — most watched, period. The seven-part documentary (plus a recent special) ranked at the top of the streaming service’s Top 10 list for a record 25 straight days. But it has finally been usurped by some banana-loving tiny, yellow rascals.

The Wrap reports that the “docuseries had its 25-day streak at No. 1 on the streaming service’s daily rankings of all its available movies and TV shows in the U.S. snapped by Despicable Me.” Tiger King is still in second place, but why Gru and the Minions? And why now? I can answer the latter: there’s a lot of fed-up parents who are happy to plop their children in front of a screen (not a judgement), and they can only stomach so many episodes of The Boss Baby: Back in Business. As for why the Minions:

Now that’s something everyone can enjoy. Following Despicable Me and Tiger King, the rest of the top-10 goes Outer Banks, Ozark, The Innocence Files, something called Code 8 (???), All American, Money Heist, Chris D’Elia: No Pain, and The Big Show Show. Expect the intentionally-trashy Too Hot to Handle to dominate for the next month.

(Via the Wrap)

Everyone’s life has a Luke Skywalker moment – when something completely unexpected happens that hurls you from the life you knew into one you didn’t think was possible, and you take your first step into a larger world.

For me, it came in December 2002, when a friend told me about a job he had been interviewing for, but which he decided he couldn’t take. He and his wife were moving back to their hometown, and he thought I would be perfect for the role. He submitted my resume; I got a call the next day, a week after that I was interviewing, and five days later I got an offer to join Lucasfilm Ltd., initially to manage international publicity and ultimately to work as director of entertainment publicity.

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Star Wars had already been one of the defining moments of my childhood (including my own 10-minute-long, Super 8 “remake”), now it was going to change my adult life. For six years, I made my professional home at Lucasfilm, and had the enormously good fortune to spend time with George Lucas, who entertained questions from journalists, fans, researchers and employees with unmatched patience and genuine interest.

As we all worked on the production and release of what we assumed was the final Star Wars film – Episode III Revenge of the Sith – I listened to many discussions of the origins and ideas behind Star Wars. Eventually, I came to think of Star Wars movies less as entertainment and more as work, and I spent a not-insignificant amount of time defending the Star Wars prequels. On the day I left Lucasfilm, a TV producer I know joked, “Now you don’t have to keep insisting that those movies are good anymore.”

I never really had to insist on that, and always did believe it. But once I left Lucasfilm in 2009, I never watched any of the first six Star Wars films from start to finish. The stay-at-home world of coronavirus changed that, and I allowed myself to watch Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace … and discovered that I appreciated it more than I ever thought possible.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace – Trailer

www.youtube.com

When it was released in 1999, I saw The Phantom Menace a half-dozen times in theaters and was bemused by each screening. Since 1977, I had only occasionally wondered what the “war” in Star Wars was all about, and why an intergalactic civil war had raged. The Phantom Menace promised an explanation, and gave one – but it wasn’t at all what anyone expected: Princess Leia had stolen secret plans, Darth Vader had killed Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker had blown up the Death Star, Yoda had trained Luke, Han had been frozen in carbonite, all because trade routes were unfairly taxed?

That sense of disbelief was long-lasting, and by the time I started working at Lucasfilm four years after The Phantom Menace was released, it hadn’t abated. The questions of Episode I loomed over everything we did, and were still on my mind when I re-watched The Phantom Menace through different eyes.

It was impossible not to hear the mildly exasperated chuckle in George Lucas’s voice whenever he answered questions about what it all meant. He always maintained a patient insistence that it had not a mistake to tell the world that the roots of Star Wars were indeed in political bureaucracy and microscopic organisms.

To watch Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace again is to realize a truth: George Lucas was absolutely right to do it the way he did. When given complete artistic freedom (he was spending his own money, after all) to tell the Star Wars story he wanted to tell, he remained true to his extraordinary vision a mythology rooted in the foibles and imperfections of our own world.

Director Jim Henson (left) and Lucas working on Labyrinth in 1986

The Phantom Menace is a film stuffed – perhaps overstuffed – with ideas, so many that it is hard to keep up with them. If it is far from a perfect film, with stilted dialogue and sometimes uncomfortable acting, it is never a dull or boring movie. And as arcane as “the taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems” may seem, the origins of all wars – even the unbelievable one we’re in now, which began not with a bat or pangolin, but with bureaucratic, political decisions that stretch back years.

Mundane actions have massive consequences, and The Phantom Menace still surprises by looking at some of those actions closely. Even the opening scene, with its discussion of blockades, negotiations, ambassadors and senators stands in opposition to the slam-bang openings of the first three Star Wars movies.

The first half of The Phantom Menace can seem drawn out and dry, yet Lucas’s script is doing much more than simply setting up the action that will lead to the discovery of Anakin Skywalker. It’s also establishing a complicated world view, one in which politics as a whole is not to be trusted, but is the only imperfect option for getting anything done (sound familiar?).

Bear in mind that within the first couple of minutes of the original Star Wars, we’ve already learned about a civil war, an Imperial senate, and, a bit later, an “Old Republic.” While he could have chosen a more action-oriented, mindless backstory, George Lucas uses The Phantom Menace to begin showing how that republic became an empire, how a politician became a tyrant, and how the senate allowed it all to happen.

In that regard, The Phantom Menace is a more consequential and intriguing film than any of the most recent sequels. It’s also pointedly, proudly a George Lucas film. Its sprawling story, which is always splitting its time between two or three different plot lines, bears much more resemblance to Lucas’s earliest features – THX-1138 and American Graffiti – than any of the Star Wars films Lucas didn’t direct. Watching The Phantom Menace, it’s easy to see Lucas’s love of the craft of moviemaking come to the fore.

DARTH MAUL – Complete Lightsaber Fight – Star Wars : The Phantom Menace

www.youtube.com

The Phantom Menace is equally a rumination on the cultural significance of mythology – when Anakin Skywalker’s mother Shmi struggles to explain what she means about her son’s conception and birth the film is also observing how the mythology of cultures around the globe share the same underpinnings. If Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope found inspiration in Joseph Campbell’s ideas of comparative mythology, The Phantom Menace is a master’s thesis in the teachings.

One of its most central ideas is one of the concepts most derided by fans: midichlorians. With the benefit of having heard George Lucas talk over and over about the concept of an underlying physical connection with the Force, I’ve come to think of midichlorians as the most intriguing aspect of the entire Star Wars saga. They are destiny made manifest, a bold attempt to explain why some people, given the same opportunities, passions and training, achieve more than others. They do not undermine the concept of the Force, but help explain why not everyone becomes a hero.

Star Wars: Phantom Menace – What Are Midichlorians (Movie Clip)

www.youtube.com

Thy also speak to a concept that George Lucas would bring up over and over: the ubiquity of myths. For some reason, people around the world, separated by time and distance, have developed similar myths. Their stories and their religions bear remarkable resemblance to each other. Could it be something within us that motivates these beliefs?

Ultimately, The Phantom Menace becomes a rousing action film, though never a straightforward one. To get us to its final 45 minutes, Lucas concocted a story filled with switches and reverses, betrayals and false allies. It all leads to a grand finale in which at least four different battles are happening simultaneously. Lucas’ skill as a filmmaker ensures we always know where we are throughout this massive conclusion, even if we aren’t entirely sure of the ever-changing identity of one core character.

Though its midichlorian-induced hangover effect put fans on the defensive for years, a rewatch of The Phantom Menace proves the furor over the film may have been overdone. The more you watch The Phantom Menace, and the more you look at how it’s put together, listen to its dialogue and even its music, the more you realize that it has a great deal to say – not just about Star Wars but about our endless need for stories that help us make sense of a non-sensical world.

John Singh is a writer and entertainment-industry veteran who began his career as a newspaper journalist and has also worked at Disney, Lucasfilm Ltd., DreamWorks Animation and on a variety of films and TV series.

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After leaving Fifth Harmony behind in 2018, Lauren Jauregui is finally ready to make it as a solo artist. Jauregui spent the majority of 2019 in the studio and she has now begun to steadily release new music. Kicking off her new era with the steamy, dance-ready track “Lento,” Jauregui returns with a different direction on the silky number “50ft.”

With “50ft.,” Jauregui warns those around her that she’s not one to put up with negativity. If she does encounter toxic behavior, she needs to give herself at least a 50-foot barrier from the drama. “Push a negative to the side / So it’s not in front of my eyes / Outta sight outta mind / I need more than 50 feet,” she croons.

The hazy video accompanying “50ft.” exhibits the track’s fluid nature. Directed by Inyegumena Nosegbe and Jauregui herself, the visual cuts between pastel clips of Jauregui spending time at home with her family and out on the town with friends. Filmed in December (ahead of the pandemic), the singer showcases her favorite activities like driving around in a Jeep with the windows down or linking up with her besties to grab some hot food at the local corner store.

Watch Jauregui’s “50ft.” video above.

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Previously on the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War: Mark Henry got spanked by his mom because the woman he’d been stalking and harassing for several months tricked him into touching a cross-dresser’s penis. Man, don’t you miss the Attitude Era? Back when wresting was real.

If you haven’t seen this pay-per-view, you can watch it on WWE Network here. Check out all the episodes of classic Raw you may have missed at the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War and Best and Worst of WWF Monday Night Raw tag pages. Follow along with the competition here.

Hey, you! If you want us to keep doing retro reports, share them around! And be sure to drop down into our comments section to let us know what you thought of these shows. Head back to a time long forgotten when WWE TV was fun to watch, and things happened!

And now, the Best and Worst of WWF Royal Rumble 1999.

Best: Mr. McMahon Lets Us Know How Much Of A Chance We Have

The 1999 Royal Rumble is a real shit-show, so let’s start off with Sunday Night Heat and the night’s most historically relevant moment: the debut of ‘No Chance In Hell,’ high-key the greatest entrance song in wrestling history (don’t @ me), for Vince McMahon. Technically the show is called WWF ROYAL RUMBLE: NO CHANCE IN HELL so Jim Johnston and Peter Bursuker’s corporate club banger is only the theme song for the pay-per-view, but 20 years later its as synonymous with Mr. McMahon as silly power walks and boxy suits you lifted from a passing gorilla.

Not The Best: Mr. McMahon’s Plans

McMahon and Son (and the Stooges) open Heat with a twofold plan to escape the evening:

• keep Stone Cold Steve Austin out of the Royal Rumble by closing up the performer parking lot behind the arena, and hoping he’s too stupid to like, park his truck in a normal parking lot and walk a short distance
• put Mankind in a “warm-up” bout on Heat against a mystery opponent to soften him up for the WWF Championship “I Quit” match against the Rock later in the night (spoiler: trust us, The Rock does all the “softening” here, in the worst definition of that word)

Let’s start with “trying to stop Stone Cold Steve Austin from doing something while he’s behind the wheel of a large vehicle,” which is, “start a bonfire between the pumps at a gas station,” levels of short-sighted. Austin pulls up in his truck and tries to park but gets waved away, with the attendant informing him it’s, “VIP parking, limousines only!” The lot is barricaded up like it’s Les Misérables, so Austin, being Austin, finds a limousine. A monster truck limousine, SOMEHOW, which he uses to … well, monster truck his way in. Is that what driving a monster truck over something is called?

My only criticisms here are that Vince McMahon didn’t also have a Corporate Monster Truck, that they did not have a sumo battle on the roof of Arrowhead Pond, and that it didn’t end with Vince falling off the roof to his death before completely recovering and returning to the ring to win the Royal Rumble.

This is Mankind’s “mystery opponent.” What a mystery, right? There have been so many 6-foot-9, 500-pound black guys in WWE history, it’s hard to narrow it down. It’s either Mabel from Men on a Mission, or … [checks notes] Mark Henry put on 250 pounds and had a half-a-foot growth spurt at age 27? Kamala ate an everlasting gobstopper before he stepped out of the limo?

No one took into account that aside from that one King of the Ring win, Mabel’s WWE career was dedicated to being the world’s largest and most physically threatening looking jobber. Even here, when he’s brought in as a Corporate hit man, he’s unmasked and losing so badly five minutes in that The Rock has to run out and get him disqualified. So to recap, they tried to keep Stone Cold Steve Austin out of a parking lot by assuming he didn’t have the Grand Theft Auto cheat codes to materialize a monster truck limo out of thin air, and they tried to soften up Mankind with the softest dude they could find.

One important note: during a pre-match promo, Mankind insists that he’ll make The Rock say …

On commentary, Corporate booster club President Shane McMahon is suspiciously like, “thank you very much for those KIND WORDS, Mick,” and nobody gives it a second thought. I guess, “thanks for speaking very clearly into the microphone there, Mick, if an impossibly strong 6-foot-5 man with an uncontrollable blood lust hitting your brains as hard as humanly possible with a steel chair 11 times doesn’t work, our access to this audio will come in handy,” would’ve been too obvious.

Worst: A Huge Undertaking, Part One

It’s with the sudden reappearance of Mabel, of all people, that we should mention The Undertaker, who shows up on Heat dressed like a sarcastic Amish boxer to remind us that another ritual sacrifice will happen during the Royal Rumble. You’d think somebody would, I don’t know, call the cops on their co-workers for kidnapping and torturing people on-screen to brainwash them into joining his Satantic blood cult, but hilariously that has an actual, in-universe storyline reason for not happening. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Undertaker’s appearance is prefaced by Bradshaw, Faarooq, and Clothed Mideon ruining the end of a Job Squad versus Too Much match, as much as that’s possible. They really missed the boat not giving Brian Christopher and Scott Taylor gay occult gimmicks. Sunday Night Heat would’ve turned into an Anne Rice novel like [snaps]. Of note, this is Scorpio’s very last major appearance in WWE aside from two Shotgun Saturday Night appearances until December of 2007, when he shows up in a battle royal on the 15th Anniversary Raw.

Will She Be Sable To Compete??

One of the funniest attempts at storytelling for the entire event is the video package for Sable vs. Luna Vachon, wherein WWE’s obsession with revisionist history decides that Luna “looked upon Sable as a role model.” Yes, Luna Vachon, who debuted in 1985 and is the daughter of Butcher Vachon and the niece of Vivian and Mad Dog Vachon, looked upon L’Oréal model and 10-month in-ring veteran Sable as her wrestling role model.

Here, Luna interrupts a Sable interview with a run-in so non-threatening you have to see it to believe it, and Sable uses her world class athleticism to just kind of fall over and die. Luna adds 0.001% more damage by pawing at Sable’s back like she’s trying to unlace her corset. Luna just really, really, really works the back. Sable’s back is so hurt I don’t think she’s gonna be able to compete.

Anyway, a fun aside to the 1999 Royal Rumble is that this is the show Barry Blaustein is at, shooting footage for what will become Beyond the Mat. It’s fun to go back and see all the stuff that’s produced in the ring based on what we see happening backstage.

Pfft, like I’d ever think that.

You’ll be shocked to read this, I know, but despite her back being really, really, really worked, Sable is able to compete. It’s a strap match, the one where you have to physically drag your opponent around the ring and touch all four corners without your momentum being broken, so you know it’s got the only finish those matches ever have: one person dominantly dragging their opponent to three corners, but not noticing their opponent has touched the corners, too. Then a little fight breaks out, and despite the fact that “broken momentum” is supposed to reset the count (and the fact that being led around in a circle is the opposite of “momentum” and the background corner touches shouldn’t count unless you’re in control), the person being dragged touches the fourth corner before the dragger and wins. It’s exactly as clumsy as my paragraph attempting to explain it.

Sable and Luna do that, with the bonus of Luna only being stopped at the very end by interference from Sable superfan and Ron Perlman’s stunt double on Beauty and the Beast, “Tori.” I can’t believe Luna’s childhood role model would cheat to win like that.

Worst: D-Generation X And The Under-card Of Doom

What does the phrase, “strongest recommendation to avoid,” mean to you?

The only things most people remember from this pay-per-view are the Rumble match itself (mostly for bad reasons) and Foley and The Rock doing “I Quit” (for much worse reasons). What you may not remember is that D-Generation X is responsible for the entire non-Sable-related under-card, and it’s about as bland and uneventful as WWF wrestling could get in 1999.

• Up first is Road Dogg vs. Big Boss Man, and nobody knows what the hell’s going on. It’s not supposed to be for the Hardcore Championship or contested under hardcore rules, but the referee holds up the belt before the match anyway. They start off pretty strong regardless, but it goes 12 minutes for some reason and is … okay, you know how in a battle royal when two wrestlers aren’t the focus of whatever’s going on, and you can see them in the background just kind of aimlessly punching and humping each other into the ropes and corners? It’s that, but a singles match. For 12 minutes.
• After that we’ve got the Intercontinental Championship match between Ken Shamrock and Bill Ass, which was apparently supposed to be Gunn’s coronation as the next big superstar but was curbed due to (according to Wade Keller) Gunn partying all night and showing up to work hungover. So Shamrock just kicks his ass and wins clean with the ankle lock in an astonishing 15 minutes of boring, heartless Billy Gunn action you’d have fast forwarded on Raw. Like watching paint dry on a snail’s ass.
• The best of the matches is a random European Championship defense for X-Pac against Gangrel, but even that’s marred by a botched finish. Pac comes off the top with a cross-body. Gangrel rolls through, and referee Teddy Long clearly counts X-Pac’s shoulders down for three. Everybody in the crowd is like “…??? LOL what,” and the wrestlers more or less abandon hope and go straight to the finish. This got roughly a third of the time as the other two matches.

And then the Sable and Luna strap match. I only recommend this pay-per-view for anthropological purposes, or as a cautionary tale of how not to use collapsible furniture. I guess we might as well go ahead and get to that.

Worst: The 11 Chair Shots Heard ‘Round The World

If you watch WWE YouTube’s revisionist history of this match, you’ll see Mankind “falling” out of the stands and dropping an elbow onto some electrical equipment in a very safe attempt to evoke his fall at King of the Ring ’98. Special effects sparks fly, and The Rock squats over Mankind’s unconscious body and jams a microphone into his face. Audio of Mankind screaming, “I quit,” over and over from Sunday Night Heat is played over the speakers, and Mankind “quits” via manipulative audio technicality and loses the championship. It’s a good finish to a heated match if you, like the World Wrestling Federation’s dueling Vinces, are still obsessed with Survivor Series ’97 and can’t stop riffing on it.

What the YouTube version leaves out is everything between the fall and the finish, a borderline televised manslaughter which goes down as maybe the most brutal stretch of pro wrestling violence to ever happen on a big stage in a big league wrestling promotion. It is horror.

Mankind’s not finished, so Rock drags him back to the ring and handcuffs his arms behind his back. Around this point is when you should start getting deeply concerned. Mankind fights back with some kicks and a big funny headbutt to the groin, but Rock’s ultimately able to regain the advantage and hit a chair-assisted People’s Elbow. Rock wants Mankind to quit. Mankind: “Go to Hell, Rock.” The Rock’s response? “The Rock may go to Hell, but your candy ass first.”

And then he makes good on the threat.

Mankind stumbles to his feet, so The Rock — again, a very large, very strong young man who has already shown he can swing a steel chair with murderous intent and cruel precision — blasts him in the face with a full force, completely unprotected chair shot. Mankind crumbles to his knees, so Rock gives him another. Rock tells him to quit. Mankind’s response: “Kill me.” Right around here is when your deep concern should turn to flashing red lights.

Rock responds with three more full-on unprotected chair shots to the head to put Foley down. Foley’s bleeding from the face, badly. This is where the match should end. This is where it’s supposed to end, depending on who you talk to, but instead of staying down, an already concussed Mankind rolls out of the ring and tries to stagger away. Rock follows him to the floor and hits another chair shot to the head. And another. And ANOTHER. Foley falls to the ground in a heap and has no goddamn idea where he is. His wife and young children are in the crowd in hysterics. His face looks like a pizza without the cheese. Somehow THIS is where the two worst swings occur.

“I don’t feel like such a good dad anymore.”

The one that bothers me the most 20 years later is this one. Mankind gets to his feet and is very clearly giving his back to Rock. Rock refuses, waiting maliciously (at least in the moment) for another swing at Mick’s brains. Foley’s 10 chair shots in and tries to walk away. Instead of even repositioning and squaring up with the final swing, Rock just winds up and throws the hardest chair shot he’s ever given to the middle of the back of Mick’s head. That’s the killing blow.

This is Mankind lying in a rapidly collecting pool of blood. Not dramatic “show” blood that he used a little razor taped to his fingers to spurt from a little gash in his hairline. The thick, oozing blood that falls out of you when your brain is swelling and your body’s starting to shut down. Here, finally, Rock squats over him and they do the worked audio gimmick that, and I could be wrong here, did not need a homicide to set up.

According to various accounts of what went down, the truth of the matter seems to be that the original idea was for Foley to take a beating and ultimately quit to spare his family from watching him get completely and irreparably wrecked. They get Mick’s wife and kids in the front row, and Mick assumes that what they have planned won’t be any worse than the years of Cactus Jack-centric violence and punishment they’ve already seen. The idea is just a few chair shots with Rock putting the drama on Colette Foley between them. But the head of USA Network was going to be there and he’d been defending Raw’s content on press tours, so Foley decided to up the physicality and add more chair shots. The finish was changed from an emotional decision of a father and a husband to another “screwjob,” because THOSE got people talking. And somewhere amid all of this, they lose control of the finish. Foley won’t stay down. Rock wants to lead him up the ramp to do the piped-in “I quits” but Foley’s mid-concussions and stops being an active participant. Rock’s in the moment, and his testosterone is pumping, and he’s internally on fire. Children are crying. Five chair shots becomes eleven. Blood is everywhere. Film crews set up to shoot a moment and end up with something completely different.

The Rock didn’t apologize for the extra chair shots and didn’t check on Foley while he was being patchworked back to life, which caused a rift between the two. They worked it out, of course, and a lot of their best moments as a duo are still ahead of them. But the 1999 Royal Rumble “I Quit” match remains infamous as a reminder of what can happen when plans spiral wildly out of control, and the consequences that can have for not only the performers involved, but the people who care about them. It’s even harder to watch now that we know more about concussions and what they can do to a wrestler’s brain. Fascinating, unforgettable, and nauseating. One of the best matches all all time that I wish had never happened.

And Now, Stridex® And Vince Russo Present The 1999 Royal Rumble Match

The least important part of the 1999 Royal Rumble match is the Royal Rumble match.

It’s all about the “story” — the World Wrestling Federation makes movies, after all, they don’t confederate wrestling around the world or anything — to the point that anything happening in the ring is irrelevant. Which is a really odd thing to say about a match that’s supposed to have rules and take place entirely in a wrestling ring.

For an illustration of what I’m talking about, that’s an image of Stone Cold Steve Austin knocked out on the floor of the women’s restroom. So … all right, if you’ve been reading the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War column for the build to this, you know that Stone Cold Steve Austin is the number one entrant in the Rumble, and Vince McMahon is number two. Austin cares more about stomping a mud hole in Vince and walking it dry than winning, so the fight ends up going out of the ring and into the crowd, and then into the arena concourse. Austin and McMahon are the focus while dorks like Edge, Droz, and Gillberg hang out in the ring to technically “keep the match going.” Ultimately Austin is jumped by the Corporation and laid out in the aforementioned rest room, where he’s so badly beaten he has to be taken away on a stretcher and whisked away to the Local Medical Facility.

The ring starts filling up with guys like Dan Severn, Tiger Ali Singh, and The Blue Meanie. IMAGINE how good that is. The 11th entry is Mabel, fresh off his embarrassing disqualification loss debut as a Corporate henchman on Sunday Night Heat, and he starts clearing the ring. But remember that thing I told you to remember about the Undertaker and the whole “ritualistic sacrifice” thing?

Sure enough, The Undertaker shows up to make Mabel his next acolyte, meaning Mabel returned as a Corporate hench and turned into a GOTH hench in the span of a few hours. They attack him until he’s back in the parking lot, where they force him into the back of a hearse and drive off. As you may know, this begins Mable’s transformation into Viscera, as I guess Undertaker was in the back like, “hey Mideon, you know what would be funny? If we named the really fat guy after guts. Also, you know what would make Mabel a better wrestler? Putting him in white contact lenses so he can’t see, and dressing him in a big baggy trash bag that’s always about to fall off so he has to keep pulling it up.” During this whole thing, Road Dogg hangs out in the ring, not doing anything. This is the level of excitement we’re working with here, people.

If that’s not enough extracurricular Brothers of Destruction ballyhoo for you, Kane enters at number 18, following such luminaries as Al Snow and Kurrgan, and eliminates everyone until Mr. McMahon’s roving pack of local asylum orderlies hit the ring to get beaten up.

Kane, not wanting to be institutionalized again, eliminates himself and escapes out through the crowd.

Mr. McMahon returns to the ring and ends up sitting in on commentary (while still being an active participant), and is hits the EXAGGERATED UH OH GULP when Stone Cold Steve Austin returns driving the ambulance that’d taken him away. McMahon apparently forgot that Stone Cold regains 100% HP and gains a boost to all stats when he’s near a vehicle. It’s like letting Popeye eat a can of spinach.

Austin returns to the ring and has to fight through an army of Corporation guys and D-Generation X members who are willing to betray and eliminate him to claim the $100,000 Stone Cold elimination bonus. He’s able to survive Triple H, Owen Hart, Big Boss Man, and a few others, and eliminates Chyna only moments after she makes history by not only being the first woman to enter the men’s Rumble, but eliminate one of the men. Mark Henry, of course. Try not to accidentally touch any penises on the way to the ground!

The final two left in the ring are, you guessed it, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Vince McMahon. But as you know if you’ve been paying attention to the World Wrestling Federation’s very obvious tier chart, Austin versus The Rock is the match they want for WrestleMania. So The Rock shows up to cause a distraction, and despite this match being nothing BUT distractions, Austin still falls for it like a complete idiot, allowing Vincent Kennedy goddamn McMahon to dump him to the floor and win the Royal Rumble. That leaves us with Michael Cole shouting about how the WrestleMania XV main event is now The Rock vs. Mr. McMahon.

So!

That’s the 1999 Royal Rumble. It’s a “two match show,” where the two matches are more of a conversation than actual entertainment. The purposeful, built-up swerve of Survivor Series ’98 has already devolved into the endless “tell, don’t show” screwjob finishes WWE would try to end pay-per-views with for the next 20 years, where it’s all about the unexpected shock of the moment rather than anything that makes sense for the characters, keeps them consistently motivated, or helps their careers. Most of the roster’s just a backdrop for the main event players, who are currently under the thumb of the NPC Authority Figure as fools (Austin), victims (Foley), stooges (Rock), or cartoonish sideshows (Undertaker).

The good news is that Halftime Heat, St. Valentine’s Day Massacre: In Your House, and WrestleMania XV are coming up, and that they all help the company get back on its feet creatively after critically surprising themselves with Survivor Series and having no fucking clue what to do about it.

Tomorrow Night On Raw

The Rock has another “I Quit” match less than 24 hours after turning Mick Foley’s brain into Flubber, D’Lo Brown is forced to purchase tampons against his will, and Val Venis remakes a Whoopi Goldberg classic. All this and George ‘The Animal’ Steel in action — no, really — in the next Best and Worst of Raw ’99. Try not to scream about quitting into any microphones between now and then.