August 30th, 1998:
Triple H vs. The Rock
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Hot Under The Collard

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A look back at a classic late 90's brawl between titans of their era, plus a little bit about this wrestling match. Knicks, nostalgia and collectible coins.



WHO?: Triple H vs. The Rock
WHEN?: WWF Summerslam '98, 8/30/1998
WHERE?: Madison Square Garden. New York, NY
SHOULD I WATCH IT TOO?: Meltzer goes 4.25, Grappl's at 4.38. I think it's just fine.

The buildup to Summerslam ‘98 was one of the coolest things I can ever remember in wrestling. The commercial with Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Undertaker walking toward each other through fire while “Highway to Hell” plays in the background was everywhere. Meanwhile, I was shocking peers and authority figures alike with my oversized Degeneration-X shirt, featuring a large “S*CK IT” print on the back (yes, it was censored like that on the shirt). Hunter Hearst Helmsley had become a favorite of mine, and his ladder match for the Intercontinental Championship against The Rock was my personal main event. Ladder matches weren’t nearly as commonplace as they are today, you hardly ever saw them then. To say the least, I couldn’t fucking wait. 
Unfortunately though, I didn’t get to see it. I was eleven years old and my parents, resorting to heel tactics, refused to cough up the sixty dollars for me to watch it. 
So I sat in my room all night and waited while what seemed like the rest of the world had the time of their lives watching Summerslam. What stung even more was my proximity from the event. I’m from the Hudson Valley area not far from New York City - I had friends from school who were in that building. Said building was Madison Square Garden and while much is made of the relationship between the Garden and professional wrestling, that had no bearing on the reverence I held for it. It also houses the New York Knicks, who were the only thing I cared about more than crotch-chopping in the late 90’s. 
In the Summer of ‘96, the Knicks overhauled their roster with the additions of Allan Houston, Larry Johnson and Chris Childs. This marks the beginning of a four year stretch where the Knicks feel the most “mine”. I loved my underachieving Knicks. The NBA looked a lot different then; in a lot of ways it looked like the WWF. It was going through a boom period with a huge star doing record numbers on top - Michael Jordan was the world’s most popular athlete again, Space Jam is released in ‘96 and his Bulls were running through their second three-peat of NBA championships. Many often argue this historically disguises a disparity of talent in the middle of the league. The Summerslam ‘98 midcard prominently features an Oddities vs. Kaientai handicap match, as well as another chapter in the marital feud between Sable and Marc Mero. Come the fall I will argue the merits of Vin Baker’s low post game to kids at recess. 
Still, I waited anxiously for word on what I’d missed, like I imagine many other lonely, sweaty pre-teens did that night. Obviously, back then there was no Twitter to keep tabs with, and I wasn’t quite locked into internet wrestling nerd-dom yet. I was waiting to receive my Summerslam news from the Home Shopping Network. That’s right - pro wrestling had so pervaded popular culture, that even QVC’s top competitor wanted a piece of the action. It didn’t even seem that strange back then. In a time before e-commerce or Netflix, it was commonplace to lose an hour or two in idly watching a person aggressively try to sell you knives or baseball cards or blenders on TV. When host Brian Collard’s coverage began at 10:55 I was there waiting. When they finally arrived on the Intercontinental title match, they shuffled through a series of still frames summarizing the bout. I vividly remember what follows: Triple H sitting behind a table with a headset on, the belt draped over his shoulder. My guy had won, and honestly that memory still feels kind of magical in a way that stacks up to almost any moment during my pubescent Attitude-era obsession that I actually did get to witness. 
Actually watching the match twenty one years later is, well, a different experience. We begin with the standard set of clips recapping the rivalry, where you can even catch a quick glimpse of The Rock in cargo shorts. Triple H enters to a live rendition of the DX theme performed by Chris Warren and “The DX Band”. This was the coolest theme back then (and really, it holds up) and I remember thinking the live performance of it at Wrestlemania 14 for Shawn Michaels’ entrance kicked unholy ass. In this one, my eyes are glued to the guitar player on the left, who looks like a math teacher friend one of the guys invited over to jam. At this point in my life, I probably relate more to this guy than the others. At least more than the drummer, who’s adorned in a full WWF branded jumpsuit. The lead guitar line boinks prominently, like when the kid in a high school band forgets to check the level on his clean channel. When they destroy their instruments at the end, it feels more like they’re mercy killing them. 
The most striking thing at first is the atmosphere. Maybe I’ve falsely superimposed the identical layout and presentation of every event in the modern WWE over my recollection of the Attitude era, but this show doesn’t feel like anything I remember from then. There’s no Titantron and the entrance ramp doesn’t look more than fifty feet from ringside. Typical of the Attitude era, the crowd is rabid, and in my beloved Garden it seems like they’re practically on top of the wrestlers. After a few finisher teases to begin, they take on a slower pace. I wouldn’t have yet identified this as the typical Triple H Pay-Per-View style back then. The offense is based mostly around Rock working Triple H’s knee (an injury is established before the match on Sunday Night Heat), and for the first ten minutes or so, it’s riveting. How do you climb a ladder if your leg doesn’t work? Still, around the third time The Rock has to pretend he just...can’t...manage to climb that last rung, he’s not quite yet Hollywood’s top box office draw, and I’m wondering if I had any business coming back and watching this now. 

***
You can’t talk about the late 90’s New York Knicks without mentioning their bitter rivalry with the Miami Heat. It’s an almost pro wrestling-esque story: Knicks coach Pat Riley parts with the team on bad terms to build a new contender in Miami; Riley assistant Jeff Van Gundy continues New York tradition of intense physicality on the court introduced by his mentor; student and teacher meet in heated playoff battle. Jordan looms in the background, waiting for the next contender to step up. 
They’d meet in the playoffs for four consecutive years, but the first in ‘97 is most notorious. In 2017 The Ringer put together a fantastic oral history of the series, where Heat beat writer Ira Winderman is quoted as saying, “It was Monday Night Raw for the first four games of that series.” Of course, in the following fifth game, Heat forward P.J. Brown practically bodyslams Knicks point guard (and former Heisman winner) Charlie Ward into the first row photographers, leading to a bench-clearing brawl. Of all the things I’ve referenced, this is the only one that holds up to my memory of it - in fact, it exceeds it. I remember Brown barely getting Ward off the ground, something akin to the way Uncle Phil would toss Jazzy Jeff out of his mansion. Watching it today, P.J. Brown almost lands a goddamn tilt-a-whirl slam. 
I remember where I was and what I was doing during each of the remaining games in that series, and for a bunch of the others in the three years that would follow - Allan Houston’s series-clinching game winner in ‘99 for example. I thought I was watching some of the most important basketball of all time, my very own Bulls-Pistons, or even Lakers-Celtics. I remember John Starks carrying the team on his back despite the suspensions of Houston and franchise cornerstone Patrick Ewing. In reality Starks only scored 16 points on 6-of-16 shooting, and turned the ball over seven times. In reality, the Knicks-Heat rivalry is often cited as evidence of a decline in quality play in the era. 
I remember being surprised the first time I read Bill Simmons’ (the founder and CEO of The Ringer) Book of Basketball; in a footnote from the chapter on Patrick Ewing he writes: “Notice how I avoided any mention of the excruciating Knicks-Heat playoff battles? I always wanted a Bizarro ESPN Classic channel that featured programming like NBA’s Greatest Games: Miami 65, New York 56”. In the aforementioned Ringer piece, regular ESPN contributor J.A. Adande says, “If you think about those meetings, [the fights] really stand out. The only basketball play that stands out is the Allan Houston shot and even that wasn’t pretty...it wasn’t beautiful basketball.” But I’ve never gone back and watched those games, so they’re preserved in my mind as all-timers. The rivalry would effectively end in September of 2000, when the Knicks traded Patrick Ewing - the longstanding face of the team - to Seattle. About six months later, The Rock would leave to shoot The Scorpion King, effectively ending his run as a full time member of the WWF roster. 

***
No matter how you feel about the Attitude era, or wrestling back then in general, you have to feel something when Rock bodyslams Helmsley on the ladder and begins to set up the People’s Elbow. Flashbulbs explode, time freezes. Jim Ross, in the days where he was still a master salesman and not yet the cranky detractor of the product we know today, doesn’t hold back on the call: “That was just heinous,” Ross exclaims, “I don’t think any human being would be able to rebound after that.” All for what is essentially your standard elbow drop. It wasn’t as clear then with Stone Cold happening simultaneously, but The Rock was always bigger than all of this. I don’t know if we can ever have anything like him again. In this match you can hear the crowd beginning to lose their ability to boo him. It was difficult for me back then too. 
I don’t mean to undermine Triple H. To this day, when he shows up with a microphone it’s evident he’s got a leg up (even the quadricep) on so many of the stars that have come since, and again, he was my favorite wrestler. He’d get better at the bloated epic than he is here, but he’s still Triple H. He’s finding the guy he’ll become absent Shawn Michaels’ shadow, though he won’t quite escape it on this night. Today, you can’t help but sandwich this match between the HBK/Razor Ramon classics that preceded it, and the complete fucking mayhem of the ladder matches we see today. In either case, it pales. The slow dramatic climbs toward the belt begin to draw diminishing returns until finally both men hit their finishers in fairly rapid succession. The Rock is bloodied, and Helmsley is blinded by a handful of powder to the face from Mark Henry, who appears to be wearing a fleece vest. I groan a little when a low blow from Chyna decides the match. I understand that this was a redemption arc for her as well (Rock’s faction, the Nation of Domination, ambushed her on Raw) but what a fart of a way to end the war I just watched for half an hour. 
People love this match. Meltzer went four-and-a-quarter and the regular internet rating aggregates all about equal that. But to me, nothing in the actual match tops the moment I saw Triple H with the belt on the Home Shopping Network, and that’ll likely still be how I remember it in time. Like I said before, the biggest contributor that evening was a completely unhinged fanbase. Technically speaking, I was a part of that, and now I’m twenty years past my prime. Maybe I was best served leaving this in 1998, where it could live on happily alongside my intrepid New York Knicks, the unmatched eroticism of MTV’s Undressed, and Mark Henry’s fleece vest. 
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 The Charlie Ward/P.J. Brown toss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE9eAfinef8

 If there’s even a small piece of NBA nerd in you, I can’t recommend Bill Simmons’ The Book of Basketball enough. Keep a copy next to the toilet, thank me later. 

 The only clips I could find of the Summerslam Post-Show on the Home Shopping Network come courtesy of Brian Collard’s own YouTube channel. Here’s the opening, if you browse around there’s one that appears to cut off just before Triple H shows up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ-FcnY22rg

 If you’ve somehow found this, please feel free to comment and let me know what you think of the match, the blog and any suggestions/requests for matches in future entries. 

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