WWF Unforgiven, Charlotte, NC
A request! A real classic here.
Long story short, Al Snow had a dog called Pepper and eventually the Big Boss Man killed him and tricked Al Snow into eating him.
The Kennel From Hell match.
1999 was great.
(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)
Boss Man is interviewed by Michael Cole before the match, and he says he doesn’t regret anything he did with Pepper. Then he says he’ll stick his night stick up Cole’s ass. Ass! ASS! 1999 was great. Boss Man also says he’s “spent (his) whole adult life dealin’ with people inside of cages,” but brother, at this point we have nearly 14 years of your whole adult life where you have definitely been a professional wrestler, and you’re only 36 years old. You’ve spent almost none of your whole adult life as a corrections officer!
One thing you can say about Boss Man in this run is he really threw himself into every terrible shit ass bit of “creative” they gave him.
The Kennel From Hell concept is that it’s the Hell Cell surrounding the entire ring, and then the blue bars cage is up around the ring. There are dogs that will be in the area between the cages, and to win, you must escape both cages. Also, the Hardcore title, held by Snow, is on the line.
Backstage, Lilian Garcia is now killing time with Al Snow. He is still grieving Pepper. He calls Boss Man fat twice, and also “donut-eating” and a “son of a bitch.”
Lawler giggles when reminded that Boss Man fed Al Snow his dog that Boss Man killed.
Lawler: “Remember what Boss Man did at Pepper’s grave?”
Ross: “Yes. He urinated on it.”
…goddamn it, I’m sorry, I laughed here at Ross’ delivery.
Ross: “I-I-I-I fully empathize with Al’s situation. He lost his dog. And he ate his dog. His dog was taken from him, his dog was skinned, his dog was cooked. I mean, c’mon.”
1999 was great.
Snow out first. Boss Man has a fucked up right eye from something that happened on Raw, I don’t remember clearly and they’re not telling me clearly and I’m not going back to the Raw before this to watch and find out, because it doesn’t matter, because I’m just about to watch an incredibly shitty match.
The bell rings even though Boss Man isn’t inside the cage (he is inside the Cell), and the dogs are not here yet. They start their fight at the cage door, and Al hits Boss Man with the night stick. The crowd is going wild with anticipation for this Great Idea, in a very over feud between two top Superstars.
Snow locks Boss Man out of the cage, and here come the dogs. The trainers and dogs circle the Cell. Once inside the door, the first one pisses all over. Boss Man has to climb the cage to escape these … vicious Rottweilers.
The crowd continues to just lose their minds. They love it.
“This match has some of those bowling shoe tendencies, King,” JR says. It doesn’t, actually, they’re not doing anything, but it does already suck and Ross has been in a lot of buildings with a lot of crowds, and he knows this one does not give a fucking shit about this idiot match.
Two dogs bark eat each other as Al climbs the Cell.
“This whole idea was the, uh, idea of Al Snow,” Ross makes very clear.
The crowd is now actively booing a little bit as Snow falls over the top of the cage, back into the ring, and Boss Man goes down with him. More dogs barking as these two lie around on the floor.
A shot of dogs barking at one another. In the ring, Boss Man hits Al Snow with a weapon, which we can’t tell what it is, and nobody cares.
Ross: “This is one of the more unique matches I think I’ve ever seen.”
Snow blades for this, which is among the actual funnier things he ever did in his great comedy wrestling career.
Boss Man will now try to cut a hole through the roof of the Cell. He has done it. But Snow hits him with a stick of some sort. And again and the stick breaks. Boss Man punches him with pilers and then takes them to his ear. Then a tool uppercut.
Boss Man has “something” that they don’t get or refuse to go with, a “powdery substance.” The idea is pretty clearly the ashes of Pepper the dog, even though Al … ate the dog, because it’s very ash-like on his face when Snow knocks the shit back into him.
Snow hits him with another stick. Boss Man blades, too. Shovel to Boss Man’s back.
The dogs have calmed and no longer care at all as Snow tries to loose a turnbuckle. Snow puts Boss Man’s hand through the cage and tries to direct a dog — by shouting to a trainer “Hey, stupid, get him!” — to bite the Boss Man’s hand. It’s way too high up for the dogs to get to, and they aren’t interested to begin with.
It does not work. Lawler tells a bad joke right before Boss Man feebly hits Snow over the head with a shovel. “I don’t know what’s worse,” Ross says. “That joke or that shovel shot.”
After a better shovel shot, Ross oversells a comical reaction. He has given up on this, and he was never much going with it. Snow gets handcuffed to the top turnbuckle as he loudly calls spots, if you could call it that. Boss Man now climbing up the cage on the other side of the ring. Snow frees himself and wow, the crowd goes insane for his heroic effort.
Boss Man trying to get through that roof hole, Snow shakes him down and Boss Man crotches the top rope. Even that gets absolutely no reaction, other than maybe disappointment because Al Snow has prevented this match from coming to a merciful end.
Head gets a minor reaction. Head shot to Boss Man. Snow climbing the cage closer to the Cell door, while Boss Man gets up and attempts to use his hole again. Boss Man’s on the roof. Snow manages to get down through the door and he wins.
An absolute travesty. They basically do nothing. A couple weapon shots, but this is no match at all, and I’m not being a snob about “wrestling” and moves, they didn’t even actually have a fucking brawl or anything. They did both bleed, which is extremely funny given how completely not over they and this match were, but mostly they did a terrible match with an idiot gimmick while the crowd was bored to death, commentary eventually was just making fun of them, and some lovely, well-trained dogs occasionally barked and pissed.
The highlight probably was stupid ass Al Snow, knowing this entire thing was nothing but an utter, on the list for “worst of all time” failure, yelling at some poor dog trainer because his shitty match wasn’t getting over.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 