10 shocking moments from WWF (WWE) 1998

#3 The dumpster incident

There are people in there!

One of the many aspects of the WWF Attitude Era that made it stand out above the rest was its overt disregard for respect and tradition. While in today's product it is seen as almost blasphemous to talk about legends from the past in a negative light, the 1998 roster was busy doing and saying whatever it wanted.

The WWF had to portray itself as the younger, fresher company considering how heavily WCW relied on old stars from the past. One team in particular who embodied this attitude were The New Age Outlaws.

By the beginning of 1998, Road Dogg and Billy Gunn were embroiled in a feud with The Road Warriors, a legendary team from the late 80s and 90s. In a series of matches and segments throughout most of late 1997, the Outlaws mocked their older rivals as being out of touch with the business and proceeded to humiliate them in the ring at any given opportunity. In one memorable segment, Hawk even had his head shaved while the Outlaws and DX destroyed his partner Animal.

Road Dogg and Gunn continued through the rest of 1998 in very much the same fashion, going on to face another tag-team made up of two of the business's greatest legends in Mick Foley and Terry Funk. Funk had been brought in to team with Foley at the beginning of the year, calling himself Chainsaw Charlie. The two of them would stalk the New Age Outlaws everywhere they went, threatening to drag them into the extreme world they had helped to build over in Japan and in ECW.

The most memorable and shocking moment of this feud came during a match between Foley and Funk where both men ended up in a giant dumpster. As the two hardcore legends helplessly lay there, Road Dogg and Billy Gunn came to ring side, secured the dumpster shut and proceed to throw it off the side of the stage.

The company did everything it could to make this feel like a huge deal at the time. Almost the entire locker room came out to show how disgusted they were at the actions of the two young thugs. Foley and Funk were carried off on a stretcher while JR and King did their best to show concern and compassion on commentary.

This incident led up to a fantastic match at Wrestlemania 14 between the two teams and signalled the arrival of the New Age Outlaws into the main event picture of the company going forward.