1997, episode of Raw is War when he jumped the guardrail, to help Vader fend off an attack from The Hart Foundation. Blackman was given a martial arts gimmick, and named "The Lethal Weapon" Steve Blackman. His first pay-per view appearance was at Survivor Series 1997, as a replacement for the injured Patriot as the fourth member of Team USA (Vader, Goldust, and Marc Mero). Blackman was the first elimination of the match when he was counted out of the ring. Team USA lost to Team Canada (British Bulldog, Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, Phillip Lafon, and Doug Furnas) when the British Bulldog pinned Vader. His next pay-per view appearance was at Royal Rumble 1998 in the 30-man Royal Rumble match. He was the tenth entrant into the Rumble, but was eliminated by Kurrgan. Blackman was undefeated for close to a year after his debut, during this time Blackman established his trademark entrance involving swinging glow-in-the-dark escrima sticks. His first loss finally came at the hands of Jeff Jarrett thanks to interference from Jarrett's manager, at the time, Tennessee Lee. Blackman started feuding with the Nation of Domination in early 1998 and achieved great success by defeating the likes of The Rock and Faarooq. In his attempts to combat the Nation of Domination he teamed up with Ken Shamrock. Blackman and Shamrock teamed with former Nation member Faarooq at Unforgiven: In Your House to defeat The Rock, D-Lo Brown and Mark Henry. Eventually, Blackman and Shamrock split to pursue singles success, both men entered the King of the Ring in 1998 but would never get to face each other because Blackman lost to Marc Mero, Shamrock won the tournament. During this time he would develop a reputation for doing run-ins during matches where one of the participants would cheat by having a run-in done in his favor, thus earning him the nickname "The Peacemaker" from the announce team. Blackman competed in the WWF Brawl for All tournament and once again came up against Marc Mero, this time however Blackman defeated him but would have to withdraw due to injury, allowing Mero to advance by default. Blackman came to the aid of Shamrock when he was being beat down by Owen Hart and Dan Severn. For his efforts Shamrock suplexed Blackman and in retaliation Blackman suplexed Shamrock back. This would lead to Blackman and Shamrock facing each other in the first round