Impact
Date: January 20, 2011
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Taz
Episode Title: Dirty Laundry

We’re now two weeks away from February 3 which is of course a big deal because I turn 23!  Clearly that’s why the show is a big deal right?  Oh and Hogan and THEY will be there.  There’s talk of a title match there too.  Maybe it’s not because of my birthday after all.  Anyway now that I’ve filled in the intro space, I’m rather excited about tonight’s show as I found last week’s good as I’ve found the last few weeks.  Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of Angle/the Jarretts from last week.  I still don’t get why Karen wanted to wait until this week instead of just saying what she has to say last week.

Angle gets here and walks past the production area, demanding his music be played right now.  If I’m not mistaken, Jimmy Hart was there working on the production team.  Awesome indeed.  Angle hits the arena and says that this is about him and Jeff, not him and Karen.  He talks about how Karen was always around Jarrett and she said it was always business.

Then a few months ago Jeff started talking about it all the time and rubbing it in Kurt’s face.  Big old nastycut on Kurt’s head.  The salt and pepper beard works on him.  He starts crying as he talks about how he was a good husband and father.  Kurt talks about how the only thing he’s guilty of is not being around enough but that was because he wanted his family to have everything they deserved.

Kurt says he and Karen can either bury the hatchet for the sake of their kids or on the other hand if she doesn’t let it go, he’ll pull out every skeleton in her closet.  Jarrett’s music hits and here comes Team Jarrett.  You know, because they’ve had SO much success against him before.  None of them can even get in the ring as Kurt knocks them all down while they’re on the apron.

Here are Bischoff and Flair, the real stars of the show.  They bring out five or six cops to arrest Kurt.  For once this makes sense as he’s not an active wrestler so why should he be in there?  Jeff and Karen aren’t here yet as we take a break.

The Jarretts get here and are sad about Kurt being gone.

Sarita vs. Velvet Sky vs. Mickie James vs. Madison Rayne

This is non-title I guess.  Madison has the left hand gloved again.  Velvet and Mickie argue over what pairing to start with so they start instead.  Wait you have to tag?  Mickie and Madison start for a bit but Sarita replaces Madison very quickly.  Nice nip-up by Mickie but Velvet tags herself in.  This tagging thing is kind of awkward as it looks like a tag match.

Velvet gets a nice headscissors on Sarita but Madison comes in to beat her down.  It turns into a de facto tag match as Mickie and Madison work together.  Nice arm drag out of a wheelbarrow by Velvet to Sarita.  Mickie and Sarita are left in the ring and mickie goes up.  Tara pops up to blast Mickie with the arm brace.  Sarita and Velvet smack heads and Madison loads up the glove.  She hits Velvet and Mickie rolls up Madison for the pin at 4:30.

Rating: D+. For a fatal fourway, this was awful.  For a tag match, this was ok.  I have no idea what the fourway aspect of this was there for as a tag match would have made perfect sense and probably more sense actually.  The match was ok and it sets up another Madison vs. Mickie match so I guess that was ok.

Beer Money says they’re ready for Anderson and RVD tonight.

Angle is still walking around in the back like nothing ever happened to him.

Back and Joe is sending Okada (guy that signed from I think NJPW a good while ago and has only been on Xplosion to this point I think) out as his spy on Pope.  If I’m not mistaken (and I very well may be) he was dressed like Kato from Green Hornet.  I wouldn’t have known who he was if not for Taz.

Matt Morgan vs. Rob Terry

Before this starts Flair says there isn’t a woman in the place that could last with Terry, not even all three of the good looking women in the front row.  Carbon Footprint ends this in 7 seconds.  Was there ANY point to this?  Flair goes after Morgan post match and can’t hurt him at all.  Abyss comes out and beats down Morgan a bit but Morgan fights off all three guys with ease.

Morgan yells at Flair and gets beaten….never mind as he beats down the enforcer and the TV Champion on his own.  They try to take him down a third time and FINALLY they get him down with a chop block.  A double chokeslam ends Morgan and Immortal stands tall.

Mike and Taz welcome us to the show, 35 minutes in.  They talk about the January 4th Tokyo Dome show and we get some clips of it.

Hardy vs. Dreamer later.  Wow he still has a job?  You pick which I mean by that.

Kaz and AJ talk about Bischoff and praise Fourtune.  Kaz leaves and Crimson chokes down AJ and says that THEY are coming again.

Back and Angle is still wandering around.  Does no one watch these feeds?

X-Division Title: Jay Lethal vs. Kazarian

So on Lethal’s business card does it say X-Division challenger?  Lethal jumps him and it’s on early.  Lethal gets his cartwheel into seated dropkick spot and Kaz tries to leave.  Jay will have none of that though and the fight is on the floor.  The Jarrett segment will be next.  Kaz is thrown back in the ring and Lethal takes him down with a springboard missile dropkick for two.

Lethal Injection is blocked and Kaz fires off a nice three-kick combination.  Handspring elbow takes down Kaz and the Lethal Combination does the same.  Another nip-up tonight as Lethal pulls one off.  He points to the wrong corner and then goes up for the elbow.  After taking long enough to write a short novel he connects anyway.

Kaz rolls out to the floor and appears to be out cold.  Jay gets him back in but Kaz rakes his eyes.  It doesn’t seem to do much as Lethal gets a sunset flip but Kaz grabs the ropes for leverage to get the pin at 4:35.  The idea here again is that Jackson James, the referee, missed it again.  This is despite the fact that you can see he couldn’t see it from the perfect angle he was in.

Rating: C. Totally average match here that was nothing special.  The X-Division is painfully uninteresting at this point as it’s more or less just Lethal challenging whatever heel has the title at this point.  At least they seem to have dropped Robbie though.  Anyway this was seemingly just there to fill in time and had next to nothing special going on with it, although it wasn’t bad.  Call it acceptable if nothing else.

RVD, Anderson and Dreamer talk about how they all want Hardy but only Dreamer got him.  They exchange each others’ nicknames and that’s pretty much it.

The Jarretts are up next.

Kurt sneaks back into the arena.  Good thing there was a camera right there to catch it.

Here are Karen and Jeff.  Jeff talks about how awesome she is and she does look great tonight.  The fans chant sloppy seconds.  Karen is a victim here, a victim of Kurt Angle.  She points out that since Jeff is part owner of the company, she is too (not said but heavily implied).  Her voice is somehow more annoying than Vickie’s.  She says let’s go back to 1997 when Kurt was a lost little puppy.

Kurt pops up behind then and hits Jeff with a German.  Karen tries to take her shoe off but Kurt stops her.  They have a staredown and she slaps him.  Jeff gets a low blow to Kurt and the fans finally wake up a bit.  He hammers Kurt and tries to open up that cut on his head.  No such luck it seems but Kurt is left almost in the fetal position on the mat as the Jarretts leave and we take a break.

Eliminate the hate, as told to you by a group of men and women that solve their problems with their fists and say mean things about how they’re going to hurt each other.

In the back Angle destroys a bunch of stuff.  Again, if the police took him out earlier, why in the world aren’t they doing so now?

Tommy Dreamer vs. Jeff Hardy

I have a great new drinking game for you: every time TNA cuts to a different camera angle, take a shot.  I’ve counted eleven in the first 40 seconds of this match.  Dreamer takes it to the floor early and controls.  We get an ad for the world title match on February 3^rd.  Gee wouldn’t it be great if that had been the first title match instead of throwing it on the end of a PPV completely unadvertised?  Hardy whips Dreamer off the apron and takes over.

Dreamer’s wrist may not be at 100% still.  Jeff hammers away for a bit but here comes Tommy.  It’s a good thing I didn’t play my own drinking game or I’d be dead from alcohol poisoning already.  Dreamer goes to the middle rope but jumps into the Twist.  Dreamer reverses into the Dreamer Driver (thank goodness it’s not that stupid Spicolli name) which gets two.  And there’s the Twist of Hate to end it at 4:18.  It’s as abrupt as it sounds.  Oh apparently Tommy got low blowed.

Rating: C+. Are we just not allowed to go past four and a half minutes tonight?  I had this rated lower earlier but the point here was to reestablish Jeff’s dominance heading into the world title match and on that front it was a success.  Nothing special again but it was fine for what it was: a quick match to make Jeff look good.

Angle now has a baseball bat.  What is this, his 6^th time on camera tonight?

Back and Pope is talking to someone about just getting back.  He goes into an office and talks to a guy on a computer about some overseas transactions.  Apparently he doesn’t notice the camera guy looking into the room with a camera despite looking at the door.  He calls the guy’s phone which the camera picks up and steals the laptop.  So Pope is like a crime boss now or something?

AJ is talking to Flair about how THEY are coming and Flair says THEY are here and he is God.  Flair ices AJ and he’s ticked as goodness about it.  The alcohol burns his throat and he has to stop.  Kurt drills him with the bat and comes after Flair with it.  He chokes Flair down and says have Jarrett in the Impact Zone or he’s coming after Flair next.

So Kurt opened the show, was shown in the back three times, had an in ring segment, had another two backstage moments, jumped Flair and is going to close the show.  You think that’s enough for a guy that isn’t a wrestler?

Beer Money vs. Rob Van Dam/Mr. Anderson

Non-Title here again.  Anderson does his thing pre-match. Beer Money hits the floor and we take a break before the bell.  Roode and Van Dam start us off.  Standing moonsault gets two.  Off to Storm and Anderson with the champion dominating.  We get the fake tag with Storm slapping his hands together so Roode can come in and the referee is fine with it.  If this referee is supposed to be awful, why would he keep getting main event refereeing assignments?

Back over to Storm who works Anderson over a bit.  Hey we broke four and a half minutes for the first time tonight!  On the crawl for house shows, they’re holding a show on the night of their big show, February 3^rd.  Doesn’t that seem a little counteractive?  Anderson can’t get the Mic Check but can get a DDT to bring in Van Dam.  Storm is tagged in as well.

RVD takes out both champions with ease and it’s not quite Rolling Thunder as Roode makes the save.  Storm gets a Backstabber for two.  Anderson comes in and everyone is in at once.  Scratch that as Anderson and Roode go outside.  RVD heads up and it’s a Five Star for Storm.  Jeff hardy comes out to distract the referee though and there’s no cover.  Matt Hardy, looking like a homeless man, comes in with a Twist of Hate so that Storm can get the pin at 8:10.

Rating: C. This was your run of the mill main event tag match here.  It’s not bad but it’s nothing we haven’t see a dozen times?  Thankfully we didn’t have Anderson get pinned a second time.  This was probably the best possible outcome and it worked pretty well for the most part.  Decent main event.

Kendrick tries to calm down Ray (after almost getting killed for calling him Brother instead of Bully) with some breathing techniques.  He slams Kendrick into a locker in the textbook definition of a pointless segment.

Flair and Bischoff send Jarrett to the ring with Eric saying he’s got this.

Here’s D-Von.  Yes, this is the second to last segment on the show: D-Von Dudley yelling at Bubba.  Ray comes out and stands on the ramp.  Kendrick runs down the ramp and sends Bubba into the ring.  Bubba pulls out a chain but D-Von beats him to the punch.  D-Von gets the chain and security stops him.  Bubba beats up security after knocking down D-Von.  He puts a chair around the head of D-Von and swings the chain down onto it to leave D-Von laying.

Kurt is up next.

Back with Angle in the ring for the third time tonight.  Here comes Jeff in his gear along with Gunner and Murphy.  Wow he got changed quickly.  The goons hit the ring and Kurt beats on them for the 9000^th time.  Why can’t a body guard ever be successful in their defense of someone?  They slow him down a bit so I guess they did their job.  Jarrett comes in and it’s a 3-1 beatdown.

And so much for that as Angle takes down both guards and Jeff.  Kurt slaps on a choke and Karen runs out.  Kaz and Fourtune/Immortal come in for the save.  No Abyss for some reason.  AJ throws a single punch and that’s about all he’s able to do on his bad leg.  Here’s Abyss coming down the ramp with his arms open.  He hits his knees and Janice is stuck in his back!  Crimson comes out and stands over him, saying THEY are coming.  Angle clears the ring and grabs a quick ankle lock on Flair to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. Well the wrestling was uh…short tonight.  The stories were advanced though, which is kind of the important part I suppose.  The main thing holding this show back though is Angle vs. Jarrett.  That is probably 20-30% of this entire show, and that’s WAY too much.  They had probably 15 combined appearances tonight and two showdowns.  This was all about them.  If you’re not a fan of that story, you hated this show.  That’s a dangerous style to use as it’s hit or miss.  The show wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as the previous two weeks.

Results

Mickie James b. Sarita, Madison Rayne and Velvet Sky – Rollup to Rayne

Matt Morgan b. Rob Terry – Carbon Footprint

Kazarian b. Jay Lethal – Cradle

Jeff Hardy b. Tommy Dreamer – Twist of Hate

Beer Money b. Rob Van Dam/Mr. Anderson – Storm pinned Van Dam after a Twist of Hate from Matt Hardy

Royal Rumble 2001
Date: January 21, 2001
Location: New Orleans Arena, New Orleans, Louisiana
Attendance: 16,056
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

So with another year gone, two things have happened. First and foremost, Austin is back. He’s a bit weaker than he was before, but he’s still the biggest star in the world. Other than that, WCW is on its absolute death bed, as it would be out of business in about two months. The company is hot right now and they know it, so here they had more or less their 10th free shot in a row at having a great show and knowing there’s next to nothing WCW can do to touch them.

The other big match is Angle vs. HHH for the title. There’s really not a lot to say about this show as the main thing really is just Austin. He’s not a lock to win though as Rock is a huge deal also. I don’t think anyone bought Angle as a main event level guy though, so he could win here and be fine. Either way, let’s get to this as I know at least the Rumble is good.

The intro is of course bland and talking about ho this is the one night where you can win a chance to go to Mania. I get that that’s the main point, but could you please be a bit less generic? It’s not going to kill you for once.

Tag Titles: Dudley Boys vs. Edge and Christian

My goodness it’s a non gimmick tag title match! The best I can gather is that Edge and Christian have been using chairs on the Dudleys so there’s a regular tag match because of it. Oh wait, Edge and Christian are the champions here? Well that makes more sense I guess. They used the chairs to help give them an advantage. Ok that actually does help things out a lot. The champions try to run after about 4 seconds as apparently the Dudleys are injured from the chairs still.

Lawler is amused that they have concussions for some reason. Also for some reason they’re allowed to compete despite having concussions. Only in wrestling would that be perfectly fine. Bubba and Christian are in now and Bubba is holding his head without it being touched so if nothing else he’ selling. Jim and Jerry argue about teeth for no apparent reason. Bubba shouts way too much. It’s so weird to see Edge in the midcard and not incredibly over yet.

We shift into more of a traditional formula here with D-Von fighting for everything he’s worth while the referee naturally misses a tag. While Bubba has the referee’s attention since he never was that bright, D-Von avoids another double chair shot. Once the Dudleys take over, Edge shows off his idiotic side by bringing in a title belt but he misses. That’s fine, but he lays it down. Why would you do that?

Bubba is behind you, there’s no referee, so you lay down your weapon. He was still getting the hang of the top heel thing I guess. In a cool spot, the Dudleys set for 3D but Edge spears Bubba while D-Von has Christian up. It was cooler looking than it sounded. After Edge and Christian try to steal What’s Up, Edge gets hit by the 3D in an ending that felt kind of anti-climactic for some reason.

Rating: B-. This was a match between two teams that fought about a thousand times but it was nice to see them do it without weapons for a change. That’s not something you often see and the good thing is you could have a good match without them. That’s always a good sign and a nice bit of fresh air from these guys. It wasn’t great but it was a good choice for an opener.

Drew Carey is here.

Vince says that Austin will be in the Rumble but HHH keeps his shot. This is about HHH accidentally running into Austin and Austin beating the tar out of him which broke some agreement. The ruling was that Angle caused it so it didn’t actually break the order, which made it completely pointless.

We go to Stephanie and HHH’s dressing room. This was just after Trish was caught bent over in front of HHH so that’s the main topic. Trish is going to be at ringside tonight. Stephanie cannot act, period. Drew Carey comes in and gets tips about how to do PPV because he’s doing Doritos presents Drew Carey’s Improv All Stars. Yes that’s actually what he calls it. He also apparently ran into Kamala at an airport and he’s now a singer. Amazingly enough, that’s real.

Farrooq and Bradshaw show each other their Rumble numbers in a scene that was supposed to have gay overtones that failed completely. Crash comes in and threatens to eliminate them later.

We get the recap of Jericho vs. Benoit, which more or less is both guys saying they’re better and Benoit having the IC Title, so they put it on the line in a ladder match. Do you need any more build that Jericho vs. Benoit in a ladder match? I don’t think so.

Intercontinental Title: Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho

I’ve always loved the prove me wrong line that Benoit had. It was perfect for him as it was short and sweet and correct. That’s all you need a lot of the time. Jericho has a bad shoulder here too to offer some psychology to the match. It helps here as your arms can help you climb a ladder so if nothing else it fits the flow of the match here which can often be the most important part of the match.

They bring the ladder in and somehow we get even more physical than we already were in this match. This was some of Jericho’s best in ring stuff around this time as he was clearly having a blast. See, the difference between WCW and WWF is that here, Benoit and Jericho are likely going to steal the show. They did it in WCW as well but there they would likely just do the same thing again until they jobbed to a 42 year old that didn’t need a push at all.

Here, Benoit would be a workhorse that got all kinds of praise and big matches while in less than a year Jericho would be world champion. Ah here we go. It’s ladder and other weapons time. After some stiff shots in the ring, Jericho goes to the floor and grabs a chair. Benoit launches a suicide dive at him but goes straight into the chair in a great looking spot. And see, Jericho SELLS THE SHOULDER. How hard is that for people to learn?

This turns into a game of top this as they come up with more and more ridiculous ways to hurt each other with the ladder. One of them is Benoit being tied into the ladder on the second rope and Jericho hooking a side Russian legsweep on him, bringing the ladder down with them. There’s stuff in here straight out of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

Benoit gives Jericho a belly to back suplex over the top rope. That’s cool looking if nothing else. Climbing back in, we have a fight up on the top of the ladder, which leads to the spot of the match. Jericho knocks Benoit backwards, and puts THE WALLS OF JERICHO on him on top of the ladder. To say this looks both incredible and painful is a total understatement. That just got this match a much higher grade.

Benoit goes off the ladder but has the energy to kick it over to save the title. This is great stuff here. Back on the mat, Jericho gets caught in the crossface and taps, but obviously this means nothing. There’s at least some psychology here as Benoit already has Jericho’s shoulder hurt so he works on it. That’s at least smart. Since there’s nothing else to do, Benoit is picked up and just thrown into the ladder.

Why not? Sometimes the best solution is just to beat the other person up with the ladder. It’s working here if nothing else. In yet another great visual, we go to the top for a suplex but Jericho is shoved off. Benoit goes for the swan dive, and the whole crowd just rises to their feet to watch in amazement at what they’re seeing. That’s how you know you’re doing a great job: the crowd responds to you.

We finally get one of the first dead spots of the match which is perfectly acceptable in this case as they’re half dead. This lasts all of four seconds though as Jericho comes back in with a chair and just wears out Benoit with it while he’s standing on the ladder. Benoit gets pushed off and bounces off the ropes, then the apron and then the floor, which is enough for Jericho to get the belt. DANG that was painful looking. The highlight package of this match doesn’t do it justice.

Rating: A. This was a freaking brutal fight. They beat the living crap out of each other here and are going to be hard to top. For some reason this match isn’t really remembered, and that was the case even before Benoit was deleted from history. These guys went at it like no other and beat the living tar out of each other. Go find a copy of this as it’s definitely worth it. Great brawling match with tons of brutal spots.

Drew Carey hits on Trish and her chest which ends up with him entering the Rumble.

Chyna says she’s ready. She was still hot back then.

Jericho says that was a war but he’s happy.

We recap Chyna vs. Ivory, which is based on the RTC hating Chyna for being in Playboy (thank goodness!) and then spike piledriving her which allegedly broke her neck. Her line of I hate them while crying is a great thing.

Women’s Title: Chyna vs. Ivory

Around this time Chyna had this big pyro gun called the C-2000 that launched fireworks into the air which was kind of cool. Ross says that Ivory is sexually frustrated and menstruates 30 days a month. I’ve got nothing for that. If nothing else they got the description of her right: she’s more or less Lilith from Cheers.

Chyna was supposed to be this woman that broke all kinds of barriers yet she wrestled in more or less a leather two piece swimsuit. If anything, Ivory in her full body outfit is the one breaking more barriers. This has been ALL Chyna. She beats up Richards and goes for a handspring elbow and falls down holding her neck because of it.

That ends the match after Ivory’s body covers her. This led to her being completely fine and coming back to destroy Ivory in about 2 minutes at Wrestlemania to win the title and completely ruin it as there was no one but Lita that had a freaking prayer against her. She left the company maybe 6 months after this, never to be seen again. The stretcher part takes at least five minutes, which is longer than the match went. Her chest looks freaking amazing in that segment if nothing else.

Rating: N/A. This was an angle, not a match. It wasn’t any good anyway, so there’s just not a lot to say here. It lasted about three minutes and was pure dominance.

Stephanie runs into Trish. Hot women arguing ensues.

Drew Carey tries to introduce himself to Kane. Recap not needed.

Low Down, perhaps the dumbest idea ever, (D’lo Brown and Mosh as Arabs) argue with their manager about who should be in the Rumble. It doesn’t matter as Drew Carey gets their spot. Now this is an important point. Let’s compare this to WCW and David Arquette. Both Carey and David are about the same level of celebrity status and they’re here to promote something that not a lot of people are going to watch anyway. What does the WWF do?

They replace a jobber in a match where he absolutely won’t be missed. Think about it: what would Brown or Mosh do in the match? Hang around for about seven minutes and be destroyed by either Taker or Kane or someone like that. Would anyone really miss either of them being in there? Not in the slightest. Instead, you get a celebrity in the match where he might bring in a few fans to the show. See, that’s how you use celebrities.

You put them in a place where they don’t make a big difference at all, but they seem like they do. That’s smart business. You give up a little something and while you likely won’t get a big payoff, you might get a decent one. If not, you lost Mosh or D’Lo for one night. That’s something you can live with and if nothing else, Drew gets publicity and you look like nice guys. Now on the other hand you have WCW, where a celebrity of about equal status was there trying to promote something.

What does WCW do? THEY MAKE HIM WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION, thereby making the wrestlers look pathetic, the title look like a joke, their PPV look like a bigger freak show than a pro wrestling show normally is, an more or less drive yet another spike into their own coffin.

Instead of having him do something stupid with Disco Inferno or something for like 5 minutes on Nitro, they said that this actor is on equal footing with the champions of the other major company at the time, which at that time would have been HHH. See why they went out of business so fast?

We hear opinions from the fans on who will win the title match tonight.

HHH is getting ready and sounds like Darth Vader.

We recap this feud, which consists of Angle hitting on Stephanie and Trish allegedly trying to sleep with HHH through some comedic mix ups.

WWF Title: HHH vs. Kurt Angle

Angle had won the title in the fall from the Rock and held it ever since, more or less in a huge Cinderella thing where no one could beat him and he just kept getting luckier and luckier, which is fine I guess. This is another hard match to comment on as both guys were just off the charts around this time as far as in ring work went. The good thing here is that they manage to balance the brawling style which dominated the era with some solid in ring work that both men excel out.

This is another match that’s hard to criticize or poke fun at because it’s working really well. You don’t often hear about these two having chemistry but it’s there. Sadly though, the match runs a bit long for the fans. It’s about 25 minutes, and for purist fans like most of us here it’s a treat, but the problem is that this is still the Attitude Era, so if a match has a good amount of technical stuff in it or psychology etc., it’s considered boring.

However there’s a part in here where it gets a pick me up as the two women come out and fight the heck out of each other. This is a bigger reaction than anything in the match. The problem with this match is simple. HHH is the undisputed top heel in the company as he was revealed as the guy that masterminded Austin being run down, but Angle was more or less built up as the midcard guy in over his head but still good enough to put the belt on.

Think of Punk’s original reign and you’ll get what I mean. The problem here though is that HHH is simply a bigger star and at this point a better wrestler than Angle. Angle would get a lot better but this is probably the peak of HHH’s in ring ability as he was just so perfectly evil at this point and the in ring work backed that up to perfection.

Anyway, you can tell that Angle is really finding his groove here as he’s getting a lot more intense than he used to be and is getting into that character that took the world by storm within a few years. This is mainly technical stuff as HHH uses the Indian Deathlock of all things, which no one buys at all, mainly because other than the Sharpshooter and the figure four, one of which is used and I’ll let you guess which one, no one taps to a submission hold.

In another blast from the past, HHH busts out a Razor’s Edge. Hall was gone by this point from mainstream wrestling so this was a bit more acceptable I guess. Also the ratings were so low that I don’t think they could be seen from the ground anymore so who cares? Anyway, Vince comes out to get the girls broken up, oddly enough picking this time to come out and get his hands on Trish. What a shock that is.

Anyway, after they leave and the crowd more or less goes with them, the referee goes down twice. The second was great as he was down on the outside and HHH throws Angle into the post and Earl just slams into the steps in a solid bump. HHH misses a belt shot but there’s no zebra impersonator. He does however get a heck of a Pedigree that Angle takes perfectly.

Austin runs out though and beats HHH up with Earl still down. At least in this case the bump the referee took looked awesome so you can validate him being down this long. HHH takes a belt shot so he’s down as Austin gets the referee back in there. He gets a Stunner in just for good measure and Angle keeps the belt. Angle would hold onto the belt until next month when Rock beat him for it to set up Mania 17.

Rating: B. This was a very solid match, but the run in at the end kind of hurt it. The problem with Angle’s reign was he never had a definitive win to cement himself as champion, much like Punk’s first reign, and it suffered a lot because of that.

I’m not saying you put him over HHH clean, but somewhere along the line he had to beat someone in a title match without help or cheating. Either way, HHH was great here and Angle was improving dramatically, so this was fine. I might have cut out 4-5 minutes, but it’s very solid all around.

Rock says he’s ready for the Rumble. It’s funnier than it sounds.

Royal Rumble

Jeff Hardy is first and Bull Buchanan is second. It’s so weird to see Jeff as a total midcard guy that’s known for doing nothing but high spots. I had to pause for a second there to get my composure. Rikishi is number 30. In a stunning turn of events, Matt is number 3. Why does Ross always say wait a minute? We don’t have that kind of time. Naturally Bull is gone in about twenty seconds. I will give them this: they actually fight each other.

The Steiners just wouldn’t do it and it sucked. Farrooq is 4th and they double team him of course. See, that’s a classic tactic but it works well. Jeff botches a double team spot. In other news, the sun came up today. The double team finisher leads to Simmons being thrown out. Now we get to the fun part as they just throw punches. Jeff gets a SICK Whisper in the Wind as Drew Carey is 5th. This was when he was actually a big deal so this was a cooler thing that it seems like.

I thought they were booing but they’re chanting Drew. Matt and Jeff put each other out so Drew stands alone. In a truly great moment, Kane is number 6. The look on Drew’s face and the reaction of the crowd and Ross absolutely panicking is just perfect all around. Kane walks around the ring and does the fire thing. Drew tries to get Matt and Jeff to come back then tries to pay Kane.

He gets put up in a chokeslam but Raven and his sweet music save him as number seven. Drew waves goodbye and eliminates himself. He walks to the back, high fives some fans and is never seen in the WWF again. See, that right there is how it’s done.

Drew was in there all of three minutes or so, he got a solid response from the crowd, he took the place of D’lo or Mosh who Kane would have put out in about 10 seconds and no one would have remembered, Drew comes out of it having lost no respect at all, and he got some publicity for his PPV. Everyone wins.

There was nothing wrong with this and it came off great. Anyway, Raven gets thrown through the ropes which allows Al Snow who Raven had injured to run out early and beat on Raven. His clock goes off so he’s in now and he brings weapons. One of these is a garbage can, and for the first time ever, it has garbage in it. He also gets a bowling ball which he rolls into Raven’s crotch.

In a chilling line, Ross says this is what New Orleans looks like after a bad hurricane. Saturn is 9th with Terri who is about to fall out of her top. All three guys work on Kane, and they prove that they’re idiotic by beating on him enough to get him on the mat, instead of, you know, OVER THE TOP. Blackman is 10th, and being the genius he is he beats on everyone not named Kane. This big long hardcore thing isn’t working for me or the audience either.

The division was just dead by this point and it’s showing badly. Grandmaster is 12th and now we get to the fun part. Kane goes to the floor and grabs a garbage can and just freaking kills everything in sight with it. He knocks all five out in about 20 seconds with some sick shots. Blackman tries to skin the cat and Kane just blasts him over the head which makes me chuckle.

Number 12 is the Honky Tonk Man who sings and plays the guitar. That seriously might be the greatest gimmick of all time. I mean really, a wrestling Elvis impersonator? That’s just amazing on a ton of levels. Seeing Kane, more or less a crazy sociopath behind Honky for this is hilarious. Honky is gone in about a minute and Rock is 13 to a big ole pop. Kane is a lot more muscular here than he usually is.

Goodfather is 14th and for some reason there’s a big Rumble R over the right side of the screen but not that left. That looks odd. Goodfahter is in for about 2 seconds as Rock puts him out. Ross gets in another of his out there lines by saying Kane is a carnivore chewing on a big piece of Rock Burger. Yeah I’ve got nothing. Tazz and his awesome music is 15th and he lasts longer than Goodfather, being eliminated in 8 seconds or so.

13 people have been eliminated. Kane has put 7 of them out. Bradshaw gets us into the second half, and oddly enough he had the longest world title reign of these three. That’s just weird to say. Albert is 17th, making the shortest man in this match at the moment is Rock who stands 6’5. Hardcore Holly is in at 18. We’re at kind of a slow point here as not a lot is going on.

K-Kwik, more commonly known as R-Truth is 19th. Bradshaw powerbombs the living tar out of him. That was painful as all goodness. Val Venis is number 20. He’s still in the RTC at this point. This match has a noticeable lack of energy to it which isn’t good at all. I think Rock came in way too early. He’s a big deal and he’s been in there awhile already. Right now Kane and Rock are the only two that are really up and doing much of anything.

William Regal, still a smiley heel is 21st. He has a lot of heat on him if nothing else. Test is 22nd. Not a lot is happening here at all and we need to get rid of some of the people in there. As I typed the word some, Regal is gone. Test, the guy that threw him out, would win the European Title from him before Mania. He then kicks the heckout of Venis.

Big Show makes his return at 23. Good GRIEF that man is fat. He throws out Truth and Test in about a second each and then chokeslams literally everyone other than Rock so they’re all down. Rock manages to get a low blow in and knock Show out before the next guy comes out. Show isn’t happy though and chokeslams Rock through the table in a cool looking spot. Crash is 24th.

Everyone joins together to beat on Kane. Rock is out on the floor. He’s selling perfectly too. Taker is 25th and it’s on. He saves Kane from a massive beatdown and they look at each other and Taker gives him a sign. Within 15 seconds, all five others in the match are gone so it’s Taker, Kane (he’s eliminated nine people here, which I think ties him for the record at the moment) and Rock who is still on the floor.

There had been talk of Taker and Kane hooking up again and apparently that was true. In an amusing spot, Scotty is 26th. Guess how this goes for him. The idiot actually gets in the freaking ring. In a flat out brutal beatdown, Scotty is punched, kicked, kicked in the face and takes a double chokeslam before they throw him out together. 27th is Austin, and to say the place pops is an understatement.

However, he doesn’t make it to the ring just yet as HHH is here. Rock is back in and all of a sudden this is awesome. See what happens when you don’t have any stupid fillers in there and you just put the big, talented stars in there?

HHH beats the tar out of Austin and cuts him open, which to be fair works because he jumped him from behind so Austin never had a fair shot. Billy Gunn is 28th and the level of awesome is just sucked out of this thing. Taker hits Rock with that sweet running DDT that I wish he would bust out a lot more often.

Haku of all people is 29th. Note: he was at the time FAR more famous as Meng. He was also the WCW hardcore champion at the time, but WCW in its eternal brilliance put a title on a guy that was getting paid per appearance and had no formal contract. His return lasted all of six month or so but it was kind of cool I guess. I thought it was more like a month, but whatever. He teamed with Rikishi which went nowhere and he because a Heat guy after awhile.

Ross’ blatant cheering of Austin and calling it a shame is really annoying. We get it: you love Austin. You’re supposed to at least try to be unbiased. Granted, I have to wonder how much of this is Ross and how much is Vince screaming in his ear. Rikishi is number 30 but Austin jumps him on his way in. Your final grouping is Rikishi, Haku, Billy Gunn, Rock, Kane, Taker and Austin. Austin puts out Haku to get us down to six.

Taker gets a good chokeslam on Rikishi which impressed me. They seriously tried to make Rikishi a legit big deal and to say it failed is the understatement of the year. To further my point, they actually let him put Taker out with a kick. I can’t stand Vince’s fascination with huge men at times. Seriously, he just put Rikishi over Taker.

Rather than having Rock, Austin, Kane and Taker as almost a dream final four, we get Billy Gunn, Rock, Kane and Austin as Rock puts Rikishi out. Billy gets a Fameasser on Austin but this I guess energizes him to allow him to put Billy out to get us to three. Austin is down in a corner, Rock puts Kane down and falls in another corner, and you know what’s coming. Rock wins the fistfight and the fans are clearly more into Rock than Austin.

Austin catches him with a Stunner as Kane is somehow still down. There’s a Rock Bottom to a great pop. It was kind of clear that Austin wasn’t as big of a deal as he used to be as Rock had surpassed him. This is the period that Rock lovers point to and say Rock was bigger than Austin. That’s like saying that Jim Brown, who was the best running back of all time and played in the 50s and 60s isn’t as good as Ladanian Tomlinson today.

Well duh of course not the man is in his 70s. Austin was past his peak here while Rock was in the middle of his. If Austin never left, Rock doesn’t hit this level, end of argument. If you believe otherwise, I’d love to hear your reasoning because it’s wrong. Anyway, Rock throws Kane through the ropes to give us more Rock and Austin. Lawler says he’s been waiting for years to see this. That’s odd as it’s been less than two years since their last Mania match but whatever.

Kane hits a chokeslam here as despite Austin being the relatively clear winner, it’s not for sure which makes this ending a lot better. Also it’s not like Austin is in there with Billy Gunn or someone completely ridiculous. Kane is a legit contender here which is making all the difference in the world. Kane gets a chair but Austin gets a counter and hits a Stunner.

Austin gets three very solid chair shots and a clothesline sends him to Wrestlemania, where he would take the title from Rock who would win it in a month and thankfully turn heel which thankfully Vince recognized was the only way to go. Basically, turn Austin heel had been the big movement online around this time as it was clear that Rock was the bigger face and it appeared that Vince was trying to make Austin bigger by sheer force. Luckily he woke up for once and we got Mania 17 out of it.

Rating: B. While not as good as last year’s this was still very solid. Austin winning made sense, the last two guys both also could have won, the midcard was well represented, and other than Billy, there was no one there at the end that wasn’t a legit winner. Carey offered a bit of flavor to the match and I think it helped.

It was something different, but it’s well remembered because it was well done. That’s proof you have a good moment. Kane was the story here though as they made him look awesome. His reward: a short run with the hardcore title because that’s how he’s respected. Anyway, this was very good stuff and above all else, it worked.

Overall Rating: A. This is a very good show. Every match has something good to offer, as the Chyna match was the worst but she looked awesome in it. There are five matches: four are for titles and the last is the Rumble. That’s a stacked card if there ever was one. Carey offered some mainstream appeal which is never a bad thing unless you completely screw it up and they didn’t here so that enhances this even more. This is definitely a top level show and certainly worth checking out.

Royal Rumble 2000
Date: January 23, 2000
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Attendance: 19,200
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross

At this point, the wars are over. WCW is practically dead and the WWF just keeps pouring it on. The main thing that’s different than last year though is simple: Austin is gone. With the company so far ahead that they would have to be WCW to manage to lose the lead they had built up, Austin was finally allowed to take the nearly yearlong break that he so badly needed to get his neck fixed once and for all.

With him out of the way, the Rock and HHH have stepped up. To all Rock fans, get this through your heads: without Austin taking this time off, Rock would be a fairly big star at best. He’s not bigger than Austin, he never was bigger than Austin, and he never will be bigger than Austin. He got as big as he got because of Austin not being there and that’s all there is to it.

Anyway, a lot of the roster is filled out now as we have guys like Jericho, Angle, the Dudleys, Show and I believe the Radicalz would debut the next night or eight days later so they were just over the horizon at this point. Your other main event tonight is HHH vs. Cactus Jack in a street fight, which was one of the best matches I’ve ever seen and since I want to get to it, we’re starting now.

The opening video is about how insane Cactus is and how sane HHH is. That was the real point of the street fight tonight: getting HHH over as a crazy man. In other words, Foley is doing what he might be the best ever at, and that’s even better than Flair: getting people over and making them look better than anyone else ever could. There’s no mention of the match at all here, which is odd. After a brief intro from Jerry and Jim, we’re ready to go.

Kurt Angle vs. ???

Angle was the undefeated rookie wonder here and he had issued an open challenge here or something like that. He’s the clean cut kid here that no one could touch at this point. It had leaked out who the opponent would be, but not to the general public. Angle of course gives a speech talking about how great he is. The crowd is very hot already as is customary of a New York crowd. He gets some cheap heat by ripping on the Knicks, which is just fine. Cheap heat is still heat.

This is less than a week after the MSG Raw before Survivor Series so I’m fired up about the Garden in general. Actually the fans are chanting for the guy he’s about to fight so I guess they know who’s coming. Angle was just ridiculously great in this role. The music hits, and the symbol that we’ve been seeing for a few months comes up for Taz, who is the mystery guy. The crowd pops like a cherry for him too. I mean they are LOUD.

Angle beats on him for a few minutes until Taz gets his hands on him and let the suplexing begin. After a German, a head and arms, and a T-Bone, the Tazmission debuts in the WWF and Angle is out cold in about 20 seconds, ending his undefeated streak and making Taz look like an insane killing machine. Now that is how you debut a guy. Once Taz got going, he DESTROYED Angle. Angle is taken out on a stretcher as apparently it was a choke and not a sleeper.

Rating: A-. Yeah it’s just over three minutes long, but DANG. That was a nearly perfect debut as Taz looked awesome there and Angle put him over like a master despite having only been around a few months at this point. Taz dominated here and was supposed to get the push that Benoit wound up getting, but because of Hardcore Holly messing up a spot with a candy jar at Mania, Taz had an eye injury and had to take a lot of time off, so Benoit got the big IC title push instead.

Matt, Jeff and Terri are in the back to talk about the first ever tag team table match. Terri actually looks good here. They “won” her in the Terri Invitational Tournament (initials) so she’s their manager for awhile. This doesn’t last long as they realized Terri had no talent so that ended that. She was split from them by Mania I think. Anyway, the Dudleys have been putting people through tables so Matt and Jeff put them through some on Smackdown, leading to this match.

Taz says that he’s going to go right through this company.

Hardy Boys vs. Dudley Boys

Like I said, this is a table match. The Dudleys have been around for a few months here and were the best team that people had seen in forever as no one had seen two guys this violent in a mainstream promotion for more than a few weeks before. And no, Public Enemy doesn’t count due to a lack of talent. Bubba is still a southern stutterer here.

We get a John Rocker reference as Bubba says that’s his new favorite player. For those of you that have either forgotten him or haven’t ever heard of him, he was a decent relief pitcher for the Braves who went on this insane tirade one day, bashing just about every religious or ethnic group in existence and complaining that New York had all of them. It was a big deal and he got in a lot of trouble for it.

He was HATED in New York because of it so just saying his name was instant mega heat. There’s a taxi hanging above the entrance. The entry way is really cool as it looks like an alley or a street to play up the street fight later on. In this you have to put both people through tables so we’re guaranteed an extra table or so. Thankfully we don’t have the pointless tagging thing here.

Don’t you love how ECW had just gotten on television nationwide in late August and within five months three of their biggest stars ever are opening a WWF PPV to HUGE pops from the New York crowd? Yet Vince said he never stole stuff from them. Keep telling yourself that Vince. You just happened to have these three guys get their biggest exposure yet back to back in a gimmick match made famous in ECW in front of their second most important city?

I’m not saying it’s bad because it’s a great idea, but Vince stole these guys. Again, smart, but not original at all like he would like you to believe. Naturally Jeff is flying all over the place. Bubba takes a SWEET chair shot from Jeff. He follows that up by running along the barricade at Bubba, but the member of Team 3D picks up the table and just chucks it at Jeff, slamming into his head for a great sound effect. See, this is a great example of not overbooking a match.

With these four guys, there’s zero need to try to do something big and complex. Just tell these guys to go out there and beat the heck out of each other using weapons and high spots. Honestly, what more do you need these guys to do? You just let the guys go out there and rock the place. This was the real answer to the Cruiserweights in WCW: bigger guys just going out there and having over the top gimmick matches. It seems to be working fine here, and it got people’s attention.

The Hardys get the advantage again and they set for a double suplex on Bubba from the middle rope, but D-Von moves the table. I’ve always loved spots like that, as the guy is more or less saying he doesn’t care if his partner is hurt or anything, as long as he doesn’t go through a table. That’s brilliant. Here’s your token ladder, which foreshadows and references past and future matches which is hard to do.

There are some SICK chair shots in this. Matt has Bubba on a table on the floor but D-Von almost makes a save. Matt shoves him straight into a fan which was a not so good looking spot. Matt gets the leg drop to put Bubba through, but from out of absolutely nowhere, Jeff jumps at the same time in a half splash half elbow half manbearpig onto Bubba. I mean he came from nowhere. Think Shelton jumping onto the ladder to stop I think Van Dam at Mania.

We have a huge HOLY CRAP chant as D-Von takes another great chair shot. Bubba can barely stand. I think he can still be in the match and it’s not an elimination. I’m not sure if I like that or not. In ANOTHER nice sequence, D-Von is on a table on the floor and Matt dives at him. He moves and stands in front of another table and dives out of the way so Jeff crashes through that one.

That looked like something out of a Die Hard movie. Bubba is back now and I’m completely into this match. They point out that since the Dudleys didn’t put them through tables, it’s not over. At least they follow the rules of the match. They set up an elevated table and power bomb Matt through it, which Ross says will cause some erection dysfunction. Don’t ask. I’ve always liked the euphoric thing Bubba did when he went through the tables. It was just cool.

The finish here is somehow the coolest part. They head to the entry way where the Dudleys set up double tables. They go up to the top of the set and get on the taxi, where Bubba tries to get a powerbomb. Jeff fights out of it and hits Bubba with a chair to knock him straight back off of it, which looks cool enough as is. After that, D-Von gets put on the table and the Swanton Bomb ends this freaking awesome match.

Rating: A. THIS WAS AWESOME! The spots were completely insane and the chemistry was undeniable here. The crowd ate it up too so it sounded great. There was no story here and there wasn’t supposed to be. There’s nothing wrong with just a wild brawl when it’s done right and this was a great example of that. Just all kinds of fun and the fans bought every bit of it.

Angle is very groggy and acts like he has a concussion where he’s only concerned about being undefeated. It’s funnier than it sounds.

We’re now going to have the Miss Rumble pageant. This is coming off the heels of the Kat taking her top off at the last PPV and actually showing on screen for about 2-3 seconds which was a HUGE thing as nudity was actually shown on WWF TV with no issue about it. Of course then the PTC freaked the heck out about it as the company was apparently corrupting children’s minds by showing an adult image on a show that an adult had to order for their children on a show called Armageddon.

Dang, Vince really is trying so hard to corrupt the minds of the youth. It would be so simple to allow a 12 year old to see such a thing. All they would have to do is order a PPV while making sure to sound like an adult on the phone, find some way to keep their parents from noticing them watching it when a show they didn’t order is on, hide the cable bill from their parents and then manage to pay for the show themselves despite likely not having a checking account or a credit card.

I mean really Vince, at least have SOME kind of way to prevent kids from seeing the show. Anyway, this is a beauty pageant and according to the rating, there would be more nudity here. The judges are Slaughter, Tony Garea who no one under 35 knows, Fabulous Moolah, Johnny V and Freddie Blassie who gets a great pop. Lawler is the host for this. First up is Ivory who is wearing a big sweatshirt. Terri is second to a solid pop.

Jackie, who no one likes at all, is third. Fourth is a woman named Barbara Bush who was nicknamed BB and was an EMT or something. She lasted all of a month or two. Luna is 5th as this is going to take awhile. Kat is the final one and she gets a solid pop. She’s women’s champion at the moment. Of all people, the celebrity judge is ANDY RICHTER from “The Conan O’Brien Show.” Seriously that’s what they call it.

This is your standard thing so I’ll skip most of the details. Lawler’s jumping up and down is kind of funny. No one has ever cared about Jackie at all and no one does here either. This really is moronic. Luna, despite wearing a gown that is just buttoned in the front and a thong under it, won’t disrobe. Kat’s is made of bubble wrap. Yep, that’s your Women’s Champion.

Naturally Mae Young comes out and wants to compete also. She disrobes and takes her top off. The look on Lawler’s face when he sees them is priceless. That’s your nudity for the night, and yes, we see them. Mark Henry who was for no apparent reason dating Mae at the time comes out to cover her up. Mae wins unanimously. WZ actually had a link on the main page to a still shot of Mae’s chest. I wish I was making that up.

We go to WWF New York which is new to meet the debuting Coach. Man that place would have been awesome to go to.

Don’t try this at home. Good advice.

Jericho and Chyna are in the back arguing about who should wear the belt. This was a very interesting angle they did where they were co champions. In other words, they could both defend the title individually but if say Jericho lost, Chyna lost too which made it something different. Unnecessary, but different.

Angle says that since he was choked out, he’s still undefeated.

Intercontinental Title: Chris Jericho vs. Chyna vs. Hardcore Holly

This is for the undisputed title. Holly is there because he’s beaten both of them one on one and it’s an even numbered year so we have to give him his next failure of a push. Seriously, he got more pushes than a grandmother that stands in front of a flight of stairs. Chyna was a big deal at the time as a woman legitimately competing with men was unheard of yet she was pulling it off.

Jericho is over to say the least. Jericho was awesome on the mic at this point as you could tell he was just so happy to be out of WCW. This is a standard match for the most part, which means one person goes down and the other two have a short singles match until the third comes back. Jericho is by far and away the favorite here. Chyna hits the handspring elbow which for the life of me I still don’t get the point of.

Chyna and Jericho keep vying to outdo each other and it’s not that interesting. Why in the world did Holly need to be in this? I just don’t get that. Holly takes a slow but decent Pedigree but kicks out anyway. They’re doing a lot of near falls near the end here, which at least is building a bit of drama. It’s not a bad match, but it’s just not that interesting. Jericho hits a Lionsault on Chyna to become undisputed champion, and that’s that.

Rating: C. Like I said, this wasn’t bad but it just wasn’t interesting at all. Holly flat out didn’t need to be in there since he wasn’t even involved in the decision. This wasn’t much, but it was ok and certainly watchable.

Rock, rocking the SWEET Brahma Bull jersey, is in the back with Cole and says that there are two people he’s worried about in the Rumble: Crash Holly and Mosh. Cole questions this so Rock says go have a glass of shut up juice. He calls out Big Show and says that he wants it to wind up as those two in the final pairing. The charisma here is completely ridiculous it’s so high. He really was a god on the mic.

Jericho cuts a traditionally great promo talking about how he’s going to lead the Jerichoholics to the promised land like a pied piper while holding up the Interchrisinental Title.

We recap the APA vs. the Outlaws, which is here because the APA won a battle royal thing.

Tag Titles: Acolytes vs. New Age Outlaws

After about a two minute entrance we’re ready to go. This match lasts two and a half minutes. The Acolytes beat the champions up. Or do they beat them down? I’m not sure actually. After a short mini match, X-Pac runs down and beats up Bradshaw, allowing Billy to his the Fameasser for the win.

I know that sounds like nothing but there’s just nothing at all to talk about. They brawled for 45 seconds, the Acolytes beat up the champions for a minute or so, then Pac was there for the finish. They much be setting up HHH/Foley for more time or something, which I’m fine with.

Rating: N/A. I can’t rate something this short at all.

Road Dogg says that even though they got their beaten up they’re still the champions. You can’t argue that one.

We recap HHH vs. Foley, which started with HHH beating Show clean for the belt and having the McMahon-Helmsley Era run things. Foley calls them out and he’s fired due to losing a pink slip on a pole match. A fake Mankind (Mideon) showed up to make fun of him. Rock and the rest of the roster threatened to leave and form the Rock Wrestling Federation unless Foley was reinstated. Mankind comes back and HHH beats the heck out of him after agreeing to the street fight.

Then, in one of the coolest moments of this era as far as I’m concerned, Mankind comes out and says he’s not ready to fight HHH in a street fight, but he has a replacement ready to go. He pulls open his shirt and takes off the mask and turns into Cactus Jack. HHH is FREAKING and then gets his head handed to him by Jack, setting this up. The level of awesome that Foley was in this multiple personalities thing was just insane on so many levels.

WWF Title: Cactus Jack vs. HHH

Jack gets a crazy pop and HHH might as well be a Red Sock. Stephanie looks great as usual. I love HHH being so nervous about getting in the ring as it really plays up his being out of his element. The intros take just shy of eternity, but you hear in HHH’s My Time song the words The Marks, The Suits, McMahon. I guess those are people he doesn’t like, which is kind of cool. Finally we’re on.

Foley is called Mankind time after time by Ross. Ross is stuttering like no other. HUGE Cactus Jack chant gets going. It’s all Jack so far. And just as I say that HHH hits a bell shot to the head. Naturally it doesn’t do much. In shades of Rumble 98, Jack runs straight into a chair shot like he’s running home after a day of simple torture as a child. The crowd is hot here as Jack puts the chair on HHH’s head and drops a leg on it.

And that can shatter a skull right Cole? Ross says HHH might be the best technical champion in company history. I’m not even touching that one as it’s so freaking stupid. We hit the crowd and the crowd is making this match better. It’s been hard hitting so far but we’ve been at this five minutes so far. We’re in the entry way now and HHH is getting killed. Remember that the entry way is set up like an alley, so the trash cans being there at least make sense.

This is ALL Cactus here. I love how Foley can become such a better threat with the gimmick change. It really is brilliant. The crowd is rapidly approaching ECW levels here. Basically HHH keeps using his regular stuff and Jack keeps going insane on him with violent stuff. It’s a great bit of storytelling mixed in which almost never happens in these matches. Jack goes under the ring with HHH down and pulls out a 2×4 wrapped in barb wire. Oh yes.

Ross is of course freaking. Due to the idiot of a referee, HHH gets the board and puts Foley down with four stiff shots with it, all to the back and front. That’s brilliant actually as Foley is wearing a shirt which likely has padding underneath it. While I can’t imagine that’s real barb wire, the image is great and for people that aren’t sharp enough to see what’s going on here, it’s a great way to make this match seem about 10 times more violent.

It’s the little things like that which can make a match and it’s doing so here. A board shot to the lower back which is considered a low blow stops the momentum HHH has built up. I love how with low blows half the time they’re not even close to the groin. The crowd booing when the barb wire board is thrown out is just classic stuff. Twelve minutes in we have our first cover. That’s another nice touch as it makes it seem like it’s about the violence rather than the pin here, which is what it’s supposed to be. In case you can’t tell, I really like this match. Granted Foley is my all time favorite wrestler and this was by far his best period, so there we are.

The referee goes down and a barb wire shot to the face puts HHH down. Ross is selling this as insanity on a great level. HHH is bleeding and it’s a good one. One is right next to his eye which looks even sicker. In a sick looking spot, HHH is trying to get out to the floor but Foley takes the board and the wire and puts it over the very cut forehead of HHH and just pulls back. The screaming is perfect as this match is tearing it up, even the Mr. kind.

Ross here is great on the mic as he’s not getting insane through the whole match. He gets way into it in bursts which makes those moments seem more impressive. That’s the big issue with guys like Cole. He gets into the match WAY too early and it takes away from the later big spots. Ross gets into the big spots but other than that he’s rather calm which helps to build up later stuff, thereby adding credibility to the good stuff.

That’s the mark of a great commentator: they don’t take anything away from the match but they add so much to it, like Ross is doing here. I usually can’t stand him but this is great stuff from him. Jack goes through a table when he goes for a piledriver to get us back to even. HHH’s leg is bleeding, which is a very nice touch. Oddly the table that was destroyed wasn’t Spanish. That’s very odd indeed. DANG that’s a thick cut in his leg.

Cactus hits a bulldog onto the barb wire. One of the major keys here is that it’s completely unclear who is going to win. At the time, no one knew. That can completely make a match as in my eyes it’s the most important thing there is in wrestling. On the floor again, HHH gets a hip block onto the steps and Foley rams his knee into it. Using his generally good psychology, HHH goes for the knee with the barb wire.

The good thing is it’s still a sick thing to do despite how much it’s been used so far in this match alone. From nowhere HHH finds handcuffs and tries to put them on Foley, which after a brief comeback works. This is already a bit uneasy to watch but this is bringing flashbacks to last year. If nothing else there’s a bit of slack in these unlike last year so it looks a bit less awful if nothing else. Jack puts up a heck of a fight despite being in essence armless here. That’s just impressive.

I’ll go with this for how brutal this is: HHH actually breaks the chair from hitting Jack with it so hard. Has that ever happened before? With them back in the entry way, Jack begs HHH to hit him again, but Rock pops in from nowhere to half kill HHH with the chair. A cop pops in and unlocks Jack’s arms and we’re at it again, as the fans are right back into this thing. The piledriver works this time, but the table DOESN’T BREAK.

Think about that. How sick would that look? I mean HHH just stopped cold all of a sudden. We’re back in the ring now, as Jack pulls out a bag of thumbtacks. You have to remember, this is before Abyss made those look like watercolor paints. They were hardly ever used but they’re busting them out here. Jack goes into them via a backdrop just after Stephanie comes out. She’s wearing a leopard print choker, which is the same as Cactus’ boots in a nice little touch.

After that, the Pedigree gets two in what might have been the second cover of the match. Then to finish us off, in one of the sickest spots I’ve ever seen, Cactus gets Pedigreed onto the tacks for the pin. Jack is DEAD. HHH gets the belt and goes to the floor and just collapses. Stretchers come out and of course Jack is up to attack HHH one more time.

They would have a Cell match at No Way Out which was awesome as well where Foley would officially retire, and other than one match which was a surprise he kept true to that for the most part. I’m fine with short comebacks and occasional matches to put people over as he does so often. This made HHH look legit which is exactly what it was designed to do. This was awesome.

Rating: A+. Yes I’m being generous on the grades for this show, but DANG. These two half killed each other out there in easily the best brawl for the title I’ve ever seen. This was insanely violent and HHH came off looking great. There was a legit threat for Foley to take the title here which helped the drama a lot as well.

The blood was great and it added a completely new aspect to HHH’s character that’s still around today. These two beat the tar out of each other and it’s saying a lot when it’s Foley who has the job of making HHH look this great put into his hands, and luckily it worked and it worked very well. Go watch this match as it’s worth it.  I’ve heard this match called the match of the decade and off the top of my head I can’t think of a better one.

After some generic interviews, it’s time.

Royal Rumble

D’lo Brown is number one and Grandmaster Sexay is 2nd. He gets a huge pop and we get more bad jokes about him not being Lawler’s kid. We’re doing 90 seconds here. X-Pac is 30th for reasons that would entail him winning some match no one remembered. Let the generic stuff begin. Granted they’re following a classic so there we go. I hate that laugh that Grandmaster does.

Mosh is third, dressed with two foot long cones sticking out of his chest. Kai En Tai runs out, despite not being in the match. They’re easily dispersed so that was completely pointless. They weren’t allowed in due to lack of room in case you were really bored. Mosh is hurt so we’re back to the original pairing while he hangs on the ropes. Christian, who has some of the most awesome music I’ve ever heard at this point, is 4th.

This is always the awkward part of the match as there aren’t enough people to have anything going yet and these guys have a combined chance of zero to do anything so few people really care but it’s better than nothing. Rikishi is 5th, 8 months before it turned out he tried to kill the biggest star in the world. He dumps everyone other than Grandmaster before anyone else comes out. That Rikishi Driver was a freaking awesome move.

Shockingly enough Scotty is 6th and we have the trio in the ring. You know what’s coming, and oddly enough I like this. It makes sense here. They’re all friends and even though it’s every man for themselves, this makes a lot of sense. The fans are very into it so that’s fine, and it doesn’t last long as Rikishi puts both guys out at the same time. I’m ok with that actually as it didn’t last long and it made sense.

Also, there’s still one guy there so it’s not like the next guy has to stand around waiting for a minute and a half. Things like this can work when done right, and this was done right. Also, the fans loved it so that automatically makes it far more ok. Rikishi’s nipples are really close together and it’s very odd looking. After they’re gone, Rikishi dances on his own a bit more. Steve Blackman is in at 7 and is gone in about 45 seconds.

See this right here is something the Rumble can be great at. Rikishi is a somewhat big star here, but he’s getting to show off here and he looks far more impressive now than he did when he came in. That’s a very simple way to get someone over and it worked here. Viscera is 8th and he actually hits a belly to belly on Rikishi. Three super kicks and a shoulder block and Big Daddy V is gone. Again, by just putting out a guy at a time he looks great and dominant.

They’re pushing him without him actually winning a match. Boss Man is 9th but he very slowly gets in. He stands on the floor and lets someone else come in to help him, which is smart. Granted this was considered a violation of the rules back in I think 94 but we can ignore that I think. Test comes in at 10 to a big old pop. I know it sounds absurd now, but he really could have gotten a brief title run sometime around here.

He should have gotten it at Survivor Series, but granted I can’t complain about going with Show when they did as he was completely dominant around that time. British Bulldog is 11th. One good thing here is there’s no dead weight in there to slow things down. Having people like Mosh and Grandmaster to fill out the roster is fine, but there’s no point to having them stay in there a long time, and here you can see why.

They were in the Rumble and there was no chance of them doing anything, so they got out early. It’s clear that the people in there now are higher up on the ladder and they’re in later, which makes them even possible dark horses to steal the thing. That’s very smart booking and some of the best I can ever remember for the Rumble.

Gangrel is 12th to get some jobbers in there which is fine to an extent. Kai En Tai runs out again and get thrown out with Gangrel just KILLING Taka. The bump he takes over the ropes is great as he over rotates and his face slams into the floor and bounces off. Edge is 13th to a solid pop. We get the Taka bump again to the delight of the king. BOB BACKLUND is 14th to a great pop.

Does this guy age? He’s 51 here and looks like he did 20 years ago. A ton of guys get together and throw out Rikishi. I’m impressed by Backlund. He looks great all things considered. Jericho is 15th as I’m loving the booking here. A few things are happening. They’re having little mini stories thrown in here and there to keep the match fresh and it’s working like a charm. It’s keeping the crowd entertained and they’re responding very well.

It’s a smart way to build up to the final guys which is the best way to go. This has been a very good Rumble. Jericho puts out Backlund. Crash Holly is 16th as I’ve never seen the resemblance to Elroy Jetson that everyone says exists. Chyna is 17th as Lawler starts picking everyone as being Rock. She puts Jericho out by suplexing him over the ropes but Boss Man puts her out seconds later.

To recap we have Gangrel, Edge, Test, Boss Man, Bulldog and Crash and they’re joined by Farrooq. The Mean Street Posse comes out as apparently they’re mad about not being in either. Boss Man puts out Farrooq due to their interference. Road Dogg is 19th. We’re kind of hitting a dead spot here as Al Snow is in at number 20. Road Dogg puts out Bulldog as JR makes dog jokes. Venis is 21st. Funaki is thrown out for the third time as Taka is apparently hurt.

That clip never gets old as they show it again. Prince Albert (A-Train) is 22nd as Edge is thrown out by Snow and Venis. Hardcore Holly is next. Amazingly enough, he gets no reaction. Rock is 24th to a HUGE reaction. There goes Boss Man. Billy Gunn is next as we’re getting close to the ending now. There goes Crash by the Rock. Road Dogg has hidden in the corner and has his arms and legs wrapped around the ropes. That’s rather smart.

Big Show is 26th. Rock hits him before he gets in and the pop is there. Test is gone in about 4 seconds. Gangrel lasts a bit longer than Test did against Big Show, making it about 8 seconds. Show still has long hair here so he looks more intimidating. Bradshaw is 27th and the Posse helps the Outlaws put him out with ease. Kane is 28th and we’re getting to the good part now. Tori looks AMAZING in this little black dress.

Kane puts out Snow in a few seconds and then Albert shortly thereafter. Godfather is 29th. I remember my father thinking he could have won this. Thankfully we don’t have a 20 second shot of the women to waste time. Funaki is back again and the joke is stupid now. X-Pac is in at 30 so our final group is X-Pac, Rock, Show, Kane, Snow, Billy Gunn, Road Dogg, Godfather and Holly.

Again note how this is a good thing: there are potential winners in there instead of just one guy that you know is going to get it. Holly is out and we’re down to 8. There goes Godfather as I type that. Snow is gone. Gunn puts out Road Dogg and Kane puts him out within a span of 5 seconds to bring us down to Rock, Show, Pac and Kane. At least the biggest four of the final 9 are left. Kane goes under the ropes to fight the Outlaws for no apparent reason.

X-Pac is thrown out but no one sees it. Kane and Big Show fight over a chokeslam as Kane slams him in a cool spot. Pac puts out Kane despite not being in there officially I guess. The Bronco Buster sucks the life out of this thing for me. Show throws him out with ease and we’re down to the best pairing possible with Big Show and Rock. The elbow gets a great pop. Show gets a chokeslam though to get crazy heat.

Show sets him for kind of a powerslam move which at least makes sense to throw him over but Rock grabs the top rope and Show goes over instead while Rock slides in under the bottom rope. Later on there would be a story where Show says that Rock’s feet actually touched and he had video to prove it. That led to Rock vs. Show at No Way Out for the Mania spot which Show won.

Vince came out and said that yes, Big Show was going to Mania, but the deal never said Rock wasn’t, so we got a triple threat. For no apparent reason, that match happened on Raw the Monday before. Linda then came out and said that it would be a four way at Mania, including the unretired for one night only Mick Foley.

There was a McMahon in every corner as they made sure that the main event of Wrestlemania was again about them instead of the wrestlers. But enough about that as this Rumble was great.

Rating: A-. This is how the Rumble is supposed to be done. Take a look at how they did this. You had the guys that were there to fill in the 30 spots in there first to make sure they were in and had an actual chance. Then we got the smartest move of the match: having Rikishi dominate.

This does a few things: it allows the jobbers to be cleared out as well as making Rikishi look good AND it offers a bridge to the next segment of the match where guys like Test and Boss Man could come in and hang around until we got to the final batch of guys. That’s very smart booking and it made this match work very well.

The Kai En Tai jokes were funny for the most part but it got to being overkill at the end. I was very happy with this whole match though as even though I knew the ending like the back of my hand, it worked and had me entertained. Excellent Rumble.

Overall Rating: A. This is a GREAT show. There’s one stupid part with the tag titles but if that was done to give the two main events more time then I’m completely fine with it. There was still a match there and they didn’t try to put an emphasis on a match that few would have been the most interested in rather than taking away from two great main events.

This was validation that the company could thrive without Austin and while I think he brings a lot to the table, he needed to go away for awhile to let some others get to his level. That was the issue: Rock or HHH or other people couldn’t get up to where Austin was because he was so high up there that it was impossible for anyone to touch him. His time taking time off gave everyone else a year to catch up, which was exactly what they needed. Definitely worth checking out.

NXT
Date: January 18, 2011
Location: BOK Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Commentators: Todd Grisham, Josh Matthews

It’s elimination week and it’s breaking loose in Tulsa!  Sorry I always wanted to say that.  No I didn’t actually but it sounded good and I have nothing to fill in this introduction with.  I’d assume Rat Boy goes home tonight because Brodus is awesome, Bateman got a segment on Raw last night, Saxton is kind of funny and the company has decided that this Johnny Curtis guy is awesome or something because he’s as bland as anyone has been in decades so he’s THE guy this season.  Anyway let’s get to it.

Sadly enough I had to look on Wiki for the names of everyone in this season.  That’s how unmemorable they’ve been.

We recap the season so far which isn’t anything special.  Somehow the double date from last week is the highlight I think.  We also see Novak getting sent home.  I’ve been watching and reviewing the first season of this show recently, and this isn’t holding up to put it mildly.

Striker brings out the rookies as is his custom.  My boredom is sinking in slowly this week.  As is my anger due to a bad connection to watch this show.  Since it’s finally elimination week, WE NEED TO HAVE ANOTHER CHALLENGE!  Sweet goodness just throw the guys out already!  Bateman is the only one with points and the winner gets four points, meaning that the lead he has IS TOTALLY POINTLESS.  Yeah I’m in a bad mood tonight if you can’t tell.

This is How Well Do You Know Your Pro.  A question is asked and you have to match it up.  The first is “When I first saw my rookie, I thought he was “blank””.  Curtis thinks Truth said impressive but he said cool.  Saxton thinks Dolph said….hang on we have to wait for the booing for Dolph’s name.  Saxton says tan, Dolph says Carlton from Fresh Prince!  Ok that made me feel better.

Bryan gets a pop for his answer.  Bateman says Bryan thought of Tulsa, Oklahoma…AND HE’S RIGHT???  Only on this season.  O’Brian says strange, Alberto says raw.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME???  He’s said the same thing THE ENTIRE SHOW and now he changes it up?  Wow I want his bludgeoned.  Striker says he’d see Rat Boy at the hotel that night.  O…..k then.  Brodus says large, DiBiase says out of shape.  One point for Bateman and everyone else loses.

Next question is what other profession would you have after wrestling/if you weren’t in wrestling.  Saxton says singer, Ziggler says anchor for Lifetime.  Bateman says Steve Blackman…AND HE’S RIGHT AGAIN!  Ok this is getting funny.  O’Brian says circus worker, Alberto says his employee.  Nice job of keeping character there.  Brodus and DiBiase both say bodyguard.  Curtis is forgotten and I laugh a lot.  Curtis says commentator, Truth says actor/dancer.  It’s 2 for Bateman, 1 for Clay, 0 for everyone else.

Topic three is biggest area of improvement.  Brodus and DiBiase agree on listening.  O’Brian says listening, Del Rio says looks.  Bateman says chicks and America and they’re 3-3.  This is cracking me up for some reason.  Dolph thinks it’s rigged.  Striker: YOU THINK?  Saxton says being more like Dolph, Ziggler says more Dream Journal entries.  Curtis says getting noticed, Truth says confidence.  Bateman is Immune and I need to breathe from laughing at that.  It was stupid but that was the point.

Byron Saxton vs. Chris Masters

We get a clip of Masters and Saxton talking earlier in the day.  Masters says he didn’t teach him everything he knew.  Ziggler is in a hat which is a weird look for him.  If he ever goes insane and bails it can be used as a talking point on a DVD that buries him.  Masters overpowers him to start as you would expect.  Ziggler gets in Masters’ face to give Saxton the advantage.

Saxton gets a jawbreaker of some kind for two.  Saxton gets some basic offense in and Ziggler shouts in “STAY DOWN MASTERS BECAUSE YOU REALLY SUCK!”  I don’t know if it’s my low expectations for this show but it’s cracking me up tonight.  Masters gets a shot to break the momentum and here he comes (to save the day!  Save the day!)  Saxton is being all aggressive here but charges one too many times and the Masterlock ends it at 4:40.  Ziggler shakes the ropes like the Warrior, furthering my theory.

Rating: C-. This was more or less nothing but Saxton looked pretty good for the most part.  It wasn’t a good match for the most part as it was really basic but Masters continues to be pretty good like he has since this recent push of his.  Saxton needed a match like this as he looked decent in it actually.

Brodus comes into DiBiase’s locker room and goes off on him about costing him so much stuff.  DiBiase says shut up and listen.  Brodus says he will and leaves.  Maryse says something in French to tick DiBiase off.

Ted DiBiase/Brodus Clay vs. Derrick Bateman/Daniel Bryan

Maryse has been texting all night.  I doubt that’ll mean much but whatever.  Josh says neither Bateman or Bryan has ever won a match on NXT.  Is that true?  I can’t think of a win for Bryan off the top of my head.  I think the winner here is pretty clear.  Oh wait this is a tag match!  Ok that makes more sense now.  Todd: What would the tag team championships look like around Bateman and Bryan’s waists?  Josh: They would look like two belts around their waists.  Nice line.

Bryan plays Ricky Morton for a bit here as both guys get two.  We talk about the Rumble almost non-stop here and Josh says he’ll make his prediction next week.  Todd says that’ll get them a good rating.  Are they competing with reruns of the Dirt Sheet?  Josh points out there are no ratings and Todd has nothing.  Nerve hold by Clay and Dolph grabs a mic and shouts TAP OUT!

Brodus gets the Tongan Death Grip but DiBiase tags himself in.  Bryan manages to get the tag and Bateman cleans some rooms.  DiBiase gets Bateman down and wants to tag out.  Clay is like screw you dude and drops to the floor.  Naturally Bateman gets a rollup on DiBiase for the pin at 4:35

Rating: C-. Bit better here but not much either way.  I think the ending was pretty clear here and the eventual clash between Brodus and DiBiase is coming which is a good thing.  Either way, not terrible here but it was predictable nothing great at all.  Bateman needed a win though so that’s taken care of.

O’Brian finds some cheese on the floor and eats it.  And there’s a trail of it too.  Oh sweet goodness I hate this guy.  At the end is Ricardo with some kind of spray.  Alberto comes in and is very ticked off.  He apparently has match making power and makes Ricardo vs. O’Brian tonight.  It was rat spray.  This is really happening people.

Raw ReBound talks about a shift in power.  Wait a minute.  Punk hurt Cena, Cena talked, Nexus beat down Cena again.  When did the power shift away from Nexus and Punk?

Curtis is nervous and Truth says relax.  Pointless doesn’t begin to describe this.

Ricardo Rodriguez vs. Conor O’Brian

Ricardo is in a bath robe and trips getting into the ring.  He does his own entrance which is kind of funny.  Ricardo is in big black trunks and is a little chubby.  Ladies and gentlemen we are in a comedy match.  It’s weird to see O’Brian being the best wrestler in a match.  Buckle is pulled off and it’s all O’Brian.

You know that rat spray going into his eyes seems to be agreeing with him.  O’Brian goes into the buckle head first, Rodriguez gets a “splash” and pins him at 1:45.  Sweet mercy I have seen it all now.  You know except for Trish Stratus catching trains that fall out of orangutan’s kneecaps when they’re stealing apples from a Persian fruit vender on Mars but I think you get the point.  No rating due to the time.

Elimination time and Striker has to repeat some stuff due to technical difficulties.  I’d assume they couldn’t hear him in the arena because we could.  Bateman is immune and says Saxton should be gone.  Rat Boy is gone!!!  Thank goodness.  He tries to say goodbye but Ricardo cuts him off.  The Rat Boy chases him off.  Conor comes back and says they all suck.  He crawls under the ring for no apparent reason.

Overall Rating: C. Ok, this show is awful.  But if you lower your expectations by about 1000 notches, you’ll find some hilarious moments in this.  The Bateman/Bryan stuff is great, Brodus is cool and RAT BOY IS GONE!!!  The final four are definitely the best of the bunch so this could get ok now.  It’s still weak, but they’re clearly having a good time with it and it’s a great way to see the guys just joking around and having fun, which you don’t often see.  Bad show from a technical standpoint, fun show if you don’t think, like at all.

Royal Rumble 1999
Date: January 24, 1999
Location: Arrowhead Pond, Anaheim, California
Attendance: 14,800
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

The company is in full control of the Monday Night Wars at this point as WCW is managing to find ways previously unimaginable to mess up their company. We’re about three weeks after the Fingerpoke of Doom here, so to say the people are annoyed with WCW is an understatement. In essence, the WWF has a free show here where they can more or less do whatever they want as long as the ending works and they’ll be praised for it.

Your two big things going on at the moment are obviously Vince vs. Austin and then the great but kind of forgotten feud of Mankind, the reigning WWF Champion here, vs. Rock in the I Quit match. The company has also started to shape itself for the future, as people like the Hardys, Edge and Christian, Val Venis and Test are all around now.

They’re not a big deal yet, but it’s coming. There’s a $100,000 bounty on Austin’s head from Vince tonight in the Rumble, so it’s in essence Austin vs. the world. That sounds decent so let’s get to it.

Personal story: on this night I was coming home from Winchester which was 30 minutes from Lexington. Halfway my dad’s car broke down and we had to walk an hour to get to a house to use a phone and I missed the show. The feed was messed up so the show didn’t air anyway but I was ticked. My dad had said that the car having 250,000 miles on it wasn’t a problem at all and he didn’t need a mechanic. Good to know pop.

Before we start we get an exclusive interview with Road Dogg saying he’s working twice tonight. Boss Man says he wants the bounty. He never should be allowed to talk. Mark Henry wants the money as well. Jarrett uses the term storylines which just doesn’t sound right for some reason. Him talking about Austin is just amusing as Austin is the reason Jarrett is gone from the company forever.

Allegedly Jarrett and Austin were in a smaller company together once and Austin wasn’t happy with his pay and he was looking at his check one night. Jarrett said that it’s not going to get any bigger by staring at it, which Austin took as Jarrett saying Austin wasn’t working hard enough.

Austin got the top spot in the WWF and made sure Jarrett was never allowed back. Once WCW went under, Jarrett started TNA since he had nowhere else to go. Cornette talks about Chyna being #30 and says she’s in for a surprise but never says that she can’t do it which is a nice little touch.

The video says that Austin has No Chance, which is also the theme song for tonight. In case you didn’t know, that’s where Vince got the song from. Oh I forgot: Shawn was Commissioner at this time. Austin will be #1 and Vince will be #2 in the Rumble so there we are. Vince’s acting was pretty good back then actually. After our standard intros we’re ready to go.

Road Dogg vs. Big Boss Man

Roadie is face now while Boss Man is head of security for Vince’s Corporate Team. I swear you needed a scorecard to keep track of all this stuff back in the day. Dogg gets a hugs pop here as he’s got the intro down. He’s hardcore champion here but this is nontitle. Dogg wasn’t a great wrestler, but he found something that worked for him and he RAN with it.

Boss Man and Shamrock are tag champions here but they would lose them the next night to Jarrett and Owen. Boss Man tries to scare him and is told what to do which involves an imbibing of Road Dogg’s….yeah. The crowd is way hot here. In something unrelated, Mankind got beaten up in a match with Mable on Heat that will come into play later. The announcers can’t figure out why the Corporation didn’t make this for the Hardcore Title.

Naturally this is mostly a brawl, which granted I guess makes sense given who is in there. Lawler asks if Cole ever exercises his right to be silent. Cole transitions into saying Vince has been exercising to get ready for tonight. Wow. This is more or less all Boss Man. While choking Road Dogg on the ropes, Boss Man shouts to Lawler. He’s WAY too loud here and is clearly miked up. Jerry is full blown heel here which is what he was best at so there we are.

Roadie starts his comeback and hits the really stupid three punches called the Shake Rattle and Roll for two because no one with any self esteem would get pinned by that. Boss Man hits the slam out of nowhere for the pin. I mean he was down and being covered and Road Dogg came off the ropes and got hit with it.

Cole offers a pearl of wisdom by saying that this would have been different had it been under hardcore rules. In other words, he’s saying if it had been different it would have been different. Ladies and gentlemen I give you the voice of Raw!

Rating: C-. It was kind of long but very standard stuff. There’s nothing special here, which I think was kind of the problem. Either way, I think this worked pretty well given what they had as Boss Man was little more than a joke while Road Dogg was a gimmick wrestler. Given what they had to work with, this went as well as possible.

We get a quick recap of Billy vs. Shamrock. More or less, Billy hit on Shamrock’s very hot “sister” to get us this match.

Intercontinental Title: Billy Gunn vs. Ken Shamrock

So wait. Why did they go with the two singles matches here? You have the most popular tag team in the company and have them face the tag champions in back to back singles matches? I get that the titles were going to Owen and Jeff the next night, but you couldn’t have a cheating heel win here? The Outlaws were always better as a team, yet they’re going single here. I don’t understand that one at all.

Shamrock had some great facials most of the time. He looked freaking insane and it helped his character a lot. After some bad punches to start, Cole says that a clothesline Shamrock hits was unreal. No, I’m pretty sure he hit him with it. Less than two minutes into this and we’re in a chinlock. That can’t be a good sign. Ken literally kicks Gunn to the floor. After going outside and Billy literally missing the post, we go through about 8 minutes of pure average stuff.

It’s not great, it’s not horrible, but it’s just average all around. That means it’s kind of interesting but at the same time you might as well not even be watching at all. In a move that stuns, yes STUNS I say, the world, the referee goes down. They desperately tried to make Gunn a big deal time after time and it never worked, just like here. Venis runs out and nails Shamrock because they were also feuding over his sister.

I can’t blame them as she was hot. Billy somehow botches a running splash. How can you do that? He jumped early I think. How is that possible? After going to the top and missing, Billy hurts his ankle. Guess what happens. Ok so let’s see: storyline based on sex, rather pointless run in, illogical booking as Gunn had all the momentum in the world coming up to this, and an overly long brawl. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear this was a Russo match. And by George, IT WAS!

Rating: D+. Again, this was the same as the last one was: kind of pointless. Why did these guys need almost 15 minutes? Why not just give the fans what they want, as in the Outlaws as a team? There’s zero reason here to have them both in singles matches here when another team is going to get the title shot the next night. Why not, maybe Owen and Jeff get singles matches here? Are you telling me that Owen vs. Shamrock wouldn’t be better than Shamrock vs. Billy?

In the back the Stooges and Shane are trying to pump up Vince. The heat here on Vince is unreal.

European Title: Gangrel vs. X-Pac

Don’t waste your time looking for a reason for this as it doesn’t exist. Random title matches aren’t always bad though. Good grief that music was beyond awesome. Take that New Moon. It’s coming out in two days so I’m a bit annoyed with it. This feels like a match from Attitude or War Zone or something. Those are way old school video games in case you don’t know those names. It’s weird to think that Gangrel was the leader of the Brood yet has had by far the least success.

Both of these guys have a thing for sucking so at least there’s a theme. X-Pac is called the greatest European Champion ever. I’m not touching that one. We have our first heart reference. I’m actually liking this match. They’re keeping it simple, which is what I think this title is best at. It never really was a huge deal but it was played well I think. Gangrel is limited in the ring so they’re keeping it simple. Naturally that’s all thrown out the window with another big heart reference and the Bronco Buster.

I hate that move. It looks stupid, it wouldn’t be that effective, and above all else: IT LOOKS FREAKING STUPID! Seriously, what was the appeal of that thing? X-Pac shows off his versatile offense by using his third spin kick in less than 4 minutes.

We get a decent little screw up from Teddy Long as Gangrel reverses a cross body and Long accidentally counts three with Pac’s shoulder up at about two and a quarter. He waves it off and the fans just let him have it. Soon thereafter we finish as Gangrel tries to throw Pac into the air but he counters with a huge X Factor to end it. Sweet ending there.

Rating: B-. This was actually good. They did the smart thing here and kept it simple which is the best solution sometimes. Why over complicate something that’s fine the way it is? It was a decent time at just under five minutes and for a token title match, this was just fine.

DX is in the back and say that tonight it’s every man for himself. Chyna, who I would do lots of evil things to if she looked like that now, says or woman for herself.

Shane comes out to pure generic music as No Chance wasn’t the official song yet. He introduces Luna. For some reason he hated Sable at this time for no apparent reason.

Women’s Title: Sable vs. Luna

This is a strap match. Why is it a strap match? I don’t have the slightest clue but that’s the Attitude Era for you. Luna hurt Sable earlier so apparently we have no match. Sable’s bad acting is almost funny. She just won the title in a match where again it was all about her being pretty and having nothing to do with talent or anything like that. Luna was good in the ring but she never got a freaking run with the title because of the witches like Sable.

Sable says the match is on, making the segment with Shane completely pointless. Oh geez it’s a corners match so this could be awhile. It’s very difficult not to make strap on jokes here. Shane says this is about Sable taking advantage of his father. I shudder to think of what that might imply.

Since this is a strap match, the ending is one person touching all three corners with the other following and doing the same then the ending. In this case, Tori, who was just known as Sable’s stalker at this point, nails Luna to keep the belt on Sable and keeping us all in this hell world.

Rating: F. There was nothing of note here and we had to put up with Luna’s unshapely figure. It wasn’t much at all and lasted like 4 minutes. This was a waste of time with Sable of course being made to look great as she always did.

In the back the Corporation is talking about the match tonight. Shamrock is REALLY short.

We hit the recap of Rock and Mankind. The idea here is that Mankind took the title in the night where Tony Schiavone said that he did, causing a ton of people to change the channel. Rock wanted a rematch and listed off all kinds of stipulations that Foley refused to agree to.

Finally Rock said he quit and Foley shouted that he accepted Rock’s challenge of an I Quit match. He followed that up by summarizing this match perfectly: “Rock, how does it feel going into a match that you can’t win?” That’s your match right there. This was a great recap of a great feud that’s kind of overlooked which is a shame.

Rock says he’ll win in a lot more words than that.

WWF Title: Rock vs. Mankind

This match is notoriously difficult to watch due to what happens in it, but let’s get going. As Foley comes to the ring we see a clip from earlier in the show where he had a “warm up” match on Heat with Mabel who hit some splashes on him to soften him up. Remember when Heat used to actually mean something? I miss those days. Almost right off the bat we get a great line from Lawler. Cole says that he can’t see Mankind saying I Quit.

Lawler says you don’t see it you idiot. Note: Foley’s family is at ringside. Mankind is completely dominating at this point. That ends after the knees to the steps spot that always looks ridiculously painful. Rock gets on a headset during the match which is another thing that he always did which was at least entertaining. This is brutal already. We get the sock 5 minutes into the match. How brilliant of an idea was that?

It’s something so completely stupid and basic but it caught fire like few other things ever have. Rock goes out from it so Foley starts talking on the mic that the referee carries and says he’s going to split open that ridiculous eyebrow. We hit the crowd and now we’re ready to go. Foley is way over at this point and was more or less the champion of the people which was the reason the people’s champion thing for Rock worked so well. It really was amusing.

Rock gets the bell and the hammer and puts the bell to Foley’s head and rings it. You know, instead of hitting him with the bell or the hammer. Rock tries to Rock Bottom him through the Spanish table but it breaks. It went off prematurely. This is working because it’s Mankind who was supposed to be just a guy that wouldn’t quit no matter what against a great athlete like the Rock. I’m completely buying into the idea here, which granted it might be that Foley is my all time favorite wrestler.

We’re up by the entry way now as Lawler channels Gordon Solie. A DDT on the floor doesn’t make Foley give up. Rock pulls out a ladder which would kind of foreshadow one of their next gimmick matches. They go up a ladder for no apparent reason and fight on something like a scaffold. Rock hits a running shot and Foley goes into the equipment and gets electrocuted, prompting the lights to go out and Cole to shout out Christ Almighty. That’s a bit much.

Apparently Foley may be dead despite rolling around on the floor and making noise. Shane comes out too as if nothing else they’re doing a good job of making this look serious. Rock says no doctors because Foley is going to say he quits no matter what. I love how Rock says the words I Quit while talking there so technically he just lost the match.

Foley is more or less dead as they go back to the ring. While he’s laying on the mat, Cole asks how he can stand. That got me to roll my eyes at the stupidity of it, as Rock gets handcuffs and we move into the segment that’s been called the most brutal in company history. Foley can get his hands up and Rock just goes nuts with all kinds of free shots. In an impressive sequence, Foley gets the advantage despite having no free hands. That’s very cool to see actually.

And Rock gets a chair. Oh this isn’t going to be easy to sit through. With Foley on the mat, Rock puts the chair over his head and drops the elbow, which apparently shatters Foley’s skull. So, an elbow to the chair which is laying on his head cracked his skull but being rammed into all kinds of things didn’t? I can’t stand Cole. Anyway, Rock has the chair, and starts swinging at Foley’s head with it.

You have to remember, Foley’s hands and arms are useless at this point. He can’t get them up to even cushion the blow at all. The original plan was for Rock to hit him I think 3 times with it and then Foley would be out cold and they would do the finish. However, Rock didn’t do that. He wouldn’t put the mic near Foley for the finish so Mick had to just keep getting up. Rock hits him with literally t0 shots, all unprotected to the head.

He has chances to hit him in the back or anywhere else where at least it wouldn’t have looked as bad, but Rock went for the head every time. You can tell the announcers are having a real problem with this as even Lawler who has been behind Rock all night long is saying that’s enough in that voice of his where you can tell he’s being legit about something. Rock hits perhaps the sickest looking chair shot I’ve ever seen to the back of Foley’s head to knock him down again. Foley is DEAD.

Rock says a bunch of stuff on the mic and then shoves it at his mouth, and a prerecorded tape of Foley screaming I QUIT from a promo a few weeks ago plays to give Rock the title again. This was really confusing at the time as Foley was clearly out cold yet the voice was really loud.

I had missed that segment from Raw so I was confused as hell. Anyway, this was absolutely brutal at the end and Foley was legit messed up bad from this match. Rock had to give him a big apology for it and I don’t think Foley’s family has been to a live match of his since, which I can’t blame them at all for.

Rating: B. This really was a solid match. The gimmick aspect was indeed brilliant as Foley would never say he quit and in the match he didn’t. The chair shots were WAY too much as everyone was clearly not comfortable with how far Rock took that.

Foley and Rock had great chemistry together and you could see it every time they were on the screen together. There was no need to go that far with it though and it showed clearly. Foley would get the belt back in 2-3 weeks at Halftime Heat before losing it in a ladder match on Raw that no one remembers.

We talk about the Rumble and the bounty because the 12 promos about them weren’t enough. Also we get a long video about Vince vs. Austin which we know already as well.

Royal Rumble

Like has also been said all night, Austin is first and Vince is second. The intervals are 90 seconds this year, which means about 75 in reality. Howard takes WAY too long for the rules which draws all kinds of heckling from Lawler. Literally, he talks for over a minute. Vince has no music at this point which just is odd as hell. This is the first time we’ve ever seen Vince with his shirt off so the physique is something unheard of.

Of course Austin beats the living hell out of Vince and the crowd is on fire for it. Austin drops an F bomb by mistake which means nothing. This right here should have been the main event of Wrestlemania. Golga, more commonly known as John Tenta or Earthquake is 3rd. The fans are dancing with him if nothing else. Golga jumps Austin after a Thesz Press but is gone in about 10 seconds as Vince and Austin hit the floor and run away through the crowd.

Austin is so ridiculously popular it’s scary. Droz, a very sad story indeed, is 4th and because of the brilliant booking so far, has nothing to do but stand in the ring and wait on someone to fight. In the back we see Austin chase Vince into a bathroom where the Corporation is conveniently waiting on him to beat the hell out of him. After about 20 seconds, Edge is fifth. Remember that Austin and Vince are still in this but they’re just not here at the moment.

Edge and Droz get something going so we don’t have an empty ring. If nothing else they’re two young and mostly over guys that are getting a chance to show what they can do. The problem is no one cares and there’s no way anyone but Austin or Vince will win this thing, which is the problem with the Rumble as a whole. About a minute after Edge is in Gillberg, who might be the funniest gimmick is in at 6th.

In case you don’t know he was a parody of Goldberg, complete with holding sparklers and having fake chants piped in, but unlike WCW, they pushed them as fake. Edge drops him in about 8 seconds. We cut to the Corporation beating on Austin, because that’s far more important than what’s going on in the ring. Don’t you love Russo? Seventh is Steve Blackman as we’re in jobber land already.

Hey, let’s go back to that bathroom because we haven’t done that enough lately, as Austin is being put on a stretcher and taken away. Droz is trying to be part of the LOD at this point, as Hawk was just a mess in real life and in storylines. Dan Severn is number 8, because we need another glorified jobber here. He held the NWA title for years, having to drop it because of MMA stuff. Austin is shown AGAIN, this time being taken to an ambulance.

They mess up and catch him moving his arm just because we have to be real or something, which makes no sense but nothing on this show does so there we are. Tiger Ali Singh is ninth. Think Million Dollar Man meets Muhammad Hassan minus any semblance of talent. Time for an Austin cut, as he’s leaving the arena. Apparently the eight minutes or so that Droz and Edge have been fighting constitutes a long time. Blue Meanie is 10th as we’re flying through this tour of jobber ville.

He’s in the Job Squad here in case you’re that bored. Apparently the Brood and the Job Squad are feuding. Yes, that’s correct: two more or less useless factions are feuding, and still no one cares about either of them. Brood had cool music if nothing else though. Maybe 40 seconds after Meanie,

Mable is 11th, but he doesn’t come out just yet because it was supposed to be Mosh. Mabel attacks him so he can take his place. IT’S DRAMA TIME! I’m quite bored here so I have to make fun of stuff where I can. He’s gimmickless here and is just beating on people. He puts out Tiger, Blackman and Severn in about 10 seconds. Oh come on. After MAYBE 30 seconds Road Dogg is next.

They’re just saying forget it with the time here. Everyone but Edge and Mabel are gone so it’s Road Dogg, Mabel and Edge and never mind as Edge is gone now. They go at it but the lights go out and we have Taker music. We come back to have the APA and Mideon beating on Mabel to put him out. Taker, in full demon priest mode here, looks at Mabel and I guess hypnotizes him or something as he is beaten down.

He would become Viscera the next night which was his character for the rest of his career as still no one would care. This was WAY over the top and yet again, we have one person in the ring. Remember, Austin and Vince are still in. Gangrel, rocking his awesome music, is 12th. The people in the front row dancing badly to his music is funny. Other than Austin and Vince, Road Dogg is the biggest star in here so far.

Gangrel is out in about 12 seconds, so we have nothing going on again. Rock on Russo! This is riveting, RIVETING I SAY! They just drop the clock again as about 30 seconds pass before Kurrgan of the Oddities is 14th. I really hate this match. Seriously, we’re halfway through this thing almost and we’re watching Kurrgan vs. Road Dogg. Al Snow gets us to 15 as I flip through my DVD collection since it’s far more interesting to look at match listings that I’ve already seen before.

Snow lost Head for some stupid reason that likely went nowhere. Dogg puts him out in about 45 seconds. We get Road Dogg vs. Kurrgan for the 2nd time tonight as Rock and Austin are in danger of being passed for best feud ever. Goldust is next as he’s entered that point in his career where no one cares about him as he’s just Goldust. There’s nothing freaky about him anymore and he’s just a guy in gold that no one really cares about.

The last ten here better be freaking AMAZING. Dogg mocks Goldust and sets up for Shattered Dreams, but we can’t have Dogg beat up anyone so Kurrgan saves him. Godfather is 17th as we’re thankfully flying through this. Of course he’s got Hos with him which gets a bigger pop than anything else as I’m suddenly ashamed of being a fan of the Attitude Era. This isn’t wrestling. There’s nothing redeeming about this.

Let’s see what we have here. A pimp, a man that molests other men for no apparent reason, a guy that dances badly and is proud of the fact that he’s a social outcast, and a guy constantly making rather sexual references. What is possibly appealing here? Kane is 18th as he at least has a ton of jobbers to beat up.

Kane has recently been rebelling against the Corporation, meaning he’s now just shy of being a face for the first time other than for 6 days at this time last year. He clears the ring inside of 30 seconds. Hey, we’ve got one person in the ring AGAIN! Dang he’s getting a pop for this. So let’s see. We have a former world champion who is quite over and dominating. My goodness we’re on to something here! We have a guy that could be a legit challenger to the standard winners!

This could make Kane a legit…oh screw it you know where this is going. Naturally he’s in the match less than a minute as a group of men in white coats come back, allegedly to put Kane back in a mental institution. He beats them up and jumps over the top rope, eliminating himself.

Shamrock is 19th, and due to the brilliance of this booking, has to stand in the ring and do nothing for 90 seconds, killing any heat the Kane built up for him. We could have had a decent showdown between a crazed monster and a submission machine. How does that sounds? Shamrock vs. Kane? It wouldn’t main event a Wrestlemania but it could have been interesting if nothing else, but instead we have Shamrock literally standing in the ring just waiting for something to happen.

See, this right here is why this Rumble is complete and utter crap. This is why fans HATE Russo’s booking. Yeah a lot of stuff has happened here, but there is ZERO substance to it. We’ve had nothing but jobbers in here so far until Kane showed up, and after he gets one of the biggest reactions of the night and looks awesome, a stupid angle that went nowhere gets rid of him. Russo is notorious for trying to fit 100 different angles into a single match and that’s what he’s done here.

Instead of having a decent match which could have happened had this been booked right, and had there been anyone other than Austin and McMahon coming in at one and two. That’s the issue here: anyone with a brain can tell you that 3-30 don’t even need to show up. It’s going to come down to Vince vs. Austin, which is fine I guess as it’s the only possible ending, but they screwed this up so badly by having them come out first.

Instead, have Austin come in at like 25th or 26th and clear the ring, THEN have Vince come in at 30 to set up the showdown. The Corporation runs in for a big brawl, and then do the finish. There, see what that accomplishes? All night long you know that Austin is going to be in there somewhere, but you don’t know where. He’s going to face big odds, but no one knows how big. The other guys can build themselves up a bit and get the crowd into it.

Austin was certainly getting the biggest pop of the night, so anything anyone gets after that is going to be lackluster. Why not instead have Austin saved until closer to the end, so that he still gets his big pop but everyone else gets a nicer one as well? There’s more drama, the fans will be more into the rest of the match, and it takes some pressure off of Austin while still giving you the finish you wanted. Instead, let’s have a ton of dead spots and jobbers fight each other.

Look at earlier on. Why did Golga have to be eliminated so fast? Instead of having Droz vs. Golga (which sounds like a Japanese monster movie if I’ve ever heard one) for a few minutes, we have Droz standing there. I know that’s not the most appealing match in the world, but it’s SOMETHING. It’s not a guy standing around waiting on something to happen, but rather an actual, you know, wrestling match.

Why would we need that though when we can have pointless angles and spots that bring the match to halt after halt? This is a great example of how Russo’s booking can ruin a match in one easy lesson. ANYWAY, Vince comes out just before Shamrock to do commentary. Oh joy indeed. Billy Gunn is 20th because instead of a fresh match we need a repeat of the one from earlier in the show. Gunn is limping at least but for some reason only has one boot on.

To contine this match’s stupidity, on one ankle Gunn uses a gorilla press. I can’t stand this match. I truly can’t. Test is 21st as we cut to the future Ministry kidnapping Mabel. Oh my goodness let the shocks continue! Just at the EXACT same time as that’s happening, STONE COLD STONE COLD STONE COLD is back in an ambulance.

WAIT A MINUTE YOU FREAKING IDIOTS! Are you really trying to convince me that in less than 30 minutes, Austin was knocked completely unconscious, strapped to a stretcher, put in an ambulance, woke up, managed to get enough wits about him to get off the stretcher, get control of the ambulance, drive the ambulance back to the arena in a city that I’d assume he doesn’t know the street design of, and get back into the parking lot?

And all that in less time than it takes to deliver a pizza? And no one finds this even the SLIGHTEST bit odd? No one at all? Yeah I still hate this match. Actually this isn’t a match. It’s a performance piece or something stupid like that. Vince is of course SHOCKED. I love how he’s shocked over things he booked. Oh come on Austin isn’t even sweating. Give me a break. Austin walks into the arena as Boss Man’s music plays since he’s 22nd.

To further take away from the people in the ring that are doing the work on this show, Austin chases Vince. They get in the ring and Austin puts out Shamrock and gets jumped again. Oh look Austin has a rope from somewhere. This is like a bad SNL sketch or something. HHH, to a HUGE pop so you know he’s not winning, is 23rd. Since he was so popular he would be turned heel at Mania in a HUGE twist. Everything is huge back then remember as this is now WCW 2.

HHH beating on Austin just feels right. Val Venis is 24th. To recap we have Boss Man, Austin, Test, HHH, Gunn and Venis in the ring and Vince at ringside. Austin puts out Gunn. Nothing of note is happening here for the most part. X-Pac is 25th and I still could care less. Allegedly he’s the lightest competitor in Rumble history. And naturally since that involves company history, it’s nonsense. Pierroth from the 97 rumble is smaller.

Austin is knocked to the floor under the ropes and comes in off the top rope of all things. That was odd if nothing else. Henry, ANOTHER sex based character is the first of the final 5 guys. This is just after the very stupid transvestite bit between Chyna and Henry. Don’t ask. This just needs to end like NOW. Jeff Jarrett is 27th. Naturally Debra is the bigger deal here. Other than her face she looks ok actually.

As HHH is beating on Venis, we hear a very familiar voice ask Val “If I throw you can you hang on?”. Nice one there Hunter. To further the brilliance of this match, we’re discussing whether Vince would pay by cash or check. D’lo is 28th along with PMS. This was, you guessed it, another sex based angle called Pretty Mean Sisters, which implied that they had clients that they screwed up because they were so upset with men.

Test and X-Pac are thrown out. Vince saying that Jeff Jarrett is the man made me chuckle. Owen is 29th as Jarrett is thrown out. HHH saves Austin which was just weird as hell to type. Austin hits the floor and throws water on Vince because he’s a BAD MAN. Chyna is 30, making our final batch of people Austin, Vince, Boss Man, Chyna, Henry, Brown, HHH, Venis and Owen. I wonder who will win.

Chyna puts out Henry and then Austin puts her out, making her big moment last all of 30 seconds. Vince cheering on HHH makes me wonder if he knew what was coming. That’s just amusing. We realize the issue of the money as no one wants to let anyone else put Austin out so they keep saving him. Venis is gone as is HHH, leaving the final five as Vince, Austin, Owen, Henry and Brown.

Owen hits the enziguri on Austin but gets thrown out anyway as Austin is apparently tougher than Shawn ever was. Brown hits the sweet Low Down on Austin as Boss Man throws him out. More no selling from Austin as he throws out Boss Man and we’re down to Austin vs. Vince again. Amazingly the Rumble is on the floor and in the crowd again. This is idiotic. Let’s bring a chair in because we haven’t had enough of those tonight right?

Vince hits a quick low blow to buy himself some time once we’re back in the ring. Austin has stone cold guts apparently as he hits a Stunner out of nowhere. Here’s Rock for the distraction, and we make the Rumble look like a joke as Vince throws out Austin to win it. A massive heel celebration follows as Austin chases Rock out.

Rating: F. I’m sorry to the people that worked hard in there, but this was awful on so many levels that I can’t let it pass. This match alone sums up everything that was wrong with the Attitude Era. There were a ton of sex based characters that were weirder and weirder each time. There was no story other than two guys that weren’t in the match for the majority of the time.

No one cared about 28 people in there. The ending was a give away, and the whole thing just sucked all around. There were three times where we had a maximum of one person in the ring due to some stupid angle. That’s just unacceptable all around, just like this match. This was a failure and easily the worst Rumble of all time.

Overall Rating: D-. The best match of the night might have had Gangrel in it. That sums up just about everything you need to know here. This was just a mess as the Rumble sucked, the early stuff sucked, and the title match was actually difficult to sit through. Foley and Rock’s incredible chemistry together saves this from a complete failure though, but not by a lot.

I hated this show and it took me almost 4 days to get through it which is by far and away a record for these reviews. This was just crap all around and not worth watching at all. The title match is good, but that’s all that’s worth watching here at all. Go on Attitude Era freaks. Defend this thing. I want you to. I need the target practice.

Royal Rumble 1998
Date: January 18, 1998
Location: San Jose Arena, San Jose, California
Attendance: 18,542
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

We have seen our savior and he is called Austin. So it’s official: Steve Austin ranks somewhere just below free beer in terms of popularity at this point and is the undisputed king of the company. There’s just one thing: he’s not the world champion yet. It’s about as clear as you can make it that Austin is going to win the title at Mania, so this is another formality. However, a few things have happened in the last two months or so.

Number one: Montreal. We have no Bret Hart and Shawn and Vince are now pure evil, especially the latter. The other thing is Starrcade 97, where Hogan’s ego has managed to almost single handedly kill the massive lead that WCW was enjoying. Therefore, even though the results are clear, they have to do this right because if they do, the WWF could actually catch up to WCW (which they did).

Your other main event tonight is Shawn vs. Taker in a casket match, and you know what happens there. I’ve always felt the main event should have been someone else but I’ll get to that later. Anyway, Kane is now apparently face and will be here to help Taker, and you know he wouldn’t ever do anything like turn on him 6 days after joining him or anything like that.

As for the rest of the show, the roster has filled out a lot more now with a lot of the familiar Attitude Era people there now, such as Shamrock, Rock in his more famous form, face Mankind and the Outlaws. Actually a lot of the wrestlers are the same but now they’re in their best forms, which is often the most important part. I have decent memories of this show and it’s certainly important as far as history goes so let’s get it started.

The opening video is about being champion, which is what the show is mainly about so at least it makes sense. The set for the Rumble isn’t elaborate yet as it’s still the circular one that was used for years. Why were there always blimps in the arenas for these things? I’ve never gotten the point of that. Oh yeah Mike Tyson is here tonight too in what turned out to be a big deal for the company as far as going mainstream went. DANG he is getting booed out of the arena.

Vader vs. Goldust

This is actually the Artist Formerly Known As Goldust but I didn’t want to type that out more than once so he’s just Goldust in this. Let’s see: green hair and what we’ll call yellow and blue striped tights. More or less he’s just insane at this point where he’s expressing himself or something like that. It never made a ton of sense but it was different if nothing else.

Vader has just fallen through the floor as far as meaning anything went by this point for no reason that I’ve ever been able to come up with. Well I’ll give him this: he’s still energetic and the fans are WAY into him. Of course that means he’s not worthy of being anything but a jobber in Vince’s company, so there we go. Lawler actually says that he’s glad Goldust is back in men’s clothing for this match.

I think that sums up the Attitude Era pretty well. Vader is just beating the tar out of Goldust at this point. He throws Goldie into the stairs in the worst, weakest looking shot I’ve ever seen. Goldust stopped about 6 inches before he hit them and then tapped them. It looks horrible. We have a hot crowd if nothing else. After a decent comeback, Goldust kisses Vader, and you know what’s coming next.

Apparently Austin isn’t here yet. Why is it that he never got to the arena on time? After putting him down, Vader sets for the Vader Bomb. This takes literally thirty seconds. He deserved the low blow he got from that. There is little more entertaining to me than a big guy just dropping down on someone else.

In a cool looking visual, Luna jumps on Vader’s back as he’s setting for the Bomb again. He’s like screw it who cares and does the move with her on his back. The sight of Luna flying through the air and just stopping dead when Vader lands is great for some reason. Naturally this ends it.

Rating: B-. For an opener, this was a very good choice. The fans were into Vader and he looked quite solid out there. It was a standard beatdown and the ending spot looked cool. It wasn’t epic and it wasn’t supposed to be, so this was exactly right and I’m perfectly fine with it. For the life of me I don’t get the complete lack of push for Vader.

Austin is here and the Godwins follow him. Apparently all 29 other guys want to kill him.

Max Mini/Mosaic/Nova vs. Battalion/El Torito/Tarantula

Yep it’s a mini match. Sunny is referee here to give anyone a reason to care. The three faces combine to weigh less than 260lbs. That’s just amusing. They kept having these matches for no apparent reason other than an attempt at capitalizing on the Luchador craze, which I guess was a better idea than trying to use bad luchadors like they would do in a few months. Max weighs 87lbs and is very fast if nothing else.

Everyone has very generic gimmicks with Batallion being an army guy or something. We’re about two minutes into this and we just saw our 8th arm drag. It’s Trios rules here as in if one of the guys goes to the floor, that’s the same as a tag. We go split screen to look at Tyson who looks like he’s hamming it up for the camera, and to his credit he looks genuine at least. Like I’ve said a dozen times: if you don’t want to be there, at least try to look interested, and Tyson is certainly doing that.

The crowd doesn’t care about anyone in there other than Max. For no apparent reason, Sunny helps Max throwing dropkicks at the other guys. It made no sense but it got a pop so there we go. We hit the floor and there they go. It’s your standard everyone runs to the ropes and hits a big move and it works really well here.

I’ll say this for these guys: they’re not boring. They’re not particularly interesting but they’re not boring either. Max goes to the top (which to be fair is like from the top of a cage for a normal size guy) and hits a rana which leads to a cradle for the pin. This was so far ahead of last year’s Lucha stuff that I can’t even see it back there.

Rating: B-. Again, it wasn’t great, but it was exciting if nothing else. It kept you paying something close to attention so that’s better than nothing at all. Max was more over than all 5 other guys combined so it was smart to have him be the focus of the match.

Granted that might be because he was by far the most talented. Compared to last year’s old guys doing nothing for 11 minutes, this was a good deal shorter at about 8 minutes which helped it out a lot. That doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but three minutes can mean a big difference in a match. Think about how many matches you’ve seen that are about three minutes long. A lot of TV matches are, so there’s time to do a good amount of stuff in there. By keeping this one shorter it was FAR better.

The Nation is looking for Austin but all they find is a foam finger.

Vince and Shane are with Tyson. Shane looks so much more comfortable talking to him than Vince does.

We get a recap of Shamrock vs. the Nation, including Henry turning on him to join the Nation. This was when Rock was taking the leadership of the group over from Farrooq and is also IC Champion at the time, having been handed the title after Austin forfeited the belt to go after the World Title. Cole is with the Rock as we cut to a clip from the Free For All of the Nation arguing over who would win the Rumble.

Cole says that apparently there are problems in the Nation. Rock says apparently you’re an idiot. I love Rock ripping on Cole. It was always priceless. Rock offers advice to Clinton, continuing his gimmick of offering his input on social matters of the time as only he could. It helped play up the People’s Champion thing, and more importantly led to an interview with Gennifer Flowers at Mania where he debuted a rather famous line because of it, if you smell what I’m cooking.

Intercontinental Title: Rock vs. Ken Shamrock

Rock comes out alone here. The crowd is way behind Shamrock here as Rocky was flat out hated. We start with a fairly long feeling out period and then we all of a sudden get going. Shamrock is pretty good at the moves he could do, but the problem is he didn’t have a ton of things that he could do well. Since we’re in the Attitude Era, there’s a lot of brawling going on here which makes sense for Shamrock at least.

What doesn’t make sense though is Rock being able to go toe to toe with Shamrock in that area. If he’s supposed to be the best fighter of all time like JR keeps telling us, Rock is amazing then. In an amusing bit, Rock goes for a chinlock but does the arm motion that he would do for the People’s Elbow by swinging his arm around really slowly to hook the chinlock on. I love that.

JR says this isn’t the seniors’ tour which is a clear jab at WCW and how much they messed up the previous month’s show. As Shamrock goes insane, here’s Kama to allow Rock to get some knucks to knock out Shamrock. Now in a brilliant move Rock puts them in Shamrock’s tights. Ken kicks out and hits a belly to belly for the pin and the title. Rock gets up a bit later and says to check his tights. You can see the ending coming from here and the decision is reversed.

In a great moment, the referee is checking his tights and points to the crotch and asks what is that? It’s as humorous as it sounds. Yep, the referee gets the ankle lock too. They would do a similar screw job ending at Mania where Shamrock was named the winner again but didn’t get the title again. Rock would finally lose the belt at Summerslam in an epic ladder match with HHH. On a replay we see Rocky hitting him with the knucks.

We also see the problem with it as the knucks are on the back of Rock’s hand, but the way Rock throws punches, the part where the brass is sticking out wouldn’t have touched Ken’s head, but why should we care about that?

Rating: C+. This was what it was. It wasn’t meant to be anything great and they didn’t try to make it something it wasn’t which is the smart thing to do. The ending was at least somewhat creative so they get points for that. I don’t get why they did the same kind of ending at Mania, but whatever. This was fine. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible given what they had to work with here.

We see exclusive footage of Rock in his locker room taking off his boots when Shamrock jumps him. For some reason Shamrock has had time to take a shower and put on jeans while Rock doesn’t even have his boots off yet, despite Rock having left first.

Los Boricuas are looking for Austin. They find the DOA instead and of course they fight like they did for months. I think a combined 5 people cared in all those fights.

We recap the LOD vs. the Outlaws which more or less consists of old school vs. new and it’s not that interesting but it’s ok I guess. Basically the LOD are old and cool and the Outlaws are jerks. Nothing is different I guess. Oh and they beat up the LOD and shaved Hawk’s head while wearing Cartman shirts. Seeing South Park being considered cutting edge and underground stuff is just ridiculous to think of.

Tag Titles: New Age Outlaws vs. Legion of Doom

They’re wearing Favre jerseys for no apparent reason. Oh apparently Favre just beat the 49ers and we’re in the Bay Area. Hawk and Animal look at clips of them being beaten up and say that this is about pride or something. Animal is completely insane in this promo. Why are the LOD referred to as American Originals? I’ve never gotten the point to that reference. I’m sorry to shock those of you with heart conditions, but this starts out as a brawl. I know I can’t believe it either.

The heels try to run and naturally that doesn’t work at all. JR actually mentions the Horsemen on a WWF program. He follows that up by saying this might be a matter of time, more or less giving away the ending. There’s zero flow to this match at all. It’s just random insanity and I don’t recall any tagging here at all. That’s fine in spurts but it needs some sort of structure to be legitimate at all.

To further the insanity here, Hawk gets handcuffed to the turnbuckle while the injured Animal is beaten on. We shift over to a one on two match here with Animal fighting for all he’s worth. He hits a powerslam and has it won when a chair from Road Dogg breaks it up for the DQ as we STILL can’t have a clean ending in a match that means anything. They start the beatdown, but Hawk and the power of the 80s breaks the handcuff and after a bunch of chair shots, the LOD reign supreme.

Rating: D+. This match can almost sum up everything about the Attitude Era as a whole. You have a classic team like the LOD that got world title shots back in the 80s and then you have these two guys that aren’t great workers to begin with but get heat based off of shock tactics. There was little tagging and most of this match was brawling. There’s the Attitude Era in a few lines.

Some chick in Tennessee wins Austin’s truck.

We get a recap about how Austin is a marked man or whatever. In other words we get a package to futher drill into our heads that Austin will indeed win the Rumble tonight.

Royal Rumble

Fink claims that it’s every 2 minutes for intervals. It’s really closer to 90 seconds if you pay attention and considering the whole thing lasts 56 minutes, 2 minute intervals are impossible unless the last guy is thrown out before he gets to the ring. Cactus Jack is first and apparently Jack, Dude Love and Mankind got into a fight over who would be in the Rumble and Jack won.

Second is Chainsaw Charlie, who is more commonly known as Terry Funk in some weird crazy man gimmick. When I say crazy I mean crazier than usual. He brings a fake chainsaw with him, so Foley throws chairs at both him and it, which produce no sparks. There’s about 5 chairs and a saw in the ring and we’re underway. Aww the referee gets the saw out of the ring. Anyway, Funk says for Foley to blast him with a chair so he does.

Foley hands it to Funk so Funk can have a free shot. This is either cool or mind blowingly stupid. Tom Brandi is 3. Think Santino but less talented and stupider and that’s what you have. In a move that shocks no one, he’s thrown out in about 10 seconds. This is a weird hardcore kind of thing here as Funk has his customary convulsions. Number four is Rock to some weak heat. Ah ok there it is. Foley hits him with a trash can to show off their future hardcore epics.

The hardcore guys beat him up as Lawler is panicking. Mosh is fifth as I’m starting to hate the Attitude Era. He gets the biggest pop of all five guys so far. Naturally Funk goes for the moonsault and it misses. I don’t get the point in having such an insane start to the match. Phineas is 6th. He and Hank are heels here and it just failed on so many levels. More or less they switched to creepier music and wear the rebel flag so now they’re heels.

Yeah it bombed big time, so naturally they were pushed for about another year or so until the company woke up and let Hank go and changed Phineas to Mideon. Funk throws some chops and the wooing begins. Number seven is 8-Ball to continue the greatness of this Rumble. Seriously, considering there’s three world champion out there, this is just boring so far. Funk puts out Cactus as the crowd couldn’t care less.

Allegedly someone has attacked Austin but King won’t say who. Bradshaw replaces Cactus at number 8 to really enhance the greatness in there. Owen Hart is number nine, but Jeff Jarrett and Jim Cornette who were representing the NWA of all things jump him as Ross declares Cornette a stain on the underwear of life. For the love of all things good left in the world, someone lobotomize JR before he hurts himself. For some reason Owen gets huge cheers from Tyson. That’s just odd.

Owen can’t get in the ring and is just laying on the floor. Steve Blackman is tenth. He’s a complete WWF rookie at this point despite having a ton of experience in other companies before this. We mull around even more as the ring is way too full. All of the guys I’ve listed are in other than Jack and Brandi. Owen is still down as number 11 is D’lo Brown. There are 5 members of the Nation in the Rumble tonight which is kind of impressive.

Shamrock may have been the guy that got to Austin. Rock goes the heck off on Blackman with some insanely fast kicks. At this point we’re just waiting on some monster to come out and get rid of some of these guys. No one cares as there is zero chance Austin is going to lose.

Number 12 is Kurrgan. Now this was an interesting character to say the least. He was completely dominant so of course they made him a comedy character by the fall. He gets rid of Mosh so if nothing else he’s done his job. How weird is it to think that Bradshaw of all people would wind up having a 9 month world title reign out of all these guys in there? Mero and Sable come out at 13. Good grief Mero was a depthless character.

Blackman is gone via Kurrgan. Bradshaw beats on him a bit which at least looks kind of cool. Shamrock comes out to a BIG pop. He goes straight for Kurrgan and knocks him down with relative ease to allow a big group of people to dump him out. In 20 seconds, Shamrock has managed to get the crowd to actually cared about the match which the other 12 hadn’t been able to do in almost half an hour. Thrasher comes out at 15.

The ring is WAY too full at this point. There’s a very loud Sable chant. Lawler keeps talking about how he wants to fight Tyson which is just perfectly good cheap heel heat. 16 is Mankind as we hit one of my all time favorite Rumble bits. Yes, all three of Foley’s personas are in the Rumble. He puts out Funk with relative ease. In a very unintentionally funny moment, Shamrock is trying to get Rock out in the corner.

The tape freezes just for a second and Shamrock’s arms are under Rock and his head is laid on his stomach and the look on his face looks like he’s lovingly smiling. It’s just great. Anyway Goldust is 17th and this time he’s rocking a silver body suit with painted on women’s lingerie including g-string. The ring is WAY too full here. I would list them all off for you, but it would be Austin Fodder #1, 2, 3, 4 etc. There’s about 10 guys in there and no one cares about most of them.

Goldust puts out Mankind who wasn’t a big deal just yet. Jarrett is 18th and Owen finally gets in and beats the living tar out of him. After skinning the cat, Owen dumps Jarrett. There’s a big rant coming on Owen later so stick around for that. And from out of nowhere Honky Tonk Man is 19th. Rock puts out Shamrock as HHH and Chyna come out. HHH is hurt and not in the match. Owen tries to get rid of Goldust, allowing HHH and Chyna to use a pair of crutches to eliminate him.

Ok screw waiting for later. At the end of the previous In Your House, Owen had jumped Shawn to end the show, making his first appearance since Montreal. He beat Shawn up and then ran off into the crowd. Every single sign in the world said that Owen vs. Shawn would be the title match at the Rumble. Think about it: Owen comes back to avenge his brother’s honor so the drama and story are already there.

Owen can actually hang with Shawn in the ring so it’s not like the match would be boring or something. Owen was getting insane reactions from the crowds at this point so it’s not like they wouldn’t buy it. So given how obvious this was, Shawn vetoed it. Owen made the epic return and was promptly fed to HHH.

Yes, instead of going with the money match at the Rumble of Owen vs. Shawn, I’m assuming Shawn was afraid that Owen would either upstage him or shoot on him, so he somehow convinced everyone that the best choice was for Owen to just go back down into the midcard and job to HHH and Jarrett and stay far away from the title picture, and showing the power of the Clique, it worked.

Owen was made to look like a joke over the next three months, having a tiny feud with Jarrett that went nowhere and then jobbing to HHH to make him look good. At least Shawn got what was coming to him all those years later in the casket match, which he lobbied for. I hate to say it, but he got what he deserved.

Ahmed Johnson is number 20 and no one cares. He was just completely wasted by this point and it failed miserably. The crowd is pretty much dead here. Lawler lets it slip that Honky is his cousin. We accidentally hear someone say that someone isn’t cleared to wrestle which we’ll get to in just a few moments. Mark Henry is 21st. In a great stat, Henry is one of 17 people in this Rumble that have never been in one before.

Ross says Henry is handling the big Johnson. I’m not going near that one. There is no number 22 and everyone thinks it was supposed to be Austin. It turns out that it was supposed to be Skull, but he was hurt earlier in the attack by the Boricuas and was who the accidental voice was talking about. Phineas and Ahmed are gone with Phineas landing on a referee in an amusing spot. The crowd really couldn’t care less here.

Kama is number 23, and here’s the best recap I can give you: Rock, 8-Ball, Bradshaw, D’Lo, Mero, Thrasher, Goldust, Honky, Henry and Kama. Holy jobber fest Batman. Austin it 24th to an EPIC pop. I mean the fans went insane for that glass shattering. Literally everyone in the ring turns to the entrance to jump him, but he comes through the crowd and knocks out Mero and 8-Ball with relative ease.

Why in the world did they insist on constantly making Brown a big deal or at least trying to? Never mind he’s been upstaged by the failure that is heel Henry Godwin. We start the final five with Savio, who leads the completely worthless Boricuas who all go after Austin despite not being in the match. Naturally they’re easily dispatched. There are WAY too many people in there. I’m counting 11 I think.

Farrooq is 27th as all 5 members of the Nation are in there now. Naturally he beats on all of the other 4 members. I’ve always thought they missed the boat with Farrooq. He was clearly a great athlete with a solid character yet they never pulled the trigger on him. Rock and Austin go to the floor through the ropes. Dude Love is 28th which gets a nice pop. Foley was such a brilliant character when you think about it.

Kane was Isaac Yankem and Fake Diesel etc. Kama was Papa Shango, Godfather etc. The thing is, those other characters are never mentioned. They’re simply repackaged to give them a fresh start and that’s fine. Foley took it completely the other way. They made him all three characters at once with no attempt at hiding it. That’s very unique and I don’t think it’s been done otherwise. Anyway he puts out Bradshaw in about a second.

Rock does the overrated elbow on Brown and gets beaten up by Austin for it. At least Austin recognizes overrated moves. Chainz, another guy I thought could have been more than he was, is 29th making Vader number 30. There goes Brown to lighten us up a bit.

Ok, so with all 30 in, here are your possible winners: Rock, Thrasher, Goldust, Honky, Henry, Kama, Godwin, Vega, Farrooq, Dude Love, Chainz, Vader and Austin. I wonder who the win…never mind that joke is just stupid. Who thought it was a good idea to have 13 people in at the end? Vader puts out Honky. The crowd still doesn’t care at all. There goes Thrasher to a tiny pop.

Kama is gone as we’re starting to clear the ring out. Ross thinks Brown is still in for some reason. There goes Vega as Austin has dropped three in a row now. Goldust puts out Vader because Vader can’t do anything since he’s an over character. Instead we have to have a freak character be put over again. Henry and Goldust go out. Farrooq just shows off by throwing out Henry.

Chainz was put out by Austin over the corner and slammed into the steps which just looked SICK. The final four are Farrooq, Rock, Dude Love and Austin. I’ve always loved Dude’s Sweet Shin Music. Farrooq eliminates Dude. Say that out loud and see how ridiculous it sounds. Ross is ticked off for some reason at Rock resting while Farrooq fights Austin.

Farrooq was in for about 10 minutes while Rock had already wrestled earlier and had been in over 50 minutes at this point. I guess according to JR that’s nothing. Anyway the final two are Rock and Austin. They slug it out and the fans are buying every bit of it. After a Stunner Austin shocks no one as he’s going to Wrestlemania.

Tyson is happy too. We get a quick interview with Tyson, who despite calling Austin Cold Stone, which to be fair sounded far more like a slip of the tongue rather than him just not knowing what he was saying, says he’s very happy and looking forward to the main event. If nothing else, he’s very enthusiastic and sounds like a legit fan.

Rating: D+. This was a bad Rumble in every sense of the word. The big problem here is clear so I’ll ignore that. The problem is there’s no one out there that was even a potential challenger. There was almost no flow to this either. The closest thing to a story was the Nation but it got no play at all.

That’s the problem here: there’s no story or drama at all and it just crippled the thing. We knew Austin would win, but the question was how. The problem was there was no way to disguise the fact that he was going to win and it really hurt the match. There really was no way to make this great, but they at least could have made it ok.

We recap Taker vs. Shawn. More or less they were trying to just pick up their rivalry from the fall like nothing ever happened. Good night Shawn took a beating in the Cell. Kane has broken away from Paul Bearer and apparently has joined Taker to help him fight off DX. For some reason Taker accepted his brother that hated him with no issue at all. I’ll give you two guesses as to how that’s going to work out.

Casket Match: Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels

Fink looks REALLY weird for some reason here. It looks like he’s being forced to announce at gunpoint or something. We get a weird comment from JR about Shawn: He may not be in a class of his own but it doesn’t take long to call the role. Wait, what? If he’s the world champion and the best big match guy ever, why wouldn’t he be in a class of his own? Also, Ross tries to say HBK has a better record in big matches than anyone including Hogan. That’s just laughable.

Shawn’s overselling of Taker putting the lights back on is great. Shawn of course has to run here and punch where he can, but we get my favorite spot that Taker keeps using as he just grabs Shawn by the throat and throws him into the corner. I’ve always loved that. In a very cool spot, Shawn goes for a crossbody from the middle rope and Taker catches him in a two handed choke. That looked great. And there it is.

Shawn is backdropped over the top rope and slams him back on the casket, more or less shattering it and putting him on the shelf for four and a half years after Wrestlemania. You can tell something just isn’t right with him at this point, and oddly enough a fan shouts out BREAK HIS BACK while Taker is beating Shawn up. As usual, Taker is just beating the living heck out of Shawn.

That’s your formula for the majority of this match: Taker beats up Shawn, Shawn hits a little something, Taker beats up Shawn some more. Eventually Shawn hits a kick out of nowhere, but Taker doesn’t really do much about it. We go near the casket a few times which is always good, but the best part is Shawn in the casket and trying to get out while Taker pulls him back in.

It’s a very cool shot that’s been done many times since but never as well as there. Eventually the tombstone hits and Shawn is dead, but Los Boricuas (which is incorrect grammar but whatever) and the Outlaws run out.. Cue Kane, but of course he turns on Taker to throw him in the casket to keep the title on Shawn. That’s not the end though, as Kane nails Taker into the casket and starts walking it back up the stage.

In one of the most famous scenes of his career, he covers it in “gasoline” and lights it on fire. JR is FREAKING as we go off the air. Of course Taker magically disappeared from the casket, setting up his return just in time for a Mania match with Kane.

Rating: B. This one is hard to mess up. These two worked very well together and this was no exception. They’re just perfectly suited to one another and they showed why here. Granted they more or less did the exact same thing as they did in the Cell, but it still worked.

Obviously the bigger story here is Shawn’s back, but that’s been covered more elsewhere because no one knew how bad he was hurt at this point. The match was fine, but it was clearly more about the angle than the match, which is ok here.

Overall Rating: C-. This is a show where the individual matches don’t add up to the final grade. This is a lot more like a transition show than anything else, with most of what you see here just setting up stuff for later on. It set up Shawn vs. Austin which had to happen for the company to survive as well as Taker vs. Kane, but other than that there’s just not much here.

I really didn’t like this show all that much, but it was ok I suppose. There have been worse Rumbles, but not that many. Watch it if you haven’t seen it before I guess, but you likely won’t want to again.

Monday Night Raw
Date: January 17, 2011
Location: Verizon Arena, Little Rock, Arkansas
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

With today’s news that there will now be 40 entrants into the Rumble, I’d expect to see more people talking about their supposed chance to win and move on to Mania.  Also tonight the announced main event is John Cena vs. CM Punk which I’d bet a high amount on there being a screwy ending for.  Other than that there isn’t anything announced.  Hopefully Raw keeps its streak of pretty good shows going.  Let’s get to it.

We open with a video of Martin Luther King and his I Have A Dream speech (for any non-Americans that may be confused by this, today is Martin Luther King Day in America).

Here’s Cena to open the show with a salute.  I guess he’s on leave from whatever branch of the military he’s supposed to be in.  We get a quick video of three weeks ago when Nexus beat up Cena and allegedly hurt his hip.  This is Cena’s first (televised) appearance in a WWE ring in 2011.  He has some new year’s resolutions.  First is to take care of the psychopath CM Punk.  Second is to read something that I couldn’t make out what he said.  Third is to win the Rumble and fourth is to win the WWE Championship at Mania.

Cena says that Punk is first so if he wants some, come get some.  Instead he gets Miz who along with Riley are straight up rocking some suits.  Miz says that he’s the most must see champion in company history while Cena is played out.  The champion confirms the 40 man aspect of the Rumble.  He says that whoever wins the Rumble, they shouldn’t come after him because if they do they’ll suffer the same fate as Orton will in two weeks.

This draws a golf clap and an overly dramatic repetition of the phrase “You will lose” ala Ivan Drago.  As if on cue, Cena does a Rocky impression and says if they can change then everybody can change.  He points out that if not for Cole then Lawler would be champion and if not for Riley then Orton would be.  Cena says that they’re like a more feminine version of the Kardashians.

The only battle that The Miz has is with Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which means his body makes poop noises.  “It’s PG folks, I’m doing the best I can.”  Well at least he acknowledges it.  Cena talks about how Miz is afraid to fight.  Miz objects and says there is no doubt that he can outwrestle the greatest technicians in WWE history.  He can beat Kurt Angle?  Miz sets for his catchphrase but instead says he will finish that sentence when he destroys Randy Orton.

Miz is getting booed out of the building here.  But I thought the internet decided he was a failure the second he won the title!  HOW CAN THIS BE???  Cena says if Miz is champion let’s see him do something to prove it and gets ready to fight.  Here comes Punk and Nexus, which is now the New Nexus.  Wow that name sucks.  It’s Punk, Otunga, Harris and McGillicutty here.

Punk says the odds are against Cena for the Rumble, partially because all of Nexus is in the Rumble too.  The only purpose of the New Nexus being in the Rumble is to get Punk the win.  I like the whole just flat out saying it’s all about Punk.  Why lie about it?  Nexus minus Punk comes to the ring and Cena is in trouble.  It’s….Santino and Kozlov out for the save???  Nexus retreats and Punk says let’s try it with these odds and all four come to the ring.

E-Mail stops that though.  Miz and Riley have bailed by the way.  The GM wants to know the odds of Punk winning if Nexus is barred from ringside.  If any Nexus member is involved they’re out of the Rumble.  That announcement takes us to a break.  Tag titles up next.

Also Ziggler vs. Orton tonight.  They’re really pushing Dolph strong and I like it.

Tag Titles: Usos vs. Santino Marella/Vladimir Kozlov

We get big match intros for both teams but both were in the ring when we started.  Impressive what something like that can do for a match.  Santino and I think Jey start us off and Santino is in trouble early.  This was the match that was supposed to happen last week but Nexus beat down the champions.  Nice to see them tie up a tiny loose end like that for a change.

Basic formula match so far with Santino getting beaten down for a bit before he makes the lukewarm tag to the Russian dude.  He destroys the guy that we’ll call Jimmy (does it really matter though?).  Apparently it was Jimmy who is covered after a headbutt for two.  Jey is sent to the floor and in comes Santino.  Cobra ends Jimmy at 2:33.  Short and not bad but not enough for a regular rating.  Tamina has nice legs surprisingly enough.

Nexus minus Punk is bickering in the back and say they need to do something.  Punk appears with a downright creepy smile on his face.  He looks at all of them (complete with the bad looking eye from the incident at a house show over the weekend) and doesn’t seem upset at all about having to be alone tonight.

Morrison walks up to Bryan who has both very good looking Bellas with him and shakes his head.  They go at it next.

John Morrison vs. Daniel Bryan

Nice pop for Morrison.  During Morrison entrance we get a highlight package of his best stuff and his high spots really are rather impressive.  Bellas looking incredible in cut off t-shirts and tight black pants.  They do some nice counters for a wristlock and arm work to start us off.  Bryan gets a suplex/takeover to get control.

Nice to see guys that are young and considered midcarders only getting a chance like this.  They both hit the floor for a second and it’s a standoff back in the ring as we take a break.  Back with Morrison holding a headlock on Bryan.  Russian legsweep and Morrison sets for Starship Pain.  It would have been on target but Bryan moved.  Morrison is now the Prince of Parkour according to Cole.

A big kick to the head gets two for Bryan and the fans pop for the kickout.  Both try cross bodies and they crash sending both of them down.  They slug it out and neither guy can take over.  Morrison counters a German and it’s an pld school pinfall reversal sequence.  Morrison counters but his counter is counteres almost into the LeBell Lock.  Morrison counters and gets a slingshot into the corner.  Flash Kick takes Bryan down and there’s the running knee for the clean pin at 7:25.  Very fun match.

Rating: B. This was a very fun and entertaining match.  It wasn’t the most technically sound but at times that’s ok.  They played up the both guys are evenly matched aspect very well here and the whole thing came off as fast paced and entertaining.  Morrison’s push continues with another big win.  It’s nice for them to pick someone and stick with him and the pops seem to prove the idea correct.

They shake hands post match and it’s a nice sign of respect.  It’s also a Shameful Thing as here’s King Sheamus.  He says he made Morrison and can destroy both him and Bryan.  All three are going to be in the Rumble and Sheamus says he’s going to eliminate both of them.  LONG LIVE THE KING!

Stand Up For WWE won some Mashable Awards for best campaign or something like that.

The Bellas lust over Morrison but both are trying to be Daniel Bryan’s first.  They make a bet about it of some sort.  NOT PG!!!  NOT PG!!!  THAT IS NOT PG!!!  I can’t handle this!  I suddenly want to commit sins and ruin my entire life!  HOW DO I HANDLE THIS?????  This was kind of a heelish promo and implies they’re playing Bryan for a fool.

Here’s Vickie to introduce Ziggler.  Great heat on her to say the least.

Dolph Ziggler vs. Randy Orton

Orton gets a big reaction from this white hot crowd.  We take a break and the bell is next.  Back with Ziggler taking Orton into the corner and pounding him down to start.  Orton with a Thesz Press and right hands as they’re not even trying to hide the Austin stuff anymore.  It’s down to the chinlock now with Orton firmly in control to start us off.  Ziggler fights back a bit but the power of the Viper is too much and the beating continues.

Dolph gets Orton down and hooks onto the leg.  Big old RKO chant as this crowd is impressive.  Orton fights him off again and unleashes the clothesline.  The powerslam (read a book Cole) puts Ziggler on the apron for the elevated DDT.  It’s patented apparently.  I want to see the paperwork.  Dolph gets out of it though by moving his legs and drills Orton in his injured leg.

Fameasser gets two.  Ziggler gets the sleeper on but Orton is a main event face so he’s immune to it.  When’s the last time that move won a match?  Zig Zag is countered once and then the second is countered into what was allegedly an RKO but it looked more like Ziggler just landed on Orton’s chest.  Either way it gets the pin at 8:30.

Rating: C. The ending hurts it as it didn’t look good and the leg work didn’t go anywhere.  I guess it’s to set up the PPV match and give Orton a handicap.  This was an ok match but I was expecting more from Ziggler.  Could it be that Orton is just average in the ring?  That may have something to do with it.  Not bad but nothing special.

Post match and I mean almost as soon as the bell rings here are Miz and Riley for the beatdown.  They go after the knee and take out Lawler who tries for the save.  Nice to see an announcer actually try to do something for once.  Orton’s back is rammed into the post and Miz gets in some more stomps.

Miz says pick him up because they’re not done yet.  They throw Orton into the barricade which more or less explodes.  They really should look into that.  You can hear the director saying to keep the camera on Miz.  Miz grabs a mic and does the catchphrase in the unconscious face of Orton.  Cool beatdown and makes Miz look intense.

In the back Punk is talking to the Nexus about faith.  He gets almost into a sermon about how to gain what you want you have to sacrifice.  I have no idea what he’s talking about with his stuff about manbeasts and all that jazz.  They bow their heads and that’s all there is to it.  Ok then.

Maryse vs. Natalya

Cole has Eve and Melina on commentary with him here.  Melina can’t answer what her issue is with Natalya.  She’s been #1 contender for what, a month now?  Natalya gets her down and Melina still won’t talk.  Eve doesn’t seem to like Cole which is kind of funny.  Maryse has apparently been giving the other Divas beauty tips.  Sharpshooter ends this in 1:40.  Total nothing match.

Post match Maryse GOES OFF on Cole and Eve shoves her and leaves.  Maryse keeps going off on him until DiBiase comes out.  She shouts at him too and calls him a loser that can’t win the Rumble.  He grabs a mic and asks the crowd if he can.  He says he’ll throw anyone over the top right now and he issues an over the top rope challenge as we take a break.

Back and naturally Mark Henry takes the challenge.

Is anyone surprised it’s Henry?  Remember it’s an over the top challenge.  And it’s over in 30 seconds with Henry winning.  Tatsu, Kidd and Regal all run out.  I’m not calling this an official match.  Every jobber on the roster runs out and it’s turning into kind of a battle royal.  Young, Primo, David Hart-Smith and even R-Truth is out there.  Truth is by far the biggest name in this.  Ryder out there too.

Henry holds up Ryder and here’s Sheamus.  Henry throws him over but he holds on.  Lawler is back on commentary.  Henry throws him out.  Cole was calling this like an actual match once everyone ran in.  Henry’s music plays and here comes Alberto!  He’s in a suit and is cutting a promo about how this is his destiny to go on to the biggest show of them all and all that jazz.  Henry goes after him and Del Rip winks at him to end this.  Not calling a 30 second toss over the top thing a match.  Fun segment though.

Back with Derrick Bateman doing something like an informercial for World’s Strongest Man’s cologne.  It’s made from Henry’s sweat apparently.  Bateman sprays some of it and looks like he’s getting sick.  A voiceover gives a bunch of health warnings over it.  I have no idea what the point of this was at all.

We get the Rumble numbers package which I always love.

40 participants

24 winners

656 entrants

39 eliminations for Shawn, a record

26 Hall of Famers in the match

183,932 pounds in total, equal to 409 Big Shows

2 women in the Rumble, including Beth who eliminated Khali

11 eliminations by Kane in one Rumble

62:12 is Rey’s record for length in the Rumble which is a lie if you believe the 92 Rumble’s commentary

1 second is the record for fastest time for an elimination

3 is the most wins by a single man, in this case Austin

1 is the worst number but it has produced the most winners as the #30 spot (Shawn and a guy not listed who would be Benoit)

70 which is the percent of winners that have won the title at Mania

Music video about the Rumble follows.

We talk about the Rumble and also are told that next week it’s Edge vs. Miz.  Amazing what happens to the ratings when you announce main events a week in advance: more people seem to watch.

Cena vs. Punk next.  Cena is coming to the ring and steals a phone (which looks like it’s from the early 90s) and says the guy will call him back and hangs up.  Ok then.

CM Punk vs. John Cena

Nexus comes out with Punk but walks back after Punk’s entrance.  They stare each other down to start and the fight is on.  Cena gets the bulldog and hammers away.  Punk is reeling early on.  Cena dominates for awhile until Cena ducks his head and Punk gets a HARD kick to the shoulder.  Baseball slide puts Cena on the floor as we take a break.

Back with Cena in a modified triangle choke (I know nothing about MMA so that could be entirely wrong).  He fights up but gets caught in a DDT and back to the same hold.  Cena gets up again and starts his ending sequence.  Punk gets a leg lariat to stop him though and gets the corner clothesline and bulldog for two.

Attempt at the GTS but Cena grabs the leg and goes into the STF.  Cole looks like he’s giving head to the table while he’s shouting so much.  Punk grabs the rope and both men are down.  FU is blocked and Punk gets his springboard clothesline for two.  Punk gets a Downward Spiral and stays on the mat to pull his leg around the throat of Cena in a choke which is called the Anaconda Vice, which it definitely isn’t.  After a close call he gets the rope.

A big boot puts Cena on the floor.  Punk tries a tope but Cena catches him in mid air and rams him into the post.  Cena looks to fly but Punk catches him with a right hand.  Punk tries a suplex but Cena shoves him off.  The top rope legdrop gets two and here comes….some very large man.  He looks like Batista to the point where I’d believe they were related.

The guy stares down Punk in the ring and Punk smiles.  WWE security is awful by the way.  I think this might be Mason Ryan, the FCW dude.  Punk holds his arms up in a cross and lets the guy kick him in the head for the DQ at approximately 15:00.  He hits Cena with a modified Rock Bottom as Nexus runs out to defend Punk but he says step aside.  The big guy takes a knee to Punk and does the salute.  Punk takes a Nexus band off his ankle or out of his shoe and puts it on the guy, making him the newest member.

Rating: B-. This match got borderline epic a few times.  The kickouts and false finishes were all great and I like that there wasn’t a definitive ending.  Neither guy was dominating as the match ended which shows that Punk can in fact hang with Cena and maybe even beat him.  Adding an enforcer is a good thing too, making this a good ending to the show.

They do the salute and AGAIN we hear the director saying where to keep the camera.  A shot of them ends the show.

Overall Rating: B. I liked this show for the most part.  They set up for the Rumble and we had some good matches in there also.  Nothing great mind you but still good stuff.  Cena vs. Nexus has a new wrinkle now and we didn’t see a definitive ending.  I like where they’re going with this and the crossovers help the build for the Rumble.  Good show tonight but not great by any stretch of the imagination.

Results

Santino Marella/Vladimir Kozlov b. The Usos – Cobra to Jey

John Morrison b. Daniel Bryan – Running knee to the head

Randy Orton b. Dolph Ziggler – RKO

Natalya b. Maryse – Sharpshooter

CM Punk b. John Cena via DQ when a man interfered

Yeah apparently there will be 40 participants now instead of the normal 30.  I’m not incredibly wild on this as it allows for an extra 10 guys to waste our time.  Also this match is going to go close to an hour and a half now which is WAY too long.  I’m not liking this idea at all really but it could work I think.

Thoughts?

Royal Rumble 1997
Date: January 19, 1997
Location: Alamodome, San Antonio, Texas
Attendance: 60,325
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Vince McMahon, Jim Ross

A lot has changed here for once. We’re about as close to the Attitude Era as you can get without actually being in it. The roster is now far closer to being set to what would become the Attitude Era. Bret vs. Austin is in full swing as they had their forgotten classic at Survivor Series. Also we now have guys like Mero and Farrooq, but more importantly, people like Mankind and Rock are here now, so the core is here now.

As you might have noticed, we’re in Shawn’s hometown in front of a massive audience. Shawn recently lost the title, so I wonder how tonight is going to end. This is around the time that WCW is just flat out dominating in the ratings. Raw is averaging I think a 2.0 at this point, and they’re happy with it. It was just flat out bad all around, and you could tell the WWF was in a free fall. This show is actually kind of co-promoted with AAA, the Mexican organization.

The problem with this is simple: WCW had a deal with every bit of good Luchador talent in the world, so Vince got the bottom of the barrel here for the most part. Anyway, this is an oddly remembered show, so let’s get to it.

The preshow had three matches with Luchadors, including minis, which included Mini Vader and Mini Mankind. I give up.

The intro is of course about Shawn, who clearly can’t be blamed for the ratings tanking. I’m being partially serious there, as there was no one that was going to be able to take on Hogan and the NWO at that point. They say that tonight isn’t about accolades, just that WWF Title thingamajig. That twangy music is going to make me punch someone before this show is over. We have French announcers here for some reason.

Intercontinental Title: HHH vs. Goldust

Goldust is freshly face here, which granted no one gets including the announcers but whatever. HHH has been climbing the ladder recently, as his push is back on after the Curtain Call aborted it. In short, allegedly the Austin push was supposed to go to HHH, but there was the incident at Madison Square Garden. What happened was it was Nash and Hall’s last night with the company, so after Shawn beat Nash in a cage match, the four of them broke kayfabe and hugged.

I’m sure you’ve all seen the footage. Nash and Hall were leaving, Shawn was the company at that point, so there was just HHH left to take the fall. Instead of becoming the big deal in June, he had to wait about 6 months before it happened. I’m not sure I buy that, as Austin’s popularity would have been there anyway. Granted it was the KOTR match against Roberts that gave him Austin 3:16, and without that there’s no Austin super boom, so maybe it wouldn’t have happened.

See what a single promo can do for you? Anyway, HHH had been having different women on his arm every time he came to the ring and he went after Marlena. This set off Goldust and actually got Lawler to ask him on live television if he was a queer (Lawler’s word). This set him off and as HHH tried to steal Marlena, Goldust snapped and we have a title match. HHH has Mr. Hughes with him as his new bodyguard.

Chyna would debut the next month to shoot him to the stars. Even with two great in ring workers like these, we go straight into a brawl with the steps being used. Security has thrown out two fans that were sitting there for weeks apparently. I’m guessing this is a stupid angle or something and I really could care less. Can we please stay in the ring longer than 45 seconds? Ross and Vince both point this out.

Both of these guys will be in the Rumble tonight apparently. They’re now doing a bunch of leg work which is an upgrade I guess. It’s still not interesting but it’s better I guess. Hughes has done absolutely nothing at this point. Goldust calls him a piece of garbage which even today would be a bit much. This is more or less all Goldust working on HHH’s knee at this point, which at least is a story but it’s odd seeing the face dominate here. HHH gets a one knee curtsey. He was in his blueblood/classical music phase here, which I’ve always thought was an incredibly underrated heel character.

In the middle of this match, let’s throw it to Todd and some country singer that I’ve never heard of before. He sings a bit on a split screen. You have to be amazed by what Vince will do for a celebrity draw. This has improved a bit but it’s still nothing special. Hughes, who I had forgotten about, throws the IC belt to HHH who kisses Marlena. Goldie pops HHH with the belt but Hughes makes the save. After more Hughes distractions, Goldust walks into the Pedigree and we’re done.

Rating: C-. This started off bad and then worked its way up to being ok. I don’t like the steps etc. but overall, this was ok. It needed to be about 5 minutes shorter though. HHH was far from what he is today and while he was a rising star, he just wasn’t ready for this long of a match yet. It was coming, but he wasn’t there yet.

We get comments from one of the WEIRDEST pairings you’ll ever see: Bret Hart and Mankind. They both say tonight will be a long night. DAng that’s just weird thinking about them in the same company, let alone doing anything together.

Farrooq vs. Ahmed Johnson

I love the Nation’s entrance. PG-13 were great at what they did, which granted wasn’t much but it worked. This was supposed to be the blowoff match between these two but they were both injured at one point or another so the match never actually happened when it was supposed to, making this way after it meant anything. The Nation was freaking massive at this point, even having actors hired to make it look even bigger.

That’s saying a lot when you think about it. Johnson tried to get a catchphrase of You’re Going Down out of this but it didn’t work at all. Basically they’re fighting over Ahmed not being black enough or something like that. He was supposed to get the world title so there you go. This was actually a decent little feud, but it needed to happen 4-5 months earlier than this. Since it’s 1997, this starts on the floor in a big brawl. I love Vince Russo. Ok not really.

We go to another big wide shot which I can’t stand as Ahmed whips Farrooq with a belt or something like that. The problem with this match becomes apparent quickly: Ahmed isn’t that good. He never was. He was a huge muscle guy that could be a cool looking powerbomb, period. He was WAY over though at least for awhile, so there’s little complaints that can be made here. Naturally this is mostly brawling but that’s neither here nor there.

Simmons goes after Ahmed’s kidney of course because only one part of anyone’s body can ever be injured at once. We’ve got a Cowboys jersey on the non camera side so I’m happy. Ahmed hooks a powerslam from the top to take over. The spinebuster from Farrooq ends that pretty quickly though.

After Ahmed no sells that, the Nation runs in for the cheap DQ. Naturally since they all suck, Ahmed destroys them with relative ease. After Farrooq runs, one of the Nation members who doesn’t have a name goes hand first into the steps and then gets a release butterfly powerbomb through the French announce table.

Rating: D+. This was pretty bad, but it was supposed to be a street brawl or something so it did that fairly well I suppose. There’s very little here to go on and it wasn’t what it was supposed to be as a blowoff match. They would go at it a few more times without Johnson getting a clean win that I can remember. Not a bad fight, but this just didn’t have a ton of interest in it.

Terry Funk says he was born for this and is Texas bred.

Todd is with the Nation who says it’s not over. You can see an almost afro wearing D’lo brown in the background.

Vader vs. Undertaker

If you’re looking for a story here, you’re wasting your time. I mean literally, this was thrown on the card without a story. Vader had been attacking Taker a bit in huge groups but never on his own. I guess it was just kind of a big match thing to it, so there we are. Taker beat up Cornette a few weeks ago but it wasn’t directly referenced as a reason for the feud. Taker’s entrance is just made of awesome.

I mean if there was a thong of awesome, it would be made of Taker’s entrance. Ross says that Taker hasn’t done well at the Rumble since his debut here in 1993. Ok let’s see. In 1991 it took both members of the Legion of Doom to eliminate him. In 1992 it took Hulk Hogan to eliminate him. In 1993 a guy interfered and eliminated him. In 1994 it took 10 men to beat him in a world title match. In 1995 he beat IRS clean.

In 1996 he beat Bret Hart, who was then WWF Champion. In other words, he’s been in three world title matches and in a way has gone 1-1-1 in them, lost in the Rumble twice which I consider to be ties, and won another match, giving him a record of 2-1-3, with the one loss being in a cheating fashion and the other by a guy that wasn’t in the match. Yep, he completely sucks here Ross.

Why can’t they ever get the years right either? For years I remember them saying he debuted at the 91 Survivor Series, which obviously isn’t true either. Naturally, Vader’s offense isn’t working that well against Taker as he keeps sitting up. Taker hits a Fameasser of all things. Who would have seen that one coming? Taker gets a slam and makes it look easy. His strength was completely overlooked a lot of the time.

We get a verbal jab from Ross at Hogan, saying that no one in company history has dropped a leg like Taker. Old School is countered and we’re both down. After a low blow from Vader, we throw it to Todd in the crowd with some girl that apparently follows Shawn Michaels around the country. I’m not saying a word on this one. We now return you to the PPV at hand.

Jerry points out slyly how completely freaking stupid that was to do in the middle of a match, showing that he’s the second coming of Bobby Heenan. He throws in a Kentucky reference to make it even better. This is more Taker than Vader here. His power is just freaking scary to say the least. He throws Vader around more than once, including a very solid looking chokeslam.

Just as Taker signals for the Tombstone, the ONLY former Wrestlezone admin allowed to work for WWF, Paul Bearer hits the arena as pale as ever. Taker puts Vader on the floor and goes after Paul. Vader saves Uncle Paul but gets knocked to the floor by Taker again. Vader gets control again on the floor with Bearer apparently aligning himself with Vader.

BEARER GOES AIRBORNE!!! He jumps at Taker with the urn and actually takes him down! That was freaking AWESOME!!! This allows for the Vader Bomb to end it as Taker actually is pinned in something close to being clean. That hardly ever happens. He beats up the referee afterwards.

Rating: C+. Taker looked great here. Vader was dominant to an extent, but he never once came close to doing anything special after Shawn beat him at Summerslam 96. After that he began a decline into eventually being a jobber which is never fun.

Taker’s power was insanely impressive here as he hit all kinds of big moves that you just don’t see done on Vader like ever. This was impressive to me. Vader getting the win was good as Taker certainly didn’t need it and Vader might have gotten the biggest win of his WWF tenure.

Austin says he has nothing to say about the Rumble, which takes longer than it takes Bulldog to say he’s going to win because he has success in Rumbles and he’s bizarre. I have no idea what he means there and can only guess he botched a line or something like that. It was bizarre indeed.

Jerry Estrada/Heavy Metal/Fuerza Guerrera vs. Perro Aguayo/El Canek/Héctor Garza

I’ve only heard of three of these guys so naturally I just don’t know anything about REAL wrestling. I think this was an attempt to cash in on what WCW was doing at the time with the luchadors, but at the same time, of the five with known ages, two of them are under 38 years old at this point. See, it’s hard to compete with guys like Rey Mysterio, Juventud Guerrera and Ultimo Dragon with you have guys that literally could be their fathers wrestling.

We start with Garza and Metal as Vince can’t remember who is who. I think the referee is from AAA as well. Ok, so I’m done with the match at this point, and instead of a recap, I’m going to go with just what I noticed as a whole since I know nothing about these guys or why they would be fighting etc. First of all, old guys do not make for very exciting matches. Aguayo was a flat out embarrassment out there. He could barely move and blew a ton of spots including the end (his team won).

Second, Canek is strong as all goodness, but he used at least 5 gorilla press slams in this. One or two are fine, but when you’re getting up into that many, it shows your offense is limited at best. Monty Brown had this problem. Third, this was just boring as all goodness. See, this was one of the first matches of this style ever in the WWF.

When WCW busted this stuff out, they had Rey Mysterio, the undisputed king of that style here in America. When he debuted in WCW, he tore the house down. Here, the people were asleep. I mean this was the most dead I have ever seen a crowd. This didn’t work at all.

Rating: F. I already explained this. It was just a waste of time as well as bad.

With literally no transition, we’re at this.

Royal Rumble

We’re back to 90 seconds again this year, because having that lucha match was FAR more important than the match the show is named for of course. Crush of the Nation is first and Ahmed is second. I just can’t believe that at all! Apparently Crush has longer odds of winning than Ahmed. Why would that be the case? They start at the same time. If nothing else Ahmed is at a disadvantage because he doesn’t get a short break while the other guy is walking to the ring.

There’s a sign in the crowd saying WWF: Wild Wacky Fun. Well ok then. Crush jumps him, even though he had no advantage at all according to Ross. Vince calls Ahmed the wrong name. The crowd isn’t hot here but they’re certainly awake and paying attention unlike the previous match. Granted it’s just the first two. Also the clock isn’t working at first, so we don’t have a countdown or anything like that.

3 is the fake Razor, who has no music because of the clock but it doesn’t matter as Ahmed ends him after about 15 seconds. Lawler points out Ahmed’s tights that would never die. Those things always rode up and it was annoying. Farrooq is in the entry way so Ahmed jumps over the top rope, eliminating himself to go after him. That made me shake my head. Phineas Godwin (Mideon) is next.

Sweet goodness I love Hillbilly Jim’s music. Austin is #4. Now remember, here he’s still just a midcard/semi main event heel that runs his mouth a lot. He hasn’t actually won anything yet and we haven’t had the I Quit match that catapulted him into superstardom. Think of the Miz when he went after Cena. He was loud and great on the mic, but no one bought him because he hadn’t done anything yet.

As of this writing (2 weeks before Survivor Series) he’s the US Champion and looking far better than he ever has before. He’s believable with the belt, which is all he needed to be. Austin gets very little reaction here mainly due to the clock which keeps people from knowing when someone is coming, and the reasons I just listed. Anyway, he and Crush team up but that doesn’t work and Phineas takes out Crush.

He turns around into a Stunner though and after some trash talking, he’s gone. Bart Gunn is fifth. He lasts about 30 seconds, although he hits what would become known as the Fameasser. Austin even does the Steiner pushups as he’s just cocky.

You can see all the classic mannerisms and awesomeness inside of him just dying to break through. Jake Roberts is sixth, and remember he’s the guy Austin beat for the King of the Ring and the reason for the 3:16 speech. Ross says Jake wants one more shot at glory. When did he ever have glory in the first place? He was a career midcard guy that is remembered for having the best finisher ever.

Bulldog is seventh and while he’s on his way Jake is thrown out. Apparently Bulldog hates Austin, which I don’t entirely remember. He hits a modified powerslam that’s completely ignored by the announcers. The best wrestler ever from England his what is undeniably his signature move and no one says a word about it. He was supposed to have been made a big main event level guy and even get the title at one point, but Vince was in so much financial trouble that he changed him mind.

That’s why you had Sid as champion. It was originally going to be Smith, which I think would have certainly been more interesting. Smith got the first ever European Title as a compromise, so in other words he got the very short end of the stick. He certainly would have been better than Sid as Sid just wasn’t very good in the ring while Smith could work a great match if he was in there with the right guy. He and Owen are tag champions here also.

Pierroth, another luchador, is next to no reaction again. He’s 39 here. Vince, GET YOUNG GUYS IF YOU INSIST ON DOING THIS! We get our first bit of information about one of the new guys: Pierroth is a rule breaker. See, that helps a lot. Not being sarcastic there. We’re told that by people who are supposed to have insight on the subject, so therefore we trust it. The Sultan (Rikishi) is 10th as we’re going fast here but it’s kind of working.

Considering Pierroth is a heel, he’s only going after other heels. Actually, all four of them are heels so never mind. 11th is Mil Mascaras. Now he’s old, but he’s a flat out legend. He would be like Ric Flair here in America, with Blue Demon as Austin and Santo as Hogan. Also, he gets a pop and a half, easily the biggest of the match so far. I’ll adjust what I said earlier to Vince: get old guys that are well known in America, like this one.

Mascaras is also known for no selling stuff, even for big names like Foley who criticized him to no end in his book, as did Jericho. There it is already as Sultan hits a belly to belly and Mascaras pops up almost immediately. HHH is twelfth as this thing has been flying by. To recap, we have Smith, Sultan, Austin, Mascaras, HHH and Pierroth at the moment. Bulldog puts Sultan out to clear us out a bit but 5-7 is fine to have in there.

Austin and HHH go at it which just feels right. Owen is in at 13. He and Austin go at it as we’re not getting a ton of reactions here. The crowd is ok, but not great at all. Scratch that, as Austin is nearly out and the crowd waked up. Bulldog almost puts him out but Owen dumps Smith to tick him off. These counts definitely aren’t 90 seconds. Goldust is 14th. For some reason we don’t cut to him when he enters. That’s very different.

Mascaras’ tights are covering his belly button. That just looks odd indeed. Cibernetico gets us to the halfway point. He’s 20 years old so if nothing else he should be able to fly pretty well. He’s really well known for having a unique style that a lot of indy guys use. Marc Mero starts the second half as Cibernetico is thrown out. Pierroth gets thrown out by Mascaras, who jumps out after him, which based off everything I can see was a legit mistake.

The fans are booing the heck out of it too. Goldust puts out HHH. We have Mero, Owen, Austin and Goldust here. Seventeenth is Latin Lover, who has what looks like the Playboy bunny on his tights. He’s considered a rip off of Shawn, as the names are similar and both use the superkick. It’s allegedly just a coincidence but whatever. Apparently Mero and Sable aren’t fighting anymore. Thanks for the update.

Owen throws out Goldust and Farrooq ia 18th. He puts Latin Lover out. Austin and Farrooq go at it which could have been a sweet feud. Ahmed runs out with about an 8 foot long 2×4 and beats on Farrooq a bit, as he eliminates himself. Austin puts out Owen and Mero and we’re down to just Stone Cold. He’s quickly joined by Savio Vega who had a bad feud for awhile. Austin puts him out with about his 5th clothesline of the night in less than 30 seconds.

That’s his 6th put out of the night. Road Dogg (called Jesse James here) is 20th. He lasts a bit longer but still less than a minute. The Outlaws were coming soon though, saving his career. And there it is: in the moment of the match, Austin is looking down as the buzzer goes off, and it’s Bret Hart.

The look on Austin’s face absolutely makes this match. It is so perfect as he’s like OH SNAP as Bret not quite power walks down to the ring. Austin says bring it on, Bret does just that. The fans are, in a word, insane for this. The scary thing is, despite having a classic at Survivor Series and a classic moment here, their next match would blow this out of the water.

In a very funny spot, Lawler is 22nd. He leaves by saying “It takes a king…” and then gets in the ring. Bret punches him out in 4 seconds, and his first thing back on the mic is “to know a king.” That was awesome. Fake Diesel (Kane) is 23rd. Now he actually could have worked, simply because he looks a lot like Diesel if you avoid close-ups of his face. He beats both guys down as we’re way too close to the end already.

Terry Funk is 24th as X is happy. He almost had gotten fired for cursing like Terry Funk would on Shotgun the previous night. Shotgun was a GREAT idea for what it was: an “adult” show that was broadcast from a different place in New York every week. It was way ahead of its time but in the next year or so it would be average which is what killed it. Rocky Maivia is next. He’s a rookie here, but DANG  look at the talent in there.

All world champions, all eventual hall of fame members (yes, Kane belongs in there). We add to the talent with my all time favorite wrestler: Mankind. In an interesting note, other than Hart, Foley has been tag champions with everyone in the ring. That’s impressive to me. It’s very rarely seen, but Austin has a tattoo of Texas on his left calf. I’ve never seen that before. Flash Funk (2 Cold Scorpio), a pimp without being called one, is 27th.

It’s a shame he was old here, as he was one of the most talented guys I’ve ever seen. We up the ante a bit more with Vader here at 28. Lawler is back to his hatred of Bret Hart which never gets old. Austin goes for Vader and is promptly killed. A funny bit to this match is Lawler “forgetting” he was in this match. To bring the awesome run of talent to a screeching halt, Henry Godwin is 29th.

I know I haven’t recapped much here, but there haven’t been a ton of people in the ring at once until the end here so there wasn’t really a need for it that I saw. The clock runs down, and the lights go out. A gong sounds, and the fans ERUPT. Taker is apparently a hero here, as they tease him turning heel. That wouldn’t happen for almost two years so it doesn’t matter.

At the moment, we have Austin, Hart, Fake Diesel, Funk, Rock, Mankind, Flash Funk, Vader, Henry Godwin and Taker. Which of those just doesn’t belong? Notice a big key here: a clear winner doesn’t exist.

Bret would be the most likely candidate, but there’s no guarantee it’ll be him. Taker winning wasn’t out of the question, Vader got a big win earlier and had beaten Bret on Raw recently, Austin was always a wildcard, Mankind had been more or less unstoppable recently, and Rock was the golden rookie. See what I mean? There are legit options in there other than Bret, which instantly makes this more interesting than last year’s ending.

Austin takes a chokeslam in a rivalry that will flat out never die. Taker punching the man that would become Kane just feels right. Dang that would happen in less than a year. Vader puts out Flash as Rock punches Taker. There are just a ton of awesome matches in there. Other than Godwin and arguably Flash (if he was given his original gimmick: a tough fighter that could fly like a cruiserweight, he could have been a big deal in the company.

Think AJ Styles, but 4 inches taller, a bit heavier and black and you have Scorpio. He’s 32 here, so it’s not like he was some old guy at the time. He’s younger than Austin. Godwin calls a spot to Taker. Austin has done a ton of those tonight, but the beauty of his character is you can very plausibly say he’s just talking trash to the guy he’s beating on. Rock and Bret Hart go at it and that was weird to type.

It’s a total dream match but that might be the most they’ve ever gone at it. In a spot that I really liked, Godwin hits Taker in the back and Taker rises up, grabs him by the throat and gives him a look that says, “Boy are you CRAZY???” and throws him over with EASE. Taker was scary strong.

Ok, so to recap, we have eight people left. Of these 8, counting WCW/NWA/WWF reigns, you have the following: 37 world titles, 17 midcard (US/IC) titles, and 40 tag titles. That’s not counting anything from ECW (either incarnation) or Foley’s TNA stuff, the Streak, the 13 Wrestlemanias they’ve main evented, or the 6 combined Rumble wins of these guys.

Think of it like this: on average, these guys all have about four and a half world title reigns, 2 midcard titles and 5 tag titles, just from WWF/WCW. That’s INSANE. Anyway, Foley puts out Rock as Vader beats on Kane which is an interesting match. Ross says that Foley and Funk are great athletes. There’s something amusing about that. They’re both gone but they brawl to the back anyway just because it’s fun for them.

Also, because it allows for a very interesting ending. The referees are trying to get them to stop fighting, and while they do it, Bret throws Austin out clean. Key to it though: the referees DO NOT see it and Austin slides back in. He throws out Taker and Vader on his own (impressive), just as Bret throws out Diesel.

Austin dumps Bret, and wins the Rumble. The people are TICKED, but not as badly as Bret. He goes insane and with complete justification. He says he’s tired of getting screwed, and the heel turn can be seen inside of him. Bad opening, awesome ending.

Rating: C+. Like I said, the beginning of this isn’t that great. They saved the best for last though as the last third of this field is insanely amazing. You could see Austin with the superstar inside of him just dying to break out and save the company, but it would take the buildup here and the career making performance in two months to get him and the company to the promised land in 15 months. They were really taking a chance here, and I think it paid off.

We get a short recap of Shawn vs. Sid, which is about having a bad attitude. I think you know where that’s going. Make that long. They recap the Survivor Series match and some other random fights which were pretty weak. Shawn says there will be 71,000 here. It’s more like 60,000 but whatever. The crowd looks awesome if nothing else.

Shawn, who apparently has the flu, says that he’ll step up when it matters and Sid is a coward or something like that. Again he says there are 71,000 there and that’s just flat out not right. We see Shawn and Jose coming to the ring. Shawn is wearing sleeves without a shirt, but the sleeves are made of tiny mirrors, as are his chaps. Nope, he’s not self obsessed at all. You can hear the pop already.

WWF Title: Shawn Michaels vs. Sid

Sid took the title from Shawn after working for him for a little while. He hit him with a camera at Survivor Series and took the belt after beating up Shawn’s old manager, Jose. He became the only person to beat Hart and Michaels in this era which completely boggles the mind. In a REALLY cool shot, we follow Shawn and Jose through the back and then through the curtain so we almost see it from his perspective. It looked awesome.

The pop is all there too as Shawn is the complete hometown hero. Some fan has a REALLY loud whistle right next to the mics and it’s annoying. For once in his miserable announcing career, Vince doesn’t talk over a cool intro which is nice. Sid starts coming through the back and the heat is there already. Based on the crowd reaction, this should be at least very good. I love Sid’s music. The ticked off fist pump he did was cool also.

For some reason whenever there’s a neon light it makes his hair look green. The pyro was cool too as it was his name on fire above the ring. If only he could have a decent match to save his life he would be a lock for the Hall of Fame. They have the stare down and the crowd pops. Jerry and Ross show their chemistry until Vince decides that such nonsense cannot occur so he interjects himself into it, which can be translated into JR and King can get a line in here and there if they’re lucky.

For the sake of preventing a riot, Shawn takes control early. It’s a brawl to start us off, which is fine I guess. Shawn is playing Superman here. Shawn in the red and blue wouldn’t work though. Not sure why, but it just wouldn’t at all. Ok, we’re two minutes into the match and Sid is using a camel clutch. Oh this is going to be a long match isn’t it?

Psycho Sid might be the most indy name I’ve ever heard in my life. Apparently this is the last time Jose will come to the ring with Shawn. That’s good to know I guess. We’re still in the camel clutch by the way. I’m getting tired of these bad timing things that I keep doing. Sid is of course working on the back, apparently to set up for the power bomb.

It’s not like the bomb works exclusively on the back. It works on everything at once. You just get dropped through the air and stop really fast. How much back work needs to have been done?

We go to another rest hold since Sid has a higher quota of them than Orton does for chinlocks. Sid taunts the crowd and beats on Shawn some more. We’re in a bearhug now just to make sure that the crowd is as dead as possible to set up the massive pop for the comeback. To be fair though, the crowd never really slows down at all. Vince suggests that Shawn is the underdog.

You mean the CHAMPION that beat the CHALLENGER might be favored? Get this man a Pulitzer. Actually just name it the Vince. That’s never going to be topped, ever. Sid hits a leg drop that I don’t think he used until he had his bad feud with Hogan in 92. Despite having had his back worked on all match, Shawn hits a relatively easy slam. Ross points out how odd this is as Shawn starts his standard ending sequence.

Sid avoids the kick and we’re on the floor now. He hits the power bomb on the floor and the announcers declare Shawn dead. Sid grabs Jose and Jose’s son, so Shawn pops up. Naturally, I mean he was just dropped about 9 feet onto near concrete so why not be up in 9 seconds? Back in the ring the referee is out as Sid hits his chokeslam (called a goozle or something like that by Vince). Shawn gets out of the count from referee numero dos.

He gets popped by Sid so thanks for coming. To cap off the mini feud, Shawn pops Sid in the back like Sid did to Shawn at Survivor Series. Sid doesn’t go down, so Shawn waits for him to turn around and….taps him in the chest with it…to get the cover and a two count. Chin music ends it and the massive celebration is on. We keep cutting back to Jose’s son for no apparent reason other than to be annoying I guess. He’s just a pest for some reason. He looks like a slacker.

Ross says that there’s a lot of class in Shawn. The I Lost My Smile speech would be in less than a month so take that for what it’s worth. Shawn hugs a guy in a Calgary Hitmen shirt. I love that. We plug the next PPV (without a name, it would be called Final Four which was a good show) and we’re out to more Shawn worship.

Rating: C+. It could have been worse. That’s the answer I’m going with here: it could have been worse. This was really just a way to hand Shawn the title back in a big match. It had me thinking of Cena vs. Jericho at Survivor Series 2008, where it was really just a token title match to get the belt back on Shawn. There’s nothing wrong with that and this was fine for what it was.

If you were expecting Sid to keep the belt here, I’d recommend a head operation. I have no idea what kind but just a general one would do. Like I said, Shawn would forfeit about a month later and the #1 contenders match scheduled for Final Four would become for the title.

That night was supposed to be Sid vs. Shawn 3 with Shawn winning and dropping the belt back to Bret at Mania 13, allegedly with a Sharpshooter where Shawn’s leg would be “broken” complete with sound effects, leading up to Shawn winning the series 2-1 at Summerslam and getting the title back to drop to Austin. Granted that’s all according to Bret so take it with a bottle of salt.

The feud got thrown out when Shawn made a reference to Bret having Sunny Days ahead or something on TV, which more or less outed Bret as sleeping with Sunny to his wife and the company, so Bret challenged Shawn to a fight I think and Shawn conveniently hurt his knee up and lost his smile between the two matches. Anyway, the match was ok but not great so there we are.

Overall Rating: C+. There’s an aspect I’ve touched on but not directly talked about here that makes this a weird show and that’s the crowd. As you all know, a crowd can make or break a show. This crowd did neither and it kind of parallels what I thought of it. The crowd here was silent a lot, but when they got into something they got into it hardcore. That fits really well here, as all night long this show either really worked or completely bombed.

The opening stuff is just ok, Vader/Taker was just a good old fashioned fight, the six man was just completely horrid, I liked the Rumble, and the main event was what it was. I think this is one of those shows where what it sets up is far more important than the show itself, but that part was still pretty good. If you’re a fan of this era, check out the Rumble and the main event and maybe Taker vs. Vader (definitely if you’re a Taker fan as he looked great in it) but pass on the rest as it’s just bland.

Royal Rumble 1996
Date: January 21, 1996
Location: Selland Arena, Fresno, California
Attendance: 9,600
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Mr. Perfect

Well it’s a year later and the roster is more or less the same. There are a few changes though. The biggest is Shawn has finally given up and turned face thank goodness and Taker is back in the title hunt. Bret has the title again and is facing him in the main event. Other than that, there’s a few new guys but a lot of this is the same. Nitro has debuted so the war has almost started.

The rest of the card looks similar to what we had last year with all three titles on the line plus the Rumble and one other match, but this just looks miles more interesting for some reason. The Rumble roster still looks weak but far better than it did before. This flat out can’t be less interesting than last year so let’s go.

I almost forgot: Shawn has been out with a ton of injuries including the concussion kick from Owen and tonight is his big return, so that’s easily your biggest story of the night here.

Oh yeah and a guy named Hunter Hearst Helmsley debuted. A bald guy from Texas is here too. They’ll never mean a thing.

There was a preshow match with HHH vs. Duke Droese. The winner got 30 and the loser got #1. Amazingly, HHH lost so there we are.

Sunny is in a bathtub and says that tonight’s show is viewer discretion advised. My goodness she was perfect. Anyway, Bret vs. Taker is previewed, along with a few other matches. There’s a picture of Razor hitting a belly to back suplex off the middle rope on someone. That someone: Jeff Hardy. Oh yeah and there’s that Rumble thing too. Finally, there’s talk of some monster showing up tonight. Some guy called Vader I think.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Ahmed Johnson

Ahmed is a relative rookie here, having been around for just a few months here. In other words, this should be a slaughter. This is fallout from Jarrett breaking a gold record over Ahmed’s head at the previous In Your House. I love how I now have seen that match and reviewed it as it ties things together a bit. In case you’ve never seen him, Ahmed is a freaking tank.

He’s more cut up than Ezekiel Jackson and even scarier looking. The only problem was he wasn’t as talented either. He’s killing Jarrett though so there we are. He was supposed to become world champion actually but he couldn’t stay healthy. There have been a ton of clotheslines in this match to say the least. I don’t mean a bunch in a row, but a bunch over a fairly spread out period of time.

Why is it that when something happens it’s unbelievable to Vince? He saw it happen so apparently it’s not too farfetched. Johnson is hulking up. That can’t be a good sign. Jarrett continues to imitate Ric Flair without the success by getting Ahmed in the figure four. You know considering how awesome Ahmed was, this is just really boring.

After powering out of that, Jarrett goes to the top with the guitar and El Kabong is enough for the DQ. Ahmed just stood there and waited to get hit in the head. Jarrett leaves and of course Ahmed is up in about 18 seconds and not even shaking it off. That was odd.

Rating: D+. Uh yeah. I’m not sure what to say about this one as it just wasn’t that good at all. Ahmed wasn’t really sloppy, but he certainly was limited. I’m not entirely sure why they had Jarrett not get pinned here. He really had nothing to lose here as he would be gone less than ten months later. Ahmed was supposed to look great here but he just didn’t, plain and simple. This is more of a headscratcher than anything else.

Buy WWF stuff, t-shirts in this case.

Billy and Bart, looking straight out of the 70s and 80s say they’re going to keep their titles. My goodness they were so painfully bland it’s painful.

Diesel says heelish things despite still being a face officially I guess. He mentions not having a problem with Taker, and we have a feud on the rise.

Tag Titles: Smoking Guns vs. Body Donnas

Sunny was hotter than anything on the planet, period. The Body Donnas are Tom Pritchard and Chris Candido, more commonly known as Chris Candido. Sunny starts off in the ring by saying ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages. Holy stolen ring intro in a few years. Sunny of course gets the biggest pop of everyone. She’s 23 here and was screwing Bret Hart at the time, so there we are.

We get an upskirt shot of Sunny which leaves Perfect speechless. In case you can’t tell, no one cares about the match but only Sunny. She really was excellent at getting all of the attention on her which is very good to be able to do. The Guns are giants compared to the heels. After the Donnas desperately try (and fail) to take over, Sunny is knocked to the floor. The only good thing is a nice back shot but whatever.

Perfect: she could have been hurt! Vince: she may be hurt! Thanks for being original McMahon. Naturally she was faking (don’t you hate when women do that?) and the Donnas get the advantage. Vince calls Zip Flip so there we are: we have found a gimmick so bad that even Vince McMahon can’t remember their stupid names. In a cool spot, Zip hooks his partner in a gutwrench release powerbomb (think Jack Swagger’s move but he just lets the guy go) onto Billy.

That was different as Perfect says. Since this match has been the most intelligent of all time, we have another odd spot as Skip runs into Zip and Zip is knocked into Billy so everyone is down. It leads to the cold tag to Bart who cleans house. Vince says he hits Skip or Zip or whatever his name is. Since it’s 1996, we can’t have a regular ending, so instead the Guns hit the Sidewinder (backbreaker/leg drop from the top) but Sunny distracts the referee.

In a bad looking spot, Billy sees Skip on the top rope clearly, but goes after Sunny instead. It was one of those moments that wasn’t supposed to look bad but accidentally did. The Donnas go for a double suplex but Billy spears one of them so that Bart lands on the other guy for the pin. Yep, that was stupid.

Rating: D. This show really isn’t starting out well at all. This was somehow worse than the previous match. Literally, looking at Sunny is all that this is good for. The match itself is just bad, the booking is weird and the ending leaves something to be desired. The Guns would forfeit the belts in about a month due to injury and the Donnas would get them in a tournament just before Mania, as in about 20 minutes before.

We see a big thing of the Billionaire Ted skits. These were funny at the time, but allegedly they ticked off Ted Turner so much that he revamped WCW, so in essence they nearly killed Vince’s company. There we go then.

Recap of Razor vs. Goldust. In essence, Goldust wants Razor, as in the way I want Ellen Page, so that apparently made Razor put the title on the line. Yeah that makes perfect sense.

Intercontinental Title: Goldust vs. Razor Ramon

Goldust debuted the night before Ahmed so there we are. Hey did you know that Goldust is bizarre? We need to make sure you know that he’s bizarre. Vince says don’t adjust your televisions. I’ve never gotten that expression. How many people actually get up and adjust televisions? What was going to go wrong with it in the last 10 seconds or so since the last segment ended?

Are we supposed to believe that it wasn’t right before? Also, if you have a really fuzzy picture and you had really bad eyesight, would it eventually look normal? Apparently the noise at the beginning of Razor’s music is from screeching tires. What vehicle is making that noise? This is Marlena’s debut as well. She looked really good back at this point.

In a funny moment, Vince goes over the rules to how you win a title and Perfect almost yells about how he’s won the title twice so why does he need to have it explained to him? That’s a really funny point when you think about it very little. Goldy grabs Razor’s chest a few minutes in so there we go. When asked about what he would do against Goldust, Perfect replies with kick him in the face.

I love Mr. Perfect, if nothing else for the rampant sex jokes and innuendos he’s dropping here. At one point when they’re fighting on the floor someone shouts out that Marlena has a nice rack, which is very true. This match seems like it keeps starting and stopping. They’ll do a bit and then Goldust will go all freaky. That’s fine for character development, but it makes for some bad matches which is what’s happening here.

We do however get a cool spot as Goldust hits a slingshot belly to back suplex that I’ve never seen before. Other than that though, there’s just not a lot to talk about here. Finally Goldust takes over, but still there’s no flow to this match. It’s hard to put into words, but you would know what I meant if you say it. Something just doesn’t feel right about it as it just looks choppy for lack of a better word.

On top of that he keeps groping and molesting Razor. That’s just annoying. Can you imagine in wrestling related anything someone that was constantly making gay references and puns and actions? It would drive me crazy. Anyway, it’s a sleeper and a standard comeback by the face.

Oh the fans are mostly dead for this. No Monty Python jokes here by the way. After some Terri interference, the 1-2-3 Kid comes in and heads to the top for a spin kick that clearly misses but I guess the air from it knocks out Razor for Goldust to get the pin.

Rating: D. Uh yeah, this sucked too. I don’t get it. For the most part there’s been talented guys in every match but nothing at all has worked so far. Granted that could be because we’ve had three matches and zero clean endings. Is it that hard to let one guy cleanly beat the other one?

Anyway, like I said earlier this match just feels choppy and it really hurts things. There’s zero flow here and it felt like watching a video game being played where the guy controlling it was just hitting all of the moves he programmed in if that makes sense.

A bunch of people say they’ll win that don’t interest me. Shawn’s doctor says he’s ready to come back.

After the explanation of the rules from Vince (none given to the live crowd), we’re ready to go.

Royal Rumble

HHH is in first and second it Henry Godwin, now rocking the best music in wrestling history: Don’t Go Messin With a Country Boy. These two had a pseudo-rivalry around this time so this works pretty well. We’re back to two minute intervals which almost guarantees a better match. They imply that winning two in a row is almost impossible as Hogan is continually buried.

Backlund is third, completely in his crazy man Presidential candidate (don’t ask) gimmick. Also, how bad of a string of draws does this guy get? The more I see of this guy the more I like him. He’s just amazing considering his age. Backlund still has the Iron Man record at this point. Fourth is Jerry Lawler as I’m already loving these two minute intervals better.

There’s far more time to let people get settled in and it helps a lot. The heat on Lawler is nuts with the Burger King chants. Godwin breaks up a triple team and gets the slop bucket. Everyone gets it at once as they’re on the floor and now we’re back in the ring with a Gallagher reference. Fifth is Bob Holly to fill the jobber quota a bit more. Backlund is on the floor or something I think as he hasn’t been seen in awhile.

He’s not out but he’s not in the ring either. Oh there he is. HHH has jumped twice in this match, which is more than in this decade combined I believe. Mabel, who is still King, is in at 6. He’s gained even more weight here and it even less interesting of a character if that’s possible. HHH is compared to Shawn. Oh dear.

Jake Roberts, on the nostalgia trips to end all nostalgia trips (notice the word choice I used for Jake) is seventh to a solid pop. He lets loose the snake and throws it over Lawler who is of course terrified of snakes. How much of a creep was Roberts? The only people he ever fought were terrified of snakes. That’s just pathetic. Anyway, Lawler hides under the ring as Dory freaking Funk Jr. is #8.

No one knows who he is, which is likely because he’s 56 years old at this point. With the NWA dead at this point, Vince mentions their name on camera. No one has been eliminated yet so we have eight people in and you can recap it yourselves you lazy pests. Jake almost gets a DDT on HHH to a pop but it doesn’t work.

Terry Funk is apparently friends with Bruce Willis. Well ok then. Funk fights Backlund in one of the only encounters you’ll ever see where Bob is ten years younger than the guy he’s fighting. Yokozuna is 9th as we’re way too full here. Those are words I don’t think Yoko ever used. As Backlund has the chicken wing on Funk, Yoko dumps Bob easily to a big pop.

I think he’s just about to or just has turned face. The Kid is tenth as we hit double figures. This hasn’t been bad as it’s pretty clear they’re saving the big guns for the end, but dang those guys are staying in there a long time. It’s not exactly a bad thing, but I’m not sure if I’m sold on it or not.

Razor chases him to the ring as Godwin is eliminated to absolutely zero recognition. I had to rewind it to see where he went out at. Razor chases Kid around for a bit which means nothing in the end. Mo is very annoying to say the least. I think Shane was there as an official to get Razor to the back. Some Japanese wrestler named Omori is number 11. He comes out to the Orient Express’ music, and I don’t have a clue who he is.

Thanks to Wiki, he apparently has a pretty good resume. That’s fine and good, but again we have the same old problem: ALMOST NO ONE KNOWS THAT VINCE. These foreign guys are fine to bring in, but dang it tell us why we should care. Don’t just say he’s a wild man from Japan. We need more than that. Tell us a big name he’s beaten, tell us some titles he’s won, tell us SOMETHING.

I don’t want to have to do a ton of research to figure out who one guy from Japan is in one match. He’s from All Japan Pro, that’s all we get. Even Vince says he doesn’t know a ton about him. Well thanks Vince. Savio Vega is 12th as nothing of note is going on. Dory is out there doing stuff that belongs in the 40s or something which is pretty cool looking.

The saddest part: I doubt half the roster today would be as smooth as he is out there in this match. Yoko puts out Mable and the smarks shed a tear as the completely unimportant Omori is put out by Roberts. To recap, we have HHH, Lawler (hiding under the ring), Holly, Roberts, Funk, Yoko, Kid and Vega in there at the moment. Perfect says he’s tapped into the Superstar line and knows who the next guy is.

Ok wait a minute. So first of all, you can find out the SECRET drawing on the Superstar line? I know they did that last year but I just don’t get what the point is. Why ruin the mystique of one of the biggest matches of the year? Second, you can tap into it? How many science geeks that were watching this (of the 4 or so that were) immediately tried to figure out how to do that? Third, Perfect is on the phone while calling a match? Dude I want that job!

Anyway, 13th is the debuting Vader. At the time, he was a complete monster and rapidly becoming one of the biggest heels in the company. He beats up Holly so he’s a good guy to me. Savio puts out Funk from the apron. Vader of course pulls him back in so there we go. Vader punches Savio, making him dance. Yeah I hate him too. Fourteenth is Doug Gilbert of the USWA, which is Lawler’s company.

Jake sets Vega for the DDT, arguably the most devastating and popular move in company history at that point, so right as he goes for it we cut to Holly trying to dump the Kid. We can see it hit between Holly’s legs and the pop is huge, but of course two career nothings are more important so there we are. In a VERY stupid looking spot, Jake hooks Gilbert for the DDT and then just stares at Vader for at least four seconds and then gets clotheslined over the top. That looked so stupid.

Ok so 15 and 16 are twins called the Squat Team. Yes that’s the best name they could come up with for them. They’re twin 450lb guys from Puerto Rico where they’re called the Headhunters. Ok, so we can’t just call them that generic yet far better name? They last less than two minutes combined as Vader just goes insane on the first one with two punches to knock them both out. That was AWESOME.

As the first one leaves his partner is coming out and they both go to the ring. Vader beats them both up at once until Yoko (still heel apparently) grabs one and is like “Boy get your fatness out of here and make me a sweater” while Vader beats up the other one and is like “BOY go marinate bake me a ham and set the table” and both guys are knocked out.

That was both stupid and pointless which is a nice combination. Oh and just after the first guy came in Doug Gilbert got hit with a freaking AWESOME chokeslam from Vader and thrown out. It looked awesome.

To recap, we have HHH, Lawler (under the ring), Holly, Kid, Vader, Yoko and Vega. Owen is 17th and a major heel at this point due to being the guy that hurt Shawn in the famous enziguri (how in the world is that spelled anyway?) that made Shawn black out. Yoko and Vader just beat the living tar out of Vega and Shawn is 18th as the roof isn’t blown off in the slightest.

There’s a reaction but dang there was nothing impressive about that in the slightest. Vader puts out Savio as Shawn hits HHH. What would the children think??? The crowd is awake but not much beyond that. Vader and Yoko fight at the ropes and Shawn runs up and dumps BOTH of them at once. Ok that was cool looking. The fans are very much insane now. Shawn gorilla presses Kid out in another cool spot.

Vader and Yoko keep fighting as Hakushi is now in to make it him, Shawn, Owen, Holly and HHH as we see the major problem already: it is so completely obvious that Shawn is going to win. Vader comes back in and throws him out to completely silence the crowd. All of a sudden this year that doesn’t count like it used to so Shawn is still in. Gorilla the Commissioner comes down to run off Vader.

Vader would kick dominate him soon which was quite sad. The heel heat on Vader is nuts. Maybe 45 seconds after Hakushi comes in we bring in Tatanka for a one night return for no apparent reason. I’ve always liked that hook of the steel bar that Shawn did. It’s an intelligent counter that works quite well. Owen throws out Hakushi as the Shawn Michaels plus the midcard Rumble continues.

Aldo Montoya is 21st to some of the weirdest music I can ever remember. It’s like techo and tribal mixed and it’s just failing. Shawn finds Lawler under the ring and throws him back in. Sometimes simple heel tactics like that are just made of win. Montoya and Lawler go out almost at the same time as Diesel tries to give Shawn a challenge at 22. I know looking at it now he looks weak but at the time he was a major player still so this was a big deal. He puts Tatanka out with ease.

He and Shawn go at it to a solid pop. Owen goes after Diesel to finally live up to the poster for this event. I have no idea why those two were on the poster. I also have no idea why they didn’t fight at Summerslam 95 instead of Mabel but whatever. I mean really, what match sounds more interesting: Diesel vs. Mable or Diesel vs. Owen? It would have at least been interesting to an extent instead of Diesel and Owen which was completely awful.

Kama is in next to no reaction at all. Yeah Shawn should have come out about 10 spots later than he did. Holly is more or less dead at this point as Shawn hits the ten corner punches on him. The crowd counts with him and I keep thinking it’s another person coming in. Apparently Ahmed has a concussion and is going to the hospital. So wait, it took AN HOUR AND A HALF to figure that out? Dude how bad is your medical staff???

The Ringmaster is in at 24. For those of you that don’t know, he would soon become known as Stone Cold Steve Austin. His manager, Ted DiBiase heading to WCW might have saved the company. He’s wearing white boots here which just doesn’t look right. Aww his boots have little stars on them! That’s so cute! He FINALLY puts out Holly though so he’s awesome already.

Austin is a much more technical based guy here with some very good athleticism. Barry Horowitz is 25th, coming out to his completely sweet rock version of Hava Nagila. How awesome is that? Perfect says that if Horowitz wins this he’ll get back in the ring. That made me chuckle for no reason at all. In a cool looking spot, Owen is leaning on the ropes to choke Shawn so Shawn nips up to kick Owen over, but Owen skins the cat to get back in. That was awesome looking.

The fans are DEAD here. Diesel puts out HHH with complete ease. That looked cool if nothing else. 26th is Fatu. WHY IN THE WORLD DOES HE GET THESE AWESOME DRAWS EVERY YEAR??? This is the making a difference Fatu. My goodness this was awful. It makes Rikishi look brilliant. Hey let’s plug the Superstar Line again! Apparently only the guy on there knows who is next. So is he running around telling people what order to go in?

Perfect changes his stance to he’ll quit if Horowitz wins. So wait, does that mean he’ll quit being retired? If that’s so does that mean he’ll wrestle again? Maybe he didn’t change his stance at all. Owen almost puts Shawn out but just won’t do it because it would probably get him fired. Isaac Yankem (Kane) is in next. Horowitz is gone. Owen hits the enziguri on Shawn again but this time doesn’t kill him.

Austin does the Shawn pose as I laugh. Austin vs. Diesel is a match that I don’t think ever happened. Owen is out due to Diesel and Shawn. 28th is Marty Jannetty as this match just needs to be put out of its misery. Apparently he’s been doing well in the singles division. Did I completely miss some time in the company history? The Rockers go at it in a fight that would have been good maybe 3 years ago.

British Bulldog is 29th again to ZERO reaction. 30th is going to be Duke Droese so there we are. Smith is heel here so he beats on Shawn. He dumps Marty quickly so if nothing else there’s a future for him in vermin control. Fatu puts out Austin. How many people would believe that in three and a half years he would run him over in a car and put him out for a year?

That’s just completely amazing and shows you that all kinds of things can happen in wrestling and you never know what’s coming. Kane knocks out Rikishi with ease as the announcers admit they have no idea how Austin went out due to there being a lot of action going on. No not really but I can’t argue with Vince right? Ok so there’s Duke and the final groups is, and I’m not kidding you here, Duke Droese, Kama, Diesel, Shawn, Bulldog and Yankem. WOW.

If you couldn’t tell who was going to win this and who he was going to eliminate last, you’re an idiot. Droese and Kane go out really fast so your final four are Bulldog, Diesel, Kama and Shawn. And before I’m done typing that Shawn kicks Diesel out to win it. Literally, the final four started and ended inside of 30 seconds. Shawn wins, shocking no one at all. Diesel comes back and they do the Too Sweet sign. Yep, that’s all they do and good night I’m bored here.

Rating: D. How can this show not seem that bad? I mean seriously, Ahmed freaking Johnson at this point has the match of the night, and that’s after guys like Chris Candido, Owen Hart, Shawn Michaels, Scott Hall and Dustin Rhodes have performed. Once Shawn came in, the match was over, period. No one thought for a second that anyone other than HBK was going to win, period. I mean look at this lineup.

The alternatives are the debuting Vader, Diesel, who had talked about Taker nonstop recently so his feud is set up, and……and……oh come on there has to be a third guy. Owen Hart wins it by default I guess: a career midcard guy with a cup of coffee in the main event a year ago that is clearly the first Shawn target. WOW. How in the world did this Rumble get a chance to do anything? There is no way this was ever, and I mean ever, was going to work.

The only thing CLOSE to making this work would have been Yoko, Diesel, Owen and Vader against Shawn at the end. I mean really, who else was going to win? This wasn’t interesting at all and other than for a few seconds, the crowd might as well have been asleep, and I can’t blame them a bit. This was just boring.

Bret says he’ll win in a generic interview, which is somehow the most interesting thing I’ve seen other than Vader and Yoko being put out in over an hour.

WWF Title: Undertaker vs. Bret Hart

This is happening because Bret is champion and Taker would have been far too big of a threat to Shawn’s popularity. Taker is wearing the skull mask at this point after Mabel and Yokozuna destroyed his face. For no apparent reason, Diesel is still at ringside. He gets in Taker’s face and there they go. Taker was just all kinds of awesome at this point, as he was reaching that mythical level that few get to.

He’s officially that kind of guy that’s awesome just because he’s who he is. Like today for example, it’s about two weeks after Kofi destroyed Orton’s car. That was AWESOME. Kofi got over in that one segment and granted I have no idea if it’ll still or not as you guys won’t read this for about two months, but the point is he might just fall off the map. A guy like Taker simply isn’t going to fall off the level he’s on barring anything completely insane happening.

He was just hitting that level around this time. He’s like Shawn is now: you can throw together a stupid storyline to put him in the title match and everyone will buy it because he’s just awesome enough to be in it. Bret’s pop is solid here, but this crowd just kind of sucks. Ok we’ve been in this match 3 minutes now and I think I already know what’s coming. I had a bad vibe about this match earlier on and it’s coming true now: they’re doing a formula match.

Yep, Bret’s going for the knee early. That means a long drawn out match where Bret works on the leg with a submission, Taker fights back, Bret hits the knee and uses a submission, Taker fights back, Bret hits the knee and uses a submission, Taker fights back, Bret hits the knee or a suplex move and sets for the Sharpshooter and somewhere in there we brawl on the floor with a weapon other than the belt or a chair being used. And what do you know I’m right.

Yes, for about 25 minutes, that’s all we get. During that Bret gets the stupid looking skull mask off of Taker that was just really annoying. PLEASE END THIS! Taker hits the Tombstone finally, and here’s Diesel for the cheap DQ to set up Diesel vs. Bret to set up Diesel vs. Taker. Ok, I know I have the benefit of hindsight here, but this was as predictable as humanly possible.

The signs were all there for Diesel vs. Taker, especially the fight before the match started. I mean seriously, who in their right mind thought Taker had a chance here? Actually he won, so who thought he had a chance of getting the title here? Whatever, I just want this show to end.

Rating: C-. While it was formula stuff, it was somehow by far and away the best match of the night, and that’s just pitiful. They went out there and did half an hour of stuff you could write a textbook with. Now I know that usually means greatness, but in this case I mean a book called Cookie Cutter Title Matches in 30 Elongated Minutes.

It might have been that I was just wanting this show to end, but this was boring as heck to me. I’m going with the C- because it gives it the best grade of the night just so Jeff Jarrett can’t have it. WWF>TNA, forever, even when you have to lie to get there.

Overall Rating: D-. Somehow, this passes. I have zero idea how, but somehow it passes. The matches all completely sucked, but it was like I kept wanting to like the show. That’s either really good or really bad and I’m not sure which.

This whole show feels like the forms you have to fill out to get something you know you’re getting: it’s pointless, you don’t like it, but you have to do it anyway to get to the end result. This show is just boring. I don’t know if it’s particularly bad, but it’s just so boring that it becomes bad. Don’t watch this unless you’re an insomniac.