Royal Rumble 1991
Date: January 19, 1991
Location: Miami Arena, Miami, Florida
Attendance: 16,000
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Roddy Piper

Well, there’s a few big things, but a lot is still the same. Warrior is champion here, defending against Sgt. Slaughter who is in the heel turn as the Iraqi sympathizer. Who cares if the war was already over? The other thing is that about two months ago, Undertaker debuted. This really is about the same as last year’s, but you can see a lot of the stuff that would shape the new era coming.

For one thing, Bret is featured at the opening of the Rumble, as his singles push was just around the corner. This show really is more designed to set up Mania, as the Rumble itself really didn’t know its purpose yet. The title shot at Mania wouldn’t become official until 1993. The card is considered underrated, so let’s see if it lives….up, I guess would be the right term.

We open with a shot of the American flag as it’s apparently one of those shows. It’s always cool to hear the Anthem though. The problem here though is simple: the war was less than a month from being over and that was fairly obvious. The angle should have ended here with Slaughter coming in as champion, maybe having won it at Summerslam or something like that. Three months later when Hogan beat him for it the war was already over.

That was just kind of pointless. Anyway, the regular intro is just that: regular. It’s the same old thing of the participants being listed, although this time it’s by Gene. I almost didn’t recognize his voice though. The first name: Hogan. The second: Bret. That’s saying a lot. Piper always ranted with the best of them.

Rockers vs. Orient Express

This apparently is an encounter, not a match. That’s the Fink for you. I’m still waiting on the explanation of how they’re tag team specialists, yet they had far more success as singles wrestlers. They start immediately when they hit the ring which says that this should be good. Oh and it’s Tanaka and Kato the masked man here as this is the NEW Orient Express despite them having been a team in the AWA and half of the NEW Orient Express being the same as the old Orient Express.

Marty is knocked out to the floor and therefore worthless about 4 seconds in. Well it’s good to know he’s improving. He redeems himself by throwing a superkick at Tanaka that misses by about 4 inches or so. Hey Marty’s ON tonight. The Rockers hit stereo suicide dives on the Express. That’s completely unheard of at this time as Gorilla doesn’t even have a name for it here, calling them cross bodies.

We get a HUGE USA chant as we’re finally in the corners for a regular tag match. To say the crowd is hot is like saying Norcal is a bit popular around here. They are moving ridiculously fast out there with some great chain wrestling. I feel sorry for Marty as he really was talented. His partner just happens to be one of the best of all time. Speaking of which, Shawn is in now and beating on Tanaka.

They’re never staying in one spot for long at all. The crowd is insane here too so that’s a major plus. This was around the time where you realized the Rockers really were good and not just two pretty boys. Their stuff was getting to a level that was just below the Harts and could even be compared to them. That’s appropriate too because the Harts would split after Mania of this year. Shawn uses a HHH leaping knee to the face. That’s gimmick infringement boy.

They use a decent amount of rest holds, but they’re moving out of them quickly which is all I ask for. To be fair they’re all over the place in this. A We Will Rock You sing a long starts up. That’s actually something I’ve never thought of.

A sleeper gets a pop. That’s just not something you see often at all. Piper goes into a weird discussion about what is a legal vs. illegal punch/strike. Good night this is fun. Shawn goes up for ten punches in the corner and comes off with a moonsault to take out Kato. Again, that doesn’t even have a name. We’re about ten minutes into this and they’re still all over the place.

Naturally the announcers say that it’s been fifteen or so but whatever. Shawn does a freaking 610! Ok so it was sloppy as all goodness but it was the same move. They follow that up with stereo cross bodies from the top to the floor. This is AWESOME stuff. Double teaming and Fuji gets control for the Express. We get the inevitable “this is the first match!” line, which is wrestling speak for “we know the rest of this is going to suck and we’re sorry.”

The Express are using moves that were considered great when the World’s Greatest Tag Team was using them. On no. It’s a NERVE HOLD! This is the epitome of a weak rest hold as all you do is grab the other person’s neck. It allegedly cuts off the flow of blood or something and you lose feeling in your arm. Oh good it’s now a less bad chinlock. The crowd is still going nuts.

As per the Rockers’ formula, Shawn gets beaten up to set up the Jannetty tag. In a very cool and smart spot, the Express pull off their sash to use for a clothesline but Shawn avoids it. Instead he dives on it, pulling the Express together so they crash. That’s very smart. Marty comes in to get a paycheck so he can….uh…buy model trains. Yeah, that works.

He’s going to buy model trains with the money he makes tonight. Lots of them, in a dark alley. Yeah, that’s right. His dropkicks aren’t that good, mainly because at least one foot misses. He makes up for it with a jumping back elbow though so I’m fine. The Rockers “hit” a double superkick to put Kato down and go to the top.

They set for what I think was going to be a rocket launcher but it doesn’t get to launch thanks to Tanaka. The Express set for a move where Kato slingshots Marty into Tanaka for a chop. It works so naturally they do it again. This time though, Shawn hits Tanaka, allowing Marty to jump over him for a sunset flip to win it! That was SWEET looking.

Rating: A. This was greatness plain and simple. It was a bit sloppy, but this was one of the most fun matches I’ve ever seen. They were all over the place and doing stuff that wouldn’t become popular until WCW’s Cruiserweight days. The Rockers truly were greatness in tag wrestling. They would split in less than a year though, which might have been a shame. Excellent match here though and well worth going out of your way to see.

Randy Savage has a statement to make. He more or less declares himself the number one contender for the world title. He and Sean watch on the screen as Gene and Sherri come into the arena. She calls Warrior out, saying how honorable he is. More or less she tries to seduce him into giving Savage the next title shot. Naturally since he’s the Warrior and well past certifiable, he turns her down despite her being on her knees in front of him.

We do find out that Warrior’s eyes are hazel. This is just amusing to see as the acting is painfully bad. Warrior is the better of the two as the only thing he says is NO one time at the very end. To be fair though, I think this was meant to be awful. The pop for her getting down on her knees is WAY bigger than it should be.

Warrior looks odd in his gear, the belt and a leather jacket with a flag on the back. The belt is purple by the way. In the back, Savage is TICKED, destroying his locker room and sprinting off after Warrior.

Big Boss Man vs. Barbarian

This was during what was likely Boss Man’s biggest storyline as a face, as he was feuding with the Heenan Family one by one over comments that Rick Rude had made about Boss Man’s mother. It would culminate with Boss Man vs. Perfect at Mania, where for some reason that absolutely no one gets, Boss Man didn’t win the Intercontinental Title, which more or less ended him being an important character.

This is just another match so it’s likely going to be a glorified squash. Piper says Heenan is intelligent. I’m blown away. This is power vs. power obviously but they’re doing the right thing here and having them go back and forth with big shots. That’s the best way to do these if there is such a thing I guess. Bossman really was talented. Somehow this is probably the best Barbarian match ever.

Boss Man at least made you want to care about a match, which is a lot more than most characters from this time were able to do. After a decent display of back and forth stuff, we naturally hit the bearhug because it wouldn’t be a Barbarian match without one I guess. The crowd is staying in this one so I have to hand it to them. They do some more slow stuff but for some reason this is holding my interest very well.

Both hit their finishers but both opponents get the ropes. Or at least Barbarian was supposed to, but he never actually reached it. He goes for a piledriver and I think Boss Man slipped out of it or something but it looked pretty bad. Crowd is quiet now. Scratch that. I like Boss Man’s shirt coming open like it does. It gives him that working man look that I think was part of what they were going for with him. Little things like that can make a character so points for it.

In one of the weirdest endings I can ever remember, Barbarian goes up for a freaking cross body from the top but Boss Man rolls through it for the pin. Well that was odd. During the celebration they go slow motion on Boss Man on the ropes raising his arms which looks really cool.

Rating: B. This was a lot better than I expected. They took two guys of the same style and got a solid match out of them. That’s just flat out impressive. This could have been far worse but it really was entertaining. Boss Man had that it factor around this time that made you care about him and that’s exactly what happened here. For some reason all that got him was a Mania match with Perfect where he didn’t get the belt or a rematch but whatever. This was a lot better than I expected it to be.

Iron Sheik and Slaughter have a bit to say. Slaughter’s chin puts Jay Leno’s to shame. He’s just flat out creepy actually which is a good thing. He says that he’ll be the new leader and you haven’t even begun to see turmoil yet. So is he saying he’ll be an awful leader that causes turmoil? Apparently that’s an order.

Gene is with Warrior, who he calls orier. That just came out as odd. Speaking of odd, Gene tries his best to walk Warrior through a coherent promo but the guy whispers almost everything he says and it’s just hard to understand. He says he’ll win I think.

WWF Title: Sgt. Slaughter vs. Ultimate Warrior

Gorilla has to give a disclaimer about Slaughter’s views, saying they don’t reflect Arab Americans or the WWF. Piper goes nuts as a patriot, talking about how the troops are fighting for freedom. There’s a complete argument there that I’ll stay out of. Piper says we ain’t talking skim milk here. I love Piper’s complete insanity. How exactly does one go bananas? Warrior really was WAY over. How did he manage to screw this up?

Warrior beats up the likely senior citizen Sheik and rips up the Iraqi flag. You have to be interested in how war validates things that would otherwise never be allowed. Warrior hits a knee lift, which I’ve never seen him do otherwise. The commentators are so unbelievably biased here it’s unreal. Slaughter really was good as a bumper. For no apparent reason, here’s Sherri with her fine self. That thing really is impressive.

Warrior’s isn’t bad either, but that could be because his tights are white which I have a bit of a thing for. She gets Warrior’s attention and he chases her back to the entrance where Savage is waiting on him. He beats Warrior up for a bit which of course the referee sees none of, despite Savage wearing BRIGHT PINK clothing against a black backdrop. Yeah that just blends in perfectly.

Ah but there’s the USA chants and the power of patriotism gets Warrior up again. Wisely, Slaughter keeps stopping the count. Roddy, being a decent analyst, points out that very thing. In a bit of forshaddowing, Slaughter does a version of the Hogan ear bit. It’s all Slaughter right now as he spits on Warrior. Yep that’s some great offense. He’s also rocking the curled up boots which are a fashion risk but I’d wear them.

A double clothesline takes both guys down. In a dumb looking spot, Slaughter follows Warrior around with his arms up for a double axe and then puts on a bear hug. You would have to see it to get why it was stupid. Ah, the powers of patriotism are rising up again! Apparently that only works for the yellow and red though as Warrior is still in trouble. Gorilla says Warrior is only half conscious right now.

Wow he’s in better shape than usual. Warrior gets out of the bear hug with a double axe that I don’t think actually hit. The comeback lasts just a bit though as Warrior obviously doesn’t love America enough. He must be a commie or something. Oh wait. He’s from Parts Unknown. Everything is explained now. The Cobra Clutch, which in this case means a camel clutch, is on put Warrior’s legs are hanging out. In a weird camera angle the referee is blocked by the guys so it looks like there’s no one there.

Why is the camel clutch used primarily by Arab themed wrestlers? Think about it: Sheik, Sultan, Muhammad Hassan, Slaughter in this gimmick. What’s the deal with that? Vince may not be racist but he tends to have a lot of racial stereotypes to his characters. Here comes Warrior’s Hulk impression as he can’t feel pain. Warrior hits a flying shoulder which Gorilla calls a heabutt. Well that wasn’t even close.

That’s by far the biggest mistake Gorilla has made that I can remember. Sherri is back again as you can see the screwjob coming. Being the genius that he is, Warrior does the same thing he did earlier which resulted in him getting beaten up. This time though he press slams Sherri as Savage runs out. Slaughter knees Warrior in the back to put him in position for a 619, but Savage blasts him with the scepter.

An elbow drop of all things gives Slaughter the title in a move that really should have come four months earlier to get maximum heat. Piper is FURIOUS. I love how the madder he got the higher pitched his voice got. Warrior runs to the back presumably to get Savage as Slaughter is awarded the title. Everyone is FURIOUS, with Piper being the most of them all. Slaughter the solider holding a purple belt is rather amusing looking.

Rating: D. This was all about the angle. As for the match: it was awful. Granted given the two guys out there, what were you really expecting? This was all about setting up Mania though, and it did a great job of that.

Still though, the timing of the war ending really hurt them, which is why having Hogan get it back here and then doing something else at Mania would have worked better. What that something else would have been is beyond me though. Maybe Hogan vs. Savage again or something like that, but as it turned out the moment was good, but not in the real world terms. As for this, the match was bad but the angle was good, simple as that.

Savage and Sherri are with Sean and say that this was because Warrior said no to Savage. Randy says that he’s the best ever as someone is trying to get in, presumably the Warrior.

Piper and Gorilla are mad. Monsoon is rocking some purple glasses.

Gene is with the new champion and Sheik. They cut him off as Slaughter says I told you so. That belt looks odd indeed.

Gorilla calls Slaughter the Ultimate Puke. WOW. Piper rips his own headset off so he can curse for a bit. That was one of the funniest bits I’ve ever seen and it was completely unintentional.

Mountie vs. Koko B. Ware

This is cut from the Coliseum Video version and incredibly rare, but I got lucky and found an original recording of the show. I’ll go with a very condensed version here though as it’s a ten minute squash. This is the debut of the Mountie character who was either a bad comedy bit or the results of a Vince coke binge. For those that have noticed I make a lot of cocaine references, think about it.

For one thing, it was the 80s when cocaine was running rampant. Second, there are a ton of stories of Vince being a coke head at times. Third, is there any way that he could come up with half of his ideas without drug use? I mean really, Repo Man? Anyway, let’s get to the Hall of Famer Koko’s latest masterpiece. WOW this is boring.

It’s a squash, but it’s the kind that’s supposed to let Mountie show off all of his stuff, but the problem is it’s just putting the people to sleep. I have a feeling I know how this is going to end, which makes it all the more stupid to have to go this long just to get to that one moment. Yep there it is: Mountie shocks him. That’s the whole point of this match: getting that into the Mountie’s system. Wow that was brutal.

Rating: D. This was pretty bad. It was a waste of 10 minutes in what should have been a 4-5 minute match. Why did we need to see all of Mountie’s stuff? Better yet, why did we need Koko’s? This was about the Mountie, but they gave Koko all of that offense. It makes him look like he has trouble beating a simple jobber which is the last thing you want to do with a heel character. I don’t get this.

Some people talk about their relatives in the war. Ok, we get it: the WWF supports the troops. Holy throat crammage Vince let it go. Note: saying guys and gals sounds stupid. They’re girls or women, not gals. It’s not the freaking 50s anymore.

Children attempting to be sentimental should be dragged through the streets attached to a chariot and then set on fire as goats eat their flesh. Or even worse: be forced to listen to how annoying they sound. I don’t like kids on camera in case you couldn’t tell. Now regular kids I love spending time with as they’re cool, but not kids on a camera that are “so adorable.” No, they’re really not.

Apparently Hulk wanted to go to the Middle East and visit the troops but the Department of Defense stopped him so he’s going to bases in America. Not sure if that’s true, but if it is, that’s pretty cool even if it was the company’s idea and not Hulk’s.

Jake Roberts says he wants Martel.

Earthquake says a lot of people are going to come after him and he’s ready. He calls out some guys, including Hogan and Taker. Yeah that’s brilliant buddy.

Greg Valentine, sweating profusely for some reason, says bring them on.

Texas Tornado says he’ll win. I always liked him.

The LOD say that if life is a roller coaster you wouldn’t want to ride them. Um, ok?

Brother Love speaks for Taker, saying that he’ll bury 29 men. I love how so many people assume that there will be no eliminations by the time they get there.

Duggan says he’ll win. He punches his board for no reason.

Martel says he’ll look good while he wins. He’s ripped here.

Davey Boy Smith says he’s glad he’s a bulldog. Ok then.

Perfect and Heenan say that Perfect will be the last man standing.

Tugboat says he’ll jump right in the middle of things and if it comes down to him and Hulk, TOOT! That made less than zero sense.

Piper has been working with Virgil. Oh dear.

DiBiase says Virgil is more or less his slave. That looks like a face’s face to me on Virgil. Nah that could never happen though. Perish the thought!

Dustin/Dusty Rhodes vs. Ted DiBiase/Virgil

Dusty and Ted had been feuding since Summerslam and Dustin had been in the crowd at SNME watching his dad when Ted went after him. The rest is about what you would expect. Dusty was gone less than a month after this, heading back to WCW though so there we are. No polka dots either. Apparently they’re Americana. Oh great. If nothing else here the two theme songs are so awesome words can’t describe it.

They’re really building up the Virgil face turn here as they have been lately. My goodness Dusty is fat. Dustin is a complete rookie here with very little experience. He was naturally talented though so he’s not bad. A big brawl starts us out here as it occurs to me how little experience Virgil has in the ring. Dustin is WAY taller than Virgil and it looks quite funny.

It’s also amusing that of these four, Dustin would have by far the most successful WWF career. The future gold enthusiast has to duck under Virgil’s leapfrog. It never really occurred to me how tall Dustin is. DiBiase says Virgil is embarrassing him and Virgil is frustrated. You can feel the turn coming and you know it’s going to be awesome. We’re about five minutes in and Dusty hasn’t been in yet.

You know what, I’m not even going to bother typing the joke here. You all know what’s coming. Dusty, I’m begging you, either put a shirt on, hit a gym, or invest in blow away. You need it. After Virgil and Dustin come in, Dustin hits his knee on the buckle and is down. Naturally (oh I kill myself sometimes) the heels work it over. Just like Jesse used to, Piper gets a bit annoyed with Gorilla’s babbling about what body part is hurt.

He says Dustin’s leg is hurt, end of discussion, and that’s why Piper is awesome. Virgil accidentally hits DiBiase and gets punched and chopped for his efforts. Dustin and Dusty are really just placeholders for DiBiase and Virgil here. As I type this Dusty goes from being dominant to getting rolled up and pinned. Well that was pretty weak. However, we have a post match angle here. Roddy says that the father and son can come back.

Granted they both did but a good many years later. Ted says that Virgil has his price and that he needs to put the belt around his waist. Oh and he insults Dusty and Dustin. The Virgil chant is massive here and the countdown is on. Virgil really is built. Piper is disgusted by Virgil giving in again and washes his hands of him. That lasts all of about 20 seconds though as Virgil throws the belt down. He eventually gets on his knees after DiBiase orders him around even more.

DiBiase turns around and Virgil blasts him in the face with the belt. The crowd E-FREAKING-RUPTS over this. For years and years DiBiase had ordered him around and made him look pathetic and finally Virgil had enough. The payoff was completely worth it here in a very cool moment that had me smiling.

Rating: B. I’m going B here because this wasn’t as much of a match rather than an angle. The angle after the match was just flat out awesome. That needed to happen and they built it up beautifully. They had a match at Mania which Virgil won by count out. The problem was simple though: what in the world do you do with Virgil now? He had no gimmick and he just kind of floundered after this, but dang it was a great moment.

Time for more Rumble promos.

Tugboat uses a bunch of boat analogies which make me think Shockmaster was the better of his gimmicks.

Smash reminds me of the Joker for some reason.

Dino Bravo says he’s not afraid of Earthquake.

Crush says no one will be safe, not even Smash.

Perfect says he’s the only perfect athlete and he’ll win.

Hogan of course gets his own special interview where he says exactly what you would expect him to say. He dedicates the match to the troops. Say it with me: Hulk will win. In between the promo, Gene gets a message saying that Slaughter has just defaced the American flag. Yeah that’s not foreshadowing Mania at all.

In one of the absolute funniest things I can ever remember, Hogan forgets the name of the Iraqi leader (Sadaam Hussein). That was PRICELESS. He dedicates the match to the troops and freaks out over the flag issue, but wait, who are they fighting again? That was great.

Royal Rumble

It never ceases to amaze me how great the pops are for the Rumble. Bret is number one. That’s saying a lot for what they knew he had. Two is Bravo as we go over the rules. His hair is dark blond here and it looks bad. Naturally Bret looks great out there. This right here is why you need to keep an eye on your midcard and tag guys (the few that are left): you never know what kind of greatness you’ll be seeing.

The tag line of OVW is Tomorrow’s Superstars Today. Considering at a WWE house show in 2002 I saw two guys named Prototype and Leviathan go at it, truer words have never been spoken. Those two would later be known as John Cena and Batista, so there you are. Bret almost immediately gets Bravo out but not quite. They discuss the Iron Man record which is a by comparison pathetic 44 minutes at the moment.

Three is Greg Valentine. He goes after Bravo despite his being a heel at the time. Hammer puts him out, and Piper starts writing stuff down just as he did at Survivor Series. It was funny then and it’s still kind of funny now. In at four is Paul Roma. For the life of me, this guy was a Horsemen? I will never understand that no matter how long I think about it. Maybe I shouldn’t try to. Maybe that’s the secret to it.

Bret is really being pushed as a big deal here which is certainly a good thing. In a smart move, Bret just sits back and lets Hammer and Roma fight. See, that’s something almost no one does but Bret is smart enough to do it. Kerry Von Erich is fifth, giving us two faces and two heels. Piper apparently has issues with calling so much action at once. There’s two fights. How is that hard? Martel is in next, which is pretty lackluster.

I guess we’re setting up the jobbers for the big name to come in and clean house. We get some heel on heel violence as this is just boring. Saba Simba comes in at seven to dead silence. Even Gorilla isn’t sure of his name. He’s cut like few others I’ve ever seen though. You guys know him better as Tony Atlas. In a dumb thing, all six guys are in one corner. That’s just not right. Tornado has the claw on Roma for no apparent reason.

In at 8 is Butch to up the level of talent out there. Simba and Model both go over but Martel saves himself so we’re still at 6. In case you’re wondering, it’s Hart, Valentine, Von Erich, Martel, Butch and Roma. Despite commentating on it a second ago, Gorilla has forgotten about Saba being tossed. These matches go a lot faster when I’m reviewing them.

Jake comes in at 9 and of course goes right for Martel who had tried to blind him recently. This led to the blindfold match at Mania which just gets dumber and dumber every time I see it.

In a funny spot, Martel tries to eliminate himself but isn’t allowed to. We hit double digits with Hercules. The ring is WAY too full right now as we need someone to come in and clear out some of these guys. This is a lot of punching and kicking and bad attempts to throw someone out. There are eight guys out there at the moment and there’s the clock.

The eleventh entrant is Tito Santana to even further overfill the ring. Roma goes out to get us back down to eight. After about a minute the clock is up again for number twelve, which is THANK GOODNESS the Undertaker. We needed a monster to clear out some of these guys, so let’s see what he’s got. He dumps Hart in about four seconds. Taker no sells the Tornado Punch as Von Erich is a pure jobber at this point despite being IC Champion very recently.

About a minute and a half after Taker gets in, Snuka comes in at 13. Ring is WAY too full. Butch is thrown out by Taker as well to get us to eight guys out there. To recap, it’s Taker, Valentine, Martel, Hercules, Von Erich, Snuka, Santana and Roberts. Valentine and Von Erich are trying to get rid of Taker. The huge amount of people in the ring is just killing this thing. Again with the shortchanging of the clock! It’s British Bulldog to get us to 9 people in the ring. That’s just absurd.

Snuka just doesn’t look right with an afro and long tights. That’s just odd. It’s the soon to be gone Smash in at 15. Well if nothing else the ending should be good. Jake goes out to get us back down to nine in there as that just sounds stupid. Martel has a freaking scary look on his face. Hawk is the first of the second half as this match is just bad. There are too many people and there’s been more or less no story at all.

All we have here is a bunch of people leaning on the ropes and punching each other. To make this even BETTER, Shane freaking Douglas is in at 17. Dang what were they thinking on this show? It’s awful. Yes he was in WWF for awhile. We finally get rid of a bit of the crap out there as Von Erich and Superfly both go out within about 5 seconds of each other. Note: I don’t think they’re bad wrestlers, but they’re just filler here and everyone knows it.

There’s no 18, and Gorilla speculates that someone was afraid to come in. It was supposed to be Savage but he was running from the Warrior so there’s your explanation that comes at the end of the match. Piper says that the 18th entrant has until the clock starts to still come in. Doesn’t the clock always run but we just don’t see it? Why am I trying to make sense of him? 19 is Animal so we have the LOD in there together.

Apparently 18 has forfeited his spot according to the great and mighty Gorilla. Hawk and Animal put out Taker and then Hercules and Martel put out Hawk just afterwards. At least the numbers are going down a bit. There’s only eight in there now with 11 more to come. Crush of Demolition cracks the twenties.

At the moment we have Crush, Smash, Martel, Valentine, Animal, Santana, Davey Boy, Shane and Hercules and all of them are joined by Duggan at 21. He throws the board down and I guess we’ll call it runs to the ring.

Twenty two is Earthquake. Please, I beg of you, get rid of some of these guys! He takes out Animal pretty quickly. About maybe 80 seconds after Quake comes out, the Perfect entrant is in at 23. Even Piper thinks something is wrong with the clock. Perfect is more or less crawling to the ring. It took about 30 seconds to get there. That’s saying a lot. He does take out Duggan so that’s better than nothing I guess.

Wow we’re running low on people left to come in. They’re talkinga bout how long some of the people have been in there and it really is impressive. The twenty fourth is HOGAN! Yep, he should get a few people out. He gets a massive pop, so naturally he gets beaten on by Smash and Perfect. Never mind as Smash is gone almost immediately. He’s on Earthquake now as I don’t remember seeing a crowd freak out that fast after being dead for so long before.

The twenty fifth is Haku as we’re really getting close here. Hogan puts out Valentine who was in there for forty four minutes, just shy of DiBiase’s record. Martel just looks dead out there. Neidhart comes in next to get us down to four to go. Tito punches the heck out of Earthquake and is then thrown over with ease. Oh look. It’s Luke in at 27. Bets on how bad this will go anyone? He steps in, Quake grabs him and takes him to the other side of the ring and he’s gone in four seconds.

Well then there you go. To his credit he never stopped marching. Quake actually uses a full nelson on Hogan. Wow that’s like, a real wrestling move. That’s surprising. Nasty Boy Knobbs is the first of the final three. Man was the Brawler busy or something tonight? The penultimate spot goes to Warlord as absolutely nothing of note is going on here. Hercules is dumped out. Hogan tosses Crush as I just want to get to the end of this now.

Martel has the Iron Man record. Hogan knocks out Warlord as we’re at the last countdown of the match, and number 30 is Tugboat, thereby confirming that Savage no showed. Ok, so remaining in the match we have Hogan, Earthquake, Tugboat, Martel, Perfect, Douglas, Knobbs, Bulldog, Haku and Neidhart. See what I mean when I say this isn’t much of a Rumble? They figure out that Warrior ran Savage off. Knobbs throws out Douglas.

Wow that kind of shows where his career was at. Tugboat picks up Hogan and dumps him to the apron, so Hogan throws him out. He would turn heel in a few months based mainly on this, becoming Typhoon and more or less saving his career, before a good bit of electrocution ended that. Bulldog hits an amazing dropkick on Perfect to put him out. Perfect was sitting on the top rope and Smith caught him with at least one foot square in the face. That was impressive.

Martel actually puts Neidhart out clean. That’s very surprising. Smith puts Haku out with a backdrop as we’re trying to get rid of the jobbers. Smith follows that up with a clothesline to put Martel out to a pop. That’s saying a lot that the fans noticed that. I’m proud of them for that one. That gets us to the final four of Smith, Hogan (there’s a pairing that could have been interesting to say the least), Earthquake and…..Brian Knobbs?

And people say Hogan didn’t do good stuff for his friends. The heels team up and knock out Smith to get us to three. Hmm, I never thought I’d see this: Hogan stuck against two heels. I mean, this could never happen! How could he possibly get out of this one??? To further secure the Hogan victory, Earthquake hits the Earthquake and of course pops up. Piper cheering Hogan is just flat out wrong on so many levels. A boot takes out Knobbs and it’s Hogan vs. Earthquake.

Surprisingly they go at it for awhile with Quake dominating. And of course Hogan winds up winning it. After another Hulk Up, Hogan knocks out Quake with a clothesline. A HUGE celebration ends with Hogan waving the flag to emphasize America is Great angle of the show.

Rating: D+. This was just bad. It was boring for the most part with Hogan’s winning being about as obvious as you could possibly imagine. Martel was the only running story and you knew he wouldn’t stand a chance at all. Seriously, Brian freaking Knobbs was in the final three. How does that make a good match? It felt like a bunch of jobbers just killing time for Hogan, which is exactly what it was. That doesn’t make a good Rumble at all.

Overall Rating: C-. We have a great opening match, a decent match, a bad squash, a very bad title match that was all about building up Mania, another bad match and a very lackluster Rumble. My goodness that Rockers/Express match carried a lot of this show, and that’s just not a good thing.

It’s just not that good overall and while it has some moments, it’s just not there. I think Vince started realizing that this formula wasn’t working and he needed to change a thing or two, and DANG did he ever for next year. This show isn’t worth seeing, but the Rockers vs. Express match is must see stuff.

Royal Rumble 1990
Date: January 21, 1990
Location: Orlando Arena, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 16,000
Commentators: Jesse Ventura, Tony Schiavone

Yes, that Tony Schiavone, not the other Tony Schiavone. He was around for a cup of coffee around this time and it’s more or less completely forgotten. Anyway, we’re at the third Rumble now and the look of the show has completely changed. It’s not the old and for lack of a better term tired looking ring and logo, but rather the bright and colorful one that is more commonly known. Naturally Hogan is world champion here and is looking for an opponent at Mania 6.

At this time, no one knew who that was going to be. There were rumors ranging from Warrior to Mr. Perfect (more on that later) to Zeus of all people. There were even rumors that Vince was going to have Hogan drop the belt back to Savage to have Savage vs. Warrior for the main event.

Vince was in real financial trouble at this time and Mania absolutely had to be huge or he very well could have gone bankrupt. Other than the Rumble, there’s not a lot here. Correction: there’s nothing else here. On that note, let’s get to the drivel that is the non main event matches before we get to the real reason this show exists.

The opening is just Vince listing the card and a lot of people in the Rumble. Oh and there’s a Brother Love show tonight. Jesse is wearing Mickey Mouse ears. That’s just awesome. There needs to be another character like Jesse on commentary. He’s just so awesome at it.

Fabulous Rougeaus vs. Bushwackers

All American Boys is just an awesome song. Jimmy Hart was awesome. This whole era just completely rocks. I love me some Marching Morons. Jacques has a big old beard here so maybe Jesse can finally tell their unsimilar faces apart. Jesse says that Mickey and Goofy didn’t have tickets. That’s so stupid yet Jesse makes me chuckle with it. It’s good because they’re killing time in the ring so Jesse at least gives us something to enjoy.

This is I guess you would say a rematch from Wrestlemania 5. We’re a minute in and Ramon uses a sleeper. Butch bites the referee’s pants. There was just something slightly homosexual about these teams. Watch their matches and you’ll sense it too. Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that we have a comedy match here. After about 4-5 instances of the same exact stuff over and over again, the Bushwackers are in trouble.

Luke gets beaten on for a good while as this is running too long. Naturally Luke gets the tag to Butch. If nothing else the crowd is on fire here. If they’re like this for Luke and Butch, what are they going to be like for Hogan? Anyway, after some interference by Jimmy, the Battering Ram ends this.

Rating: D+. This just went on too long. If they cut about 3 minutes in the middle of it, this would have gone much better. It was a comedy match which is ok, but not for nearly 15 minutes. That’s just way too long. These two had some shall we say interesting matches over the years and this was no exception. There’s not a lot going on here, but the crowd liked it so take that for what it’s worth.

DiBiase and Virgil are with Gene, who suggests that DiBiase rigged last year’s drawing. Either way, he has #1 this year. DiBiase was just a masterful heel. His line of “Let me tell you something little man” is just awesome stuff.

Genius vs. Brutus Beefcake

Genius’ brother is the far more famous but possibly less talented Randy Savage. Yeah I said it. Beefcake’s music is just sweet and always has been. For like the 12th time tonight we see the capacity crowd. We get it already. Genius offers a left-handed handshake. Why don’t more people do that? Genius is doing a semi-gay gimmick here, complete with cartwheels and various things that apparently equate to homosexuality.

Sorry if that comes off as derogatory, but it’s simply the case. An atomic drop by Brutus makes Genius roll around the ring three full times. That’s quite impressive. This is really a glorified squash, despite Genius being the lackey of one of the bigger heels in the company in Mr. Perfect. He also beat Hogan (count out) on SNME a few weeks prior to this. Brutus is a power guy, but you very rarely see him portrayed as such.

For such a long match (run time of about 12 minutes) not a lot is happening here. It’s not really bad and it’s kind of interesting, but nothing of note is really happening. After the sleeper doesn’t get put on, the referee is bumped and the lack of a clean ending becomes obvious. WOW. The crowd popped like a cherry for the sleeper. That’s saying a lot. Somehow inside of about 12 seconds the Genius is sound asleep.

That never ceases to amaze me. Here’s a haircut for the Genius because the referee is still out cold. Perfect runs in and beats up Beefcake though. It’s thrown out in case you were wondering. Oh and in this beatdown, Perfect uses a Perfectplex. I won’t even touch on why that’s stupid. Perfect hits a few chair shots to the ribs as it’s announced as a double DQ, I guess for the haircut. Or some reason we have a slow motion replay of basic strikes.

Rating: C+. Like I said, for such a long match, nothing really happened. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad though. It wasn’t bad at all, but it just kind of came and went. Beefcake had a very short feud with Perfect and then got injured I think, putting his career on the shelf for a good many years. Perfect would become IC Champion after Warrior had to vacate it, and the rest of his career is well known. Either way, this wasn’t bad at all, but certainly not memorable.

Mooney is with the Heenan Family. He mentions that they might wind up fighting each other. Hilarity ensues.

Mania 6 will be in Toronto.

BLAST IT ALL! Ronnie freaking Garvin is on this show. In case I haven’t mentioned it, I want him to be shot.

Submission Match: Ronnie Garvin vs. Greg Valentine

Let’s get this over with. Both guys use submissions occasionally, so that’s validation of a gimmick match. Since this is a submission match, they both take boxing stances and pound on each other. Well if nothing else it’s physical. The boxing makes a bit of sense as it’s wearing the other guy down. That at least makes some sense. They keep going for pins here, which makes sense as it’s instinct to go for a pin in a wrestling match for these guys.

If that’s fake or legit, I’m fine either way. If it’s legit, that’s just instinct. If it’s fake, it’s a nice addition to a match. Jesse implies these two are top level talent. Not in the WWF at least they’re not. They’re really building this slowly which is something good. It’s not done anymore and it should be. Oh I forgot: both guys have shin guards on which allegedly stops the submissions from hurting.

To further my hatred of him, Ronnie Garvin is in the figure four and makes “funny” faces at Valentine. Who in the world thought that would be a good idea? No wonder Vince was running out of money. He spent a ton of it on high quality cocaine apparently. Garvin uses an Indian Deathlock. Other than Terry Funk losing to Harley Race with it, I don’t think anyone has ever won anything with it.

If nothing else, these guys are beating the tar out of each other. That’s not bad at all. After a double collision, Hart steals Garvin’s leg brace which is called the Hammer Jammer. Now the figure four works. I think that almost comes close to making sense, but it’s just overdone. After reversing the figure four, we slug it out some more. This has been a very Attitude Era style match. Garvin steals the Valentine leg brace. Hart gets beaten up and a bad Sharpshooter from Garvin gets him the win.

Rating: F. Any match that Ronnie Garvin is featured in automatically is awful, no questions asked. For an unbiased grade let’s go with a B-. This was very intense and all kinds of brutal without weapons use. I still hate Garvin, but this was his best match to date that I’ve seen.

Sean is with Hacksaw, who says that Boss Man won’t be a problem for him. Duggan just looks WEIRD here. His eyes are mostly closed so I’m guessing stoned and or drunk. The end of his board is green for some reason too.

Big Bossman vs. Jim Duggan

Duggan still has no music here. Oh and Slick is Boss Man’s manager. Surprising no one, this starts as a big brawl. Almost immediately we’re on the floor. Boss Man misses a charge and his arm hits the post, and in something that stuns me, Duggan actually follows up on it! That lasts all of 3 seconds as Boss Man goes back on offense, with a FREAKING ENZIGURI! What in the world??? Where did he learn that?

Tony says the Boss Man shouldn’t have the nightstick. Jesse counters with why should Duggen have the 2×4? Tony says it’s his trademark. Wow and I thought Vince was biased towards faces. From a wrestling standpoint, this is crap. From a brawling standpoint it’s pretty good. I’m not sure what Duggan has done other than punch, but that’s ok I suppose. No actually it isn’t. I know he’s a brawler but there’s other stuff you can do too.

Clotheslines, shoulders, maybe a suplex or something? That would at least add some variety. There’s a real similarity in styles here which means that it’s going to be very hard to have a good match between these two. It can work with guys like Bret and Shawn, but with guys like Duggan who are kind of limited in their offense, this isn’t going to go well. Also, this isn’t the Boss Man that you’re familiar with. He’s about 40-50 pounds heavier at this stage of his career.

He’s not nearly as fat as he was last year, but he’s still a big old guy. You can really tell here by the end that they’re both just completely spent. Considering we’re about eight minutes in, that’s not saying a lot. For some reason that I’ll never get, Boss Man goes for a top rope splash that naturally misses.

It’s a shame that two guys are this spent this fast. Ok maybe not fast but it shouldn’t be this bad period. Boss Man nails Duggan with the stick but gets caught for the very cheap DQ. Dang man can we please get a clean pin in a match tonight? Is that too much to ask for? The 2×4 doesn’t hit anyone but it gets rid of the heels.

Rating: C+. This was fine for what it was, which is a big brawl. Neither guy is going to light the world on fire or anything like that, so this was about as good as it was ever going to get. Boss Man had slimmed down a bit here and was getting close to the weight that he would be most famous at. That enziguri was kind of preview of the great stuff that was coming from him in the next year or so. Anyway, this was good enough and they kept it kind of short which was the best thing possible.

Nothing has change in the last half hour as Mania 6 is STILL in Toronto!

Perfect is proud of what he did, and that he got #30.

Brother Love Show

Love is talking about the definition of a lady. He brings out the definition of a lady: Sensational Sherri. Jesse actually says she looks hot. I don’t remember hearing that term in 1990. In what takes about 10 minutes, they say that Sapphire is the definition of a peasant which brings her out.

Love keeps cutting her off over and over again which gets her more and more angry. She hits Sherri, leading to Savage coming out. Dusty of course comes out and the faces run off the heels and beat up Love. That took 12 minutes somehow. What was the point of Sapphire? Does anyone have an answer to that for me? That was long and rather pointless.

A lot of people say their thoughts on their Rumble numbers.

Dino Bravo wants his to be close to Warrior’s.

Earthquake will crush everyone.

Demolition say they won’t have to fight each other this year, so they’re lucky.

Bad News Brown says that people will be crying when their favorite wrestlers lose.

Dusty says that he wants to get his hands on Savage. Sapphire joins him to incomprehensibly yell.

The Rockers say they’ll be fine and they want the Powers of Pain.

Hercules says that he’s ready.

Rick Martel says no one will touch his beautiful face.

Tito Santana says he has no friends today. ARRIBA!

Jimmy Snuka says something about sharks.

Slick and Akeem (who over the last two years has had by far the best run in the two Rumbles) is the baddest guy in there.

Warrior is his general insane self, saying something about a virus, then mentioning Hogan’s name.

Tony and Jesse say some generic stuff before the next batch talk. This must have been an intermission.

Savage says he’s the person you shouldn’t bet against.

The Powers of Pain say they’ll win, which makes no sense but whatever.

Jake says the man that will do anything will win, which is him.

The Harts say they’re ready to go the distance. Those two had scary chemistry together.

Honky says he’s going to play 29 hits.

Finally, Hogan says that he’s ready.

Royal Rumble

We already know that DiBiase got #1, so the big question is who got #2? The answer would be none other than the joke of the Hall of Fame, Koko B. Ware. Seriously, what’s wrong with this picture? DiBiase, who still doesn’t have music here but would get it by Mania, isn’t in the Hall of Fame but Ware is. That’s just inexcusable. Ted jumps him on the way into the ring which is smart.

Koko is blonde here for no apparent reason. He gets slammed head first into the buckle and for some reason that wakes him up. Koko goes into jobber offense 101 but a charge at the ropes leaves DiBiase alone in the ring. 3 is Marty Jannetty, who I’m currently debating about in the spam zones. After some more jobber offense including that signature punch of his, Jannetty tries a cross body near the ropes and goes out to leave DiBiase alone again.

Jake Roberts is in fourth. These two would go at it again at Mania. DiBiase jumps to the floor to go after him including putting on the Million Dollar Dream. Back in the ring Jake naturally takes over and goes for the DDT, which fails. Sorry for the play by play aspect here, but this early on it’s really just one liners until we get something significant going on, which may take a little time.

They beat on each other for awhile until Savage comes in at 5. He’s rocking bright blue tights trimmed with black and nearly pink gloves. I’ll give him this: he was unique. They double team Jake as we’re finally getting something going here. Far less than two minutes later, Roddy freaking Piper is in at 6. The fans pop loudly for him too. That’s a pretty good collection of talent in there, but very few titles in the company.

Savage had three, DiBiase had three, Piper had one and Roberts had zero. That’s quite surprising. That’s quite a tag match also. There are some insane feuds in there, some of which never happened. Savage vs. Piper anyone? Can you imagine the promos those two would have on each other? All four of these guys could work and talk with the best of them. We mess that up with the Warlord coming in at seven.

He’s still a Power of Pain here so he’s about as generic of a monster heel as you could imagine. In something that’s both surprising and cool, Piper just flat out beats Warlord up. That’s awesome. Piper can really fight when he has to. Sherri shouting to break Jake’s neck is creepy. The eighth guy is Bret Hart. DANG there’s some talent out there! You have Bret, Savage, Roberts, Piper and DiBiase out there.

Just how awesome of a collection of talent is that? Bret got a very good pop by the way, so people knew that he was something special. Since he’s Bret Hart he goes after the biggest man in the match. This is a smark’s dream match here. Piper and Hart work together. Is there a bad combination in there that doesn’t include Warlord? With this many great guys in there, nine has to suck.

It’s Bad News Brown, who somehow is the sixth most talented guy in the ring out of seven? That can’t be something that would happen a lot. Brown was so far ahead of his time it’s scary. Think of Brown and then think of Austin. How many similarities are there in there? Jake sets for the DDT but Savage knocks him out instead. Dang I guess it couldn’t last forever. Piper almost puts DiBiase out but Savage makes the save.

Tony suggests that Savage has been paid off. That’s an interesting thought. We hit double digits with Dusty, who skips to the ring. That was just a wrong image. Naturally he goes after Savage with a bunch of elbows that miss by about two or three inches each. Dusty takes out Savage in what might have been the only thing Dusty ever got over Savage in their very long feud. There’s a fan in a red shirt in the front row that is as energetic of a fan as I’ve ever seen at a wrestling show.

Andre is eleven, moving so slowly that it’s flat out sad to watch. He can’t even stand up straight since his back is so messed up. Within seconds he tosses the Warlord as Heenan and Fuji are going at it on the floor. I’d pay to not have to see that. Dusty gets crushed by the epic weight of Andre in the corner. There’s some great comedy there that a guy as lazy as Dusty is getting crushed by the biggest guy in the company.

Speaking of annoying wrestlers, Red Rooster is 12. I know I wasn’t talking about annoying wrestlers but I had nothing better for a transition there. Piper throws out Brown but Brown comes back and pulls Piper out. They fight to the back with a huge Roddy chant accompanying them. This led to the weird match where Piper was painted half black.

According to his DVD, Andre and someone else ribbed him by getting rid of the stuff that got the paint off of him so he was stuck like that for 2-3 weeks afterwards. That’s just amusing. Just to recap, in the ring we have Andre, Rooster, Hart, DiBiase, Rhodes, and at 13 we have Axe of Demolition. As he gets in, Andre throws out Rooster, thank goodness. Dusty and Axe get Andre tied in the ropes but before they can try to throw him out, Haku, Andre’s partner, comes in at 14 to make the save.

DiBiase looks spent one second and the next he looks great. That’s impressive. Dusty does his weird Hulking Up thing with the dancing that I always got annoyed with. His Twinkie reserves get low though and he gets knocked back down. We get to halfway with Smash, putting the tag champions and the former champions in there at the same time. What a coincidence!

Akeem the African Dream and by far the most successful Rumble guy ever starts the second half by going after Andre of all people. Demolition take out Andre with a simple double clothesline. That gets a massive pop. Bret is thrown out during the hullabaloo over Andre. Your current lineup is Demolition, DiBiase, Rhodes, Akeem and Haku. Snuka is in at 17. This thing is going by quickly.

He and Akeem go at it in the house show match from a nightmare. Snuka wins, putting Akeem out early, at least by his standards. Schiavone says the battle rages on, which he used to say all the time in the World War 3 matches. Bravo gets up to 18. You can tell that the guys are starting to get a bit tired out there. There’s a ton of power guys in there also. Earthquake is 19 and he nearly immediately puts out Dusty.

He tosses Axe as well so you can see how big of a deal they were going to make this guy, at least in the short term. Neidhart is 20, giving us him, Earthquake, Haku, DiBiase, Smash, Bravo and Snuka. All of them other than Bravo combine to get rid of Earthquake. Hart is panicking over this of course. Granted I think he panics ordering dinner. I mean think about it: chicken or pasta. HE CAN’T TAKE THAT KIND OF PRESSURE!!!

We start the final ten with Ultimate Warrior who is the IC Champion at the time. He takes out Bravo, who is as pale as humanly possible while still being alive. Only DiBiase and Snuka aren’t power guys out there, and Jimmy is debatable.

Martel is 22nd, and somehow he’s the only former world champion in this match at the moment. How creepy does that sound? Haku takes out Smash with a backdrop and a superkick that was always awesome. We get a Strike Force reunion as Tito Santana is in at Michael Jordan’s number.

We’re in need of some fresh jobbers in there to replace the tired ones that we have. Hey it’s Honky at 24. He certainly fits that description at this time period. Warrior and Martel take out Anvil followed by Warrior putting out DiBiase to a big pop. That man has earned a ham sandwich if anyone ever has. We’ve got Warrior, Snuka, Honky, Haku, Santana and Martel in there at the moment and they’re joined by Hogan at 25.

He stumbles coming to the ring. That’s just funny. He takes out Snuka and Haku before taking the shirt off. Warrior gets rid of Tito and you can see it coming a mile away, but the awesomeness of it isn’t diminished at all. As if there wasn’t enough ego in the ring, Shawn Michaels is out next, 26th to be exact. There goes Honky so we have Hogan, Warrior…and as I was typing the other names they were thrown out, leaving us with the showdown of showdowns.

To say the crowd popped hard is an understatement. Heenan, who has no one in the ring at the moment, is standing out there watching. That’s just cool. They hit some shoulders and no one goes back that far. A criss cross leads to a double clothesline. From an unbiased perspective, that was really boring. From a pure 80s mark, the world just exploded from the sheer levels of awesome in those few seconds.

Both guys stay down for about 15 seconds until Barbarian is out at 27. That guy has been around forever with very little change to his gimmick, but he kept getting work. That’s quite interesting. Think about it. He was in WWF in the late 80s through early 90s, then in WCW for a bit then a quick run in WWF again and then was in WCW forever. That’s saying a lot. Rude I guess jumps the gun as he’s in maybe 20 seconds after Barbarian.

Even Jesse makes a point about it. Rude hits a pretty good dropkick to put Warrior down. For some reason Warrior saves Hogan. Jesse of course hates it but Tony has no issue with it. Rude and Warrior just always had scary good chemistry together. I’ve never gotten that. Hogan tries to return the favor and save Warrior but knocks Warrior out instead. Warrior of course jumps back in and then more or less dances out.

29 is Hercules leaving just Perfect for 30. What is the deal with pale guys wearing powder blue? Both Hercules and Bravo do that. If what’s said about Hogan and Big Show is true, Hogan has bigger boots than Show. I find that unlikely. I love how Jesse and Heenan were right about Hogan being crooked for years. I wonder if those were semi-shoot comments. Perfect finishes us at 30.

He was actually more or less set in stone to win this thing, but Hogan said no, giving us this ending. Barbarian is put out by Hercules. Yeah Perfect was supposed to be the top heel to challenge Hogan, probably even fighting him at Mania but due to Hogan saying no and Perfect vs. Hogan tanking house shows, Vince went with Warrior. That explains the big showdown from earlier.

We get down to Rude and Perfect against Hogan, which was the original ending but with Perfect winning though. Perfect accidentally puts out Rude, leaving us with Perfect and Hogan. Can you imagine if Perfect had actually won this? How awesome would that have been? It’s not like Hogan would have been crushed by it or anything. Perfect gets the suplex on Hogan but Hogan pops up.

You mean he got up from a generic not exactly snapping suplex? NO WAY! Even I have to give that one to Hogan. After smacking the post, Perfect is gone and Hogan wins…of course. I would have loved to see Perfect win there to set up that match on SNME or something. It wouldn’t have worked at Mania, but it would have rocketed Perfect to the top heel spot which was vacant at the time. I guess it was him, but not by much at all. Massive posing ends the show.

Rating: A-. This was good all around. It had cool moments like Demolition beating Andre and the showdown, but it also had the great battle royal stuff like odd alliances and interesting matchups. This was the Rumble getting it right for the first time. Earthquake looked like a big deal because of this which was the main point. This certainly was a success and went by FAST, which to me says it was interesting.

Overall Rating: C-. Let’s see: first match sucked, second match was a long glorified squash, third was a Garvin match, and fourth was a decent brawl. You add in a good Rumble and to me that’s right in the middle. It’s not a terrible show, but once again this is all about the main event with a horrible midcard. This was all about setting up Mania though and it did just that. Hogan vs. Warrior was the dream match that people wanted to see and they got a preview here.

Royal Rumble 1989
Date: January 15, 1989
Location: The Summit, Houston, Texas
Attendance: 19,000
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Jesse Ventura

We have arrived at Pay Per View for this one and just looking at the card you can tell things are…about the same actually. Again there are just four matches and a segment, although this one is an improvement. The matches not called the Rumble aren’t exactly jumping off the page at me, but looking at a few names in the Rumble it’s a massive improvement with guys like Hogan, Savage, Andre, and DiBiase in it.

The segment is also better as it’s a posedown between Ultimate Warrior and Rick Rude who were kind of feuding at the time. You can just tell that the show has a much higher production value and has had more time put into it which likely will mean a much better product. Granted that’s just on paper.

I wonder how the show itself would turn out. I wish there was a way I could find out. Oh. I guess I could just watch it. I think I’ll do that, and I might as well write about it too, so why don’t you come along? If I get hungry I can always eat your leg.

Our opening video is Vince listing off all of the participants in the match. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not because it keeps surprises from occurring which is one of the highlights of the match. I get what they’re going for here but at the same time it’s just a bit odd.

Jesse’s shirt has a big shark on it. That’s most odd. He and Gorilla run down the card and we’re ready to go.

A bunch of guys take WAY too long to say they’ll win.

Dino Bravo/Rougeaus vs. Hart Foundation/Jim Duggan

What is with the Rumble and 2/3 fall matches? This makes three in two years. Isn’t that a bit of overkill guys? This is really just about two feuds being lumped into one match which is fine. They say it’s international rules to justify the 2/3 falls which is fine, but the choice is just odd indeed. It’s not necessarily good or bad but just odd. The heels have Frenchie Martin and Jimmy Hart with them.

Monsoon says that the 2×4 is a mascot and not a foreign object. That’s just odd indeed. The Harts do this weird thing of taking Bret’s glasses off and make it a spectacle. I don’t remember them doing that ever before. We start with power vs. power in Bravo vs. Neidhart. They reference the weightlifting thing from last year which makes me want to rip my hair out. The USA chant goes up for an American and two Canadians (Neidhart has dual citizenship).

They’re going really slowly here and I’m not sure if I like that. They talk about Bret’s awesome in ring ability which is completely true. It’s good to know that they saw the talent that far back. Bret then takes the side suplex from Bravo and the elevated seated senton from the Rougeaus (both of their finishers) to make it 1-0 for the heels. Bret has to start the next fall as we are LIVE IN HOUSTON!

Gorilla once again botches the use of the term literally as no one is hanging from the rafters. I don’t know why but I will never stop marking out for the jumping reverse elbow from anyone. That move is just awesome. Once again Bravo does his stupid little dance before he makes a tag. I’ve never gotten what the deal was with that. Bret is still in there by the way. Again, it never ceases to amaze me when fans chant USA for two Canadian wrestlers.

Monsoon tries to cover for them by saying it’s for Duggan, but why chant for him when he’s not even in the match at the moment? Either way it’s just stupid. We hit a rest hold with Bret getting beaten on even more than usual in this match. Not sure why he’s been in there so long but it’s probably the best thing they could do. The Rougeaus do a switch and for the life of me I don’t get how people couldn’t tell them apart.

They look nothing alike. The abdominal stretch is hooked and Gorilla complains. Good thing that some things never change. FINALLY Bret tags out and Duggan is in. After a lot of double teaming Duggan pins one of the Rougeaus to tie us up at one. For some reason Hacksaw is over and by far and away the biggest star in this match. I don’t get that and never will.

The heels take over for a very short time as Bravo idiotically (at least he’s living up to his reputation) tries to ram Duggan’s head into the turnbuckle. The face comeback lasts all of a second though as Duggan is beaten on even more. After the luke warm tag to Bret, we have a big thing of calamity and Duggan pops Bravo with the board to let Bret pin him. I love faces getting away with everything they want to.

Rating: C+. Nothing bad at all here, but I just don’t get the 2/3 falls aspect. I mean really, why do that? Do these six guys need an extra ten minutes or so? I get that there’s a lot of time to fill and a ton of the roster is taken, but I don’t get it. To be fair though, the match was fine and there’s nothing to complain about from an in ring perspective. It wasn’t anything great but perfectly fine.

We see some people picking their numbers.

DiBiase doesn’t like his number but pulls in Slick and offers him a deal.

Luke and Butch both get theirs and trade them.

Honky hates his.

Bad News likes his.

Demolition and Jake are indifferent.

The Rockers wish each other good luck.

Super Posedown

This is more or less a body contest between Warrior and Rude. Well that’s more interesting than Bravo’s weightlifting I suppose. Warrior is IC Champion here. Monsoon says Warrior is pumped up all the time. Make your own steroids joke. Rude is rocking the mustache here. The first pose is the double bicep. Popular support wins this so take a guess as to who is going to win. This is really quite boring.

Jesse and Heenan try to make this seem legit which is helping things out a lot. We move to the abdominal pose for which Heenan has to oil up Rude. That’s just creepy to an extent. The third is just called most muscular. If nothing else they’re keeping this moving fast. That’s the best part about it unlike last year when it took 20 minutes. Also, this is actually in the ring. We go through the third pose and still no one cares. The fourth is a medley which takes up even more time.

Was there supposed to be a point to this? In a shocking development, Rude jumps Warrior and beats the tar out of him with an exercise bar. That was the whole point of this thing and it took too long. Again though, it was far better than the weightlifting thing last year. Warrior gets up and destroys all of the referees and suits that try to help him up and chases after Rude. This was all to set up Rude vs. Warrior at Mania.

Women’s Title: Rockin Robin vs. Judy Martin

Robin was this random chick they put the belt on and since she was the epitome of the bathroom break match, they kept the belt on her for over a year. It was retired in 1990 because no one cared and remained that way until Alundra Blayze came along and held it for about a year, then after about another year of various feuds and champions it was dropped (into the trashcan on Nitro) and didn’t come back until the Sable era.

She was just flat out boring, plain and simple, yet of course Vince stuck with her because no one really gave cared about women’s wrestling anyway and it was based on wrestling rather than athleticism or looks. Sherri, the woman that Robin took the title from, challenges the winner for a title shot. She wouldn’t win. Just after the start of the match she jumps on commentary. There’s something that even the commentators aren’t sure about but they think it was a DDT.

Again I want to know what the point of hooking the head on a slam is. I don’t recall any man other than Earthquake doing that. Sherri sounds like Michelangelo from TMNT 2. This is really short and a relief that Wikipedia has an error. They claim this is about sixteen minutes when it barely breaks five.

I thought this might have been clipped but I can’t find a single instance where it goes sixteen, so we’ll say that’s an error, which is a relief. Robin wins with a second rope cross body after faking one then getting the second. Robin’s music is really annoying.

Rating: C. I have to go with average here because other than the ending I don’t remember anything about this match. I know that doesn’t sound good, but the time in this match and everything in it are complete blanks to me. Nothing at all of note happened in it other than the ending, which was kind of cool as the fake out isn’t something that you see that often. I think I get why the division was dropped in about a year.

Sean Mooney is with Slick and the Twin Towers, Akeem and Big Boss Man. Akeem might be the funniest character in wrestling history. Slick denies the deal with DiBiase from earlier. Sean shows the footage of them talking about a deal earlier, which Slick tries to play off as something about a shoe shine. That was just odd.

Harley Race vs. Haku

A few notes about this match: first of all, it wasn’t on the home video release at first so quite a few of you have likely never seen it. It’s only been released on the Rumble Anthologies and the original broadcast plus online. Second, this is a one night only return for Race who got really badly hurt against Hogan and had to drop the crown. Haku took it but never beat Race, so Race is back to take his crown.

Before the match, Jesse is sitting on the throne and says he likes it. Thanks for that Jess. I’ve actually never seen this match all the way through so these will be my legit first thoughts on seeing this in its entirety. When I say not all the way through, I mean I’ve seen a few stills of it and never any actual video so here we go. Heenan manages both guys so he’s set no matter what. I’ve always liked the throne entrance the king got, but DANG that jobber needs a shirt.

He must weigh about 320 and he’s in just regular tights. That’s not right. Both guys come out to the same music and in a funny bit, Race is introduced as “The Former King, Harley Race!” That just sounds funny. Race, the king of the heels, jumps Haku early. Both guys have the regal purple on which is amusing as well. I think Race is somehow the face here, which just makes me feel dirty.

The tattoos on Race always looked odd to me as he seems too clean for them I guess you would say. This was a very rare thing here as we have heel vs. heel with Race being the less heelish guy. Race is just old here and is being asked to carry this because he’s the only one of the two that knows how to work a good match. Jesse says that he has to give the experience advantage to Race. Well DUH Jess. How can it be something that’s debatable?

One guy has wrestled longer than the other. It’s not really subjective. The fans are cheering Harley. This just isn’t right. They do one of the all time worst collision spots with Race going to the floor. It looked like they were in slow motion on that one. Heenan is his usual masterful self cheering for both guys at various times. This is called the Battle For the Crown because this is a match that was dying for extra billing.

Speaking of dying, Gorilla tries to say that the crowd is hushed in anticipation for the Rumble. You have to give it to Gorilla: he never gave up. Race gets a bad piledriver on the floor as it seems like this is in slow motion again. They’re just both so slow that it’s almost painful to watch. Race simply had no business being in a ring at this point and it wasn’t even his fault. He was just old and injured which certainly isn’t something you can pin on him.

He was broke due to a bad business thing (that wasn’t his fault) in Kansas City so he had to keep wrestling to pay the bills. He was good for stuff like this: putting over guys that can’t wrestle well enough on their own. I love how you can have a guy do some chops at an angle and all of a sudden he’s a martial arts master. Goodness that was a lot of A’s in a row. After Race dominates for a bit, he misses a punch and gets caught by what we would call Sweet Chin Music to get pinned.

Rating: C-. I feel sorry here because the wrestling and the in ring stuff isn’t actually that bad at all. The problem is that it feels like this is in slow motion like I’ve said a few times. That’s really the best way to put it. Race was just so old out there that I’m very glad he went to WCW and became a manager which was what he was far better suited for at this point.

He just was too old here and it was showing bad. Haku was someone that had to be carried and this was his night to be put over and while he wasn’t bad, he certainly wasn’t good. The match was bad but the wrestling was ok if that makes any sense at all.

More people say they’ll win.

Gene talks to Rude and Heenan about the pose down where Rude says he won. They bail quickly, I’m assuming afraid of the Warrior.

Royal Rumble

I’ll spare you from another rule explanation because I’m sure you know it and I already listed them off once. This year they point out the everyman for themselves rule though, which is a change from last year. That opens a big door though as it implies face vs. face and heel vs. heel. Number one is Ax of Demolition. The interval is set at two minutes again and this year they actually make it possible as the match goes over an hour, so sit back because this is going to be a long review.

Actually don’t sit back because you might not be able to see the screen. Sit in the middle I guess. Number two is Smash, so we have Demolition going at it to start us off. I love how random of a thing this is, and it’s happened at least one other time that I remember with the Steiners I think, and then the Hardys came in at 1 and 3 in 2001. They’re the tag team champions here, in the middle of their epic year and a half or so run.

To their credit they beat on each other. It just doesn’t look right though. This is like Bubba and D-Von fighting. They’re just not good at fighting on their own. There’s something about seeing partners fight that just doesn’t work. Matt and Jeff were complete failures in their feud, and I think a lot of it is people would rather have them be partners rather than opponents. They just didn’t click as opponents and that’s a shame.

Andre comes in at three and this is an historic moment, as Demolition immediately beat him to the ground with what looks like ease. Andre looks like Rey Mysterio getting beaten on like this which is something you’ll never hear again. Mr. Perfect is 4 which sucks because I wanted more Andre vs. Demolition. Think about this for a minute. Demolition did in about ten seconds what it took Hogan fifteen minutes to do. That’s insane.

No wonder those three plus Jake were the best Survivor Series team of all time. All three of them go after the Giant and Andre just shoves Smash out after Perfect distracts him a bit. Perfect is a very young guy here in the company and is rocking just regular tights. Being the Rhodes scholar that Axe is he goes after Perfect and gets beaten up by Andre for his trouble. Number five is the best possible advertisement for murdering something I’ve ever seen: Ronnie Garvin.

He is easily the most worthless wrestler this side of the Junkyard dog in wrestling history. How in the world did they ever decide to put him over RIC FLAIR for the world title? I just do not get that and never will. Everyone goes after Andre but he just sits on Axe, literally. Greg Valentine is in at six, hopefully willing to use a hammer to crush the cockroach known as Garvin.

We have four against one here with literally everyone that’s been in the match so far attacking Andre. Gorilla calls everyone that’s beating on Andre a star. That’s just amusing. ANDRE GETS RID OF GARVIN!!! I officially love this man. Get him a cow and a vineyard of wine right now!

Jake Roberts is seventh to a huge pop. He was probably the second third biggest face at the time as Warrior wasn’t quite there yet and Hogan and Savage were untouchable. Andre just chokes the life out of Jake in the corner which is sweet. That’s what I love about Andre: after being quadruple teamed he just grabs someone and chokes them. There’s something completely awesome about that.

He beats anyone that tries to stop him from beating on Jake. That’s just sweet. He’s protecting Jake so he can have the honor of hurting him. Ron Bass is here now as we get closer to reaching our jobber quota. Just after Bass comes in Andre throws Jake out. Bass is freshly bald thanks to a bad comedy angle with Beefcake. Andre is the white elephant in there at the moment as it’s really just about trying to get him out with various incredibly short term alliances.

That right there is why there needs to be at least one giant in every battle royal. They offer the main source of a story in one of these, because traditionally these matches are void of any kind of a story because it’s a complete free for all, which is fine because that’s the point.

Having someone like Andre in there for about fifteen to twenty minutes gives you a way to have something running through a large part of the match and hold it together, which is the main weakness of all battle royals not known as the Royal Rumble. The next guy in is HBK, who at this time is next to nothing. Perfect throws Axe out.

Shawn and Perfect go at it in what would eventually be one of the most overhyped feuds in wrestling history as the build was awesome but the match kind of sucked, which to be fair was what likely was inevitable. Perfect shows off his brains early by staying in after going over the top. Andre keeps choking people as that was the essence of his offense around this time. I really miss the old school stone looking Rumble logo. The thing was just cool looking.

Jesse says if he were in there he’d go to a neutral corner. Gorilla says if Jesse were in there he’d be out of there. And people wonder why Monsoon got some strange looks at times. After about a minute and a half of waiting, Butch of the Bushwackers gets us into double digits. As he’s coming to the ring, Jake runs back out with Damien and Andre eliminates himself. That’s a smart way to keep the feud hot, keep Andre looking credible and get rid of him to keep the match going.

The five jobbers lumber around the ring for a bit because there’s no big name in there for them to do anything with, which is the issue with a lot of these things. The timing is getting shorter and shorter here as Honky comes in at 11. Honky had recently lost the IC belt and was in desperate need of a reason to keep his job. He was worthless without the title so until they put him in Rhythm and Blues there was little for him to do.

Of the six guys in there, Shawn is the only face according to Gorilla in some slightly different words. Oh Butch is there too. Yep, Shawn is the only face in there worth anything. Tito balances things out a bit at 12 to a solid pop. I don’t get why he never got another big push. He was still great in the ring and was getting big reactions, but of course he was made a jobber to the stars for guys like Barbarian and Warlord.

Gorilla and Jesse discuss some theory about what is considered a good number as not a lot is going on at the moment. To be fair though the crowd is staying hot so there we are. Bad News comes in at 13 as he should have been a far bigger star than he was. Brown vs. Hogan could have been awesome if they had some guts and did it right. Honky is eliminated pretty fast to a decent pop. That’s a good sign if nothing else: he’s still getting reactions.

This has really slowed down a lot and we need some big names to come in and clear out some of these jobbers. Naturally the next guy in is Marty Jannetty, so if nothing else we have a tag team in there now. A double dropkick that was NOT stolen from the Rock N Roll Express (really, we promise we’ve never heard of those guys that we stole half our name from. Honest) takes out Bass to get us back down to seven people. I think Tito’s knee is hurt.

Thankfully Savage, the WWF Champion and on the brink of a heel turn for the ages, comes in to get the crowd WAY into this. He freaking mugs Bad News who he was having a short but very intense feud with. Arn Anderson comes out next as Savage knocks out Valentine. In the epitome of an IWC wet dream team, Anderson and Savage team up to eliminate Shawn. Dang that was just flat out odd to type. Tully Blanchard is in at 17 as this is slowing down again.

The Brainbusters beat the tar out of Jannetty and prove why they’re awesome. They dump him and heeeeeeere’s Hulk at possibly his lowest number ever: 18. I would have loved to have this be a legit draw and see him get like 4. Let’s see, how many people does Hogan get rid of to make him look like Superman. Perfect is the first victim as Hogan saves his handshake buddy Savage from him. He beats up the Brainbusters but doesn’t eliminate them, which allows them to get rid of Tito.

Since it’s gotten a bit crazy, for a recap we have Butch, Hogan, Anderson, Savage, Brown and Blanchard in at the moment. Amazingly, Butch has been in there about fifteen minutes which has to be his biggest accomplishment in the WWF. That’s actually quite surprising. At 19 we have the other Marching Moron who licked me at a house show once. Brown puts out Butch to keep us at six guys.

Anderson beats on Hogan which makes me flash back to Nitro just before the NWO showed up. Anderson beat him two weeks straight on Nitro which was a series I always liked. It gave Arn the spotlight that he never really got and definitely was qualified to have. In at 20 is the Hall of Famer Koko B. Ware. That just flat out doesn’t work no matter how many times you write it. How in the world is that thing in the HOF but Savage isn’t?

I don’t care how many times he had Stephanie, enshrine him already! Hogan dumps Koko to a pop. Even the fans didn’t like him. There goes Luke and Hogan’s total is at I think three. With three clotheslines inside of 30 seconds he adds both Brainbusters and the Warlord who sets the shortness record at 2 seconds. He stepped in and got a running clothesline to put him out.

To get the record to eight, Hogan runs over and puts out Brown and Savage, the later being by mistake. This would be a major point in the heel turn in about two weeks. Savage is TICKED! Liz comes down to try to straighten things out as Savage offers the handshake to fix things for now. Savage and Liz leave as Boss Man gets in.

He’s about 100lbs heavier than his traditional weight. This began another Rumble tradition of the one on one showdown. These two had been the big feud for a good while and the showdown hadn’t really come yet so this was a pretty big deal. Not surprisingly Boss Man takes over and Gorilla defends Hogan with the somewhat legitimate argument that Boss Man is fresh.

Hogan takes a decent piledriver and eventually gets back to even as the buzzer rings about three and a half minutes after Boss Man came out. And in a SHOCKING, yes SHOCKING I say, turn of events, it’s Boss Man’s partner Akeem. Now here’s something amusing to me where the bias towards the main event is as evident as ever.

Gorilla starts whining and complaining about how DiBiase must have had something to do with this because there’s no way that tag partners could have consecutive numbers and wind up in this position against Hogan. He’s completely backwards there. First of all, this is the third time in this Rumble where partners have come in back to back (Rockers and Brainbusters, which more or less gives away that this isn’t a random draw).

On top of that, how could DiBiase have known that Hogan would have been in there at this moment all by himself? If nothing else, this would prove that DiBiase had nothing to do with it as there is no reason for him to assume that Hogan would have A, been in there already when the Twin Towers came in, and B, that Hogan would be alone.

In order to do that, DiBiase would have had to find out what Hogan’s number was, and the only ways he could have done that would be to find out Hogan’s number directly from Hulk which is unlikely or to have found out all 29 other spots AND managed to spread enough deals around to make sure that Akeem and Boss Man had consecutive numbers after Hogan.

I’m supposed to believe that he managed to pull all this off in less than two hours with the help of just Virgil? Give us some credit there Gorilla. Granted I don’t think he put that much thought into what he said, but that’s the point of these reviews: to break down things like that and show how stupid some stories can be. In a quite anticlimactic moment, Hogan is hit with a double splash and thrown out. Really, that’s all there is to it.

That just came out of nowhere and all of a sudden the fact of how stupid that may have been kicks in. Tell me oh great and mighty Vince: why should I care about the rest of the match? Your top faces are all gone now with about ten entries to go. This wasn’t smart booking at all as they backed themselves into a corner for what is likely going to be a weak finish. Hogan of course pulls Boss Man to the floor and beats on him as Beefcake comes out. It’s a big tag team brawl minus the tagging.

Hogan says he’s going back in and the referees finally do their jobs and keep him from doing so. Hogan pulls Boss Man out AGAIN because this is all about him again, despite him not being world champion or even in the title picture. He and Boss Man fight to the back and they’re going to say Boss Man is out because Hogan pulled him over the ropes. In at 25 we have someone that might even be less useful than Garvin in the Red Rooster.

I finally got the joke/idea behind the name of his finisher the Five Arm. It’s one better than the forearm. Get it? That lowered my IQ a good bit. The announcers try to figure out who the final five guys will be and naturally they know them inside of 4 seconds. The two faces do the generic beating on the heel because that’s Rumble Theory 101. Gorilla actually agrees that Hogan cheated. I never thought I’d hear that.

Barbarian is in next to make what should be a completely one sided match. Barbarian, the genius that he is, beats up the faces and then goes after Akeem on his own. I love idiotic heels. Despite this being 1989, Big John Studd is somehow still a relic here. He goes straight for Akeem in what would become a running theme for the end of this match which I’ll get to in a minute. John is a face here on one last hurrah I guess you would call it.

Basically John keeps throwing people out of his way so it’s just him and Akeem, which can be translated into the guy that he can do the least with while still looking like he’s doing something. Hercules comes in at 28. Just like I thought it would, this has REALLY slowed down since Hogan left and it just doesn’t feel right at all. The next to last entrant is Rick Martel, the returned face who is just about to become a heel and a model.

The final guy is DiBiase to few people’s shock. If he was supposed to be the big heel, two things: one, he should win, and two he should go on to something big after this. At Mania 5 he had a throwaway match with Brutus. Studd is just a complete waste of time out there as he hasn’t actually beaten on anyone other than Akeem. The final eight, all in the ring, are DiBiase, Akeem, Studd, Martel, Red Rooster, Beefcake, Hercules and Barbarian. What a motley crew that is.

Rooster is finally gone and we’re at seven. Studd finally fights someone else in the Barbarian. I don’t believe it. DiBiase and Barbarian put out Beefcake and Hercules to bring us down to DiBiase, Barbarian, Studd, Akeem and Martel. Martel puts out Barbarian and then gets knocked out maybe four seconds later to get us down to three.

The heels double team Studd as I can’t wait for this to end. Akeem is put out after a mistake and we’re down to Studd and DiBiase. He offers money and Studd isn’t interested. After a few power moves, Studd causally throws DiBiase over for the most lackluster ending in the history of the Rumble. Virgil comes in and gets beaten up as well. Wow that was dumb.

Rating: C+. This is the first of its kind in a way so you have to take it with a grain of salt. They didn’t know what they were doing with the thirty man formula, but I just don’t get the point in having Studd win it. I suppose the issue was that they didn’t think it was a big deal yet so they gave it to a random guy like they did last year. That’s the only thing I can think of at least.

The match really suffers at the end though because once Hogan is gone, there’s just no drama or anything at all. Studd winning was almost obvious but not quite. Also, Akeem has been in the final three in both of the first two Rumbles. How insane is that? This was a big improvement over last year, but they still had a lot of bugs to work out. Not bad, but it would be massively improved in the coming years.

In the locker room, Savage goes on a rather long rant about how it was a misunderstanding, but you can see the heel just dying to get out. Liz says that it wasn’t a fight or anything like that. The Mania main event was coming and would be obvious today, but back then it was built up so well that it was shocking.

Gorilla and Jesse say some basic stuff before we get a highlight package to end it.

Overall Rating: C-. Average. That’s the only way to put this. There’s nothing at all here that is going to be considered great by any means, but nothing at all is really all that bad. You’re not going to see anything that rivals Steamboat vs. Savage but there’s nothing here that wouldn’t hold your attention for the most part. This is where the Rumble is still being fleshed out but you can see the elements there that made it such a great concept for a show.

It’s not great and it’s not bad, but a lot of work was needed. For once though you could clearly tell that they had the right idea though and things would be much better next year where they would really get it right. I’d say this show is worth seeing once maybe, but you won’t be missing anything if you don’t see it. If you catch it and have some time to kill you won’t think it was a waste of time but you won’t be thrilled either. Not bad, but nothing great at all.

I know a lot of sites do this but I’m a site so why not me too?  Every day I’ll be posting a review of a Rumble all the way up until the 2011 show.  Hope you like them.

We have arrived at the first of the Big Four PPVs, the Royal Rumble. This is one of the true unique matches in wrestling as there isn’t another match like this. Yes it’s a battle royal, but it’s distinct from others are we have the time intervals. In case you’ve never seen one of these, the rules are simple. You have 30 men (twenty in the first one) in total with two starting it off.

Every two minutes thereafter (with a few exceptions in some years) another person comes in. The only way to be eliminated is to be thrown over the top rope with both feet touching the floor. The last man standing wins, and beginning with the 1993 match, the winner received the world title shot at Wrestlemania, making this in a way something like the semifinals of a season with the finals being at Mania.

As usual, this has a backstory attached to it involving Vince vs. Crockett. The NWA had a show called Bunkhouse Stampede, which was somehow worse than it sounds. Vince decided to give away a PPV level card (in his head at least) for free. The Royal Rumble was that show.

In something that amuses me greatly, Vince would be TICKED when the NWA did the exact same thing on March 27, airing the first Clash of the Champions, which really was a PPV caliber show at the same time as Wrestlemania 4, which this is the buildup show for. Anyway, the series has produced some great moments, primarily due to the idea of the iron man record, which is how long people can last in the match.

It’s something that’s just cool to think about while really having no significance at all. The record is over an hour by a few people but we’ll get to that later on. Other than that, it’s really just a great novelty act that only comes once a year and never gets old to me. That’s very hard to do, but it works. I have no idea how the reviews of these matches are going to go, but I’m looking forward to it. Let’s get to it.

As always, I hope you guys call me out on anything you disagree with. Keep in mind that these are simply my thoughts as I watch the shows. I very well may be wrong about every opinion I have on them, so if you think I am, then bring it up. That’s what these are for at the end of the day: getting people talking, which I’ve done enough of now, so let’s get to…more of me talking.

Royal Rumble 1988
Date: January 24, 1988
Location: Copps Coliseum, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Attendance: 18,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

Here we go with the first ever Rumble. This wasn’t actually on PPV but rather a special on USA, similar to Saturday Night’s Main Event in a way. The idea was invented by Pat Patterson, and that’s about all there is to say on that aspect of it. Since this was a TV special, it only has four matches on it, which to be fair is the same amount on the first Survivor Series. The Rumble here has twenty men in it, most of which are midcard guys.

There are two other things going on with this show other than the matches. First of all we have a contract signing for Hogan and Andre II, which took place two days after my birthday. Also, Dino Bravo is going to try to bench press 715lbs, which would be a world’s record. With all that said, let’s get to the first ever Royal Rumble, which certainly is a historic thing when you think about it.

Vince and Jesse talk about the show, which sounds ok at best, but that doesn’t really mean a lot.

Rick Rude vs. Ricky Steamboat

This was a great feud in WCW in about four years, but it never took off in the WWF for some reason. Ricky, not Rick mind you, would be gone very soon. He wanted time off to be with his newborn son, but it didn’t happen so he went to WCW and had some of the best matches of all time with Ric Flair. So Ricky and Rick are fighting here before Ricky leaves to go fight Ric. I’m glad we’ve got that cleared up.

Rude just got here recently, so there’s very little known about him. I’ll never get tired of seeing Steamboat skin the cat. It just looks awesome every single time. Ventura always seemed like he had a man crush on Rude, which was just funny to me. There’s really no point to this match other than just having a match for the sake of having a match, which isn’t something I agree with but it’s fine I suppose.

You have two great wrestlers so it means the match should be good. It’s classic 80s heel vs. face stuff, so what more do you want. That being said, this is fairly boring to start. It’s fine from a technical standpoint, but it’s a bit bland. Dragon’s armdrags help that out though, as I could watch him do those all day. Granted I’d be bored out of my mind doing so, but I could do it. Steamboat is really good at being able to keep the crowd into a very standard match.

That’s a talent that very few people ever could have, and Steamboat is one of the best ever at it. I mean, he’s working on the arm of Rude, which is some of the most standard stuff you can do and he’s making it interesting looking at least. He’s doing mainly arm work and the crowd is reacting to it. That’s all you can ask for. During this first part of the match we keep hearing a woman’s voice over and over again.

It’s not something that’s supposed to be there either. Jimmy Hart never managed Rude, at least not that I can remember, and Steamboat’s wife who occasionally came to the ring with him, so I have no clue who that is. However, once a camera swings around, we see that a woman has brought a bullhorn with her, more commonly known as a megaphone. Oh this is going to be a long match isn’t it?

And now this is just getting boring. It’s going on way too long here and Steamboat just botched taking an elbow BADLY. I mean it looked horrid, which isn’t something I can ever remember saying about him. I want to hurt that woman with the megaphone. Oh look, it’s ANOTHER armbar, but the fans are cheering it to an extent. At least there’s some psychology being used and he’s adding in more stuff to the arm to switch it up a bit. That’s nice to see.

Now if only the arm plays into the finish later on, we’ll have an actual story being told instead of just most of one which is what happens far more and far too often. Rude can’t pose because of the arm, and the woman thinks it’s just SO funny. The fans really do love Steamboat. They’re cheering wildly for simple punches and chops. That’s saying a lot. Rude goes to the really bad version of a camel clutch.

It’s the kind where he just sits on Steamboat’s back and puts his hands on his face which is supposed to be effective somehow. Thankfully that lasts about ten seconds. Oh never mind it’s back on. Dang I can’t stand cock teases like that. Steamboat slaps the mat which would be considered a tap out today, but obviously this is way too early for that. Rude really wasn’t that good at this time in his career.

He’s rather young and doesn’t have a lot of stuff in his arsenal and it’s rather boring. Somehow we’re discussing Vince putting his fingers up people’s nostrils. You can tell the announcers are rather bored at this point. This match is relying on rest holds such as this chin lock far too much. Yeah they’re actually still in it. At least with Steamboat he worked on the arm which makes sense.

It takes away the Rude Awakening and while you can argue that the clutch takes away Steamboat’s movement, it’s just boring looking. Ricky (again, not Rick but Ricky) mixed up his offense and used strikes and holds on the arm to at least keep it moving. That’s a major perk if nothing else. To their credit, the crowd has stayed rather hot the whole time. They really did love Steamboat. DANG that bridge was pretty from Dragon.

They speed it up all of a sudden and now it’s good. Steamboat goes up for the cross body but Rude pulls the referee in the way of it. I’m not sure if Rude was using the Rude Awakening yet, as he gets Steamboat up in an Argentinean Body Vice, which is where you put a guy on your shoulder and pull down. Jesse says Steamboat just got a Rude Awakening, so there’s your finisher name.

Rude would be with Heenan by the time Mania rolled around and would be somewhat better. He leaves celebrating but Vince gives away the DQ ending by mistake just before it happens. Nice going BOSS. Rude is a bit angry to say the least as we go to commercial. That’s just weird to say.

Rating: C+. This was something that didn’t need nearly twenty minutes. The problem was in all the rest holds and Rude simply wasn’t ready for a seventeen minute match yet. Steamboat didn’t help things with the arm work, but to be fair Rude forgot about it maybe two minutes after he was done. The crowd was into it, but it was just barely ok. The ending sucked too.

It’s time for the bench press attempt. Ventura talks about what we’re about to see while insulting Gene at the same time. Bravo, the Canadian, gets an interesting reception. We get a promo from his manager, Frenchy Martin. It’s in French naturally so I have no clue what he said and I can’t make fun of him. Since we only have four matches, we have time for a warm up of 415lbs first. Wait, Bravo wants it to be silent.

I’ll give you two guesses as to how that goes. He does the 415 ten times as we set up another 90 to make it 505 as Frenchy talks some more. There’s no angle or comedy angle or anything like that going on here. Bravo is just lifting weights. The fans, shockingly, are booing. He speeds this set up a bit by only doing eight reps of it. Gene is despately trying to make this seem epic and is failing completely.

We’re up to 555 now, and it’s just the same thing: Bravo wants the people to be quiet, he stalls, he lifts it, and more weight is added. What’s the point of this freaking thing? Gene is trying to do like a commentary thing here and it’s dull to no end. Bravo can’t do it because there’s too much noise. Ventura waists more time by saying be quiet and Gene asks for silence. Bravo does about six reps here (they should all be red) and again asks for silence.

This is just idiotic as we’re at about ten minutes. Yes, ten minutes is being wasted on this. Were there no jobbers available for people to squash? It’s 595 this time as Bravo hates noise. Wouldn’t the time here have been better spent in like, a match for Bravo? This is obviously supposed to be used to get him over but it’s not working. I’d assume it would work better with actual wrestling, but I don’t know enough about the finer points of the game I guess.

Again, the same formula is used but this time we have another French promo. He does three reps as Gene says how awesome Bravo is. Who really thought this would be a good idea? Remember there’s no Titantron or anything, so the people can see a spotlight on something, but for the most part they can’t see a stupid thing. We’re at 655 pounds now so at least we’re close to being done.

I love also how there’s no judge or official to determine that this would be a record or anything like that also. The booing is ridiculous now so Ventura and Bravo yell at McMahon, who allegedly was just a commentator at this time so that was odd. Hey he got 655 up! We’re over seventeen minutes now as Jesse says that this is unofficial because the bar will have to be weighed later. So wait, this might not count anyway? Give me a break guys.

This is beyond moronic and has been from the start, but supposed someone hit their head and thinks this is interesting. We don’t even get to know the results until later on? WOW and you people wonder why people popped so huge for Hogan and Savage. They were the only interesting things on these shows. Again: be quiet. He lays down but gets back up once again demanding silence. Oh come on now. He’s walking away now and Martin is trying to calm him down.

Jesse asks the people if they want to see a world record. Crowd: NO! Jesse ignores this of course. They waste a minute getting Bravo calmed down and we’re hopefully at the end of this. Jesse helps him do it by grabbing the bar. He would claim to have gotten it clean with Jesse saying he only put two pounds of finger pressure in it. This went on over twenty minutes, as in longer than the opening match. If anyone can explain the mindset of Vince for doing this, I’ll get you a ham sandwich.

Women’s Tag Titles: Jumping Bomb Angels vs. Glamour Girls

This is 2/3 falls. The Women’s Tag Titles did indeed exist. Much like he did with Moolah’s Title, Vince bought them from the NWA and gave them to the Glamour Girls who allegedly won them in Egypt. I think it was billed as a double main event and shown on a split screen with Patterson winning the Intercontinental Title in Rio. It happened blast it! Anyway, the Glamour Girls are old and annoying, but the Bomb Angles are freaking AWESOME.

At Survivor Series when they destroyed the Glamour Girls, Jesse said they were like watching Savage or Steamboat or Dynamite Kid and he couldn’t be more correct. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m not a fan of women’s wrestling, but I’ve been looking forward to this match as I’ve never seen it, so you’ll be getting a legitimate fresh review here from me.

More or less this is just housekeeping at this point, as everyone knows the Angels are winning here. I’m not going to try to spell the Angels’ last names properly time after time, but the Glamour Girls are Judy Martin and Lelani Kai. Only the Angels get entrances. These belts were defended maybe twice or so in the six and a half years they were around and no one noticed when they were retired.

These two are like Lita vs. Moolah or something like that. For the sake of simplicity, the Angels will be named Red and Pink based on their attire. All four are wearing what would be described as one piece swimsuits for attire which aren’t flattering at all. Jesse and Vince are arguing about weightlifting and Jesse implies that Vince has never lifted one. That’s another of those moments that are ironic given what we know now.

Vince doesn’t know the names of the Angels either. OH MY GOODNESS! Vince says for lack of anything better, let’s call one Pink and one Red. I called that first Vince! I don’t care if I wouldn’t be born for another ten days. That was MY idea. That’s either awesome or scary as I’m thinking the same way Vince does. The Angels are just flat out destroying the Glamour Girls here as they look about as worthless as Vince is on commentary.

Dang man at least know the names of your talent. His excuse is he doesn’t speak Japanese. What difference does that make? If I walk into an Italian restaurant I can order spaghetti and I don’t speak Italian. It’s a word and you match it with a color. How hard is that?

Pink using the split legged move that Jeff Hardy used a lot. The Angels remind me of the Hardys actually with their continuity. In a very cool spot, both have a leg of one of the Glamour Girls and pull on her as the other Girl pulls from the other side. The Angels win and the Glamour Girl that’s standing more or less winds up doing a headbutt onto her partner. It looked cool.

The Angels are embarrassing the champions at this point as the Girls more or less can only do bare bones level stuff while the Angels, although a bit sloppy at times, are all over the place with varieties of offense that look very great. Like I said they’re not perfect, but man they’re fun to watch. They’re not boring like most of the women wrestlers around this time period. It’s like the situation in the Winter Olympics a few years ago with the French judge.

One of the teams did a very basic routine perfectly and the other team did a ridiculously hard routine nearly perfectly. As far as execution goes here, the Glamour Girls are likely better, but they’re nowhere near the level the Angels are at here. Jimmy Hart rubbing one of the Glamour Girls’ calves to get the circulation back into it is funny stuff. Oh I almost forgot: the woman with the bullhorn has had it taken away or has been told to stop using it THANK GOODNESS!

The Girls win the first fall using a fairly cool looking move. Martin sets for a powerbomb but instead shoves Red over her head. Big Show used this for awhile which he called the Alley-Oop. We take a quick commercial break between falls and when we come back we ring the bell. I like that. All of a sudden Vince knows the name of the Pink Angel. Well thanks for getting it seven minutes into the match buddy.

She goes for the same finishing move again after a big brawl but Red gets a sunset flip out of it instead to tie us up. We hit another commercial and upon returning we run down the Andre/Hogan contract signing and the Rumble very quickly before the bell rings. I’m most impressed here as the announcers actually talk about the match once the bell rings instead of hyping up the bigger stuff later on.

That’s showing the girls respect which is something you rarely see in today’s product. When the Angels are on offense, this match is interesting. When the Girls are on offense, I want a sharp object to do bad things with. Ah there now it’s interesting again. The Angels hit a double dropkick from the top to win the belts in a cool looking finish. That was nice.

On replay, Jesse is proven correct as he claims that when the Angel went for the cover she hooked the arm of Martin, raising it off the mat so there shouldn’t have been a pin. Vince says that since the shoulder blade was down it counts. I don’t know what to say to that.

Rating: B-. I was expecting to be bored out of my mind here, but they carried this quite well in my eyes. It was fairly clear that these belts were a joke, but if nothing else they gave us something that we very rarely if ever get to see in this era, with that being a fast paced and well done women’s match. This was fun. It was sloppy, but fun.

We hit the recap button on Hogan vs. Andre which I’m sure you all know. In case you’re brand new to wrestling (if you are you’ve picked a most interesting place to start), Hogan and Andre had the biggest match of all time at Wrestlemania 3 in front of 93,173 people, with Hogan successfully defending the title. At one point very early in the match though, Hogan tried to slam Andre but his back gave out and Andre landed on him.

There was a lot of controversy to the count because Hogan literally couldn’t kick out and it looked like Andre had won in 15 seconds. That’s the driving force behind this rematch. McMahon says that he thinks the third mat slap was “the referee shoving himself up to signal that it was a two.” I get that Vince is the face commentator, but THAT’S the best he can come up with? No wonder he was on the verge of bankruptcy so often.

Anyway, DiBiase came into the picture and tried to buy the belt, but Hogan wasn’t interested. Since Hogan said no, DiBiase paid Andre to take out Hogan. DiBiase was so great on the mic and in general it’s terrifying. How did he not get a short run with it? Depending on if you want to believe it, there’s a story out there that says he was supposed to, but due to Honky Tonk Man throwing a monkey wrench into things, that never happened.

The full story of that is in my Mania 4 review if you’re interested, but in essence, the original plan called for DiBiase to hold the belt over the summer of 88, but it would have involved Savage beating Honky for the IC belt. He said no, so Savage got the world title four months ahead of schedule. Basically we recap the entire feud up to this point in a series of videos that take about seven minutes. This feels more like a show for people that are new to the company at this point, which is rather interesting.

After another commercial, we’re in the ring and for some reason they ring the bell for this. I guess it was to get attention, but it was still odd. Gene says what this is for and introduces Hogan for the contract signing for this match which will take place a week from Friday. It was taking place on a live show on NBC on a Friday night. Live TV was a very new idea back then and being on prime time during the week was unheard of.

You can tell it’s a very different wrestling world than it is now. Hogan is wearing jeans. That just looks odd. Jesse makes a great point that Hogan should be booed for coming out to Real American in Canada, but of course he’s worshipped even more. Gene mistakenly says that Andre weighs 425 which confuses Vince for a bit. Jack Tunney is here and gets a very mixed reaction (he was a big time promoter in Canada and had a lifetime job for selling to Vince.

This same deal was in place for Monsoon who owned the Puerto Rico territory of all places) as he should. Andre just looks awesome in his suit where you can see the suspenders holding up his pants. It sounds stupid but for Andre it looks sweet. Heenan has sold his contract for a million dollars and then later in I think 1989 bought it back for a hundred grand. That’s a very sweet deal when you think about it.

There’s a ton of mind games from Andre which has Hogan looking flat out scared. That’s something you hardly ever see. Hogan signs as DiBiase cuts a promo talking down to Hogan which is just awesome. Andre just stares at Hogan before signing which is rather intimidating. Andre signs and then beats up Hogan of course, because it wouldn’t be wrestling without it. This was a new idea so the cliché isn’t there yet, making it much cooler.

Buy Wrestlemania 4.

We talk about the Rumble, which sounds really weak. There’s not a lot of huge names in it, which kind of hurt things. Let’s do it.

Royal Rumble

Bret Hart is #1 and Tito Santana is 2, so if nothing else we’re guaranteed a solid opening. This was the hot feud for the tag belts at the time, so I’m quite shocked that these are the two opening guys. Bear with me on this, as I have no idea how this is going to go. And we’re off. Vince is complaining about Andre and DiBiase’s conduct, saying that if Andre wins the title it’ll be a dark time for the company. I agree.

Those 45 seconds were indeed a nightmare come to Stamford. Thankfully Jesse gets Vince talking about the match and mentions how ironic it is that these two are starting, which amuses me. Something I noticed here: Vince mentions that hopefully 3 will be one of Tito’s friends. This was a lot more of a standard battle royal as there’s no concept mentioned of every man for themselves.

The idea of say Neidhart throwing out Bret would be a split of the team instead of just a regular thing in a battle royal. That’s very interesting. 3 is Butch “I was supposed to be a Horsemen” Reed. Tito hits the forearm just as Butch comes in to make it one on one again. Jesse says that Reed is virtually rested. Why wouldn’t he be all rested? Also if you’ve been resting, doesn’t it imply you had been doing something before? Why am I examining this?

After about a minute and a half (the space between people always changed through the match. According to Wikipedia this match runs 33 minutes even. Now I’m bad at math, but with 19 different entrances considering that two start and two minutes between each, wouldn’t there be a minimum of 38 minutes, which would also assume that the last person out was eliminated more or less immediately and didn’t have to run to the ring) Neidhart is 4, making it three on one against Tito.

Naturally just before Jim gets in, Bret and Butch mess up a double team spot which I think was going to be called the Convenient Plot Twist of Doom, but I could be wrong. The Harts kind of steal Demolition’s finisher to beat on Santana a bit more. Vince finally points out the idea that Reed could double cross them, but naturally he doesn’t.

After about 75 seconds we have the fifth entrant of Jake Roberts who was rapidly becoming a huge name. He’s by far the biggest star in the match at this point and immediately eliminates Reed and then hammers on Neidhart. Jim would be his opponent at the infamous Heroes of Wrestling issue which I’m sure you’ve heard of.

Jake and Tito clean house for a bit as it will never cease to amaze me how a guy can get a beating that would put most people in a hospital and be up fresh and fighting just seconds later. The crowd is WAY into this. The DDT doesn’t hit and the heels are in control again. Bret hits a piledriver on Tito as number six is Harley Race who needed to retire about five years prior to this.

At seven we have Jim Brunzell as we’re in full on battle royal mode of very little happening. This is a white hot crowd which is helping the boredom a lot. All six guys try to get each other out in a big pile which is either very cool or very stupid. Sam Houston, Jake’s tiny and untalented brother in law is eighth. The commentary here has to be limited as it’s really just punching and kicking and a random attempt at an elimination that doesn’t do anything.

That’s the nature of the beast though as you have to fill in a lot of time out there. We have seven people in the ring right now which is far too high of a number. As I type that, the Harts throw out Tito. Danny Davis is ninth. He was a referee turned wrestler and about as effective as Santino. Sam Houston beats him up if that tells you anything. Race gets caught in the slingshot position which is where he sits on the middle rope and gets punched down but his feet save him and bring him back in.

I’ve always liked that one. More random punching follows. These fans REALLY want a DDT. Boris Zhukov is the tenth entrant and eighth currently in the ring. How are we already halfway done with this? He goes for Houston, which makes sense as he’s the tiny guy in the match, but it’s getting a bit repetitive. Race and Boris go at it, and the term every man for himself is first used on a Rumble broadcast. I love me some hot heel on heel action. It had to be said.

Davis tries to get rid of Sam Houston to become mayor of Jobber Town USA, or would it be Jobber Town Canada in the Horowitz province? We start the second half with Don Muraco (incorrectly called #10 by Vince) and Nikolai Volkoff who run down at the same time. Uh oh we have an uninteresting problem here. Muraco hits him and climbs in, making that whole segment completely pointless.

We have WAY too many people in there until Boris is eliminated to take us down to just eight in the ring. That’s still far too many people laying on the ropes and punching each other. I wonder if they ever get bored doing that for so long. Brunzell hits a sweet dropkick on Hart. That was nice. Apparently Nikolai will be 12th when we finally get to him.

After Vince mentions that he has the list of all twenty names, more or less ending any feeling of suspense at least for me, Nikolai comes in, again making the time where he stood at ringside completely pointless. Race does his traditional back flip bump to be eliminated which always looks good.

Jim Duggan comes out 13th to a MASSIVE pop. He and Roberts were likely the second and third biggest faces in the company at this point. He and Race have a short incident in the aisle which I guess is the setup for the hilarious fight they had at the Slammys. Find that show as it’s hilarious stuff all night long.

There are WAY too many people in there with I think nine at this point and for some reason they’re all on one side of the ring. That looks very odd indeed. Ron “Don’t Call Me Lance” Bass comes in and I promise that’s the last of my Chris Berman moments. I can’t stand that guy. I like the way Duggan punches. It just looks cool. The ring is too full but Brunzell being thrown out helps a bit.

Brian Blair is 15 to get us down to just five people to go. These fans sound like they’re heroin addicts given how much they want the DDT. After even more stalling and bad punching we have Hillbilly Jim at sixteen. He takes out Anvil in about four seconds to keep us at that ten person equilibrium. Dino Bravo gets us to 11 as number 17 which I think is a new record for most people in the match’s long standing twenty minute history.

That’s the problem here. Considering the whole match is thirty three minutes, Bravo should be coming in at thirty two I believe, yet we’ve got three more to be entered. Bass gets rid of the pest known as Sam Houston. The match becomes legal when some rookie that hasn’t done anything yet known as the Ultimate Warrior comes in. He’s a jobber killer at this point and barely even that high up.

Bret finally goes out as I guess he couldn’t stand to be in there with someone as bad as Warrior. He was in there twenty five minutes which is the record at the time. About forty seconds after Warrior comes in we have One Man Gang who would win the Slammy for Best Group. He knocks out Roberts and Blair in about a minute to finally start clearing the ring up a bit. The final man comes out after about a minute and it’s the Junkyard Dog. Well that’s pretty anticlimactic.

For the life of me I will never understand what was so great about this guy. He was supposed to be a big deal but I’ve always found him to be a complete waste of air. Anyway, this is the final field of about nine or ten so let’s do it. Yeah it’s ten. Vince shows off his brilliant wrestling mind by picking the Dog to win it. The 300lb Lithuanian Nikolai Volkoff is the first of the ten out thanks to Duggan.

Gang backdrops Jim out to take up to eight. Gang is also the I think fourth person that Jesse says this is his type of match. We get it: brawlers should do well in this. Davis gets clotheslined out to finish eighth. Gang and Bravo eliminate Warrior about five seconds later with relative ease. Dog is out a bit later to take us to five. Bass’ elimination takes us down to four.

I know that was just listing eliminations but they all came rather quickly with nothing at all between them. The final four are Gang, Bravo, Duggan and Muraco. The announcers pick the Gang for the win. Muraco beats up the Achilles enthusiasts while Duggan is down. Bravo holds Muraco up so Gang can clothesline him out, and naturally…it works. What? Of course it works.

Those are finely trained professionals. Did you expect them to make a mistake or something like that? They try the same spot on Duggan and it fails to take us to Gang and Duggan as the last two. Gang beats on Duggan on the ropes and charges at him, but Duggan of all things uses his head and pulls the rope down for the win.

Jesse is annoyed which is funny. We almost immediately go to commercial. One thing I really liked there was that there were no commercial breaks which would have messed up a lot of stuff for me. I’m glad they did it right.

Rating: C-. This match gets a pass, but it wasn’t that good. To be fair, it’s the very first one and they had no clue what they were doing, so given the information and knowledge they had, this was good. The roster wasn’t huge here as Hogan, Andre and DiBiase were the biggest stars in the company at the time, so there was only so much they could do, but it was certainly watchable. Next year they would iron out a lot of the kinks to improve it greatly, but for a first try this was fine.

We recap the real thing of the show by talking about Hogan and Andre. Hogan comes out again to talk about the title match on the fifth and says exactly what you would expect him to say. This was just window dressing.

Islanders vs. Young Stallions

Yes we actually have another match on this show and oddly enough it’s also 2/3 falls. The Islanders had dognapped Matilda recently in a somewhat well known angle. In short, they stole the dog and then gave it back. It was a big deal at the time for no apparent reason. Vince plays Sherlock Holmes here which is idiotic sounding. Heenan is apparently in Barbados for no given reason. Tama and Jim Powers start.

Tama was a guy I’ve always liked but he never got anything going for him. Vince admits that he was bored out of him mind during the Bravo segment which is great. It’s always good to hear Vince admit the he screwed up. They more or less ignore the match for the beginning because the show is more or less over at this point. Vince says that Tama has a devastating leap.

He doesn’t say into a splash or anything like that, but just a devastating leap. Wait, so he has a painful jump? Is he a jump rope master or something? Does Heenan turn the ropes? The man that would somehow become a Horseman named Paul Roma gets a tag and then it’s his turn to get beaten up. Oh dear Roma hurt his knee. No one seems to care. He gets counted out to end the first fall.

We go to commercial and as we come back, the Stallions are in the back getting Roma’s knee looked at. As stupid as that sounds, we get another recap of the contract signing and while a match is going on, we go to Andre and DiBiase for a promo in the arena. That’s just painfully stupid looking.

The commercial is let’s say three minutes long. In three minutes a guy with a bad knee got to the back and DiBiase and the Giant got word to the production team that they wanted to say something and got to the stage in time? That’s a BIG stretch. Andre says exactly what you would expect him to say. He does use the term Giant-a-Mania which is kind of awesome.

After another commercial we’re back in the second fall. Roma’s knee is dead here but we keep going anyway. I’ll give them credit as that’s actually a rather creative way to get in a match and a promo in the final part of the show. It’s kind of plausible but not really. It’s close enough though. Naturally they talk about the promo. You have to give it to Vince: he managed to get a promo in so that he wouldn’t have to talk about this match very much at all.

I’ll give him credit for something up with good ideas like that. That’s not bad at all. Jesse says that the Hogan vs. Andre match will be bigger than the Indy 500. Vince says he’d like to see Jesse dragged behind an indy car. Dang that’s rather violent.

This is just rather generic stuff for the most part as Powers can’t tag out because his partner is hurt. He finally does and Roma is destroyed, giving up to a half crab pretty quickly. Jesse somewhat sarcastically calls it a valiant effort which is I guess his attempt at being nice?

Rating: C-. This booking made little sense as I don’t get why this went on last. It was pretty boring but it’s not bad. It’s standard 80s stuff but it’s little more than a squash. It closed the show on an odd note, but this was ok I guess.

Vince and Jesse recap the show for about three minutes with a very long talk about the Bravo thing. For the love of goodness it wasn’t a big deal! They desperately try to make it a big deal, but man it’s just a failure. They of course recap Hogan and Andre and in a funny close, Jesse goes through the information for the match time and location etc., which disgusts the marketing freak known as Vince. That’s just great.

Overall Rating: C+. There’s a major factor to remember when watching this show: it was completely free. As a pay per view, this would have been lower than an F. However, given that this was pretty much thrown together and was given away free, how much can you complain? You got four matches and six segments total.

The first match was ok I guess, the second was exciting, the third was a new gimmick which is always worth a look and the fourth…well I’m not sure why it was where it was but it’s not bad. The two segments were the epitome of hit and miss as the first was just a waste of time, but to be fair you could just change the channel for this one. The Hogan/Andre was nothing but a build up for next week which is also fine. The one thing I don’t get is where a lot of guys were.

I mean, there’s no IC Champion in Honky. There’s no Savage who would go on to win the world title at Mania. No Demolition who would win the tag titles. Beefcake wasn’t there either and he would get the title shot at Mania. Martel, the other tag champion wasn’t there.

It certainly would have helped the battle royal out, but I guess that’s neither here nor there. The show is fine all things considered, but it’s really more of a historical thing than a good thing. It’s not bad at all, but don’t expect a great show because it isn’t one.

No real reason for putting this up.  It’s one of the first shows I ever saw and I wore the tape out so I figured it was worse throwing it up here.

Summerslam 1990
Date: August 27, 1990
Location: Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Attendance: 19,304
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Roddy Piper

This is the first PPV that I ever had bought for me and we literally went through three copies of it as the tape itself was literally falling apart. As far as updates go, a few things have happened since we were last around for Summerslam. Ventura is gone which kind of sucks. For once, and this was very rare back then, Vince is handling commentary tonight.

Warrior won the title at Mania, having dropped the IC belt down to no one but Perfect won it in a tournament, becoming one of the best IC Champions of all time. Hogan has been out of action all summer after Earthquake beat him up, and tonight is his triumphant return to face the big man. Warrior is having a token title defense against Rude in a cage, in what would be Rude’s last match with the company before taking a year off before debuting as the Halloween Phantom in WCW a year later.

Finally, and this is actually the most important thing you’ll see, a mysterious person has been sending Sapphire very expensive gifts. It would turn out to be DiBiase, who would begin to feud with Rhodes, leading to November’s Survivor Series. At that show, DiBiase would bring in a mystery partner, who was from Death Valley. It blows my mind to think that matches this old were two months before his debut. He might have even been on some house shows at this point.  Let’s get to it.

Anyway, this show is going to have a lot of high grades for pure nostalgia for me, so expect a high overall rating as I know about half the commentary for the show despite having watched it once in about 15 years.

Before the show starts, the version I have comes with a bonus promo from Warrior, standing behind a cage wall. There’s no ring or other three walls. It’s just a single wall of a cage that the belt is handing from. Well of course he’s got a piece of a steel cage!

Don’t you have one sitting in your living room? Standard Warrior insanity here as the big deal was supposed to be that Rude has been in cage matches before but Warrior never has. Does anyone remember Rude in a cage match that meant anything?

In something completely random that’s an exclusive, we get Brother Love’s Summerslam picks. This is very weird as Gene says you can make your picks now, for the MONDAY night showing of Summerslam. Yes, back then, PPVs weren’t always on Mondays. On my tape (homemade), this is AFTER the IC Title match, which is weird because he makes a pick for that match. I put this here because it makes more sense here, but I don’t remember this at all.

It’s billed as a double main event, but it’s Hogan as the centerpiece as usual. Roddy on commentary is just weird but kind of cool at the same time, aside from his anti-Iraq line in the first 15 seconds. This is getting annoying as I’m quoting everything both guys are saying.

Rockers vs. Power and Glory

Shawn is legit hurt coming into this as you can see him limping to the ring. They play on that by having Hercules (Power) hit him in the knee with the chain, making this a handicap match. We start with Paul Roma (Glory, and somehow a future Horseman) against Jannetty. It’s a handicap match which is all it can be. They touch on Shawn’s knee injury as they knew about it coming in so they pretty much had to keep this short.

Almost a third of the match is the brawl where Shawn’s knee is hurt and then the rest is Jannetty fighting for all he’s worth, even hitting the top rope punch at one point. However, he of course falls to the suplex/splash combination and gets pinned rather easily. Shawn gets in after the match is over and they beat on him even more. He of course acts like he’s been shot and caught in a bear trap as he’s put on a stretcher and is carted out.

Rating: B-. Absolutely perfect for an opener. This was all over the place and you had to pay attention to keep up with it. It was fast, in your face, and not bad at all. While for a regular match it would have been horrible, the crowd was hot as always being a Philly crowd, and this got them very awake.

Now the IC Title match is up next and it was supposed to be Beefcake winning the belt from Perfect, but he had the famous parasailing accident that pretty much ended his career. That wasn’t mentioned but it was the case. Anyway, this rookie named The Texas Tornado, Kerry Von Erich took Beefcake’s place and he’s getting the match on about a week’s notice.

IC Title: Mr. Perfect vs. Texas Tornado

Before the match we get promos from both, with Perfect saying he’s perfect. Now we move on to Tornado’s promo, and for some reason I have always loved this one. There’s not much to it, but it just is great to me for some reason. He talks about how he’s going to touch down in the ring and destroy everything in his path, then take the IC title back into the clouds. Something about this is just sweet to me.

Maybe it’s that Von Erich was an amazing talent that sadly would be dead in three years. There’s a somewhat infamous glitch here as Hennig is wearing yellow and Von Erich is wearing yellow in his promo. However, when he comes to the ring he’s wearing white, so I guess they had him change in between. His music is completely awesome too. Yes, I think I’m a Von Erich mark. He’s even rocking the old school sequin robes.

You can tell they made a quick switch as he still had the yellow knee pads on. The crowd here is so ridiculously hot it’s hard to believe. The match itself is actually pretty short and very standard stuff. The crowd being as into it as they are and Hennig’s mind blowingly good selling makes it work though.

He gets Kerry in the corner and slaps him a bunch of times before Von Erich goes off on him, landing a slingshot into the corner which busts his head on the post. Claw hold and Tornado Punch follow for a title change! Afterwards, Hennig falls out of the ring (likely legitimately drunk) and Tornado celebrates as Piper makes fun of him.

Rating: B. This was just pure fun. Perfect was so hated it was unbelievable and Tornado had the skills already that he could make it look good too. That’s the beauty of bringing in a guy from a glorified indy fed: there’s no learning curve. He didn’t have to spend time working with no name guys and you could throw him into the fire, knowing you’d get something good. Great way to put him over here, and it worked like a charm.

Gene is supposed to talk to Sapphire but she’s nowhere in sign. I smell a show wide angle! Heenan runs in to complain about the Tornado breaking rules. Perfect and Hennan’s freaking out is absolutely great. He really did go insane as well as anyone ever did.

Sensational Sherri vs. Sapphire

Oh lord this isn’t going to be good. Sherri is at least good in the ring, but Sapphire? DANG , I saw one of her matches and it made Jackie vs. Trish from Raw in 03 look good (Yes I know it was a tag match so save your corrections). Sherri is in a mask and paint. I guess there’s a point to that. Sapphire doesn’t come out. The music starts again and a third time and no big fat blue rock. Sherri wins by count out. This was purely a way to play to the major angle later on.

Rating: N/A.

Dusty is in the back with Gene saying that something strange is going on. When I was a kid this always gave me chills. In a completely random cameo that becomes unintentional comedy, Dusty calls over Hacksaw Jim Duggan and asks if they’ve seen her. He says no but they’re still looking. Duggan leaves.

He’s on screen all of 6 seconds but it’s just so random that it made me laugh. Dusty talks about the gifts she’s been getting, which are ridiculously expensive. Somehow no one picked up on the fact that DiBiase hadn’t been seen in awhile and only he could afford this. Dusty really is great on the mic. There’s something about his delivery that just flows perfectly.

Tito Santana vs. Warlord

If there has ever been a guy that had all kinds of opportunities thrown to him but just never could pull it off, it’s Warlord. He had an awesome build, a great look, a cool name and he got multiple mini pushes. I think the problem might have been he was too different looking. Maybe it’s that he wasn’t great in the ring. For some reason though, nothing ever worked for him. He wasn’t lazy or annoying or anything like that.

Simply put, he just never caught on. He was a generic big man with muscles, and I’ve never really understood why he didn’t get at least a bit of a reaction. At the time, Tito was a complete and total jobber to the stars. He was in the middle of nothing at the time and was just out there to make people like Warlord look good. Santana would become El Matador soon and it would kind of revitalize his career but not that much.

He was always good for a solid performance though, so it was clear why he stayed around as long as he did. I think I’m starting to get why Warlord never did anything: he’s the most generic guy I’ve ever seen in my entire life as a fan. There is nothing about anything he does that stands out. There’s nothing of note here really, as Santana tries as hard as he can but Warlord hits the powerslam to win the match in the end.

Rating: C+. This is quite acceptable on all levels. It was meant to make Warlord look good and that’s what Santana did. That’s why people like Finlay and Regal have jobs: they can make young guns look good and be realistic threats at the same time. Talents like them are hard to come by which is why they rarely get let go.

Demolition is in the back, and Mooney is confused about why Crush is there. The idea is that the Harts don’t know which two members of Demolition they’re facing. Apparently it’s Smash and Crush tonight. At the time, Demolition is considered untouchable and while the Harts were known to be great, they were thought to be past their primes at this point and only together in name.

You know, they’re actually quite funny on the mics. They tease the showdown with the Legion of Doom, and my god, the collective orgasms that 80s wrestling fans would have had for that match at Mania for the belts would have flooded a small country.

Tag Titles: 2/3 Falls-Demolition vs. Hart Foundation

Norcal and I have called this the greatest tag team match of all time, and I’m still waiting on another to top it. It’s certainly the best gimmick tag match of all time, at least in my mind. Before the match, the Harts say they don’t care which members of Demolition they face. Anvil says he’s not paid to think. He’s paid to be tough like an anvil. That’s a great line.

As they give the promo about giving Demolition massive heart attacks, I’m watching CNN’s coverage of Michael Jackson’s heart attack, which kind of kills the mood. DANG the Harts were over. I’m getting chills watching this. We go about 4 seconds of Smash and Bret before we get a brawl. Anvil comes in and just levels them both, leading to Roddy asking Vince how he would like it if a guy like Anvil came up to him and asked for a date with his daughter.

That’s quite funny considering who Vince’s daughter would become to us. Imagine Neidhart getting the HHH hate. That would be freaking hilarious. I swear his beard has magical powers. Roddy is OUT THERE on commentary. Crush hits a big move and looks at the crowd. Roddy: “We ain’t looking for dairy products here, we’re fighting!” What in the world does that mean? Am I missing a joke here or something?

This match has one of the best flows to it that I’ve ever seen. For the most part, it’s back and forth the whole way with neither team ever truly dominating the other. That’s a very difficult thing to do but when it’s done right, you have a great match. Hart is still the best guy out there, but it’s not like he’s blowing them all away. Demolition were a great team even with the change of Crush, and Neidhart it the absolute perfect complement to Bret.

It’s power and speed vs. a lot pf power, which is a great combination as always. Eventually of course we get a brawl, leading to Jim being knocked to the floor and Bret taking Demolition’s finisher for the first fall. This is what I don’t like about 2/3 falls matches. Demolition just pinned the Harts clean, in a standard tag match, yet the Harts get two more chances at it? I get the stipulation changed the way the match works, but that’s always made me scratch my head.

We begin the second fall with Crush and Hart again, just like the end of the last one, as Hart sells like the master that he is. Piper says that Hart needs to get under his feet. Wouldn’t that mean having your feet in the air and sitting down?

The style of this fall is completely different as it’s Hart getting beaten down instead of a back and forth match, which works very well for psychology, as we get a great flow to the match, using Demolition’s finisher as the turning point of the match. Anvil finally gets a tag and just freaking kills Demolition. Easily the best I’ve ever seen him look as at that moment, he looked like he could have beaten just about anyone.

Bret gets back into it and the Hart Attack connects, but Crush, after missing his cue and having the referee save him, dives onto the referee, before picking him up and carrying him around the ring, which causes a DQ. DANG , after that kind of a save and he jumps the referee? Someone get that man a hot pretzel and a ham sandwich. He’s earned them. Crush should get a sandwich as well.

He was just giving the nice little man a hug for saving him on the blown spot. Shame the referee won’t open up his heart and let a little love in. The best part of this is Crush shaking his head, as if to say what did I do? It’s either bad acting or unintentional comedy, but either way it’s funny.

In between falls, Bret gets knocked to the floor. As Jim is looking at him, Ax comes down and hides under the ring. Now we get to the fun parts of this match, which is saying something as this has been great stuff so far.

So here we are now, one fall to a finish for the tag titles. We get down to a good old fashioned 80s style tag match and there’s absolutely nothing sweeter than this. It’s the Harts in control early with their powerslam/splash move, which despite having been used many times is still surprising to Vince. Geez how bad is this guy’s memory? He can’t remember how bad a lot of the stuff he puts on now is and he couldn’t remember stuff 19 years ago?

Anyway, Ax comes out from under the ring for the illegal switch and the Harts are in trouble all over again. Wow, who saw that coming? Did anyone ever have an issue telling Demolition apart? I certainly didn’t. Anvil keeps making save after save as Bret is looking like a human punching bag. As all this is happening, the fans are getting loud for some reason, and as we cut to the entry way, we see why: the most dominant team of all time, the LOD are here!

They pull Smash out from underneath the ring and break up another Demolisher (I know that’s not the name but screw it that’s what it should be called), leading to a slingshot shoulder block into a rollup to give the Harts the titles as the fans go nuts! The best part here is the Harts’ music not playing.

It makes you feel like it was a great shock and that the sound guy wasn’t sitting there waiting to press a button. I’ve always liked how Bret would kiss whatever belt he had at the time. It’s recaps a go-go as the music plays and the fans are going off.

Rating: A+. The fans wanted the Harts to win, they wanted Demolition to lose, and they got it in a SWEET style. This was a great tag match with all 5 guys in perfect flow the whole time. The Harts were the underdogs that we all wanted to cheer for and we got to do it. That’s exactly what the fans wanted and it made the fans happy. Couple that with GREAT wrestling and drama and you get a classic match. Norcal and I are right: this is the best tag team match ever, just for how much fun it is.

Promo for WM 7. My lord they messed this up. There were supposed to be 100,000 people. Naturally, this didn’t happen, so there was a bogus excuse to move the show to a smaller place. I love the promo though and could recite the phone number to you by heart.

The LOD are in the back, saying they still want a piece of Demolition, saying they’re the real big men. The Harts show up saying they’ll fight anyone. The emotion in their voices and the looks on their faces are absolutely perfect.

We go to Sean Mooney who is outside Demolition’s locker room, and he says all heck is breaking loose. I certainly don’t remember this much cursing on a 1990 PPV. I’m quite surprised at this. Apparently they’re mad at the LOD.

Gene is with Sherri, who is so proud of winning, and says she’s been hearing rumors about Sapphire.

Sean Mooney (DANG what are these backstage interviewers getting paid tonight?) is with Volkoff and Duggan, who are a tag team for no good reason. They’re going to win tonight apparently. We get a really bad pun about if their opponents are the Orient Express, this is the American Express, and don’t leave home without them. Dear lord just take me now.

Earthquake and Bravo are with the other interviewer along with Jimmy Hart. It’s a recap of the feud with Hogan and Quake.

Jake talks about snakes vs. rats.  While he’s doing this Damien the snake keeps wrapping around his neck and choking him.  To his credit Jake never stops talking.  This is about hunger or something.
Jake Roberts vs. Bad News Brown

Brown allegedly has over 200lbs of sewer rats but we never see them which is a good thing probably.  Yep Jake appears to be drunk.  Oh and Big Boss Man is the special referee.  No reason at all for it but who cares about logic?  Brown jumps him as the referee is on his way to the ring.  Brown takes over and goes for a cover with his foot on the chest.

Both guys go for their finishers which of course don’t connect this early on.  Brown grabs a chair and drills Jake in the stomach with it in front of Boss Man which is all cool apparently.  Jake gets sent into the corner and flashes a screw you sign as he goes down.  Classy dude there.  Brown goes for a middle rope punch but Jake gets out of the way.

Brown’s offense is different but cool.  Piper says something about oily heads and Arabs which Vince naturally ignores.  Brown pops him with the chair again and that’s the DQ.  That was rather anti-climactic but whatever.  He tries to drop a leg on Damien afterwards but Boss Man makes the save.  Roddy: you don’t want to hiss off any snakes.  Brown jumps him and Jake gets the snake out to run him off.

Rating: C-. This was fine and the fans popped for the DDT as always. For the life of me though, I don’t get why there needed to be a guest referee. He was going to be in the real main event later on, so what’s the point of having him here?

Gene is with Demolition, who says the Harts cheated. For the love of god, how did we never get Demolition vs. LOD? Seriously, this had to be the easiest lay up of a feud of all time, and we never got it.

Brother Love Show

There’s little point here. Love gets a medal from Sgt. Slaughter as we officially kick off he’s the next top heel in the Iraqi sympathizer angle that few cared about but some will say gave you one of the best Mania main events ever. He runs down Volkoff, which would lead to a match…in February I believe. This was just an odd angle that didn’t work for me due to the timing of it, as the war was over when this really got going.

Sean is with the Orient Express and Fuji who say Japan will win. This team was pretty much nothing until the masked one showed up and they started going to war with the Rockers. Those matches were freaking awesome to say the least.

Gene finds Sapphire but she goes into a locker room. She won’t talk to anyone.

Orient Express vs. Duggan/Voljoff

Pure filler here as there’s no point to this other than to further the US vs. Iraq storyline. The faces sing God Bless America as my ears bleed a bit. Duggan proves to be a patriot as this was what he’d always hit Nikolai for when it was the Soviet anthem. Now for your pop of the night (so far) Duggan says bless the troops in the Middle East. This is a very, and I do mean very, basic tag match as Volkoff gets beaten up and Duggan makes the big save after the tag and gets the pin off the three point clothesline.

Rating: D+. It was just so bland that it wasn’t any good. It was pure filler and nothing of note happens here. It wasn’t bad, just completely unnecessary.

Dusty is pounding on the door Sapphire went through but she won’t come out. He has to go to his match but he’s going to get to the bottom of this tonight.

Dusty Rhodes vs. Randy Savage

Savage is the king at this point so he’s feuding with the Common Man, Dusty Rhodes. That’s a perfect feud for both so for once they got something very right. Rhodes’ music is just awesome. He power walks to the ring as the man chest is bouncing big time tonight. Mooney is in the back standing on a ladder to talk to Savage who is on the throne. He also talks about the rumors that are going around which he still won’t reveal.

He does say that Sapphire is smart for not wanting to spend her life with a common man. Were Sapphire and Dusty supposed to be a couple? I never quite got that. Savage comes out on the throne.  I’ve always loved that entrance. How cool does it look? Savage fit this persona so well because he could back it up in the ring which isn’t something most kings could do. Savage was just so great back then.

Pomp and Circumstance fits the king gimmick so well too. Perfect match all around for him. Right as Savage gets in, you hear the best laugh of all time as DiBiase is on the stage, saying he’s going to prove everyone has a price.

Of course he’s the guy that’s been buying Sapphire everything and he puts it perfectly: “Who but the Million Dollar Man could afford to do it?” At the same time, everyone says a collective DUH! This is pure evil here and it supports my claim that he’s the greatest heel of all time. Sapphire comes out and takes a bag of money. Rhodes chases them but Savage stops him.

The match itself is about 2 minutes long and there’s nothing worth talking about. Savage starts in control, Rhodes fights back but doesn’t have the fire to do anything. However, Piper does mention that Sapphire didn’t want to be married to a common man all her life, so at least that’s some clarification. Sherri interferes and Rhodes takes a loaded purse to the head to end it.

Rating: N/A. This wasn’t about the match and at two minutes it’s not fair to give it a grade. For the angle, easy A though as this was just basic heel vs. face stuff, but given the performers, it was great.

Sean is in the garage as I wonder what kind of running shoes he has because he could be the fastest man on the planet given the exercise he’s had tonight. Virgil, DiBiase and Sapphire get into the limousine and leave as Rhodes chases them. Ok more like wobbles after them, but he goes down the driveway after them. However, he can’t catch them and I always got very sad about this. It was depressing to see him lose everything he had. In retrospect, this was a great angle.

Hulk Hogan vs. Earthquake

Quake comes to the ring with no real build. That’s rare to see anymore and I really like the way they’re doing it this way. After the heels are in the ring, Hogan and Boss Man are with Okerlund. Hogan says this is for Tugboat, who was the reason Hogan got the support that he did. Boss Man says the heels have the right to be served justice by Judge Hogan. Hogan compares himself to Washington and the Boss Man is Jefferson and it’s time to go!

Boss Man comes out first and the pop is so loud you can barely hear his music. For the love of goodness how loud is Hogan’s going to be? Yep, I’m deaf now. The roof gets blown off and you literally can’t understand what Fink says after Hogan comes through the curtain. All the standard Hogan stuff before we get going and the fans are so hot it’s insane. The wide shot here is awesome as it’s that little yellow thing that is causing the explosion.

Hogan should change his theme to Pac Man’s song. It’s the same idea: a yellow thing that is all over the place and at certain points is completely invincible. Sounds like it to me. Anyway, we get the bell and we’re up and running. They trade power displays and despite Hogan being announced at 302lbs, Vince thinks he’s at about 287, even though he looks exactly the same as he always has, if not a bit fat.

Very soon the two outside guys get involved and both should causes disqualifications but the referee lets it go for no apparent reason. Hogan, like an idiot, goes for a slam. Now he knows better than that. He’s WAY too healthy to do something like that. Why would he think he can do something that doesn’t go against any human sense? Come on Hulk you’re smarter than that. Wow I just said Hogan was smart. I’m working too hard I think.

Quake does a weird sequence where he goes to the top and then puts on a Boston Crab. More interference follows of course, leading to a Hogan comeback. Once again he goes for a slam and it doesn’t work, leading to the true signature Hogan match move: the sleepy hug! It must be sleepy since it needs so much rest. For some reason Hogan tries to grab at the referee and he rips his shirt. I don’t want to see Earl Hebner’s stomach, I truly don’t.

Hogan goes for a freaking cross body. Think about that for a second. That’s just weird to type let alone actually watch. Of course Hogan takes two Earthquakes before the power kickout. I love the way Earthquake hits the ropes. He just leans into them and it’s either great or lazy and I’m not sure which. Do I even need to explain what happens here?

Bravo gets the referee to prevent the pin after the leg drop though, allowing the true star of the match, the man that’s involved with Wrestleicious (ooo Wrestleicious baby!) to interfere before getting beaten up as well. At this point, it occurs to me that he and Hogan are the only two wrestlers involved in this match that are still alive. That’s a very sad thing to think of. Earthquake gets Hart thrown at him, which knocks him down.

So wait, Hogan jumping at him is an easy catch, but Hart knocks him down? Piper’s cheering for Hogan cracks me up as only in pro wrestling could you go from the feud they had to this kind of cheering in just a few years. On the floor, Hogan, in Phila-freaking-delphia of all places, slams Earthquake onto a table. This was over three years before Heyman even got to that city. I’m not even sure if Eastern Championship Wrestling was around yet.

The table doesn’t break and just falls over, but I wonder if this is what inspired ECW. There must be something in the water in that city. Seriously, what’s with the tables thing there? Anyway, Hogan wins by count out before jumping in the air like the end of a bad 80s movie. Come on now; give me some bad pop song as the shot freezes with him in the air pumping his fist. If that happened, I might have died of pure laughter. Post match…come on.

What do you think happens after the match? Actually, it’s not the most obvious answer. Quake completely no sells everything that’s just been done to him as he hits Hogan a few times and chokes him with Hogan lifted off the mat. Boss Man grabs a…I guess that’s supposed to be a chair but it looks more like a small ladder and blasts Quake a few times with it to no result.

The spinning of the nightstick of DOOM gets rid of the heels though so we can have our traditional music and posing. What made this posing thing so cool? It’s just him standing there showing off his muscles, which was odd because there were guys with bigger muscles in the company. I guess it’s just that Hogan is who he is and gets cheers for whatever he does. He could even put on a tutu and dance and it would get high ratings.

Scratch that as Mr. Nanny bombed. Hogan dances around the ring like a chicken which is something that’s going to haunt my dreams for a long, long time. As he poses Boss Man, who also was Hogan’s mortal enemy about a year ago, kind of strolls around the ring doing nothing. Piper reaffirms my faith in him as he says it was a hollow victory and that Boss Man deserves a lot of the credit.

Now I feel better as that’s the Piper I know and love. He’s right too. What did Hogan really prove? That along with another guy he can win with a count out and not get a pin like he normally would? Yeah that’s certainly a great victory.

Rating: B+. This was exactly what it was supposed to be: a chance for the fans to lose their minds over Hogan. It left the door open for the rematch later with Hogan having no rust so he can beat Quake on an even playing field, but that never came at least not on PPV. This definitely should have gone on last though as there’s no doubt that this is the real main event. I remember when I was a kid I hardly ever watched the cage match after this as it just didn’t mean anything to me.

Granted I wasn’t ever much of a Warrior guy after he stole my hero’s title back in April. Anyway, this was a very fun match but from a technical standpoint, kind of sloppy, which given who’s in this, what were you expecting? Fine all around though, so this was a very solid match.

We cut to the back and see Rude with Heenan and Mooney. Rude cuts a very good promo talking about how Rocky Balboa and life imitating art. This is either off a script or great. Heenan is clearly ad-libbing, but Rude I’m not sure on.

Rhodes is here now, talking about chasing down Sapphire but not being able to catch up to her. This is a great promo, talking about how he’s been crushed and he’s only got the fans left to shelter him. This is 80s style at its best. The more promos I hear from Dusty, the more impressed I am by him.

We cut again down to Lord Alfred Hayes, who is in front of the cage that is being built and talking about how the crew is trying to break their record for building a cage, which is kind of interesting but the only thing I can think of is who gives a about the cage being built? It’s kind of different and therefore kind of cool I guess. They talk about the way the cage is put together and the weight and dimensions. That’s actually quite cool.

We go BACK to Gene, who is talking with Hulk. I miss the interview centers at PPVs. Hogan is so juiced here it’s amazing. This is a promo that makes so little sense I don’t know where to start. Hogan beat Earthquake. Ok, that’s fine. However, he says he want to be #1 contender to the WWF Title. Again, nothing weird so far. He then says that if he’s not the #1 contender yet, he’ll beat Earthquake as many times as it takes until he’s the #1 contender.

What kind of sense does that make? If that’s the case, why not get Brooklyn Brawler and beat him 1000x until you’re named #1 contender? Hogan’s promos sometimes made less sense than Warrior’s. Also, he debuts the 4th demandment: Believe in yourself. He’s getting a new surfboard too. Hogan surfing is just funny.

Roddy and Vince kill more time, talking about the cage match as Roddy actually picks Rude to win it.

We cut to the back with Earthquake, Bravo and Hart screaming at Hogan and Bossman, saying that it’s not over. Actually it pretty much was. They hooked up at Survivor Series and a very, and I do mean very, brief encounter at the end of the 1991 Royal Rumble.

For the final (and it dang well better be) interview of the night, we go to the Warrior, who has a joke. What do Heenan/Rude have in common with the Liberty Bell? One is cracked and the other is a ding dong. While it’s not funny, it’s just out there to hear from Warrior. He’s literally snarling the whole time Gene is talking.

This is not at all surprising. He says he has an inalienable right to the WWF Champion, which is a line that I really like. He’s going through the Preamble to the Constitution, which is actually really good, and comes dangerously close to making sense.

WWF Title: Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude

In a cage remember. This would be Rude’s last major and perhaps last period match in the WWF as he bailed for WCW, but didn’t show up for a year. I guess he was doing indy shows or something. This was odd as he had been insulting Boss Man’s mom, paving the way for a feud between the two of them. Crowd is trying to care but they’re just so worn out from the Hogan match that I guess the break due to building the cage was a great thing for them.

Rude won’t let Warrior into the cage which is kind of stupid. You can’t win until he’s inside, so let him in. They fight on the edge, with Warrior outside and Rude inside. This is a pretty slow paced cage match where the cage is just kind of an accessory. I’m pretty impartial to matches like these, as they can be good or pretty bad, but occasionally you get a great one like at Summerslam 94. This is a far cry from that, mainly because it’s only about 11 minutes long.

That’s a bit of time, but still far from enough to really be effective and show off what the cage can be like. Maybe they’re trying to protect Warrior as they know he’s not the best in matches like this, but maybe they were just low on time. Rude gets the neckbreaker blocked for about the 112th time by Warrior which is still something the announcers have never seen before. Does Vince ever watch a match?

Rude more or less dominates here and screws up huge as he goes to the very top of the cage while Warrior is down and just sits there. He hits a big punch and knocks Warrior silly, but dang man he could have built a whole new cage in the time he had up there. It made no sense and Piper is losing his mind over how stupid it was on Rude’s part. When Piper says you’re stupid, you’re stupid. What could possibly be stupider than that? HE DOES IT AGAIN!

Good grief no wonder he never won the world title. He was too stupid to do it I guess. Anyway, Rude gets knocked down and here comes the comeback that you all knew was coming. Rude stops it though which surprises me. They go back and forth until Heenan gets in somehow and gets beaten up. NOW we get the real comeback and you know the drill here.

Piper makes an interesting question: when Warrior does the pumping press slam motion, WHAT THE HECK DOES THAT MEAN??? Warrior gets the slam and the splash and climbs out, swiveling his hips as he leaves to keep the belt. He poses with the blue/purple belt by swinging it over his head. We plug Survivor Series one more time as we go off the air.

Rating: C-. Crowd just didn’t care after the Hogan match and the 10 minute wait to put up the cage. It was an ok match but absolutely nothing of note happened here. It was exactly what you would expect and no one thought Rude had a freaking prayer. This was ok, but that’s all.

Overall Rating: A-. It’s personal bias, but I freaking love this show. You get a pure classic in the tag title match, some GREAT promos all night, although too many promos in general, a show long story, a white hot crowd, and some nice chances to catch your breath with some filler and how do you not have an awesome show? That’s the thing about filler: it can be a great tool to have, but it’s so easy to go overboard with it and if that happens, you’re in real trouble because the fans are bored.

Feuds were begun and ended, stories were advanced, and the crowd went home happy. How does that not sound awesome? Definite recommendation as they nailed the formula here: have a big card without being as serious as Mania but treat it like Mania, if that makes sense.

Since it’s the first old school review I’m posting here I might as well make it an old school show.  Here you are.

The Wrestling Classic
Date: November 7, 1985
Location: Rosemont Horizon, Rosemont, Illinois
Attendance: 14,000
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Jesse Ventura

For the sake of reviewing every PPV in the 1980s, I present to you the Wrestling Classic. This is a tournament and that’s about it. There’s also a WWF Title match between Hogan and Piper. This is actually the first ever Pay Per View in WWF history as the first Wrestlemania was only shown on closed circuit. There’s only been one big thing since Mania, and that is the debut of one Randy Savage, who is probably the biggest star in this tournament.

It’s a big deal though as there’s never been a tournament like this before, so this is a completely new concept. The interesting thing is that there wasn’t another one televised until 1988, so take that for what it’s worth. With that, let’s get to it.

This is broadcast on something called Wrestlevision. That’s a new one on me. There’s also a contest where some fan is going to win a Rolls Royce. Vince is your host here, talking to Alfred Hayes and some chick that I’ve never heard of before named Susan. They go over the brackets, which look like this:

Adrian Adonis
Corporal Kirchner

Dynamite Kid
Nikolai Volkoff

Ivan Putski
Randy Savage

Davey Boy Smith
Ricky Steamboat

Iron Sheik
Junkyard Dog

Terry Funk
Moondog Spot

Don Muraco
Tito Santana

Paul Orndorff
Bob Orton Jr.

This is either going to be really interesting or complete and utter crap. I’m not sure which. Steamboat vs. Smith sounds awesome, as does Santana vs. Muraco. We get some highlights of the drawing, which is really kind of pointless. Savage says Liz screwed it up though, continuing his being a jerk.

Gene is with Jack Tunney. Geez has he ever looked young? They go over the rules, which more or less is only the winners advance.

First Round: Adrian Adonis vs. Corporal Kirchner

Wow, so we have two guys that never really did anything of note in the company in the first round. Adonis is a much thinner guy here and a very straight biker. This has a ten minute time limit so I’m guessing there’s not going to be much to talk about. They say that Adonis has bulked up, which is a nice way of saying he’s rapidly becoming fat. In a very interesting thing, Gorilla says that Adonis and Ventura are former world tag team champions.

That’s very true, but they did it in the AWA and not the WWF. That’s most interesting. Jimmy is rocking a tiger striped jacket. You have to love the 80s. Adonis is actually a decent guy as far as technical stuff goes. We’re on our second rest hold in less than two minutes. Come on now guys. The ring sounds very metallic for some reason.

It did that for the only other Kirchner match I’ve ever seen too. The referee is wearing a white collared shirt and blue pants which just looks odd indeed. Kirchner goes for a suplex but Adonis hooks the leg and slams him down into what would later become known as the DDT. That looked really cool actually.

Rating: C-. These ratings are going to be really hard to do with such short matches. In a four minute match we had two rest holds and a cool looking finish. What else can I give it but not that awful? Something tells me I’ll be doing a lot of things like this today.

Adonis is with Gene, and says that he’s got class and charisma and will rewrite wrestling history. He wants to be Vince McMahon? His nickname is the Golden Boy. Ok then.

First Round: Dynamite Kid vs. Nikolai Volkoff

Holy international incident Batman! Volkoff is of course Russian and therefore evil. Dynamite even looks something like Benoit. That’s just flat out scary. Nikolai is oddly thin here. Only in the WWF would a USA chant start up for a match between a Russian wrestler against a British wrestler.

I’ve always wondered if that’s the real song or not. The bell rings during the song and allegedly in six seconds, Dynamite gets up top and hits a dropkick for the pin. I don’t think so but it was less than ten at most. Well the fans are awake now.

Rating: N/A. Although I’d take points off for the second half of the match. It just wasn’t that good.

Gene is with Savage and Liz. During the interview for some reason Fink is talking. I can’t make out what he’s saying though. Savage’s robe is actually tied which just looks odd on him. He admits he’s nervous. I’ve never heard him say something like that.

First Round: Ivan Putski vs. Randy Savage

Putski is a veteran kind of like Hardcore Holly I guess while Savage is the young guy that’s been destroying everyone in sight. Liz gets a huge pop of course, as the idea of a hot valet was born with her. The music sounds a bit odd too. Maybe it’s a different recording or something like that. Savage needs to let that robe hang open like he usually does. He looks like he’s wearing a bathrobe in an indy fed or something. Jesse says he’s been training Savage. Oh dear indeed.

Only Savage could make purple tights look tough. I’d like to know where this weird stigma of Savage being a power guy came from. He’s not a power guy and is average at his absolute best in that area. The basic idea here is Ivan is really, really strong. That’s about it. Hokey smoke Putski can’t do much. Ok the match is over at this point. In summation, Putski used a total of one slam of Randy’s face into the mat, 5 kicks in a row, and the rest was all punching.

In a terrible ending, Savage is getting destroyed in the corner and casually scoops the legs of Ivan out and puts his feet on the ropes for the pin. The stupid part: Putski acts dead. I mean he doesn’t move at all. It looks ridiculously stupid as he’s not even trying to get out. What was the point of that?

Rating: F. This was just pointless crap. Savage runs away for awhile, gets beaten up, and cheats to get a quick win? Who was supposed to be getting the push here? Somehow, Ivan is in the Hall of Fame and Savage isn’t. It’s like a sick joke or something. Does someone find this funny? Vince, even if he screwed your daughter, get over it.

Nikolai runs up to Vince and complains about being robbed. Amazingly I can understand his whole rant. Nikolai looks like he wants to kill Vince which is just amusing.

First Round: Ricky Steamboat vs. Davey Boy Smith

Smith is from Leeds. Rock on Becca. This should be completely awesome. They start with an excellent technical set that had me impressed. They slightly botch a bridge into a backslide, but come on now. That’s one of the hardest moves in the world to do right and it came off ok. I’m fine with that. Davey takes over with a gorilla press as Jesse thinks that Ricky is faster and Davey is stronger.

You have to love that top notch technical knowledge from the Body. Gorilla says he’s not sure on either count. To be fair, this was WAY before Davey became the super strong guy that he’s known as being. Here’s he’s not exactly a cruiserweight, but he’s not a monster either, so maybe there’s a little something to what they’re saying. That makes more sense than I thought it did. Steamboat actually busts out a delayed vertical suplex to steal Smith’s signature.

However, Davey goes for a dropkick with Steamboat against the ropes and misses. He lands weird and the referee stops it. I think that was at least somewhat legit as Davey looks like he’s in agony and is holding his crotch, so I’d be surprised if that was fake. Very good match in the time they had though.

Rating: A-. I want more of this. This is a great matchup as both guys wrestle a similar style but can mix it up when needed. This was easily the only match that I really wanted to see in the first round, and sadly it didn’t last long. Anyway, for what it was, this was excellent stuff. The more I think about it though the more I think that ending was a work. What other way could you end this given the way they were doing things? None that I can think of.

Gene is with JYD, who says that he’s very excited. He’s ok on the mic actually. If he wasn’t as bad of a wrestler as I can ever remember he would have been passable actually.

First Round: Junkyard Dog vs. Iron Sheik

I like JYD’s song. It’s just old school personified. Sheik jumps him as it’s still playing though, which in a bit of a comedic moment is how Sheik’s former partner lost earlier in the night. Sheik is freaking ripped. Somehow, Dog is more limited than Putski was earlier. He hits nothing but punches and headbutts. Eventually he goes down though and Sheik gets the clutch on him. Jesse says no one has ever gotten out of this.

You know, other than Hogan in the match that changed wrestling forever but that didn’t mean as much as this did of course. It’s also the sloppiest camel clutch this side of Sid Vicious. Dang it’s bad. Dog gets out of it kind of as Sheik argues with the referee. In an even dumber ending than before, a headbutt gets the pin. What? He used two of them before and didn’t even knock Sheik down but here that’s enough to get a clean pin? Come on now guys at least give us some consistency!

Why couldn’t one of these two have gotten hurt early? I hate booking like this. It’s more or less saying the lazier you are, the stronger you’ll get pushed. That’s great business wouldn’t you say?

Rating: F-. Where do I begin? Let’s see: the moves were limited and sloppy, the thing lasted three whole minutes which I’ll never get back, and the ending made zero sense. What kind of a grade did you expect here?

Gene is with Terry Funk who sounds as cool as anyone in history. He says he wants Orndorff because of the bounty on him, and then he wants to be world champion. This was around the time of his first retirement. Jimmy says he’s got a big surprise.

First Round: Terry Funk vs. Moondog Spot

Uh, yeah about the Moondogs. How in the world do I put this? More or less they were the Headshrinkers mixed with Mankind. They were the first sort of brawling tag team but they were completely insane. They would beat on people with bones and then chew on them. There was a big rotating cast of Moondogs, with Spot being I guess the most famous of them. They never really did much on the national scene but in Memphis they were considered a big deal.

To be fair though, they did win the WWF Tag Titles back in 1981 so there we are. If nothing else, he has a beard that Santa Claus would be proud of. Anyway, this is another 15 second match as Funk says that neither of them wants to wrestle the other so they should both just go to the floor and have a draw.

Well that’s different if nothing else. Naturally there’s double cross as Funk tries to get back in. After a mix up though, Spot gets back in and advances. Funk beats him down anyway, but whatever. This was a pretty big upset actually.

Rating: C. This would usually be N/A, but since I’ve never seen something like that before, we’ll call it good. That was actually creative booking which I never get tired of seeing.

Gene is with Fuji and Muraco. Fuji says Muraco will beat Santana. Why does it take him 15 seconds to say that?

First Round: Tito Santana vs. Don Muraco

Tito is IC Champion here, yet he doesn’t get an introduction? That makes a lot of sense. These two had some great matches for the IC belt awhile back. Gorilla and Jesse debate the wisdom of a champion being in the tournament which is a valid point. Santana really is underrated in the ring. I defy you to find a truly bad Santana match where he wasn’t getting squashed. This is just a great old school style of a match here in all its 80s greatness.

They work a very different style than what you would see on TV today but it was great stuff. A lot of the time the more basic you go the better your stuff will be. That’s what should be on Tito’s tombstone as it was how his whole career went. In an ending that I really like, Muraco hits a powerslam for the three, but Santana’s foot is over the rope. Muraco is celebrating and walks into a small package for the real pin. I really like that.

It makes Muraco looks fairly strong as he actually got Santana down for three while at the same time it keeps Santana from looking weak because while he was pinned, it wasn’t legal. Again, creative booking makes things that otherwise would be bad much better. Fun match.

Rating: B. While they only had four minutes, they were a good four minutes. See, you can have matches like JYD and Sheik that are short and suck, and then you can have matches like this that was short and good. These two went out there and went hard for a few minutes and had a fun match. That’s how it’s done guys. Take notes. Santana really was a master in the ring and Muraco was no slouch either.

Heenan is with Gene and says that even though none of the Heenan Family is in the tournament, don’t forget about them. This was around the time where Heenan had a bounty on the head of Paul Orndorff of 50,000 dollar to whoever could take him out. It was never claimed as Orndorff turned heel again, despite saying Heenan wrecked his career. Yeah I don’t care either. Paul was just boring for the most part, but when he was a heel, he was a pretty sweet one.

First Round: Bob Orton Jr. vs. Paul Orndorff

This is the final first round match, so if nothing else we can move on to some more interesting stuff, at least in theory. Orton has a sore arm apparently. Doesn’t look serious though so he should be fine soon. The main idea here is that Orton wants the bounty. The arm has been injured about 8 months already and I think it still would be at Mania 3. For a little reference, this is about six months before Mania 2.

In a wise move, Orndorff works on the arm. Well at least he’s smart about it. In a freaking sick looking move, Paul (way too annoying to have to keep typing his last name) hooks his feet around the arm of Orton and more or less uses an Indian Deathlock on it. That looked awesome. There’s your heel comeback but I’m distracted by the hotness of Mickie James on Smackdown.

Ok I’m back now. How did two hours pass in between there??? And why am I all sticky? When did I go to Arby’s??? Oh well at least it tastes good. Orton is the bodyguard of Piper at this point so he’s being constantly called the bodyguard of Piper. He really was technically sound if nothing else so there we are. This is actually a pretty good match just like the previous one. These are two guys that can work a decent match when they have to.

Paul was a good wrestler but a horrible character if that makes sense. He was just so bland. Think about it: name one time where he was interesting other than Hogan. See what I mean? In another kind of dumb ending, a cast shot gets the DQ for Paul. Well, that’s one way to do it I guess. This wound up becoming part of a bigger feud involving Piper and Muraco that would eventually result in Piper’s great heel work turning Orndorff heel again in about a year or less.

Rating: B-. Again, this is a solid example of how you make a decent match. Now to be fair they had a lot more time here than anyone else has had (seven minutes which still isn’t much at all) and they made the most of it. There was a story here or at least something looking like one. Both guys worked fairly hard and while the ending sucked, not much else did. That’s how it’s done again.

In a BIZARRE moment, we go back to the big board where Hayes is more or less groping the girl. She’s kind of laughing, but it just looks strange. Vince stops him as for some reason that comes off as hilarious to me. They go over the brackets, which look like this:

Adrian Adonis
Dynamite Kid

Randy Savage
Ricky Steamboat

Junkyard Dog
Moondog Spot

Tito Santana
Paul Orndorff

Well at least we’re getting closer to this being manageable. The problem here is that the card is too crowded. The second round has 15 minute time limits, which should have been all we had for the whole card. By having only 8 guys you could have had a far longer set of matches and maybe some other non tournament stuff on the card.

Granted they had no way of knowing that though so I’ll let that slide. At the end of this interview segment, Funk runs up saying he was robbed! The girl hasn’t said a word this whole show. Funk says he can beat everyone in the company.

Second Round: Adrian Adonis vs. Dynamite Kid

Remember, we have 15 minutes now so Dynamite can go for 9 seconds here. I like that they mention who the wrestlers beat. It’s a nice little touch that isn’t hard at all to throw in there. Dynamite starts off hot here but then we move into a far slower pace that’s just not great. Jesse actually leaves halfway through this, saying he has to talk to Savage about his match with Steamboat. Well that was weird. Amazingly Gorilla isn’t bad on the mic by himself.

However, this match is pretty bad. It’s Adrian dominating for the most part which means he’s trying to catch Randy Orton for most chinlocks. Why would you have a guy that can go like Dynamite down on the mat for the majority of the match? That’s just bad booking. Adrian puts on a Sharpshooter which makes my eyes get very big. I didn’t think that was something that was even known in this country at that time.

After clearly calling a spot to Dynamite, Adonis gets reversed. However, instead of actually having something interesting happen like Dynamite being in control, it’s right back to the same stuff we’ve been doing all match. Yep that’s just BRILLIANT guys. Ah there we go.

Dynamite Benoit picks things up and if nothing else we’re not just laying around doing nothing. Benoit…I mean Dynamite hits a diving headbutt but Hart messes up the pin. Adrian is shoved into him, resulting in the pin. Dynamite might hurt his knee here but it’s hard to tell. He’s limping a bit but he’s walking so there we are. Adonis has a Jericho and Christian level fit after losing.

Rating: C-. This was a tale of two grades here. When Adrian was in control, I was hoping he would start skipping around the ring in pink as it would have at least been funny. This was just flat out boring. However, when Dynamite was in control, it was very interesting. You can see so much of him in Benoit and that’s a very high compliment in my mind.

Jesse is with Gene and says that he’s got Savage ready. Naturally Jesse says that he’ll remain unbiased the whole time. Gene says that he never stays unbiased but Jesse is cut off and we’re back in the arena for this.

Second Round: Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat

OH YES! Now this literally has to be good. Steamboat gets no introduction and Savage gets a full one. Well ok then. Savage has changed to a sleeveless vest kind of thing which works much better. The hiding behind Liz was about as great of a heel move as there ever has been. Naturally he jumps Steamboat and we’re ready to go now.

Gorilla is still on his own here. Now we’re getting some standard great stuff from Savage so all is right with the world now. These two are a couple of guys that you can just throw out there and tell them to go and you’ll always get a great one. These two could just move so fast out there that it was almost unreal. Jesse is back now. FINALLY we get a counter from the top that looks normal as Steamboat gets a punch to the ribs to stop a double axehandle.

Thank you as I get so tired of the spot where someone jumps into a waiting boot from a guy on the ground, but it’s so painfully clear that the guy wasn’t going for a move at all but just to jump into the boot. What are we supposed to believe he’s trying in that situation anyway? Whatever. Steamboat gets the cross body but Savage kicks out with more or less ease.

In the EXACT same finish that Savage would use to win the IC Title from Santana shortly after this, Savage gets a foreign object from his tights and nails Steamboat with it as he’s getting belly to backed into the ring. Man there were a lot of midcard guys whose last names started with S.

I love how brass knuckles, which I believe are considered a lethal weapon, are apparently as common as apples in wrestling. Anyway, Gorilla says he thinks Jesse might have given them to Savage. That’s very interesting so of course nothing ever really came of it.

Rating: B. Well, they went on to have one of the best matches if not the best match of all time in about 18 months, so there’s nothing they can really do to live up to that. This however was fine I guess, with these two always being great together. This was just thrown together but it’s still one of the best matches of the night. There’s a reason that can happen: it’s called talent. It’s a shame more people don’t have it.

Gene is with Moondog Spot, who is chewing on a bone. He can’t actually talk thought so there we go.

Second Round: Moondog Spot vs. Junkyard Dog

NO YOU IDIOTS DON’T ENCOURAGE DOG! That’s just evil. Why does someone with such great music have to suck so much? WOW. Ok, so this is what happens here: Spot jumps him and misses a splash. Dog hits some headbutts because he doesn’t know how to do anything else, and then we notice something: there’s no referee here.

That’s odd indeed, but I’m sure one will be there soon. Dog hits the big headbutt and actually COUNTS HIS OWN PIN. Now usually this would mean nothing, but of course since it’s JYD it stands. Yes, JYD counts his own pin and it is enough to get him to the semi finals. When the referees don’t care enough about you to even be at ringside, that’s saying a lot.

Rating: N/A. I don’t even think a match happened so of course there’s no grade.

Gene is with Bobby…again, who says nothing of note.

Second Round: Paul Orndorff vs. Tito Santana

After a handshake, Jesse gets into his Tiajuana routine which really is borderline racist. Gorilla bails him out with the great line of Tito being Intercontinental Champion of the World. Tito’s leg is taped here which wasn’t the case in the first match. This starts with a very technical style that works to an extent. Naturally the fans think it’s a bit boring but what do they know? For some reason Jesse makes his second Watergate reference of the night.

It was ten years ago at least at this point but whatever. Tito’s leg is hurt even worse here, and the more I see of it the more I’m sure it’s kayfabe. Again, that’s more creative booking. They needed to have something different for every match I guess so there we are. This is a very technical style that I think I like a lot here. These guys are flowing pretty well out there and that’s all I ask for. We hit the floor and they hammer away and yep it’s a double count out.

What’s the deal with the cheap endings tonight? I guess you can’t put either over here due to their respective pushes but whatever. Jesse called that they would wind up acting heelish and to an extent he’s right. Of course Gorilla won’t admit it but that’s standard operating procedure.

Rating: C+. This was ok but not great at all. The problem was that two faces like this have a hard time having a solid match because you can’t damage either character by having them act evil. The technical stuff was a little boring but not bad at all. They could have done a great match with Paul as a heel and more time, but that’s the nature of the beasts known as tournament matches.

Back to Vince and Alfred and what’s her name for another recap. The final three are like this:

Dynamite Kid
Randy Savage

Junkyard Dog

Alfred says this is the most exciting thing he’s ever seen in wrestling. Was he not at Mania I’m assuming? You knew there was going to be a bye, but this means MORE JYD, so screw it all to. And what does that girl’s voice sound like???

Piper comes out with his bagpipe players which are always cool.

Gene is with Hulk who says that he’s ready. Halfway through this we get a graphic reminding us that he’s world champion. Well that’s good to know. Also his shirt says American Made, and man it that was a good song!

WWF Title: Roddy Piper vs. Hulk Hogan

Hogan, in white tights, is jumped by Piper during the music. This is more or less a token title defense here as it’s pretty much fallout (8 months later) from Mania. It’s of course a brawl from the start as nothing else would work for these two I guess. This reminds me of a UK game as it’s blue and white. That automatically makes this awesome. Hogan is dominating early so all is right with the world.

The referee stops a punch though, allowing Piper to punch Hogan. God bless sensible officiating. In something you don’t see often from Hogan, he uses a bearhug. His weight and size was rarely talked about as he was always against monsters, but he was bigger than about 90% of wrestlers ever. That’s saying a lot. This is about as standard as you can get as I feel like I’m watching a house show.

The sleeper is the submission hold of choice here and there’s the arm popping up on the third try. In a cool spot, Hogan runs at the ropes and dives over to break the hold. Yes you read that right, Hogan jumped. I’ll give you a minute to recover from that. Uh oh we have a ref bump. Piper drills him with a chair and of course being hit by a professional athlete with a large and heavy object made of steel isn’t enough to hurt Hogan at all.

Hogan gets Piper in a sleeper (yes you read that right) but Orton runs in for the DQ in another cheap finish. Orndorff makes the save. Gorilla says that Orton was effective. How? He caused his man to get a DQ and therefore it’s the same result as him getting pinned, but then again what do I know?

Rating: C-. This was generic, but then again it wasn’t bad at all. These two had a great chemistry together as there’s such a perfect natural rivalry that you can’t plan or script here. I always wanted for Piper to win the title, even for a month or two. Can you imagine the money that the rematches would draw? Heck that would have been FAR better as the main event of Mania 2. Anyway, this wasn’t bad or great, but it was more bad than good because of the ending.

Gene is with JYD who says he’s worked hard for this. I’m not even wasting a rant on that piece of garbage. Jimmy Hart runs in and yells at Dog about a bad angle that they did regarding Jimmy’s underwear. Don’t ask.

Semi-Finals: Randy Savage vs. Dynamite Kid

Oh man that sounds really good. Again with the fifteen minutes though. There’s two matches left so they’re cutting it to fifteen minutes. That’s just brilliant isn’t it? They’re in different outfits again which they would do much better in 1988 at Mania 4. Savage is all patriotic in red, white and blue. Savage shows off his muscles which isn’t something that you see that often. Gorilla makes fun of his name and Jesse shuts him up by calling him Orangutan Monsoon. That was just funny.

This just looks awesome. Imagine Benoit against Savage and that’s what you’ve got here. In another great line, Gorilla asks what the point of having Liz out there is. Jesse says look at her and if you can’t figure it out you’re on your own. Jesse and Gorilla are just flat out greatness together. I really do see Benoit when I look at Dynamite. They’re that similar, even down to their muscle masses.

Considering the greatness of Hogan at the top and with great wrestlers like these two and Santana and Steamboat, how in the world could the WWF lose? In short, they simply weren’t going to for a good while. In a GREAT ending, Savage goes up to the top but gets crotched after an amazing dropkick. A perfect top rope superplex puts Savage down but he manages to hook his legs up with Dynamite’s for the pin. AWESOME ending.

Rating: A. Five freaking minutes for this? That’s ALL? I would pay to see more of these two as this was just great stuff. Screw the A-, as more time would make this an A+. Anyone that says neither of these guys were good in the ring, watch this match and if you still say that I’ll smack you with a halibut. That was a great ending and a great match.

We go to Vince and Susan for the Rolls Royce thing. SHE SPOKE! She said all of 20 words in about 2 minutes but she spoke! She did get a tiny jab in by saying she wishes she were in the car right now so there we go. I like her.

In the ring we have the Fink and four guys. Each of them say something.

Tunney says this is a big sweepstakes. He has a fat face.

Some guy named Basil says a lot of people voted.

We hear from the guy that handled the entries. REALLY? You let this guy talk but you couldn’t give freaking DYNAMITE KID AND RANDY FREAKING SAVAGE TWO MORE MINUTES??? Instead we hear a speech about how they freaking picked the entries? Oh give me a break.

We get commentary from Fink that is as follows: He’s giving the envelope to Alfred Hayes to open. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET ON WITH IT! Can’t you just flash the guy’s name on the screen and give the two great wrestlers more time? Nope, we have to give this time to people that we’re never going to hear or see again and that we don’t care about.

After we get a small glitch of hearing Gorilla when we weren’t supposed to, the guy that won is booed out of the freaking building. I mean it was BAD. We actually spent five minutes on that. I hate wrestling.

Gene is with Hogan who is wearing white tights. In the background we hear Fink announcing a return date. Hogan challenges Orton and Piper to a tag match with Orndorff. They say they have a little surprise, which would be Mr. T being back again for Mania 2.

Wrestling Classic Final: Junkyard Dog vs. Randy Savage

Savage is in freaking tye dye and limping badly. Please, make this one quick. Why is a black man from the south wearing chains? Does anyone else find that a bit stupid? Also, what kind of song is Grab Them Cakes? What cakes? I want some cake. Savage immediately gets a chair. I guess he can’t stay awake through the awfulness of a JYD match even if he’s in it. Savage throws it at him and Dog rams himself in the head with it. I already hate this match.

This is already painfully bad. For some reason Gene joins up on commentary. Was he just wandering around and happened to walk up there? Was he offered a plate of cookies or maybe some Rogaine? He can’t even sell a clothesline right. How hard could that possibly be? It’s a freaking clothesline. YOU FALL DOWN! Jesse is upset because JYD had a break. No Jesse, that’s called he has no talent.

In yet another great line, Jesse says that Okerlund has never done anything athletic in life other than tie his shoes and now he’s wearing Velcro’s. That’s just brilliant. Savage is dominating here. Dang it there’s the comeback. I hate this match deeply. No correction, I hate JYD. Savage gets thrown to the floor…and gets counted out. I’ll be right back.

WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU GIVE THIS TO THE DOG??? SAVAGE WAS THE HOTTEST FREAKING THING IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW AND YOU GIVE IT TO AN OVERRATED HACK LIKE J FREAKING Y D? WHY IN THE FREAKING WORLD WOULD YOU THINK THAT’S A GOOD IDEA??? I mean it makes NO sense. Savage is a freaking god in the ring and this fat waste of air gets it.

He wins one match with a bad headbutt, then counts another pin on his own, then gets a bye and wins a tournament on a count out??? COME ON. That comes off as one thing: he’s not good enough to wrestle more than one legit match. I’m ticked off over something that happened 25 years ago. That’s sad. Jesse runs in for a protest that gets him nowhere.

Rating: D-. This was just a bad match and the booking is beyond ridiculous. I’m ticked off and Savage got FREAKING ROBBED! Jesse is as right as possible.

Vince and Alfred wrap us up and we’re out. I will never get used to seeing credits on a wrestling show, and the closing theme is the same as to Hulk Hogan’s Rocking Wrestlers, which gets it some bonus points that it desperately needs.

Overall Rating: D. This show was bad, plain and simple. There’s some ok matches, but the booking was dumb, the majority of the matches sucked and there were far too many short matches/nonsense endings. It should have been 8 men with longer matches. That’s still 8 matches on the card and they would have been longer and much better.

Also, Savage should have won, end of story. JYD went on to a stupid tag match at Mania while Savage won the IC belt and held it for over a year. See what I mean here? Anyway, this show was bad and shouldn’t be viewed. That’s why I’m here I guess.