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.

 

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

NXT UK
Date: December 31, 2020
Host: Andy Shepherd

We’ll wrap up the year with this, as it’s another Best Of show. That’s not the worst thing in the world either, as NXT UK has had some great stuff over the course of the year. Last week’s show worked well and hopefully that’s what we’re going to get again here to finish the year. Let’s get to it.

Opening sequence.

Andy throws us straight to the first match.

From February 13.

Gallus vs. Danny Burch/Oney Lorcan

Non-title and it’s Mark Coffey/Wolfgang here with Joe on the floor. Danny and Mark start things off and don’t get very far early on. Wolfgang comes in and grabs a headlock takeover and it’s already back to Mark for an armbar. Burch drives him into the corner though and it’s Lorcan coming in for a double atomic drop. So much for Lorcan staying in as Burch is right back in for uppercuts.

Mark shows him how to really do one though and Burch is taken down for Mark’s chinlock. That’s broken up and a dive through the rope allows the tag to Lorcan. The running hip attack is cut off in a hurry though and it’s Lorcan in trouble in a hurry. Wolfgang hits a running backsplash into another chinlock to keep Lorcan down. Mark comes back in to stomp away but Lorcan gets annoyed at taking such a beating.

The chops don’t do much good as Wolfgang hits a Wasteland, only to miss the moonsault. Burch gets the hot tag and starts suplexing/headbutting. Everything breaks down and Lorcan hits a running Blockbuster on Mark. The Crossface has Mark in trouble and Lorcan adds a half crab on Wolfgang, only to get kicked into Burch and Mark for the save. The powerslam/enziguri combination finishes Burch at 10:41.

Rating: C+. It was the only match of the night to get any significant amount of time and even then they didn’t exactly light the world on fire here. Burch and Lorcan have been dispatched in a hurry and unfortunately I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing them as Dragunov’s backup anyway. It takes away a lot of their impact, but it’s quite the WWE trope so odds are it’s what we get.

A-Kid, Amir Jordan, Aleah James, Dave Mastiff, Kay Lee Ray and Mark Andrews wish us a Happy New Year.

Ashton Smith, Amale, Gallus, Isla Dawn, Wild Boar and Noam Dar wish us a Happy New Year.

Sam Gradwell recaps the year, but makes the mistake of doing it from memory. Gradwell: “January: It was cold. February: It was slightly warmer.” Then he talks about fishing by hand, the Heritage Cup, Walter vs. Ilja Dragunov, and then his return a few weeks later. So Happy New Year.

We go to the Pretty Deadly home, where they are having some difficulties making drinks. They finally get one right though and dub it the Pretty Deadly. It’s just a little bit though, just like 2020. Next year though, they get the big mouthful of Pretty Deadly.

Jinny, Ilja Dragunov, Kenny Williams, Primate, Dani Luna, Joseph Conners, Chris Sharpe, Jack Starz and Nina Samuels wish us a Happy New Year.

Next week will see the return of Super Nova Sessions, featuring the debuting Ben Carter.

Saxon Huxley, Piper Niven, Levi Muir, Oliver Carter, Xia Brookside, Rampage Brown, Tyson T-Bone and Eddie Dennis wish us a Happy New Year.

In two weeks: A-Kid vs. Walter for the United Kingdom Title.

We look back at Tyler Bate defeating Jordan Devlin in the United Kingdom Title Tournament in 2017.

From Takeover: Blackpool II:

Tyler Bate vs. Jordan Devlin

They circle each other to start as the fans are almost all behind Bate. Devlin wins an early battle over wrist control until Bate flips around and grabs his own wristlock. A battle over a rollup goes nowhere and Devlin is ready for Bop and Bang. There’s a backdrop to Devlin and a gorilla press makes it even worse. Devlin is sent to the floor but catches a charging Bate with a release Rock Bottom.

The Arabian press gets two and we have a split crowd for a change. A butterfly suplex lets Devlin mock the Moustache Mountain pose but the Devil Inside is blocked. Devlin drops him on the arm/back and stands on Bate’s neck to make it worse. The surfboard works on almost all of Bate, with Devlin pulling back on the head to add a little extra pain. Since that can’t last long, they’re both up and stereo crossbodies give us a double knockdown.

Back up and Bate catches a charge in the corner to slam Devlin. A running kick to the head sets up the standing shooting star press for two. Devlin gets up an elbow in the corner but the slingshot cutter is countered into a ridiculously long airplane spin. Even Bate is dizzy off of that one but manages a brainbuster for two. The Tyler Driver 97 is countered into a rollup for two before Devlin hits a half and half suplex for his own near fall.

Now the slingshot cutter connects, only to send Bate out to the apron. Another slingshot cutter onto the apron drops both of them on the floor and Devlin’s kick to the chest makes Bate dive back in to beat the count. They slug it out with Devlin getting the better of it until the rolling Liger Kick gives Bate a breather. The Devil Inside is blocked but Bate’s handspring clothesline is countered into a Spanish Fly for another double knockdown.

Bate crotches him on top but a super Spanish Fly into the Devil Inside connects for a VERY close two. Devlin punches him in the face and loads up his own Tyler Driver 97, only to get reversed into a headbutt. Bate hits a springboard tornado DDT into the Tyler Driver 97 for two, but Bate is right back up top with a Spiral Tap for the pin at 22:41.

Rating: A-. Yeah this was great stuff with both guys beating the heck out of each other. Devlin knew a lot of what Bate was going to do but got just a bit too cocky and slipped up in the end, allowing the better Bate to win. That being said, I’m not sure how much sense this makes as Devlin needed the win a lot more than Bate. Either way, this was the blow away match the show was looking for and it’s excellent.

Post match Bate gets a standing ovation, including from HHH, William Regal and Johnny Saint.

Overall Rating: B+. I know Bate hasn’t been around as much as some but man alive that guy can steal a show in a heartbeat. At the same time though, Devlin is someone who can hang with anyone and get a great match at the drop of a hat. Oh yeah and the tag match was on the show too. That’s pretty standard for a show like this but that main event was great again.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Fusion #115
Date: December 23, 2020
Location: Gilt Nightclub, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Jared St. Laurent, Rich Bocchini

It’s time for the finals of the Opera Cup, which has been an improvement over last year’s edition. This time around we’re going to be seeing Low Ki vs. Tom Lawlor in the finals, which should be a heck of an MMA inspired match. I’m not sure how important the rest of show is going to be but at least the main event should work. Let’s get to it.

Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.

The opening video looks at the history of the Opera Cup and talks about how important tonight’s match is going to be.

Opening sequence.

Dirty Blondes vs. Ariel Dominguez/Daniel Starling

I liked the Blondes back in the day so this is a nice surprise, even if they have Ariya Blake with them instead of Colonel Robert Parker. Leo Patrick runs Dominguez over and boots Starling in the face. A middle rope powerslam finishes Dominguez at 1:37. Total squash to remind you what the team is all about.

We look at Alex Hammerstone and Mads Krugger brawling last month.

Hammerstone says being put on the shelf for a month makes him more dangerous and now he can break free at Kings of Colosseum. All that matters is the World Title.

Salina de la Renta will have a surprise at Kings of Colosseum.

Low Ki is ready to claim the Opera Cup against a man he knows better than anyone in MLW.

We go to the Kings of Colosseum Control Center with Simon Gotch vs. Jordan Oliver and the Dirty Blondes challenging the Von Erichs for the Tag Team Titles.

Myron Reed says his match with Lio Rush is the biggest match in Rush’s career. The title has Reed’s name on it and the win will too.

Contra hacks the feed so Mads Krugger can say the Black Hand is coming for Hammerstone.

It’s time for the Top Ten.

10. Calvin Tankman

9. Laredo Kid

8. ACH

7. Mads Krugger

6. Richard Holliday

5. Myron Reed

4. LA Park

3. Low Ki

2. Tom Lawlor

1. Alex Hammerstone

LA Park demands his sons get a Tag Team Title shot or he’ll retire.

Opera Cup Finals: Tom Lawlor vs. Low Ki

Team Filthy is here with Lawlor so Low Ki brings out the Von Erichs to even things out. They go with the grappling to start with Lawlor taking him down but Ki pops up to drive him into the ropes. Lawlor’s armbar attempt is blocked but a short armscissors works a bit better. Ki slips out of a bow and arrow and they’re back up. Ki can’t get a choke as the grappling exchange continues.

Lawlor pulls him down by the arm again and it’s another standoff. Ki takes him to the mat so Lawlor slaps his way to freedom. With that not working, Ki pulls on the arm a bit more but gets reversed into an ankle lock. They get up again with Lawlor mixing it up a bit by grabbing a gutwrench powerbomb. Lawlor elbows him in the head before cranking on the leg for a change.

That’s broken up as well and Ki hits a quick double stomp. A Figure Four necklock has Lawlor in more trouble and he can’t roll out of it. He can slip out though and it’s an Indian Deathlock to work on Ki’s leg a bit more. Ki makes the rope and heads outside for a breather, only to come back in and kick Lawlor to the floor for a change. Some elbows to the top of the head rock Lawlor again but he comes out of with a backbreaker for two.

Lawlor switches over to the arm for a change and cranks back on it, followed by the forearms in the corner. Ki is back up and manages a Dragon Clutch with Lawlor biting the rope for the break. It’s back to Ki’s leg, this time with a Sharpshooter to crank on it a bit more. The rope is grabbed again so Ki kicks at the leg to slow him down. There’s a Figure Four to put Ki in more trouble but this time he rolls it over.

That’s rolled over as well so Lawlor grabs a keylock at the same time. Ki rolls to the ropes this time and hits a few elbows to the head. A middle rope kick to the face gets two and there are the Kawada Kicks to keep Lawlor down. Ki charges into something like a Boss Man Slam for two more but Ki is right back with the Ki Crusher. They’re in the ropes so Ki tries the rolling Liger Kick…..but the unconscious Lawlor falls on top for the pin and the cup at 24:41.

Rating: B. This is a match where your taste is going to play a big role, as it was built around grappling and submission attempts rather than your traditional match. What we got worked rather well though, with both guys doing everything they can. The ending keeps Ki looking strong, but there was a good story being told throughout with Lawlor being better with the submissions and Ki hanging in there to prove that he could beat Lawlor. Good stuff, and a rematch wouldn’t shock me.

Team Filthy celebrates with Lawlor to end the show.

Overall Rating: B. Total one match show here but it was a rather good match to build the show around. They did something interesting here by having a big time match on the show before the pay per view level event but it worked out well enough. Rather good show here, and it’s something that they could use going into their first major event back.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Ring of Honor
Date: December 23, 2020
Location: UMBC Events Center, Baltimore, Maryland
Commentators: Ian Riccaboni, Caprice Coleman

This is going to be a weird one as it’s airing either before or after Final Battle (which is coming….eventually) depending on when your local station airs the show. Therefore I’m not sure what to expect here, but we could be in for a fun show as this place has been hit or miss for a bit. Let’s get to it.

Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.

Opening sequence.

Dalton Castle doesn’t like Brian Johnson throwing a drink in his face. It’s a good thing this is in the ring because if it was on the street, he would have a sock full of batteries with Johnson’s name on it. Castle has a lot of rage in him and Johnson looks like the right shape to break.

Brian Johnson is tired of people talking about how everything used to be great around here. Why talk about Castle when you can talk about him? Castle already won the World Title and then he laid down and lost. Now it’s time for Johnson to create his own decade of excellence.

Dalton Castle vs. Brian Johnson

Castle tries a very early Bang A Rang but Johnson slips out, only to get taken to the mat for a waistlock. That’s broken up in a hurry as Johnson sends him outside for a dive. Johnson insists that the peacock doesn’t know what’s coming for him and there’s a posting to put Castle down again. Back in and a top rope clothesline hits Castle, allowing Johnson to crank on the arm as we take a break.

We come back with Castle bailing to the floor for a breather, only to be thrown back inside. A slingshot splash gets two as the referee catches Johnson’s feet on the ropes. The armbar goes on, followed by a crank to send Castle’s arm into the mat. A back elbow rocks Johnson though and a clothesline gives Castle a breather.

Johnson snaps the arm across the top rope but Castle catches him on the rope. There’s a running knee to rock Johnson again but he pulls Castle arm first onto the top. Back in and the Kill Shot gives Johnson two as commentary keeps complementing Johnson despite him being annoying. Castle manages to snap off a German suplex and the Bang A Rang finishes Johnson at 10:30.

Rating: C+. Good back and forth stuff here, though I’m a bit surprised Johnson lost. That being said, Castle has lost everything since they came back and probably needed the win more. Having him be the main event jobber is fine, but he needs to win a match or two in order to keep that status. Johnson is getting better and better though and that’s a good sign for his future.

Castle does shake his hand after the match.

Post break, Castle says he has been having some issues, but everything clicked during the match against Johnson.

LSG talks about how he had Jay Lethal beaten but the time limit cost him. If he has to go through Kenny King to establish his legacy, he’s ready to go.

Kenny King is still not quite over the lost to Shane Taylor but he needs to move forward. The back to back losses aren’t acceptable, especially when he’s looking at the World and TV Champions as his stable mates. LSG is good, but just hanging with someone isn’t still good enough. King is ready to treat him like something on the bottom of his shoe. Apparently this match is taking place on Honor Club on Christmas Eve.

Matt Taven wants you to buy Honor Club.

Rhett Titus has had a lot of success in Ring of Honor but he has also had a lot of failures. He has been a champion but then Kenny King walked off. Now the Foundation wants to reward him for fighting and now it is time to go and deal with someone from his own personal history. That starts with Delirious, who was the first man to bust him open. This is a Pure Rules match though and Delirious can’t hang with him there. Titus’ dropkick is waiting for him.

Delirious, through subtitles, talks about his history with Titus and knows that they have to fight again. He doesn’t want anyone to know his motivations but Titus knows him better than most. Delirious has been around Titus for a long time and tonight, as always, Delirious will beat him.

Delirious vs. Rhett Titus

Pure Rules. They go straight to the mat to start with Titus going after the leg early on. That’s broken up in a hurry so they go the test of strength instead. With that broken up, Titus fireman’s carries him to the mat into an armbar. The grappling continues with neither being able to get very far so it’s another standoff.

We take a break and come back with Rhett taking him to the mat for a quickly broken front facelock. Titus slaps it on again for a change and it’s off to a chinlock to keep Delirious down. A gutwrench suplex puts Delirious down but he pops up with a dropkick to the back. The cobra stretch attempt sends Titus bailing over to the ropes so Delirious tries it again, meaning Titus has to burn off a second break in a hurry.

Delirious starts in on the arm for a change, tying it up with his legs and falling backwards to crank on it even harder. Titus manages to get up and sends Delirious outside in a crash but uses his third rope break in the process. Back in and the cobra stretch goes on so Titus has to use a suplex to break out this time. A belly to belly (with the Magnum TA reference) drops Delirious again, only to have him come back with a cobra clutch suplex for two. Titus is right back up as well and it’s a dropkick to finish Delirious at 12:24, which Caprice compares to getting kicked in the face by a horse.

Rating: C. This was a bit of a weird one as there is a history there, but it is the kind of history that was so long ago that you might not remember it. The extra promos before the match helped, but at the same time it isn’t exactly a main event level feud. Titus certainly seems to try though and I can always respect something like that, especially from someone who has been around as long as him.

Delirious has to ice his face before they shake hands to end the show.

Overall Rating: C. I’ve liked a lot of things that ROH has been doing as of late but they are getting into a bit of a pattern which isn’t the most thrilling. Maybe this was just the standby show so they didn’t have to give up any Final Battle results, but promo, promo, match, promo, promo, match is getting a little repetitive. Still a good enough show, but it isn’t exactly thrilling.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Main Event
Date: December 24, 2020
Location: Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, Florida
Commentators: Tom Phillips, Samoa Joe

It’s a holiday show and I doubt that actually means anything around here. This isn’t quite the show that is going to mean all that much but at least they have some Christmas trees. Granted I’m a week late watching it so the lack of Christmas makes me sad but maybe the show can make it better. Let’s get to it.

Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.

Opening sequence.

Reckoning vs. Nikki Cross

The rest of Retribution is here too. Cross grabs some armdrags to put Reckoning down but she’s right back up with a clothesline. Another shot in the corner gives Reckoning two and it’s time to choke on the ropes. A dropkick cuts off Cross’ comeback attempt and it’s off to an old bow and arrow. That’s broken up as well and Cross hits some clotheslines, setting up the running crossbody in the corner. Reckoning hits a dropkick into the corner though and she ties up Cross’ arm to drive a knee into the face for the pin at 5:15.

Rating: C-. Just a match here but it’s nice to see someone other than the same band of people they’ve had on this show for so many months now. The wrestling was fine enough but I’m still not big on that finish. It always looks weird and not exactly like a knockout, but at least Reckoning won something else.

We look at Charlotte returning at TLC.

From Raw.

Lacey Evans/Peyton Royce vs. Asuka/Charlotte

Non-title. Royce is caught in the Asuka Lock fifteen seconds in with Evans having to make a save. Asuka kicks Lacey in the ribs as we see Baszler and Jax watching from the back. Royce gets in a cheap shot and we take a break. Back with Asuka in trouble but Lacey and Peyton get in an argument, allowing Asuka to suplex her way over for the tag to Charlotte. Chops abound and a big boot drops Royce. Charlotte gets pulled into a half crab though and Evans tries to play defense, only to have Asuka slip in for the save. Asuka kicks Lacey down and the Figure Eight finishes Royce at 8:03.

Rating: C. Just a quick win to keep Asuka and Charlotte hot after their title win last night. The team should be fine as a dream team for a little while, but I’m not sure who is supposed to take the titles other than Baszler and Jax. That can work for the time being though, as it’s not like the titles are regularly defended in the first place. On the other side, it’s nice to see that we are getting closer to the Iiconics reunion every single week.

We look at Randy Orton setting the Fiend on fire at TLC.

From Raw.

Here’s Randy Orton for a chat. He has been called sick, twisted, deranged and demented and last night, he showed he was all of those things when he burned the Fiend alive. Orton is not a normal man and he enjoyed every single second of what he did. He kneels down to look at the exact spot where it happened and says he can smell it if he closes his eyes. Orton: “Burning flesh has a tendency to linger.” Last night he couldn’t sleep because the voices in his head were gone.

All that he could hear instead was the Fiend gasping for breath and the flames got hotter. Orton says the Fiend is no more and he is the evil son of a b**** who took him out. Speaking of out, the lights go out and Alexa Bliss, on a swing set is in the ring. Bliss says he built this for her and now it’s Alexa’s Playground. Orton is probably wondering where He is. Maybe He is at a tanning salon or at the beach or maybe he’s at his favorite restaurant, eating his favorite food (Bliss: “Barbecue!”).

But Orton is right: it was right here where you can still see and smell what happened to the Fiend. It’s almost like Fiend was absorbed into the mat and now he’s home in the earth. But if he ever leaves home, he’ll come back to Alexa’s Playground and it’ll be like nothing Orton has ever seen. The lights go out again and…..we look at commentary. As usual, WWE is horrible at building up tension as this could have taken six weeks but instead it took one day. Just let us believe that Fiend could be gone instead of all but saying “yeah he’ll be back” the next night.

Lince Dorado vs. Akira Tozawa

Dorado works on the arm to start so Tozawa does the same thing. Another armbar takes Tozawa down so this time Tozawa hits him in the face. Back up and a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker plants Tozawa but he knocks Dorado to the floor as we take a break. We come back with Tozawa chopping away for two and elbowing him in the face for the same.

Tozawa grabs a chinlock but Dorado fights up with a springboard moonsault press for two. An Iron Octopus has Dorado in more trouble but he pops up with a swinging slam into a faceplant. The high crossbody hits Tozawa for two (mainly because it hit Tozawa in the face) but he’s right back up with a top rope back elbow for the same. Dorado superkicks him down and the shooting star finishes Tozawa at 10:47.

Rating: C+. This was better than I was expecting because the two of them were given a chance to do their thing for more than a few minutes. These two are two rather talented guys but they aren’t going to get a chance on Raw. At least they have a shot here, and hopefully someone is actually paying attention. I mean they aren’t, but it’s nice to be hopeful.

We look at the Raw World Title match from TLC.

We look at MizTV breaking down to set up the night’s main event.

From Raw.

Drew McIntyre/Sheamus/Keith Lee vs. Miz/John Morrison/AJ Styles

Holiday street fight, so Morrison and Sheamus start things off. Morrison elbows Sheamus in the head and takes him down by the leg in a bit of a surprise. Sheamus is taken into the corner for some triple teaming but Sheamus powers his way out without much trouble. It’s off to McIntyre, with Morrison taking him down by the leg. The Glasgow Kiss rocks Morrison though and Lee comes in for a double toss suplex to send Morrison flying.

A double shoulder drops Morrison as well and there’s a double hiptoss to AJ from Sheamus and Lee. Sheamus glares at Lee, who slaps him in the chest, causing Drew to have to separate them again and we take a break. Back with Miz and Morrison being shoved off the apron as things have calmed down a bit. Sheamus puts AJ in a chinlock but Styles gets up for the tag off to Morrison.

That’s fine with Sheamus, who knocks him down and goes up top, only to be shoved down through one of the tables at ringside. Back in and Miz takes over on Sheamus, even ripping at his face to make it worse. AJ comes in and cuts Sheamus off, only to get caught with White Noise. The hot tag brings in McIntyre to clean house with a bunch of suplexes. McIntyre nips up but tweaks his leg (which Morrison worked on earlier and AJ damaged last night) in the process.

It’s fine enough to hit a spinebuster for two as everything breaks down. Lee runs over Styles and Morrison takes the Irish Curse. AJ comes in with some candy cane kendo stick shots to McIntyre’s knee to take things outside. McIntyre throws him into a Christmas tree and then hits a powerbomb through a table of egg nog and cookies.

The Claymore is broken up but Sheamus tags himself in to load up the Brogue Kick. Lee tags himself in as well and shoves Morrison into Omos’ arms, allowing Omos to drop Morrison through a table (with the camera cutting to the ring and then back to the powerbomb). The Spirit Bomb finishes Miz at 18:25.

Rating: D+. What kind of a street fight was that? This was a regular six man for fifteen minutes with a weapons shot and some tables being broken in the last three, making me wonder why they bothered with the theme at all here. It didn’t help that they’re redoing the arguing teams from the Survivor Series deal (with two of the same people) a month later, but you can’t expect WWE to be that creative.

Post match Sheamus hits Lee with the Brogue Kick, causing McIntyre to yell WHY to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. All this show did was make me realize how fast this company goes at times. This was just over a week ago and it feels like years have passed. Other than that though, it didn’t exactly make me interested in where they are going, but that is the norm for the post TLC/pre-Rumble lull. Not a great show here, but Tozawa vs. Dorado did make me smile a bit.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

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

This is the first PPV version of the show and things have changed a lot. Tonight, everyone is in the match and they’re focusing more on the idea of every man being for himself. The match wouldn’t be worth anything for a few more years but things should be a little bit stronger tonight as they have a better idea what they’re doing. Let’s get to it.

We start off with a listing of presumably everyone in the Rumble tonight. If not then it’s at least most of them.

Dino Bravo/Fabulous Rougeaus vs. Jim Duggan/Hart Foundation

2/3 falls here. Anvil vs. Bravo gets things going and they collide a few times with no one going anywhere. Both guys miss elbows and it’s off to Duggan for a BIG reaction. Ray Rougeau comes in and is immediately slammed down and hit by a knee drop. Hart comes in to a small but audible reaction and gets two each off a small package and a sunset flip. Jacques comes in and things break down a bit with all three heels being caught in one corner where Anvil drives shoulders into them, crushing Ray against the corner under two other guys.

Ray FINALLY gets something in by low bridging Bret to send him to the floor. At the end of the day, when you need someone to sell something you call on Bret. Dino’s side suplex puts Bret down and The Rougeau Bomb gets the first fall. Bret and Ray start things off in the second fall with Hart in big trouble. Jacques comes in and sends Bret into the corner for the traditional chest first bump in the corner which gives Dino two.

Bravo puts on a bear hug for a bit before it’s back to Jacques. A sunset flip gives Bret a quick breather but he’s immediately put in a camel clutch. Anvil makes the save but as he’s being put back in the corner, Ray comes in and puts the same hold back on. That’s good stuff there. The heels take turns working over Bret until Jacques puts on a Boston Crab. Gorilla wants Duggan or Neidhart to come in and break the hold up, because you’ve got five seconds. I love the hypocrisy you would get from him at times.

Bret breaks the hold and tags in Anvil but the referee didn’t see it. That’s such a basic spot but you don’t see it much anymore. Ray puts on an abdominal stretch before it’s off to Jacques for the exact same hold. Bret FINALLY hits an atomic drop to break up the momentum and there’s the white hot tag to Duggan. Anvil hits a slingshot shoulder on Ray and a Duggan elbow drop ties the match up at a fall apiece.

Duggan pounds on Ray to start before going to the wrong corner to try to beat up both guys. Bravo hammers away a bit but rams Duggan’s head into the buckle for no effect at all. Duggan gets punched over into the corner and there’s the tag to Hart. Everything breaks down and Duggan hits Bravo with the board to give Hart the pin.

Rating: C. This was fine but Duggan’s reactions are amazing. The guy was probably the third most over guy in the company at this point, which is covering a lot of ground given how over some of the guys were in 1989. This was fine for an opener but the ending was never quite in doubt, which is ok.

We get a clip of some people pulling their numbers earlier. DiBiase isn’t thrilled at all and immediately goes to find Slick to work out a deal of some kind. These segments need to come back, if nothing else to try to make us believe the numbers are random. The Bushwhackers are happy with their numbers but they trade anyway. Honky is mad about his number. Bad News says his is good news. Demolition seems annoyed. Jake….you can’t tell emotion from him anyway. The Rockers don’t seem to hate theirs.

It’s time for the Super Posedown, which is exactly that: Ultimate Warrior and Rick Rude posing against each other to further their feud. Warrior is IC Champion here and man alive if this happened on a PPV today the fans would likely riot. Well not riot but boo heavily at least. Heenan actually sucks up to the fans because it’s decided by fan vote. Again, the ending here isn’t exactly in doubt. This goes on WAY too long, as it’s just posing and people booing/cheering depending on who is posing. Rude finally attacks Warrior with a bar and bails. Warrior chases after him and that’s it. This somehow took nearly fifteen minutes.

Womens’ Title: Judy Martin vs. Rockin Robin

Robin is defending and is Jake Roberts’ real life half sister. Sherri is in the ring and wants the title shot at the winner of this. Martin misses a charge and Sherri sits in on commentary. They pound on each other and it’s clear that they’re not incredibly skilled in the ring. Martin slams her down and blocks a sunset flip with a punch to the head. Robin puts on a Boston Crab as this is going nowhere.

Martin blocks an O’Connor Roll as Sherri complains about not getting a rematch yet. Gorilla talks about the process you have to go through to get a rematch, which is a nice sounding idea when you think about all the automatic title rematches you get today. Imagine that: EARNING a title match. Something resembling a DDT gets two on Martin but Robin misses an elbow drop. Martin misses one also but a backslide gets two for Judy. Robin kicks her in the face for two and gets the same off a small package. Sherri: “Come on somebody win.” Robin goes to the middle rope, fakes Martin out, and cross bodies her to retain.

Rating: D. Nothing to see here but the ending wasn’t bad. The Women’s Title would be retired about 13 months later and wouldn’t be restored until about 1993. At the end of the day, no one cares about womens wrestling other than for how small their outfits are. Robin and Martin aren’t exactly eye candy either, so this didn’t do much for anyone. At least it was short though.

Slick says the Twin Towers (Boss Man and Akeem) are probably winners of the Rumble but denies knowing anything about shenanigans with DiBiase. Sean Mooney has footage (the original Vickie Guerrer) of Slick and DiBiase together and suddenly Slick realizes he misunderstood Mooney the first time. He has no comment though.

Rude runs his mouth a bit about beating Warrior. This must be intermission.

Yep, it’s intermission as we get promos from a few managers, saying their guys are going to win. Nothing to see here but we hear from Fuji (representing the Powers of Pain), Liz (Mega Powers) and Jimmy Hart (Honky Tonk Man and Greg Valentine). Like I said, nothing to see here.

Jesse is sitting on the throne that will go to either Haku or Race. He thinks he might just run for King because the chair is comfortable.

King Haku vs. Harley Race

Race was King but got hurt and the crown went to Haku. This is his chance to get it back in a one time only return to the ring. Harley shoves over Haku’s throne to start and the brawl is on. You know Race is going to be the brawler in this. Back in and Race pounds away before suplexing Haku down for two. Heenan manages both guys here but Race is kind of the face by default.

They head to the floor again with Race being sent into the post and chopped a few times. Haku sends him back to the floor after a few seconds in the ring as we stall for a few moments. More chops have Race in trouble as Jesse talks about Hogan injuring Race, which is only kind of true. Race no sells a headbutt and gets two off a piledriver. They collide again and Race falls to the floor as Heenan plays both sides, saying he’s for both guys when the other is out of earshot.

Back in and Race punches some more before getting two off a suplex. Haku gets sent to the floor again as it’s pretty clear there’s not much to this match. Race tries to piledrive Haku on the floor but gets backdropped as is the usual. A second attempt at a piledriver works but not incredibly well. Back in and a clothesline puts Haku down for two but Haku comes back and misses a top rope headbutt. Race misses a headbutt of his own and charges into the superkick from Haku (looked GREAT) for the pin to keep the crown in Tonga or wherever he’s from.

Rating: D+. This wasn’t terrible and the ending kick looked awesome, but other than that there wasn’t much to see here. Race was clearly old and banged up and he didn’t have a lot to work with in the form of Haku. The crown was mostly a minor title that was only somewhat official. Nothing to see here, but no one cares about anything but the Rumble tonight anyway.

Time for more Rumble promos, with Beefcake, Greg Valentine (both of whom say they just need their fists), the Powers of Pain (Fuji does the talking for them), Big John Studd (freshly back in the company), Mr. Perfect (pretty new at this point) and Savage (insane of course).

DiBiase is much happier about his number now.

Heenan says the Family (Brainbusters and Andre) is ready and Andre says he’ll thrown them out if he has to. Arn whispers to Tully when Andre isn’t looking because Arn Anderson is more awesome than you.

Hogan gives his usual promo with the focus on Boss Man and Akeem this time.

Royal Rumble

The entrants are every two minutes, allegedly. #1 is Ax and #2 is Smash, beginning a tradition of having partners fight at the beginning of these matches. They immediately pound on each other and amazingly enough, they actually sell the offense. It’s a bunch of clotheslines and punches, but the key to Demolition has always been how HARD they hit each other, which is what you get a lot of here. In at #3 is Andre, which gives us one heck of a handicap match.

Demolition immediately hits a double clothesline on Andre and start demolishing him to a BIG pop. Andre is way past being past his prime here but this is still cool to see. Here’s Mr. Perfect at #4 and he strolls down the aisle, which is pretty wise for him. Andre starts fighting Demolition off and for some reason this turns into a tag match. Andre easily throws out Smash, resulting in a 2-1 attack on Andre.

The Giant fights them off and Perfect sells a headbutt as only Mr. Perfect can. Here’s Ronnie Garvin at #5 and they get Andre tied up in the ropes. The Giant breaks free and beats up Ax while Garvin and Hennig fight a bit. Andre shifts over to beat up Perfect, giving us some more awesome overselling. Greg Valentine is in at #6 to make it 4-1 against Andre. AGAIN Andre is all like BRING IT ON and knocks them away, eliminating Garvin in the process.

Andre chokes Valentine in the corner while Ax and Perfect continue their rather uninteresting fight. Andre starts choking Ax and the look on his face is eerie. Jake Roberts is #7 and Andre immediately pounds him down. Nothing of note happens for two minutes so here’s Ron Bass at #8 as Jake gets eliminated by Andre. Shawn Michaels is in at #9, giving us Ax, Perfect, Andre, Bass, Valentine and Michaels. As I type that, Perfect knocks out Ax.

Perfect throws Shawn over the top rope but some skinning the cat brings him back in. Shawn dropkicks Perfect to the apron as we get into a sell-off. #10 is Butch who gets a big pop of his own. As Butch gets in, here’s Jake Roberts again with the snake to scare Andre out of the match. The fans look at something, presumably Jake and Andre in the aisle, as things settle down a lot. It’s Honky Tonk Man at #11 as things are in that annoying slow period of most Rumbles.

Tito Santana is in at #12 to finally balance the heel/face ratio out a bit. There’s almost nothing going on here other than the energy burst you get from the new guys coming in. Bass hits a good backdrop on Michaels as Santana barely survives an attack from Valentine. Bad News Brown is #13 and Butch and Santana (there’s a pairing for you) dump Honky. Butch gets beaten up and Shawn goes up top to jump on Bad News and Bass. Marty Jannetty is #14 and the Rockers double dropkick Bass out.

Tito kills Valentine with the forearm and world champion Randy Savage is #15. NOW the place wakes up as he hammers away on Bad News. Perfect and Savage go at it in a match that would have the purists drooling. Speaking of making purists drool, Arn Anderson is #16. Savage dumps Valentine as Shawn fights Arn. Savage….saves Anderson and eliminates Shawn? Now there’s one I didn’t expect. To recap, we’ve got Marty, Anderson, Butch, Brown, Savage, Santana and Perfect in there at the moment. That’s quite the lineup for the most part.

Tully Blanchard makes the lineup even stronger at #17. Just to be clear, that’s two tag teams getting back to back numbers. Gee, what are the odds? The Brainbusters double team Marty as we’re just waiting for Hogan at this point. And here he is at #18. There goes Perfect, giving him the new Iron Man record at just under 28:00. Off camera, Savage and the Busters put Santana out as Hulk beats up Brown. Hogan fights off all three heels as Savage beats on Butch. Nice partner, especially after Hogan saved Savage when he got to the ring.

Here’s Luke at #19 as things slow down again. Butch gets thrown out after a remarkable 18 minutes. Hogan hot shots Blanchard but has to beat up Luke instead of eliminating Tully. After a brief lull, here’s Koko B. Ware at #20. After more of that epic Hulk vs. Luke showdown, Arn goes up top and is immediately slammed down by Hogan. Dude, you’re best friends with RIC FLAIR. Why would you think that’s smart? Hogan dumps Koko and Luke but gets double teamed by the Busters.

Warlord is #20 and Hogan clotheslines both Busters out at the same time. Warlord poses on the apron, gets in, and is clotheslined out in 2 seconds flat, setting a record that would last 20 years. Hogan also dumps Bad News, but it takes out Savage in the process which adds even more fuel to the Mega Powers Exploding in less than a month. Liz comes in to play peacemaker and the Powers shake hands.

Now we get the big showdown of the match as Big Boss Man is #21 and gets to face Hogan one on one. This is when Boss Man weighed like 400lbs and was just freaking fat. Hulk slams Boss Man down and pounds away in the corner but falls victim to a splash. A piledriver puts Hulk down and Boss Man stands tall. Gorilla says Hogan has been out there for half an hour (it’s been about 8 or 9 minutes) and Jesse is hilarious in freaking out.

To give us the third team back to back in this Rumble, #22 is Akeem. Hogan rams them together and slams Akeem but the numbers catch up with Hogan. After a brief comeback, a double splash crushes Hogan and he’s easily tossed. Hogan, ever the jerk, pulls Boss Man out and beats on him, which is apparently an elimination. Beefcake is #23, which means we just missed what could have been a good house show tag match.

Hogan and Boss Man brawl to the back as we get to the pretty dull third act of the Rumble. Red Rooster is #24 and helps double team Akeem a bit. They try to dump Akeem but Barbarian comes in at #25 and breaks it up. Gorilla: “That was kind of stupid.” Taylor and Akeem pair off, as do Barbarian and Beefcake and the heels take over. Akeem crushes the Rooster (Terry Taylor in case you’re some young kid) and here’s Big John Studd at #27.

Nothing of note happens there so here’s Hercules at #28. Again nothing happens so Rick Martel is #29. He goes right for Akeem but Studd shoves him away because Akeem is his big piece of chicken tonight. DiBiase is of course #30, giving us DiBiase, Akeem, Hercules, Beefcake, Studd, Barbarian, Rooster and Martel. Jesse and Gorilla have a debate about what a manager is as DiBiase throws out the Rooster to get us down to seven.

DiBiase and Barbarian team up to put out Hercules and Beefcake, leaving us with five. This last part isn’t quite death for the match but it’s certainly a bad sickness. Martel puts out the Barbarian to give us a final four. Akeem misses a splash on Martel in the corner and Rick fires off some dropkicks to no avail.

A cross body is caught and Akeem dumps Martel to get us down to Studd, Akeem and DiBiase. Akeem pounds on Studd as DiBiase gives instructions. Studd pulls Ted in front of a splash and dumps Akeem to get us down to two. DiBiase offers money but Studd shakes a finger at him. Studd actually fires off some suplexes to the shock of Monsoon. The elimination is academic and Studd wins.

Rating: C-. The last third REALLY hurts this. It’s not that it’s bad but after Hogan leaves you could almost hear a pin fall. Ha I made a wrestling joke. Also, John Studd? Really? They’ve got all those guys in there and they pick Studd to win? After Wrestlemania the guy was pretty much gone and I don’t think there was ever a clear reason for Studd winning given, other than they thought he was going to be a big deal. It’s just an odd pick and one that hindsight doesn’t look kindly on. Anyway not a terrible match but the booking hurts it.

Savage reassures himself that he’s still great. You can hear the paranoia and see the heel turn coming if you look hard enough.

Jesse and Gorilla wrap things up.

Overall Rating: D+. I can’t say this was a bad show because nothing on here is truly terrible, but it’s certainly not good either. This is very characteristic of the late 80s as other than Hogan and Savage, the stories were very limited at best. They were trying though and that’s something you can’t fake. Not a terrible show, but it’s nothing more than a moment \for the most part.

Ratings Comparison

Jim Duggan/Hart Foundation vs. Dino Bravo/Fabulous Rougeaus

Original: C+

Redo: C

Rockin’ Robin vs. Judy Martin

Original: C-

Redo: D

King Haku vs. Harley Race

Original: C

Redo: D+

Royal Rumble

Original: C+

Redo: C-

Overall Rating

Original: C-

Redo: D+

About the same again. That’s interesting compared to what happened with the Survivor Series Redos.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/01/08/royal-rumble-count-up-1989/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

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.

 

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

NXT
Date: December 30, 2020
Location: Capitol Wrestling Center, Winter Park, Florida
Commentators: Beth Phoenix, Wade Barrett, Vic Joseph

It’s finally time to wrap up the year and that can’t come soon enough. This is the go home show for next week’s New Year’s Evil, but we also have a major night in that we are finding out the Year End Award winners. NXT makes these things out to be a big deal and hopefully they continue their trend this year. Let’s get to it.

Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.

In memory of Jon Huber/Luke Harper.

Isaiah Scott vs. Bronson Reed

Reed headlocks him down without much trouble to start. Scott gets sent outside and there’s a big shoulder off the apron to take him down again. Back in and Scott hits a dropkick to the floor again, setting up a running kick from the apron. That’s good for two back inside but Reed pounds him down without much effort. Scott flips out of the corner though and hits an elbow in the corner.

A running dropkick to the leg gives Scott two but Reed is back up to grab him by the throat. Reed headbutts him down a few times and a swinging chokeslam gets two. Scott goes to the ropes so the referee tries to break it up, allowing Scott to sneak in a headbutt. This just annoys Reed though, who runs him over and hits a backsplash. The Tsunami finishes Scott at 6:18.

Rating: C. Not much to this one but I can go for more of Reed being the big unstoppable monster. The Tsunami is one of those spots that is going to work on anyone and it looked awesome here again. I can go for more of Scott as a heel, but maybe he should actually win something of note.

It’s time for the first award, with Breakout Star of the Year:

Pat McAfee

Damian Priest

Shotzi Blackheart

Cameron Grimes

Dexter Lumis

Timothy Thatcher

Raquel Gonzalez

Santos Escobar

Ilja Dragunov

Winner: Shotzi Blackheart.

I mean….yeah she has been pushed, but how is this not Grimes, who has been a star, or Priest, who actually won something? There are worse choices, but there are also some far better ones. And no Karrion Kross?

Shotzi talks about how her dad taught her to be a bad*** and she had a great year. Next year is going to be even better.

Earlier today, the Way panicked because Johnny Gargano saw a black cat. He isn’t losing again!

Breezango vs. Grizzled Young Veterans

Drake headlocks Breeze down to start but Breeze is back up to pull on an armbar. It’s off to Fandango for a shoulder and an armbar of his own. The chinlock goes on as we’re told that the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic is back in two weeks. It’s off to Gibson for the first time and Breeze is driven into the corner. That means Drake can grab a headlock, but Breeze gets over for the tag off to Fandango.

The pace picks up a bit with a sunset flip giving Fandango two. A double kick to the head puts Gibson down but he knocks Fandango off the apron. Breeze takes the Veterans down so Fandango climbs the lighting structure for a dive. Fandango comes up holding his knee though and we take a break.

Back with Fandango still down on the floor until Gibson sends him inside for a dragon screw legwhip. A slam puts Fandango down again with his knee hitting the ropes this time. The knee is healthy enough to kick them to the floor and a crawl through Gibson’s legs is enough to bring Breeze back in. Everything breaks down and Breeze gets taken down with a double forearm on the floor. Fandango takes Gibson down with a flip off the steps but Gibson is back up to send him knees first into the steps. That leaves Breeze to walk into Ticket To Mayhem for the pin at 13:00.

Rating: C. The more I think about it, the more obvious it is that Breezango is not a great team around here. They’re fine for comedy, but watching them in a thirteen minute match drags a show to a halt. They just aren’t that interesting and it shows worse every time. I get why they’re here, but can we make the matches a little bit shorter?

Post match Ever-Rise comes out and has the referee hold them back. She’s done and walks away, so the Veterans come after them. Ever-Rise walks away.

It’s time for Tag Team Of The Year:

Undisputed Era

Breezango

Imperium

Gallus

Legado del Fantasma

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch

Winner: Undisputed Era.

Can we just name the award after them already?

The Era talks about how awesome they are and this year, it’s Adam Cole and Roderick Strong representing the team in the Dusty Cup.

Boa and Xia Li kneel before the master, who puts paint on their heads. They get up and follow the mystery woman through a curtain and into the light. Next week.

Mercedes Martinez vs. Valentina Feroz

Martinez forearms her in the face to start and hits a quick chokeslam. Feroz’s sleeper doesn’t work and a sunset flip fails even harder. The Air Raid Crash finishes Feroz with ease at 2:12. Martinez looked like a monster.

Post match Martinez says every woman here is on her radar, click click.

It’s time for the Female Competitor Of The Year:

Rhea Ripley

Io Shirai

Candice LeRae

Dakota Kai

Kay Lee Ray

Tegan Nox

Winner: Io Shirai.

Like it really could have been anyone else.

Shirai thanks the fans for voting for her and smiles a lot.

Now the Male Competitor Of The Year:

Finn Balor

Adam Cole

Johnny Gargano

Keith Lee

Walter

Tommaso Ciampa

Winner: Adam Cole.

Not much of an argument here, but it’s a bit closer than the women’s race.

Cole says he told us so but he couldn’t do it without the Undisputed Era. As cool as it is to win two of these in a row, Kyle O’Reilly winning the NXT Title next week is going to mean even more.

Pete Dunne vs. Roderick Strong

Strong chops him against the ropes to start as commentary actually brings up their time teaming together in the Dusty Classic in 2018. They run the ropes until Strong hits a clothesline and hammers Dunne down again. Dunne is back with a headlock but Strong slips out and hits the Sick Kick. With nothing else working, Dunne starts in on the fingers and bends the arm a bit.

Strong is right back with the first backbreaker to send Dunne outside and there’s a dropkick through the ropes. We take a break and come back with Dunne grabbing something like Rings of Saturn. That’s broken up so Dunne backflips over him out of the corner, only to get caught with a dropkick. Strong scores with a running knee in the corner and the running forearms against the rope has Dunne in more trouble.

The Angle Slam connects for two and Dunne heads outside, where Strong hits a full nelson slam onto the apron. Back in and Dunne counters the butterfly backbreaker into a triangle choke, which is countered into another backbreaker for another two. Strong forearms his way out of another triangle so Dunne kicks him in the face. Dunne finally snaps the fingers and the Bitter End finishes Strong at 13:40.

Rating: B. This was the kind of match you would expect from these two with Dunne absorbing everything Strong could throw at him until the fingers were too much of a weak spot. Dunne is starting to look a bit more like his UK self and that is very good for everyone involved.

It’s a big award with Match Of The Year:

Four Way Iron Man Match – Super Tuesday

Finn Balor vs. Kyle O’Reilly – Takeover: 31

Ilja Dragunov vs. Walter – NXT UK TV

Men’s WarGames – Takeover: WarGames

Rhea Ripley vs. Charlotte vs. Io Shirai – Takeover: In Your House

Winner: Finn Balor vs. Kyle O’Reilly.

I liked Walter vs. Dragunov better but those two beat the heck out of each other and this gives them some more steam going into the rematch.

Finn Balor comes up to William Regal, who has the trophies. Balor says Regal can keep his, and he’ll give Kyle the award in person.

Balor is on his way to the ring and runs into Pete Dunne, telling him to get in line if he wants a title shot.

Video on the Fight Pit match next week.

Here’s Finn Balor to present Kyle O’Reilly with the trophy. Balor says he and O’Reilly had the Match of the Year, with O’Reilly proving that he belonged in this ring. O’Reilly deserves this….and here he comes to claim it. Balor says the award is his because Balor doesn’t need it. Instead, he has the NXT Title and three plates in his jaw to remind him of that day. That’s cool with O’Reilly, because the trophy means something to him.

It’s proof that he belongs here but he isn’t going to carry around a participation trophy. This is a reminder that he came up short in the fight of his life. He will do everything to become NXT Champion because it means he has done something in the last fifteen years. Balor says that’s great, but he’s going to do everything he can to make O’Reilly suffer. He is going to make O’Reilly wish that he (censored) the first time.

Cue Scarlett and Karrion Kross to interrupt and say that what’s in the ring belongs to them. It doesn’t matter who leaves with the title in seven days because their fate is already sealed. Kross says doomsday is here, tick tock. Damian Priest pops up behind him and hits Kross in the face as the fight is on. The Razor’s Edge on the ramp is broken up so Priest headbutts him down the ramp instead.

Kross drives him back first into the lighting structure but they go crashing through the Plexiglas. They fight into the back and then come through the curtain again with Kross hammering him on some anvil cases. They both crash down and Scarlett REALLY likes what she is seeing. Heck of a brawl here, but the O’Reilly/Balor segment was great.

We get a Rhea Ripley video, talking about how she and Raquel Gonzalez used to be close at the Performance Center. They wanted to be sisters, which Ripley never had before. Now they even have matching RNR tattoos on their fingers. Raquel has changed though and now her ego has grown over Rhea’s success. Gonzalez talks about how she is the biggest and baddest woman in NXT and maybe she has been playing this game since the beginning. Ripley doesn’t seem to buy it and now they’re ready to fight again. That’s better backstory than I would have bet on seeing.

Here’s Legado del Fantasma in the ring for a chat. Santos Escobar tells them to enjoy the year because it was a great one for the three of them, but especially him. His lack of awards is a sham because he’s here to dominate, which is what he has done. William Regal is trying to find the next challenger for the NXT Title because no one can touch him. No one is going to belong in this ring with him because they are the leaders of lucha libre. Cue the Lucha House Party of all people (who somehow have never wrestled on NXT TV) and after some shouting in Spanish, it’s lucha time.

Legado del Fantasma vs. Lucha House Party

Escobar offers a quick distraction so Legado can jump them from behind, only to get caught with a double Golden Rewind. A double dropkick to the floor sets up stereo dives and we take a break before the bell. We’re joined in progress with Metalik splashing Mendoza for two as Barrett rants about how easy it is to beat the Miz. Dorado comes in but Mendoza gets in a dropkick to the ribs and a running clothesline in the corner.

The chinlock goes on for a bit but Dorado gets up top for a high crossbody. The hot tag brings in Metalik for a superkick to Mendoza, followed by a reverse Sling Blade. There’s the rope walk dropkick for two and a super hurricane drops Mendoza again. Metalik’s top rope splash connects with Wilde having to make a save. There’s a running hurricanrana to send Wilde to the floor and the inverted hurricanrana plants Mendoza. The rope walk elbow is good for the pin on Mendoza at 3:51.

Rating: C. They packed some nice stuff into the short time that they had, but the important thing here is getting to see some mostly unused main roster names getting a chance in NXT. I have no idea if this lasts beyond tonight but having Lucha House Party here, possibly to go after the Cruiserweight Title, is a good thing. It’s not like they’re doing anything important on Raw.

Next up is Future Star Of The Year:

Austin Theory

Jake Atlas

Leon Ruff

Kacy Catanzaro

Kayden Carter

Indi Hartwell

Xia Li

A-Kid

Aoife Valkyrie

Pretty Deadly

Winner: Austin Theory.

Given that he wrestled at Wrestlemania, it’s kind of hard to argue against him, especially with Ruff’s title win being little more than a joke.

The Way tells Theory to share with Indi Hartwell, who is amazed to find out that the bell is real. Theory mentions the curse so Johnny Gargano throws his protein powder…..and breaks a mirror in the process. Then he accidentally walks underneath a ladder.

The final award is the Overall Competitor Of The Year.

Winner: Io Shirai.

She has been champion for a long time and has some awesome matches. What else do you need?

Shirai thanks the fans again.

North American Title: Johnny Gargano vs. Leon Ruff

Ruff is challenging and neither get an entrance. Gargano, with the Way at ringside, headlocks him down to start but gets rolled up for a fast two. A victory roll gets two more on Gargano and sends him outside for a breather. Austin Theory offers a distraction but Gargano misses the slingshot spear anyway. Back in and Ruff chops away but Gargano knocks him off the top and out tot he floor. Ruff gets sent into the barricade, only to have Ruff jump onto the cage barricade and come back off with a hurricanrana. Back in and a neckbreaker drops Ruff again and this time Gargano sends him into the steps.

We take a break and come back with Gargano snapping the arm but Ruff gets two off a backslide. Some crossbodies stagger Gargano and a jumping neckbreaker out of the corner puts him down again. Ruff hits a German suplex into a corkscrew Cannonball for two. A rebound lariat drops Gargano again but he pops back up with a superkick.

The Lawn Dart sets up a low superkick for two on Ruff, followed by the discus lariat. Gargano powerbombs him into the Gargano Escape, with Ruff going straight to the rope. The Lawn Dart into the barricade is broken up so Ruff goes to the apron for a jumping cutter onto the floor. Back in and the frog splash gives Ruff two so he takes Gargano up top. That’s fine with Gargano, who drops him hard face first onto the turnbuckle. One Final Beat breaks the curse at 14:13.

Rating: C+. The lack of drama hurt things a bit here but the action was good, which is what carried this over the finish line. This almost has to be it for Ruff and after as much as he got out of the run with the title, I’m thinking he’ll be just fine. Gargano believing in the curse until the ending was a nice touch and the big relief on his face made it that much better.

Dexter Lumis pops up with a bunch of drawings to run down the New Year’s Evil card, including Gran Metalik vs. Santos Escobar for the Cruiserweight Title.

Overall Rating: B-. Good show here, but next week is the one that is really going to matter. This week was more about setting things up for New Year’s Evil, which is looking like it could be bigger than some Takeovers. If it’s anything like a usual big time NXT, they’re going to be just fine. This week was a good stepping stone to that, but it was nothing more than a stepping stone.

Results

Bronson Reed b. Isaiah Scott – Tsunami

Grizzled Young Veterans b. Breezango – Ticket To Mayhem to Breeze

Mercedes Martinez b. Valentina Feroz – Air Raid Crash

Pete Dunne b. Roderick Strong – Bitter End

Lucha House Party b. Legado del Fantasma – Rope walk elbow to Mendoza

Johnny Gargano b. Leon Ruff – One Final Beat

 

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Like it could be anything else this week.

 

https://wrestlingrumors.net/tommyhall/kbs-review-yeah-yeah-yeah/

Dynamite
Date: December 30, 2020
Location: Daily’s Place, Jacksonville, Florida
Commentators: Excalibur, Tony Schiavone, Jim Ross, Chris Jericho

This is going to be a complete detour as the show is going to be all about Brodie Lee, who shockingly passed away on Saturday due to some kind of lung issue. The show is going to be a complete tribute to him with all stories postponed until next week. That’s the only way this could have gone and there is nothing wrong with that. Let’s get to it.

We open with a ten bell salute to Brodie Lee, with his family on the stage, including his son in a Dark Order mask.

Jon Moxley talks about Lee being a good person who he knew for years. This has been a soccer kick to the face but it has shown him that wrestling is a community. He is going to appreciate every day and he’ll never forget Brodie.

Matt Hardy/Private Party vs. Young Bucks/Colt Cabana

For the sake of sanity, I’ll only refer to Matt Jackson as Matt. Colt and the Bucks clean house one at a time to start, including a triple dropkick to put Hardy on the floor. Nick adds the running flip dive to take them all down again. Colt hits an Asai moonsault to do the same. We settle down to Hardy hammering on Matt but everything breaks down all over again with Marq Quen hitting a dive to Hardy on the floor.

Back in and Matt is taken down again, including being sent face first into Isaiah Kassidy’s boot in the corner. the triple teaming continues until Hardy makes the mistake of going after Cabana, allowing Matt to get over for the hot tag. Cabana comes in to clean house with the Flip Flop and Fly, followed by the Flying Apple to Kassidy. Hardy breaks up the tag to Nick and the discus lariat is countered into a crucifix for two on Cabana. A crossbody gets the same but Nick comes in sans tag with a hurricanrana.

Nick gets the actual tag a few seconds later and starts taking over, only to be tripped down by Hardy. Back in and Gin and Juice hits Matt, setting up Kassidy’s Swanton and Quen’s shooting star for two with Cabana and Nick making the save (JR: “Let’s hear it for Boom Boom!”). Hardy grabs a chair but gets taken down, leaving Cabana to have to fight out of Gin and Juice. The Chicago Skyline hits Kassidy and the Indytaker into the Superman pin finishes Quen at 13:29.

Rating: B-. The wrestling is going to be quite the minor point here and that’s how a show like this should be. This was a bunch of high flying and diving, with the Bucks doing everything they should be doing. Cabana can do any style and Hardy looked good enough. Private Party didn’t go too insane either, leaving this to be a rather nice and energetic opener.

Post match it’s the Acclaimed coming in to rap about this show but SCU jumps them from behind and Cabana hits the double Bionic Elbow. Cabana throws up the Dark Order sign for perhaps the first time.

Darby Allin, sans face paint, talks about how Lee was the #1 guy he wanted to wrestle because of everything he did behind the scenes. Lee was a great person to talk to and Allin is sad he never got in the ring with him.

Lance Archer/Stu Grayson/Evil Uno vs. Eddie Kingston/Butcher and the Blade

Archer is in Luke Harper gear for a nice touch. Jake Roberts and the Bunny are here as well. Before the match, Kingston says he’s going to show that the Dark Order is nothing without Lee and the brawl is on in a hurry. Archer gets suplexed onto Kingston, who is taken into the corner for some wild eyed shots from Grayson. Bunny grabs Grayson’s leg though, allowing Butcher to clothesline him down.

Blade powerslams Grayson down but Jake grabs his leg to even things up. Grayson is back with a Boss Man Slam (Jericho: “It’s a Brody Slam!”) as we take a break. Back with Kingston and Uno slapping it out until Kingston misses some spinning backfists. A half and half (Brody move) hits Kingston and the hot tag brings in Archer to take over.

Archer starts wrecking people and it’s a rope walk moonsault (cool) to drop Blade. Grayson and Uno come in for an assisted Downward Spiral but Kingston makes the save and hits a DDT (with a glare at Roberts) for two. Kingston saves Blade from the Blackout and Grayson hits a running DDT to the apron to plant Butcher. The Fatality finishes Blade at 10:00.

Rating: B-. Another match where they did what they needed to do and showed off at the same time. I’m still not sure where this version of the Dark Order came from as they were one of the lamest teams around to start and then have a rather nice match like this for a change. Archer’s special gear was perfect too.

Post match Kingston gets beaten down, including a short arm clothesline from Jake.

Dax Harwood, Arn Anderson, Colt Cabana and Bryce Remsburg talk about what a great father and family man Lee was.

Hangman Page/John Silver/Alex Reynolds vs. Santana/Ortiz/Maxwell Jacob Friedman

MJF is in Puerto Rico themed gear and Silver/Reynolds throw papers at Santana/Ortiz (apparently a Brodie thing from Being The Elite). MJF gets sent outside to yell at Brodie’s son, with Jericho saying the kid has been bothering him all day. We settle back down to Santana hitting a neckbreaker on Reynolds, followed by Two Amigos. Ortiz comes in for a double Third Amigo but Reynolds gets over for the tag to Page.

The pace picks way up, including a fall away slam to MJF into a nip up into a dive onto Santana on the floor. Back in and Page gets taken down for two as we go to a break. Back with Silver coming in to clean house and kicking Ortiz off the top. Silver hits a flip dive off the apron onto Santana (JR: “What a white meat babyface this kid is!”). A sitout powerbomb gets two on Ortiz back inside but MJF makes the save.

Silver is sent into the corner but MJF comes back with something like a Code Red, with only his ankles wrapping around MJF’s head to drive it into the mat. The Heat Seeker plants Silver and Ortiz grabs a powerbomb for two with Reynolds making a save of his own. Everything breaks down and Wardlow comes in but ERICK REDBEARD (Rowan) runs in to take him out. MJF goes outside and takes the mask off of Lee’s son, earning himself a kendo stick shot to the head. The fans go nuts and it’s a discus lariat to pin Ortiz 12:38.

Rating: C+. This was the emotional match on the card and you could see everyone being very invested in what they were doing (as everyone has been tonight of course). Silver got so much out of the Dark Order so this is the kind of match that he needs to have on the show. Throw in the incredible Redbeard cameo and the whole thing was near perfect.

Redbeard comes back in to hold up a sign saying “goodbye for now my brother, see you down the road.” Jericho sounds near tears over this one. Well that was about the most emotional thing I’ve seen in years.

Eddie Kingston talks about how much he is going to miss Lee. He talks about Lee’s kids missing their dad, who was a warrior outside of the ring. Lee took care of the two of them and he loved them so much.

Tay Conti/Anna Jay vs. Britt Baker/Penelope Ford

Rebel, Kip Sabian and Miro are all here too. Jay and Baker trade arm cranks to start before it’s off to Conti to kick Penelope down. We hear about Conti’s amateur experience as Sabian offers a distraction, allowing Baker to get in a jumping knee. Conti gets sent to the floor with Baker getting in a stomp and Rebel not quite being able to get in a cheap shot.

We take a break and come back with Conti and Ford kicking each other in the face, allowing the double tag to Baker and Jay. Everything breaks down and Jay stops to point at the 99 on her cheek, allowing Baker to hit a fisherman’s neckbreaker. A Downward Spiral sends Jay into the middle buckle and Ford comes in with a Blockbuster for two. Jay is right back with the Queen Slayer as for the tap from Ford at 9:49 with Conti taking out Baker.

Rating: C. Conti and Jay have come a long way in recent months and it was nice to see them getting a win like this. They didn’t need to do anything fancy here and it’s a good example of doing something more basic at a higher level. Ford taking the fall isn’t going to hurt her as she has the big wedding deal coming up in a few weeks anyway.

Post match Baker says everything was rigged. Conti was rigged, Jay was rigged, the match was rigged. In fact everything was…..a big rig. She winks at the camera but here’s Thunder Rosa to jump her from behind, with referees having to break it up.

Here’s what’s coming over the next two weeks.

Chris Jericho talks about working with Lee 27 times, including in Saudi Arabia. When he was in the hotel room in Saudi Arabia, Jericho saw what he thought was a sticker on the ceiling. Lee came in and said it was the arrow pointing to Mecca, which blew Jericho’s mind because he shouldn’t know that kind of thing.

Jericho helped bring Lee into AEW and it meant a lot that he was able to see Lee be the kind of star that he knew he could be. All the proof you need of how good a person Lee was is the time he came to Jericho’s house and Jericho’s mean dog licked his hand. Jericho promises to take care of Lee’s family. This was great.

Cody Rhodes/Orange Cassidy/10 vs. Team Taz

This was hand picked by Lee’s son and it is billed as his dream match. Cody bounces off of Powerhouse Hobbs to start. With that not working, Cody (reluctantly) brings in 10 to suplex Starks. That’s enough for Starks to head to the floor so it’s back to Hobbs, who wants Cassidy. The hands go into the pockets and a slow motion shoulder doesn’t go well as we take a break.

Back with Cage hitting a rather delayed vertical suplex on Cassidy. It’s off to Starks, who gets caught in a suplex from Cassidy for a change. Cody comes in to pick up the pace and throw his weight belt into the crowd. Starks and Cody hit stereo discus lariats, meaning it’s back to 10 for a Brodie Bomb. A spear cuts 10 down and it’s Cassidy coming back in as everything breaks down.

Hobbs hits a spinebuster on Cassidy but walks into a superkick from Cody. There’s a Downward Spiral from Cage but 10 hits a clothesline to the back of Cage’s head. With everyone down, Arn Anderson and Taz grab chairs, leaving Cassidy to hit the Orange Punch on Starks. Cody adds Cross Rhodes and 10 hits the spinebuster to finish Starks at 11:31.

Rating: C+. This was about elevating 10 and that’s what they did here. He isn’t exactly someone who gets a lot of attention around here and odds are he isn’t going to again, but at least he got a chance here. If nothing else, it was nice to see the Dark Order complete the sweep and it’s not like the results mean much on this show in the first place.

Post match the celebration is on but Team Taz breaks it up in a hurry. Even Hook gets in a suplex on Cassidy (Jericho: “Hook just wants to get his picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone.”). The lights go out and here’s Darby Allin for the save….with Sting following. JR: “I’ve known him since the days of the Blade Runners. Google it kids.”

Post break Cody is in the ring for the final tribute. Cody gives a quote about how you can tell the value of a man based on how he treats someone who has nothing to give him. Over the last few days, we have heard one tribute after another to Lee and it is because he was a beautiful man who left a legacy. That legacy is here tonight, so here is Lee’s family, including his son, Negative One, Brodie Lee Jr.

This brings out Lee’s wife and son, with the son leaving Lee’s boots in the ring. Tony Khan hands Lee Jr. the TNT Title, declaring him the champion for life. Khan thanks the fans and gives us a tribute video to Lee set to the Eagles’ Ol’ 55, complete with quite a bit of old school footage, including some home movies and shots of him with his family. There are even some WWE photos included, with some shots of Big E., John Morrison, Bray Wyatt and more. Find this as it’s one of the best things I’ve seen in a long time.

Overall Rating: A+. The wrestling wasn’t the point of the show and there is nothing wrong with that. Tonight was all about Brodie Lee and that’s all it should have been about, as he was taken away at a ridiculously too young 41 due to something he didn’t cause. The matches were good to rather good, but this was all about saying thank you and goodbye, with the stuff with his family being outstanding. Go find that tribute though as it’s the best thing on the show. This was excellent and they nailed everything about the whole night.

Results

Young Bucks/Colt Cabana b. Matt Hardy/Private Party – Superman pin to Quen

Lance Archer/Stu Grayson/Evil Uno b. Eddie Kingston/Butcher and the Blade – Fatality to Blade

John Silver/Alex Reynolds/Hangman Page b. Maxwell Jacob Friedman/Santana/Ortiz – Discus lariat to Ortiz

Tay Conti/Anna Jay b. Penelope Ford/Britt Baker – Queen Slayer to Ford

10/Cody Rhodes/Orange Cassidy b. Team Taz – Brodie Bomb to Starks

 

 

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