Summerslam 1996
Date: August 18, 1996
Location: Gund Arena, Cleveland, Ohio
Attendance: 17,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jim Ross, Mr. Perfect

Things have changed quite a bit since last year. For one thing, the NWO currently has its foot on the WWF’s neck but no one knew how bad it was going to get. Shawn was pretty much tanking as champion but he’s still defending tonight against Vader. The major match though is Undertaker vs. Mankind in a Boiler Room Brawl which has the potential to be awesome. Let’s get to it.

The pre-show match is kind of famous so I’ll throw it in as a bonus.

Steve Austin vs. Yokozuna

Austin is fresh off winning the King of the Ring and cutting the promo that made him famous. Yoko is so fat it’s terrifying at this point. Austin still has very slow music here which sounds like it belongs in a romantic drama. He goes right after the big man to start but a single right hand puts Steve down. A double middle finger earns Austin a Samoan drop and a legdrop. Yoko loads up the Banzai Drop and the freaking ring breaks with Yoko falling down to the mat, giving Austin an easy pin.

The opening video is about monsters like Vader and Mankind wearing masks but heroes standing up to them no matter what.

Owen Hart vs. Savio Vega

Owen has a broken arm/wrist coming in. Feeling out process to start with the referee warning Owen about using the cast. Savio does the smart thing by ramming the bad arm into the buckle to take over. We hit an armbar as we cut to Vader’s locker room to see Cornette firing him up. A monkey flip and a dropkick put Owen down and it’s back to the armbar. Owen kicks out of a rollup and sends Savio shoulder first into the post as momentum changes all of a sudden.

Off to a wristlock on Vega as the match is still waiting to get off the ground. Owen puts on a long armbar followed by a DDT on the arm for two. Vega bites his way out of the hold as the crowd is dead quiet for this. Owen charges into a boot and here’s Clarence Mason, a lawyer, to watch the match. An enziguri puts Vega down for two and a few rollups get the same for Savio.

Hart takes him down with a spinwheel kick but Savio comes back with right hands and clotheslines. Owen’s missile dropkick gets two as the crowd is into this all of a sudden. Hart is crotched on another top rope attempt but Savio lands on the cast in his belly to back superplex. Owen slips off the cast and lays out Savio (with the referee looking right at him), setting up the Sharpshooter for the win.

Rating: C. This took awhile to get going and could have shaved off five minutes or so. Savio was nothing special at all and Owen was in a transitional phase of his career as he was trying to become a singles guy but wasn’t ready to do it yet. The match wasn’t bad and picked way up but the ending was lame.

Post match Justin Hawk Bradshaw comes out to lay out Vega once again.

Todd Petingill is in the boiler room and finds Mankind licking a pipe and saying there’s no place like home.

Tag Titles: Smoking Gunns vs. New Rockers vs. Bodydonnas vs. Godwinns

The heel Gunns are defending and this is under elimination rules. The New Rockers are Marty Jannetty and Leif Cassidy (Al Snow) and the Bodydonnas are Skip (Chris Candido) and Zip (Tom Pritchard). Skip is in a neck brace here due to a potentially broken neck but he’s wrestling anyway. The Gunns have Sunny who looks GREAT as a cowgirl. Billy Gunn starts with Henry Godwinn with Hank throwing Billy around with ease.

A wheelbarrow slam sends Billy out to the floor and it’s off to Phineas vs. Zip. After a comedic feeling out process it’s off to both Gunns at the same time. Zip and Phineas strut across the ring for no apparent reason as the Gunns freak out about having to fight each other. The referee says either make contact or be disqualified. After no contact, Bart tags in Zip so the crowd can have something else to be bored by. Jannetty trips Zip and Billy gets an easy pin so the Bodydonnas don’t have to be out there long.

Henry comes back in to crank on Billy’s arm but Billy quickly tags out to Jannetty. Marty slowly pounds on Henry and plays to the comatose crowd. Leif gets the tag but quickly brings in Billy to work over Henry. The Rockers have a miscue with the Gunns and Henry gets two off a side slam on Billy. Marty’s save results in an elbow drop on Billy as everything breaks down. Henry kicks Marty into Leif and hits the Slop Drop (reverse DDT) on Cassidy for the elimination.

We’re down to the Godwinns vs. the champions and it’s Bart in for the first time. Henry explodes out of the corner with a clothesline to put both guys down. Bart breaks up a tag attempt as this match is dragging terribly. Billy comes in and the place is so silent you can hear the insults between the wrestlers.

Back to Bart to pound away on Henry for a few moments before bringing Billy back in. Henry catches a charging Billy in a World’s strongest Slam and there’s the lukewarm tag to Phineas. He cleans house and everything breaks down with Phineas hitting the Slop Drop on Billy, only to have Bart blast Phineas from the top for the pin to retain.

Rating: D-. This was so boring I could barely keep my eyes open. The tag title scene was so barren at this point that there were practically zero interesting acts at all. That would be the case for over a year when the New Age Outlaws FINALLY brought the division back to life for a few years. Terribly boring match.

Post match Sunny insults the women in the audience and unveils a huge poster of herself to make the arena prettier.

Video on the Summerslam festivities in the city this weekend.

Sycho Sid vs. British Bulldog

Sid is just back after being out for about six months with an injury. He’s part of Shawn’s war with Camp Cornette, making this a lower level battle in the feud. The fans are WAY into Sid here which makes his title reigns a lot more understandable. Neither guy goes anywhere on some collisions until Sid slams him down to the floor. A LOUD Let’s Go Sid chant starts up, giving us more interest than the entire tag title match had combined.

Bulldog tries to power out of a headlock as the announcers talk about Mason being out here instead of Cornette again. A powerslam gets two for Sid but Bulldog comes back with the delayed vertical suplex. That’s some impressive power, especially on a guy that tall. We hit the chinlock for a bit before Bulldog clotheslines Sid to the floor. Bulldog clotheslines him down again and flips forward to entertain us while Sid is down. Back to the chinlock before Bulldog hits the powerslam clean, but here’s Cornette to argue with Mason. Another powersam is countered into the chokeslam and an AWESOME powerbomb is good for the pin.

Rating: D+. The match was better than you would think with both guys’ power stuff looking good. That powerbomb was great as Bulldog just stopped once he hit the mat and the selling was even better. Sid is just scary over at this point, which made his heel turn all the better. To be fair though, the fans just wouldn’t boo the guy even when he was a heel. Take that for what you will.

The managers keep arguing post match.

Video on Shawn.

Goldust vs. Marc Mero

Marlena and Sable are the seconds here and Goldust has a thing for the latter. Goldust takes him into the corner and rubs his own chest before slapping Mero in the face. Some armdrags take Goldie down and he hides in the corner. They run the ropes a bit with Mero getting two off a cross body and hooking an armbar. The crowd is dead again so the announcers talk about Ahmed Johnson’s kidney injury.

Back up and Goldust backdrops Mero out to the floor before dropping him throat first across the barricade. Goldust hooks a chinlock and here’s Mankind who has been calling Sable mommy lately. Some referees chase him off a few seconds later, making this your pointless cameo of the show. A knee to the ribs puts Mero down for two but he comes off the middle rope with a back elbow to the jaw.

A clothesline and a backdrop put Goldust down again and a million dollar kneelift does the same. Goldust counters punches in the corner and they both tumble to the floor but Mero slides back in and hits a running flip dive. A slingshot legdrop gets two followed by the debut of the Shooting Star Press, called the Wild Thing. Since this is 1996 WWF, it only gets two. A few seconds later Goldust hits the Curtain Call (reverse forward suplex) for the pin.

Rating: D. Another dull match here other than the Shooting Star. Goldust was all thought and character but little in the area of substance in the ring. The crowd was dead again here other than for the Wild Thing which was by far the most exciting thing in the match. There wasn’t much to see here but as was the case back then, a lot of matches on PPV were filler.

Goldust stalks Sable post match until Mero makes the save.

We recap Jake Roberts vs. Jerry Lawler. Jake claimed to have sobered up and was speaking at churches about how Jesus helped him overcome his demons. Lawler claimed that Roberts was a fraud (which was the case in real life as he was still hooked on crack) and tonight is the showdown.

Jerry Lawler vs. Jake Roberts

Before the match we have the debut of a new Olympian who will be getting in the ring soon: Mark Henry. Lawler brings his own bag with him along with something in his pocket. He’s also wearing a Baltimore Ravens jersey (the beloved Cleveland Browns had recently moved to Baltimore and become the Ravens) because Lawler knows how to rile up a crowd like few others ever could. Henry thinks it’s hilarious despite being a face.

Lawler pulls out two bottles of Jim Beam to be Roberts’ partners tonight and says Roberts’ wife only looks good after a six pack. Henry is so stupid that if he won a gold medal he’d have it bronzed. Once Roberts uses his bar stool as a walker to get out here, Lawler is going to knock him sideways so everyone can recognize him. It’s very impressive how easily Lawler can have a crowd eating out of the palm of his hand like this.

Roberts finally comes out so Lawler pulls a huge bottle of booze from the bag. Jake pulls the snake out of his own bag to scare Lawler to the floor and the bell finally rings. Lawler looks for a microphone but Jake sends him face first into the steps and hammers away back inside. Back to the floor with Lawler being sent into various hard objects until he steals a drink from a fan to blind Jake. Henry: “So what is the fan going to drink?” Lawler gets one of the bottles from ringside but has to block a DDT attempt. Another DDT is countered and Jerry hits him in the throat with the bottle for the pin.

Rating: D. This was much more of an angle than a match with Lawler giving a great lesson in how to fire up a crowd. Roberts wouldn’t be around much longer before heading to ECW and the indies. This would lead to Henry’s first mini feud against Lawler which started got his career going in slow motion.

Post match Lawler says Roberts is holding his throat because he wants a drink. Lawler opens the big bottle to pour it down Jake’s throat but Mark Henry makes a delayed save.

Bob Backlund campaigns for President.

Paul Bearer comes to the ring. The next match will be won by retrieving the Urn from his hands.

Undertaker vs. Mankind

This is the Boiler Room Brawl, meaning the fight starts in the boiler room and you win by fighting to the ring and getting the Urn from Bearer. Taker goes into the room where Mankind is hiding somewhere. This is bordering on creepy as Taker is looking through the shadows to find Mankind but only finds machines. Mankind sneaks up on him with a pipe to the back as the fight begins. Keep in mind that the people in the arena are seeing this on TV screens as there’s no Titantron yet.

Undertaker comes back with a trashcan lid to the head and they brawl around the room with Mankind in control. The announcers have stopped talking as Mankind stuns Taker across a wooden stand. A stiff right hand puts Taker down and Mankind chokes away. The camera cuts out for a few moments so something can be edited and we come back with a trashcan shot putting Taker down.

Taker finds a pipe to knock the can into Mankind’s face but Mankind turns a valve to shoot steam into Taker’s face. A clothesline sends the can into Mankind’s face and the slow brawling continues. Taker hits him in the face with a wooden pallet but Mankind hits Taker low with a pipe of some kind. Mankind sends him into a wall and hits the running knee to drive Taker’s head into the wall again. An elbow off a ladder keeps Taker down and Mankind drags him along the floor.

The camera goes out again and the audience boos. Back with Undertaker laid out on the floor and Mankind setting up a ladder next to him. Mankind climbs up and in the best remembered spot of the match, Undertaker sits up and pulls him down onto a pile of pipes. Back up and Mankind goes for the door but Undertaker grabs him by the ankle. A fire extinguisher blast to the face puts Mankind down and it’s Undertaker out the door first. Mankind rams him into the door and gets out, only to fall in the aisle.

With Taker still inside Mankind barricade the door but Taker kicks it in anyway. They fight up the aisle with jobbers watching from the doors. Taker shoves him across the coffee area, allowing Mankind to get ahead a bit. He throws hot coffee onto Undertaker and crawls into the arena to give the fans something to see in person. Taker catches up with him and pounds away but Mankind keeps him out of the ring.

A Texas piledriver onto the concrete knocks Undertaker out cold but he sits up just in time to pull Mankind off the apron, slamming the back of his head into the concrete. Undertaker gets inside and gets on one knee in front of Paul but Bearer won’t give him the Urn. Mankind gets in and knocks Taker out with the Claw before Bearer does the unthinkable by turning on Undertaker and giving Mankind the Urn.

Rating: B. This is a hard one to grade as it was VERY long (nearly half an hour) and was unlike any other match up to this point. This match would have killed in the Attitude Era but here it’s just quite good. Bearer turning was shocking as he had managed Undertaker for nearly six years and I don’t think anyone believed he would ever turn on Undertaker.

Druids come out to carry Undertaker to the back. He’d be back the next night like nothing happened.

Camp Cornette is ready for Shawn Michaels. Cornette: “When Vader grabs you by the neck Shawn Michaels, you’re going to sound like Peter Frampton’s electric kazoo.” WHERE DOES HE COME UP WITH THIS STUFF???

WWF World Title: Vader vs. Shawn Michaels

Vader is challenging after pinning Shawn in a six man tag at In Your House #9. He pounds Shawn in the face to start before taking his head off with a clothesline. Shawn catches a big boot and leg sweeps Vader down before hitting a low dropkick to stun Vader. Michaels fires off rights and lefts from his knees and Vader bails to the floor. A HUGE dive takes him down again as the fans are finally waking up a bit.

Back in and a standing hurricanrana takes Vader down and a victory roll sends him back out to the floor. Shawn’s plancha into a hurricanrana is caught in a powerbomb and momentum changes in a hurry. Vader puts him on his shoulder and carries Shawn up the steps with one arm in a very impressive power display. A big suplex puts Shawn down again and Mr. Perfect gloats a lot. Shawn is sent into a Flair Flip in the corner and another whip sends him out to the floor.

Vader pounds away back inside but Shawn comes back with rights and lefts of his own. He can’t drop Vader though and a hard clothesline takes Shawn down again. Shawn tries to skin the cat but Vader pulls him back in and hits a kind of reverse jackknife for two. Off to a modified bearhug on the champion for a few moments until Shawn fights back with a running knee to the chest. Vader blocks a sunset flip but his jumping seated senton hits knees.

A hard clothesline puts Vader down and we get a semi-famous spot as Shawn goes up but aborts the elbow in mid flight, instead hitting a flying stomp. He throws a fit and yells at Vader before a cross body puts both guys on the floor. Vader drops Shawn throat first across the barricade…..for a countout win? Seriously? Female fan: “NO! NO! NO!” Cornette agrees because he wants to win the title by pin instead of countout.

Shawn agrees to get back in but Vader punches him down on the floor. Cornette pops Shawn in the back with the tennis racket and a belly to belly gets two for Vader. Michaels punches his way out of the powerbomb and hits the forearm/nip-up combo. He tunes up the band but Cornette throws in the racket, only to have Shawn intercept it and blast Vader for the DQ.

The third part of the match begins (Cornette, WE DON’T WANT IT THAT WAY, ring the bell again) with Shawn avoiding another seated senton and now the top rope elbow connects. Sweet Chin Music only gets two and the referee is knocked to the floor. Vader hits the powerbomb and a second referee comes in to count two. Cornette is stunned as Vader goes up, only to miss the moonsault. Shawn goes up top and hits a moonsault press to retain the title.

Rating: B+. I’ve only seen this match once or twice and it really holds up. Shawn was in his element here against a monster and he capitalized on Vader’s greed for the title to finally beat him. The problem was the people didn’t care about Shawn until he got in the ring which made him a hard sell for the fans. Still though, excellent match here.

Overall Rating: C. Well the last two matches are both good to great, but it takes awhile to get there. Thankfully for the show those matches take up over an hour of the card and help things out a lot. Unfortunately the NWO was running roughshod on the wrestling world at this point so the good matches here didn’t mean much at all. This wasn’t one of the stronger entries in the series though.

Ratings Comparison

Owen Hart vs. Savio Vega

Original: B+

Redo: C

Smoking Gunns vs. Bodydonnas vs. New Rockers vs. Godwinns

Original: B-

Redo: D-

British Bulldog vs. Sycho Sid

Original: D

Redo: D+

Marc Mero vs. Goldust

Original: C+

Redo: D

Jerry Lawler vs. Jake Roberts

Original: C-

Redo: D

Mankind vs. Undertaker

Original: A-

Redo: B

Vader vs. Shawn Michaels

Original: A-

Redo: B+

Overall Rating

Original: A

Redo: C

Did I owe this show money a few years ago? My jaw is hanging open as I read these ratings again.

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

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/07/30/history-of-summerslam-count-up-1996-mick-foley-has-arrived/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and head over to my Amazon author page with 30 different cheap wrestling books at:

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

AND

Remember to check out Wrestlingrumors.net for all of your wrestling headline needs.

Summerslam 1996
Date: August 18, 1996
Location: Gund Arena, Cleveland, Ohio
Attendance: 17,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jim Ross, Mr. Perfect

Things have changed quite a bit since last year. For one thing, the NWO currently has its foot on the WWF’s neck but no one knew how bad it was going to get. Shawn was pretty much tanking as champion but he’s still defending tonight against Vader. The major match though is Undertaker vs. Mankind in a Boiler Room Brawl which has the potential to be awesome. Let’s get to it.

The pre-show match is kind of famous so I’ll throw it in as a bonus.

Steve Austin vs. Yokozuna

Austin is fresh off winning the King of the Ring and cutting the promo that made him famous. Yoko is so fat it’s terrifying at this point. Austin still has very slow music here which sounds like it belongs in a romantic drama. He goes right after the big man to start but a single right hand puts Steve down. A double middle finger earns Austin a Samoan drop and a legdrop. Yoko loads up the Banzai Drop and the freaking ring breaks with Yoko falling down to the mat, giving Austin an easy pin.

The opening video is about monsters like Vader and Mankind wearing masks but heroes standing up to them no matter what.

Owen Hart vs. Savio Vega

Owen has a broken arm/wrist coming in. Feeling out process to start with the referee warning Owen about using the cast. Savio does the smart thing by ramming the bad arm into the buckle to take over. We hit an armbar as we cut to Vader’s locker room to see Cornette firing him up. A monkey flip and a dropkick put Owen down and it’s back to the armbar. Owen kicks out of a rollup and sends Savio shoulder first into the post as momentum changes all of a sudden.

Off to a wristlock on Vega as the match is still waiting to get off the ground. Owen puts on a long armbar followed by a DDT on the arm for two. Vega bites his way out of the hold as the crowd is dead quiet for this. Owen charges into a boot and here’s Clarence Mason, a lawyer, to watch the match. An enziguri puts Vega down for two and a few rollups get the same for Savio.

Hart takes him down with a spinwheel kick but Savio comes back with right hands and clotheslines. Owen’s missile dropkick gets two as the crowd is into this all of a sudden. Hart is crotched on another top rope attempt but Savio lands on the cast in his belly to back superplex. Owen slips off the cast and lays out Savio (with the referee looking right at him), setting up the Sharpshooter for the win.

Rating: C. This took awhile to get going and could have shaved off five minutes or so. Savio was nothing special at all and Owen was in a transitional phase of his career as he was trying to become a singles guy but wasn’t ready to do it yet. The match wasn’t bad and picked way up but the ending was lame.

Post match Justin Hawk Bradshaw comes out to lay out Vega once again.

Todd Petingill is in the boiler room and finds Mankind licking a pipe and saying there’s no place like home.

Tag Titles: Smoking Gunns vs. New Rockers vs. Bodydonnas vs. Godwinns

The heel Gunns are defending and this is under elimination rules. The New Rockers are Marty Jannetty and Leif Cassidy (Al Snow) and the Bodydonnas are Skip (Chris Candido) and Zip (Tom Pritchard). Skip is in a neck brace here due to a potentially broken neck but he’s wrestling anyway. The Gunns have Sunny who looks GREAT as a cowgirl. Billy Gunn starts with Henry Godwinn with Hank throwing Billy around with ease.

A wheelbarrow slam sends Billy out to the floor and it’s off to Phineas vs. Zip. After a comedic feeling out process it’s off to both Gunns at the same time. Zip and Phineas strut across the ring for no apparent reason as the Gunns freak out about having to fight each other. The referee says either make contact or be disqualified. After no contact, Bart tags in Zip so the crowd can have something else to be bored by. Jannetty trips Zip and Billy gets an easy pin so the Bodydonnas don’t have to be out there long.

Henry comes back in to crank on Billy’s arm but Billy quickly tags out to Jannetty. Marty slowly pounds on Henry and plays to the comatose crowd. Leif gets the tag but quickly brings in Billy to work over Henry. The Rockers have a miscue with the Gunns and Henry gets two off a side slam on Billy. Marty’s save results in an elbow drop on Billy as everything breaks down. Henry kicks Marty into Leif and hits the Slop Drop (reverse DDT) on Cassidy for the elimination.

We’re down to the Godwinns vs. the champions and it’s Bart in for the first time. Henry explodes out of the corner with a clothesline to put both guys down. Bart breaks up a tag attempt as this match is dragging terribly. Billy comes in and the place is so silent you can hear the insults between the wrestlers.

Back to Bart to pound away on Henry for a few moments before bringing Billy back in. Henry catches a charging Billy in a World’s strongest Slam and there’s the lukewarm tag to Phineas. He cleans house and everything breaks down with Phineas hitting the Slop Drop on Billy, only to have Bart blast Phineas from the top for the pin to retain.

Rating: D-. This was so boring I could barely keep my eyes open. The tag title scene was so barren at this point that there were practically zero interesting acts at all. That would be the case for over a year when the New Age Outlaws FINALLY brought the division back to life for a few years. Terribly boring match.

Post match Sunny insults the women in the audience and unveils a huge poster of herself to make the arena prettier.

Video on the Summerslam festivities in the city this weekend.

Sycho Sid vs. British Bulldog

Sid is just back after being out for about six months with an injury. He’s part of Shawn’s war with Camp Cornette, making this a lower level battle in the feud. The fans are WAY into Sid here which makes his title reigns a lot more understandable. Neither guy goes anywhere on some collisions until Sid slams him down to the floor. A LOUD Let’s Go Sid chant starts up, giving us more interest than the entire tag title match had combined.

Bulldog tries to power out of a headlock as the announcers talk about Mason being out here instead of Cornette again. A powerslam gets two for Sid but Bulldog comes back with the delayed vertical suplex. That’s some impressive power, especially on a guy that tall. We hit the chinlock for a bit before Bulldog clotheslines Sid to the floor. Bulldog clotheslines him down again and flips forward to entertain us while Sid is down. Back to the chinlock before Bulldog hits the powerslam clean, but here’s Cornette to argue with Mason. Another powersam is countered into the chokeslam and an AWESOME powerbomb is good for the pin.

Rating: D+. The match was better than you would think with both guys’ power stuff looking good. That powerbomb was great as Bulldog just stopped once he hit the mat and the selling was even better. Sid is just scary over at this point, which made his heel turn all the better. To be fair though, the fans just wouldn’t boo the guy even when he was a heel. Take that for what you will.

The managers keep arguing post match.

Video on Shawn.

Goldust vs. Marc Mero

Marlena and Sable are the seconds here and Goldust has a thing for the latter. Goldust takes him into the corner and rubs his own chest before slapping Mero in the face. Some armdrags take Goldie down and he hides in the corner. They run the ropes a bit with Mero getting two off a cross body and hooking an armbar. The crowd is dead again so the announcers talk about Ahmed Johnson’s kidney injury.

Back up and Goldust backdrops Mero out to the floor before dropping him throat first across the barricade. Goldust hooks a chinlock and here’s Mankind who has been calling Sable mommy lately. Some referees chase him off a few seconds later, making this your pointless cameo of the show. A knee to the ribs puts Mero down for two but he comes off the middle rope with a back elbow to the jaw.

A clothesline and a backdrop put Goldust down again and a million dollar kneelift does the same. Goldust counters punches in the corner and they both tumble to the floor but Mero slides back in and hits a running flip dive. A slingshot legdrop gets two followed by the debut of the Shooting Star Press, called the Wild Thing. Since this is 1996 WWF, it only gets two. A few seconds later Goldust hits the Curtain Call (reverse forward suplex) for the pin.

Rating: D. Another dull match here other than the Shooting Star. Goldust was all thought and character but little in the area of substance in the ring. The crowd was dead again here other than for the Wild Thing which was by far the most exciting thing in the match. There wasn’t much to see here but as was the case back then, a lot of matches on PPV were filler.

Goldust stalks Sable post match until Mero makes the save.

We recap Jake Roberts vs. Jerry Lawler. Jake claimed to have sobered up and was speaking at churches about how Jesus helped him overcome his demons. Lawler claimed that Roberts was a fraud (which was the case in real life as he was still hooked on crack) and tonight is the showdown.

Jerry Lawler vs. Jake Roberts

Before the match we have the debut of a new Olympian who will be getting in the ring soon: Mark Henry. Lawler brings his own bag with him along with something in his pocket. He’s also wearing a Baltimore Ravens jersey (the beloved Cleveland Browns had recently moved to Baltimore and become the Ravens) because Lawler knows how to rile up a crowd like few others ever could. Henry thinks it’s hilarious despite being a face.

Lawler pulls out two bottles of Jim Beam to be Roberts’ partners tonight and says Roberts’ wife only looks good after a six pack. Henry is so stupid that if he won a gold medal he’d have it bronzed. Once Roberts uses his bar stool as a walker to get out here, Lawler is going to knock him sideways so everyone can recognize him. It’s very impressive how easily Lawler can have a crowd eating out of the palm of his hand like this.

Roberts finally comes out so Lawler pulls a huge bottle of booze from the bag. Jake pulls the snake out of his own bag to scare Lawler to the floor and the bell finally rings. Lawler looks for a microphone but Jake sends him face first into the steps and hammers away back inside. Back to the floor with Lawler being sent into various hard objects until he steals a drink from a fan to blind Jake. Henry: “So what is the fan going to drink?” Lawler gets one of the bottles from ringside but has to block a DDT attempt. Another DDT is countered and Jerry hits him in the throat with the bottle for the pin.

Rating: D. This was much more of an angle than a match with Lawler giving a great lesson in how to fire up a crowd. Roberts wouldn’t be around much longer before heading to ECW and the indies. This would lead to Henry’s first mini feud against Lawler which started got his career going in slow motion.

Post match Lawler says Roberts is holding his throat because he wants a drink. Lawler opens the big bottle to pour it down Jake’s throat but Mark Henry makes a delayed save.

Bob Backlund campaigns for President.

Paul Bearer comes to the ring. The next match will be won by retrieving the Urn from his hands.

Undertaker vs. Mankind

This is the Boiler Room Brawl, meaning the fight starts in the boiler room and you win by fighting to the ring and getting the Urn from Bearer. Taker goes into the room where Mankind is hiding somewhere. This is bordering on creepy as Taker is looking through the shadows to find Mankind but only finds machines. Mankind sneaks up on him with a pipe to the back as the fight begins. Keep in mind that the people in the arena are seeing this on TV screens as there’s no Titantron yet.

Undertaker comes back with a trashcan lid to the head and they brawl around the room with Mankind in control. The announcers have stopped talking as Mankind stuns Taker across a wooden stand. A stiff right hand puts Taker down and Mankind chokes away. The camera cuts out for a few moments so something can be edited and we come back with a trashcan shot putting Taker down.

Taker finds a pipe to knock the can into Mankind’s face but Mankind turns a valve to shoot steam into Taker’s face. A clothesline sends the can into Mankind’s face and the slow brawling continues. Taker hits him in the face with a wooden pallet but Mankind hits Taker low with a pipe of some kind. Mankind sends him into a wall and hits the running knee to drive Taker’s head into the wall again. An elbow off a ladder keeps Taker down and Mankind drags him along the floor.

The camera goes out again and the audience boos. Back with Undertaker laid out on the floor and Mankind setting up a ladder next to him. Mankind climbs up and in the best remembered spot of the match, Undertaker sits up and pulls him down onto a pile of pipes. Back up and Mankind goes for the door but Undertaker grabs him by the ankle. A fire extinguisher blast to the face puts Mankind down and it’s Undertaker out the door first. Mankind rams him into the door and gets out, only to fall in the aisle.

With Taker still inside Mankind barricade the door but Taker kicks it in anyway. They fight up the aisle with jobbers watching from the doors. Taker shoves him across the coffee area, allowing Mankind to get ahead a bit. He throws hot coffee onto Undertaker and crawls into the arena to give the fans something to see in person. Taker catches up with him and pounds away but Mankind keeps him out of the ring.

A Texas piledriver onto the concrete knocks Undertaker out cold but he sits up just in time to pull Mankind off the apron, slamming the back of his head into the concrete. Undertaker gets inside and gets on one knee in front of Paul but Bearer won’t give him the Urn. Mankind gets in and knocks Taker out with the Claw before Bearer does the unthinkable by turning on Undertaker and giving Mankind the Urn.

Rating: B. This is a hard one to grade as it was VERY long (nearly half an hour) and was unlike any other match up to this point. This match would have killed in the Attitude Era but here it’s just quite good. Bearer turning was shocking as he had managed Undertaker for nearly six years and I don’t think anyone believed he would ever turn on Undertaker.

Druids come out to carry Undertaker to the back. He’d be back the next night like nothing happened.

Camp Cornette is ready for Shawn Michaels. Cornette: “When Vader grabs you by the neck Shawn Michaels, you’re going to sound like Peter Frampton’s electric kazoo.” WHERE DOES HE COME UP WITH THIS STUFF???

WWF World Title: Vader vs. Shawn Michaels

Vader is challenging after pinning Shawn in a six man tag at In Your House #9. He pounds Shawn in the face to start before taking his head off with a clothesline. Shawn catches a big boot and leg sweeps Vader down before hitting a low dropkick to stun Vader. Michaels fires off rights and lefts from his knees and Vader bails to the floor. A HUGE dive takes him down again as the fans are finally waking up a bit.

Back in and a standing hurricanrana takes Vader down and a victory roll sends him back out to the floor. Shawn’s plancha into a hurricanrana is caught in a powerbomb and momentum changes in a hurry. Vader puts him on his shoulder and carries Shawn up the steps with one arm in a very impressive power display. A big suplex puts Shawn down again and Mr. Perfect gloats a lot. Shawn is sent into a Flair Flip in the corner and another whip sends him out to the floor.

Vader pounds away back inside but Shawn comes back with rights and lefts of his own. He can’t drop Vader though and a hard clothesline takes Shawn down again. Shawn tries to skin the cat but Vader pulls him back in and hits a kind of reverse jackknife for two. Off to a modified bearhug on the champion for a few moments until Shawn fights back with a running knee to the chest. Vader blocks a sunset flip but his jumping seated senton hits knees.

A hard clothesline puts Vader down and we get a semi-famous spot as Shawn goes up but aborts the elbow in mid flight, instead hitting a flying stomp. He throws a fit and yells at Vader before a cross body puts both guys on the floor. Vader drops Shawn throat first across the barricade…..for a countout win? Seriously? Female fan: “NO! NO! NO!” Cornette agrees because he wants to win the title by pin instead of countout.

Shawn agrees to get back in but Vader punches him down on the floor. Cornette pops Shawn in the back with the tennis racket and a belly to belly gets two for Vader. Michaels punches his way out of the powerbomb and hits the forearm/nip-up combo. He tunes up the band but Cornette throws in the racket, only to have Shawn intercept it and blast Vader for the DQ.

The third part of the match begins (Cornette, WE DON’T WANT IT THAT WAY, ring the bell again) with Shawn avoiding another seated senton and now the top rope elbow connects. Sweet Chin Music only gets two and the referee is knocked to the floor. Vader hits the powerbomb and a second referee comes in to count two. Cornette is stunned as Vader goes up, only to miss the moonsault. Shawn goes up top and hits a moonsault press to retain the title.

Rating: B+. I’ve only seen this match once or twice and it really holds up. Shawn was in his element here against a monster and he capitalized on Vader’s greed for the title to finally beat him. The problem was the people didn’t care about Shawn until he got in the ring which made him a hard sell for the fans. Still though, excellent match here.

Overall Rating: C. Well the last two matches are both good to great, but it takes awhile to get there. Thankfully for the show those matches take up over an hour of the card and help things out a lot. Unfortunately the NWO was running roughshod on the wrestling world at this point so the good matches here didn’t mean much at all. This wasn’t one of the stronger entries in the series though.

Ratings Comparison

Owen Hart vs. Savio Vega

Original: B+

Redo: C

Smoking Gunns vs. Bodydonnas vs. New Rockers vs. Godwinns

Original: B-

Redo: D-

British Bulldog vs. Sycho Sid

Original: D

Redo: D+

Marc Mero vs. Goldust

Original: C+

Redo: D

Jerry Lawler vs. Jake Roberts

Original: C-

Redo: D

Mankind vs. Undertaker

Original: A-

Redo: B

Vader vs. Shawn Michaels

Original: A-

Redo: B+

Overall Rating

Original: A

Redo: C

Did I owe this show money a few years ago? My jaw is hanging open as I read these ratings again.

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

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/07/30/history-of-summerslam-count-up-1996-mick-foley-has-arrived/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and head over to my Amazon author page with 30 different cheap wrestling books at:

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

AND

Remember to check out Wrestlingrumors.net for all of your wrestling headline needs.

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

We’re back to two minute intervals this year after last year’s mess. Thankfully the roster has gotten a much needed restocking with many future stars having debuted in recent months. This is still in a bad stretch for the company but things are looking much brighter for the future. Let’s get to it.

We open with Sunny (a gorgeous blonde with more star power than she knew what to do with) in a bathtub, saying this show is graphic and view discretion is advised.

Free For All: HHH vs. Duke Droese

This is the pre-show match and the winner is #30 in the Rumble while the loser is #1. Duke takes him into the corner for some right hands to the head to start but HHH starts going after the arm to take over. A powerslam cuts HHH off but the Trash Compactor (tilt-a-whirl powerslam) is broken up. HHH gets in a foreign object shot and Droese is done at 6:24.

Rating: D-. Nothing to see here of course but this was just a way to set up something for the battle royal. I’m not sure who was supposed to be interested in seeing a wrestling garbageman but that was the WWF in this era, which explains why the company was in the place they were in.

Never mind actually as WWF President Gorilla Monsoon comes out and reverses the decision to make Droese #30.

The opening video is about how the champion is defined by Hart, as in Bret Hart. Tonight though he’s against a force who has no heart, in the form of Undertaker. The Intercontinental title match (Ramon vs. Goldust) and the Rumble are talked about as well.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Ahmed Johnson

Last month at In Your House, Jarrett hit Johnson (a very muscular powerhouse) with a gold record to set this up. Jarrett immediately bails to the floor to hide. Back in he tries a hiptoss and Ahmed shrugs him off with ease. A headlock is easily countered by a throw from Johnson and a clothesline takes Jarrett down. There’s a World’s Strongest Slam for two on Jeff and things slow down again. Johnson misses a clothesline by a mile but Jeff sells it anyway of course.

A crossbody misses as well but this time Johnson goes flying over the top, getting his hand caught in the ropes on the way down. A HARD whip into the steps puts Johnson down and we head back in. Ahmed starts no selling stuff and catches a dive in a bearhug. That goes nowhere so Johnson sends him to the floor and hits a big dive. Back in and Ahmed misses a Swanton of all things (remember that he weighs about 280lbs) and there’s the Figure Four from Jarrett. Johnson powers out of it twice, so Jarrett cracks him with the guitar off the top for the weak DQ at 6:37.

Rating: C-. I was always an Ahmed fan so this was an easy pass for me. The image of the Swanton looked great if nothing else, which is more than enough to give this a pass. Jarrett was such a mess at this point and never went anywhere in the WWF. The ending completely sucked though and it really brought things down.

Merchandise plugs.

Diesel isn’t worried about the Rumble tonight and doesn’t think it’s Vader Time. He doesn’t care who he faces at Wrestlemania, but he isn’t happy with Undertaker being the #1 contender.

Tag Team Titles: Smoking Gunns vs. BodyDonnas

The Gunns are defending. The BodyDonnas are exercise enthusiasts Skip (Chris Candido) and Zip (Tom Prichard with a major haircut). They have Sunny with them and my goodness is she stunning here. Skip and Billy start things off with Skip taking over with a headscissors. Just like Ahmed earlier, Billy misses a charge against the ropes and crashes to the outside. Both Gunns get double teamed until Bart ducks out of the way, allowing a charging Billy to dive onto both challengers on the floor.

Things settle down a bit and it’s back to Billy vs. Skip with the champion in control. Sunny hits on Bart until it’s a distracted Bart vs. Zip. A gorilla press puts Zip down but he makes a blind tag, allowing Skip to take over. The champions are fine with the double teaming stuff too, and take over on Skip very easily. Sunny gets on the apron and is knocked off just as quickly.

Now we get to the important part of the match as Billy goes to check on Sunny, allowing the Bodydonnas to pound away on Bart. Skip hits a nice plancha onto Billy before suplexing Zip onto Billy for two back inside. Billy gets to play Ricky Morton for awhile, being put in a chinlock by Zip. This goes on for awhile until we get a sloppy spot where the Bodydonnas collide and Skip rams heads will Billy. This would work a bit better if Billy wasn’t about eight inches taller than Candido.

The hot tag brings in Bart and everything breaks down with the champions taking over. The Sidewinder (side slam/guillotine legdrop combo) crushes Zip but Sunny’s distraction lets Skip break things up and take Zip’s place. Ignore the fact that one has the straps of his singlet up and the other doesn’t, and the fact that they look as different as Demolition did. In an ending the Expresses used back in the 80s, the challengers load up a double suplex on Bart, but Billy spears Skip down, causing Bart to fall on Zip for the pin to retain at 11:14.

Rating: C-. Tag wrestling at this time was really weak with very few solid teams anywhere to be found. The Gunns were ok at best and the Bodydonnas were only popular because of Sunny. Billy would turn heel relatively soon and would eventually join up with Road Dogg to form the New Age Outlaws and turn the division completely upside down. Nothing much to see here but it certainly wasn’t terrible.

We get some of the Billionaire Ted skits, which were unfunny shots at Ted Turner. Not his wrestling company directly, but Turner himself. I’m still not sure why they decided to do these but no one liked them and they came off as mean instead of funny or witty. Note Vince Russo as one of the executives in the board room skit.

We recap Razor vs. Goldust (a bizarre man obsessed with movies and played by Dustin Rhodes), where Goldust is hitting on Razor to mess with his mind before the match tonight. To say Goldust’s character got them in hot water around this point is a huge understatement.

Intercontinental title: Razor Ramon vs. Goldust

The yet to be named Marlena debuts with Goldust here and Razor is defending as is his custom. Feeling out process to start with Goldust playing his usual mind games, which means rubbing himself. Razor cranks on the arm before grabbing a headlock which goes nowhere. Goldust goes behind Razor and molests him a bit to psych Razor out even more. They head to the corner with Razor having his head rubbed a bit, further ticking him off.

Razor goes for the arm so Goldust slaps him in the face. Perfect keeps making sex jokes as Razor slaps Goldust right back in the face. He spanks Goldust once as well, but the painted dude likes it. We head to the floor where Goldust hides behind Marlena as the stalling continues. Back in and Razor tries three straight headscissors before punching Goldust to the floor with a single shot.

We get more stalling which is called playing mind games before Ramon clotheslines him right back to the outside. Razor has to move Marlena out of the way, allowing Goldust to FINALLY do something, taking over with a shot to the ribs. Back in and Goldust focuses on the ribs, but not too much because that might mean we have some speed to this match. A bulldog gets two for Goldust as does a slingshot belly to back suplex.

Off to a sleeper, which Perfect suggests Goldust could use to do “whatever he wants” to Razor. Much like everything else in the match, this goes on way too long until Razor fights up and kicks Goldust low. He’s so spent though that Goldust gets a two count, causing Razor to start his comeback. Razor fires off his usual punches and the chokeslam gets two. A belly to back superplex hit but Marlena distracts the referee, allowing the 1-2-3 Kid to come in and kick Razor’s head off. Goldust gets the easy pin and the title at 14:15.

Rating: D-. Sweet freaking goodness this was dull. It went on WAY too long and had a bad ending on top of that, plus the stupid “psychology” from Goldust which wound up being more unpleasant than interesting or intelligent. Goldust would get WAY better when he became more of a comedy/parody character rather than this freaky dude that he was to start his WWF run. The matches got a lot better as a result too.

Wrestlemania XII is coming.

We get the usual promos for the Rumble, but we start with a statement from Shawn’s doctor who says he’s back and healthy. Thankfully this is kept very short and he’s not dull. We hear from Owen, Roberts, Lawler, Barry Horowitz (a career jobber who got a fluke win at Summerslam 1995), Vader (a newly debuted monster) and Michaels. Shawn would be the most obvious winner ever in the Rumble since…..well since last year when he was the absolutely obvious pick to win.

Vince and Perfect talk about the Rumble a bit.

Royal Rumble

HHH is #1 due to losing on the Free for All and Henry Godwinn is #2. The fact that he just happens to be feuding with HHH at this point is a pure coincidence. Helmsley pounds away in the corner to start but gets backdropped down very quickly. HHH pokes him in the eye and chokes away until Bob Backlund is #3. Backlund saves HHH before pounding away on him. These wide shots are showing how nearly empty the upper deck is.

Jerry Lawler is #4 as HHH hits the jumping knee to Godwinn’s jaw. The fans chant Burger King and you know Lawler isn’t going to pass up a chance to rile up a crowd. He goes to get the slop bucket that Godwinn brought with him, but Henry clears the ring and gets the bucket, throwing it over the top onto Lawler and some of Backlund. Bob Holly is #5 and things slow down a bit until HHH erupts on Godwinn for some reason.

We get some slow paced elimination teases until Mabel is #6. Still nothing happens so here’s Jake Roberts at #7 to an eruption. No one has been eliminated yet as Jake throws in the snake and everyone but Lawler can get to the floor. After nearly giving him a heart attack with the snake, Lawler disappears for a good while as he hides under the ring. Mabel gets tied up in the ropes and pounded on for a bit until Dory Funk Jr. is #8.

The DDT is countered by HHH as we hear about a friendship between Terry Funk and Bruce Willis of all people. Backlund and Funk go at it because they’re both old and I doubt Dory knows most of the other people in the ring. Lawler is seen hiding under the ring. Yokozuna is #9 as there are WAY too many people in the match at the moment. Backlund puts Dory in the chicken wing and is eliminated by Yokozuna for a prize. Yokozuna crushes Godwinn in the corner but Mabel splashes Yokozuna, killing Henry in the process.

The 1-2-3 Kid is #10 but Razor charges down the aisle to chase him away (not eliminated). Officials get Razor off the Kid but it takes Mabel beating Razor down to stop the chases. It amazes me that Razor was never in a Rumble. Omori, a Japanese star that doesn’t mean much yet, is #11. At the moment we’ve got HHH, Lawler (under the ring), Holly, Mabel, Roberts, Funk, Yokozuna, the Kid and Omori in the match after Godwinn was eliminated off camera.

Yokozuna and Mabel double team Omori until Jake pounds away on Yokozuna to the loudest reactions of the match so far. Funk hits a double underhook suplex on the Kid as Savio Vega is #12. He spinwheel kicks Mabel down, allowing Yokozuna to dump the reigning King (Mabel if you’re lucky enough to not remember that gimmick). Omori goes out thanks to Roberts and things slow down again.

Vader debuts at #13 and lumbers around while not doing much. He picks Bob Holly of all people to beat on first as Vega eliminates Dory. Vader pulls Savio back in from the apron for no apparent reason other than he wants to beat on him some more. Doug Gilbert from Memphis is #14 and HHH goes right after him for no apparent reason. Vader and Yokozuna slug it out to a big reaction but Vader has to stop to clothesline Roberts out.

The camera work in this is really bad as they keep looking at corners of the ring instead of the full thing, making us miss a lot of stuff. Savio pounds on Vader until one of the Squat Team members (BIG fat guys who are there because they’re fat and look alike) is #15. Vader sloppily throws Gilbert out and does the same to the Squat Team dude. Yokozuna and Vader slug it out again and people respond again.

The other member of the Squat Team is #16 but they both get in to double team Vader. The Mastodon (Vader if you’re not familiar) punches their faces in as only Vader can do before knocking them both to the floor. Owen Hart is #17 and everyone but Yokozuna is on one side of the ring for some reason. He and Vader double team Savio who doesn’t seem interested in selling at all. A pair of splashes in the corner crushes him, as do a regular splash and the big leg from Yokozuna.

Shawn is #17 to a decent pop but significantly smaller than Jake’s. Vader throws out Savio as Shawn goes after HHH and the Kid. Vader and Yokozuna slug it out a bit before slugging it out a lot. They fight against the ropes, so Shawn gets a running start and dumps them BOTH AT ONCE. Now THAT wakes up the crowd. If that’s not enough, Shawn gorilla presses (!) the Kid to the floor as the ring is suddenly very thin. Hakushi (a Japanese high flier)is #19 as the big guys fight on the floor.

Scratch the floor part as Vader gets back in and cleans house, but none of the eliminations count because he’s not legal. Once he’s finally taken away, we’ve got Shawn, HHH, Holly, Hart, Hakushi and Lawler underneath the ring. Tatanka is #20 as Shawn throws Jim Cornette out. Hakushi hits a Great Muta elbow on Hart in the corner as HHH of course goes after Shawn.

Michaels teases a bunch of eliminations to try to make us think he’s not winning. Owen dumps Hakushi as Aldo Montoya is #21. Shawn gets sent through the ropes to the floor, where he pulls Lawler out and sends him back into the ring. Tatanka puts out Montoya as Shawn puts out Lawler.

Here’s Diesel at #22 and house is cleaned. There goes Tatanka at the hands of the tall one and it’s time for Shawn vs. Diesel which gets a pop but is too short to mean much. Kama (later known as the Godfather) is #23 as this continues to go slowly. Shawn pounds on Holly in the corner as Kama and Diesel slug it out. The Ringmaster (Steve Austin, brand new here) is #24 and still wearing white boots in a really strange visual.

Shawn does his usual overblown self safe as Holly and Austin fight. Holly FINALLY goes out after nearly forty minutes and HHH vs. Austin happens about three years before it would mean anything. Barry Horowitz (with the awesome rock version of Hava Nagila) is #25 and he goes after Diesel. Well no one ever accused him of being brilliant. Shawn nips up to knock Owen to the apron, but Hart skins the cat back in.

HHH punches Diesel, so Diesel grabs him by the head and launches him to the floor. That’s about forty eight minutes for HHH which isn’t bad at all. Making a Difference Fatu (Don’t ask. Please don’t ask) is #26 and he doesn’t do much. Shawn and Owen can’t suplex the other one out so here’s Isaac Yankem DDS (later known as Kane) at #27. The ring is far too full but Barry is put out to thin it out a bit.

Owen hits the enziguri on Shawn (which put Michaels on the shelf leading up to this match) but Michaels hangs on again and puts Owen out while we’re looking at a double feature. Austin kills Shawn with a clothesline and here’s Marty Jannetty at #28. Fatu superkicks Kane as the burst of energy from Marty is already gone. Shawn and Jannetty go at it because they’re former partners. Perfect: “They’re rocking now aren’t they?” They punch each other down and the British Bulldog is #29.

Smith goes right for Shawn because of what happened last year. I love little bits of continuity like that which you never get anymore. Davey puts out Marty as Fatu erupts on Austin before clotheslining him out off camera. Yankem puts out Fatu and here’s Duke Droese at #30. The final group is Shawn, Droese, Diesel, Smith, Yankem and Kama.

Smith and Michaels fight to the floor and Owen jumps Shawn for good measure. Shawn shrugs it off and goes in to dropkick Yankem out. Kama and Diesel put out Droese to get us down to four. Shawn clotheslines Smith out before skinning the cat back in. Diesel dumps Kama and Shawn superkicks the tall one (in the shoulder) out to win for the second year in a row at 58:49.

Rating: D. Oh this was DULL. The problem here was that like last year (although to a far weaker degree), there were very few guys you could buy as a winner here. It’s way better than last year’s match but the crowd was dead for long stretches of this, mainly due to boredom. You could see the star power of the future, but that’s the problem: they weren’t stars yet and no one bought them at this point. The match isn’t bad, but it’s definitely not good if that makes sense.

Diesel is ticked off about the ending and goes back in as Shawn is stripping. They do their old Wolfpac thing in the middle of the ring (a high five where Shawn has to jump) and all is cool. Shawn poses for a long time post match.

WWF World Title: Undertaker vs. Bret Hart

Bret is defending and Undertaker is still in his skull mask period due to having Mabel crush his face a few months back. Diesel is still straggling behind and stares at Undertaker during his entrance. They brawl with neither guy getting much of an advantage. Since this is WWF, we recap what we just say two minutes ago. After all that, here’s the World Champion. Undertaker stands in the middle of the ring and Bret circles him for a bit. Hart pounds away in the corner and the Dead Man stares at him.

Undertaker LAUNCHES him into the corner (one of my favorite Undertaker spots) before choking him in the air). Off to a smother hold which goes on for a long time. Bret finally makes the rope so there’s Old School….which sets up the smother again. Hart fights up and hits a middle rope clothesline followed by a regular one to send Undertaker to the floor. There’s a dive to take out the challenger as this finally picks up the pace a bit.

Bret tries to dive off the apron at Undertaker but is pulled out of the air and rammed into the post. Undertaker rams him into various other things until Bret reverses a whip into the steps, trying to damage the big man’s knees. Back in and Bret works over the knee as this is going nowhere. The Figure Four goes on….and on…..and on……and Undertaker turns it over.

Bret gets to the rope, so let’s put on ANOTHER LEG HOLD! It’s that always riveting one where Bret drops an elbow on the leg and just lays on it. This is also known as the Dusty Rhodes Special. He does however mix it up by trying to take off Undertaker’s mask. After being in this for literally about three minutes, he smashes his free leg on Bret’s head before we head back to the floor. Undertaker chokes away with a cord and sends Bret into the barricade as we head back in.

The champ goes back to the freaking knee as the fans loudly boo Bret. Undertaker’s leg is wrapped around the post a few times and it’s back to laying on the leg. We’re over twenty minutes into this and almost nothing has happened. To save my sanity the hold doesn’t last as long this time and Undertaker fights back. There are some legdrops and a clothesline as the knee seems fine. He loads up the Tombstone but Bret slides down his back and guillotines Undertaker on the ropes.

A DDT puts Undertaker down and Bret starts headbutting the back. We get the Russian legsweep but the Dead Man sits up. The bulldog takes the challenger down and there’s the middle rope elbow. Bret gives the fans a thumbs down and loads up the Sharpshooter. Undertaker grabs him by the throat to block it but Bret knees him in the ribs. A double clothesline puts both guys down and we lay around a bit more.

Bret is up first and takes off the buckle from a corner. He goes for the mask again and gets it off to reveal….the same Undertaker we’ve seen for like five years at this point. Seriously he looks fine. Undertaker fights back but gets rammed into the exposed buckle. That gets no sold and it’s a Tombstone for Bret. Since this is such a dull match though, Diesel pulls the referee out at two for a DQ at 28:28.

Rating: D+. This started VERY slow but got better for the last ten minutes or so, but the ending brings it right back down again. If this had been a fifteen minute match or so it would have been WAY better, but they only had so many other matches on the card, meaning this had to be longer. Diesel would face Undertaker at Wrestlemania of course.

Gorilla Monsoon makes Diesel vs. Bret for the title at the next PPV.

Shawn says the 90s will be his time.

Undertaker comes in to yell at Gorilla, saying that Diesel won’t be champion on his watch. Gorilla makes it a cage match so Undertaker can’t interfere.

Diesel goes on a big rant about how he’s not afraid of the dark and says he’s going to have his hands in everything from now on because the WWF is running on Diesel Power. This was his official heel turn.

Cornette says Vader cannot be ignored to end the show. He pretty much was until Summerslam.

Overall Rating: D. This is a really weird show to grade because while most of the matches got bad grades, it’s not that bad of a show overall. Don’t get me wrong: it’s bad, but it’s really not as bad as it sounds. The first two matches are certainly watchable, but they’re not that good. The Rumble is also passable, but it’s dull at times. Not horrible, but definitely not worth seeing.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and head over to my Amazon author page with 30 different cheap wrestling books at:

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AND

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Summerslam 1996
Date: August 18, 1996
Location: Gund Arena, Cleveland, Ohio
Attendance: 17,000
Commentators: Mr. Perfect, Jim Ross, Vince McMahon

Well it’s certainly a new era in the WWF. For one thing, Shawn is the undisputed biggest star in the company right now. Bret is on hiatus, and a loud mouthed guy from Texas is flipping people off and cursing a lot. It’s like there’s a growing Attitude or something going on. Eh nothing will ever come of that. I remember this show really well but actually have never seen the main event all the way through.

When I was watching the show live I taped it and for some reason never watched the main event. I guess the tape messed up or something like that, but I’ve never seen all of it so this will be virgin territory for me. This is the night of the first Boiler Room Brawl which is by far and away the most famous match on the show. I have fond memories of this show, so let’s see if they’re justified.

Dark Match: Yokozuna vs. Steve Austin

Austin won the KOTR earlier this year and with his post match promo, instantly became one of the hottest things on the planet. Yoko weight 660 here and would be gone pretty soon. It really is sad to see someone that had undeniable talent reduced to this, simply based on the fact that he couldn’t control his weight. This is a very short match, maybe three minutes or so.

Austin tries to knock him down and can’t, Yoko takes over and goes to the corner, and then in one of the most infamous botches ever, the ring ropes break and Austin just pins him. I’ve never heard anyone say that was planned and based off the announcers’ reactions, it wasn’t planned. Yoko was clearly surprised when that happened, so I’d guess that was all unplanned. Like I said, Austin just kind of rolled him up for the pin afterwards.

Rating: C. This is very hard to grade so we’ll call it average I guess. N/A would probably be a much better grade actually. It’s way too short to tell if it’s good or bad, but it wasn’t terrible and it was on free TV, so how can I complain about bonus not awful wrestling?

We get a very well done intro talking about monsters that wear masks and the heroes that fight them. That’s a really cool idea as both heels wear masks which is a nice connection to make. This was one of the better packages I’ve seen in a long time.

Savio Vega vs. Owen Hart

No real point to this match other than to have a fast opener which there’s nothing wrong with. Apparently both are good with martial arts. I think I missed that memo. Owen has a cast on his hand from an injury that I don’t remember happening. He’s doing the Orton thing as he’s been hurt forever apparently. Cornette isn’t there as he’s with Vader for the main event instead. Savio keeps going for the arm which is very basic yet quite intelligent strategy.

Ross wants to know how Owen passed a pre match physical. Are we supposed to believe that when matches are made on the fly that everyone has pre match physicals? Come on JR give us more credit than that. We go split screen to see Vader warming up for the main event as Vince says that Owen should feel slighted by being ignored by his manager. Why is it that every time someone throws a kick they’re instantly a martial artist?

Anyone else find that to be WAY too broad of a generalization? I certainly do for one. Savio doesn’t seem like much of a martial artist to me and neither does Owen, not in the slightest really. Vince continues to stir the pot saying that Stu isn’t as proud of Owen as of Bret. With talk like that, it’s no wonder he was almost a career heel. Owen has an armbar on Vega for a decent while and he bites Owen to escape. That’s either cool or just freaking stupid and I’m not sure which it is actually.

Clarence Mason, who is the lawyer for Cornette, starts walking towards ringside but no one is sure why. It turns out that he’s more or less staging a coup of Camp Cornette, but that was a bit off in the future. He was worthless to say the least. I’m pleasantly surprised with this match. It’s not mind blowing but it’s certainly not bad at all. I’d even go so far as to say it’s good.

A long match with faster guys is usually an excellent combination. It has one of the critical points that I think makes matches great: I’m not sure who is going to win. That uncertainly factor can work wonders for matches as it gives you a reason to want to see the ending. That’s what makes a match successful or any entertainment for that matter: you want to keep watching it because you’re not sure what’s coming.

They do a belly to back off the top but Savio’s head slams against the cast. Owen plays possum and slams the cast into Vega’s head before putting the Sharpshooter on him. Clarence comes in to celebrate but Owen isn’t sure why he’s there. Not a fan of the ending but this was a good match. On the replay you can see that the referee would have obviously seen the cast shot.

Rating: B+. Like I said I’m not a fan of the ending, but this was a very solid match in my eyes. It was up tempo, there was some storytelling in there, and I wasn’t positive who was going to win. It was a good way to set the tempo for the show and it’s given me high hopes. Based on this match alone, this show is better than last year’s.

Bradshaw comes out and beats up Savio with whom he was feuding with at the tiem in a decent but completely forgotten feud.

Todd goes into the boiler room to talk to Mankind, who says Taker shouldn’t come in here and that he’s ready for battle.

Tag Titles: Smoking Guns vs. New Rockers vs. Godwins vs. Bodydonnas

Again I ask, is it really that hard to get the tag titles on the show? New Rockers are Al Snow and Marty Jannetty, but Snow is known as Leif Cassidy at the time. This has elimination rules which automatically makes it better as it more or less gives you three matches for the price of one. Skip has a neck brace for no apparent reason. Dang the copyright for getting rid of Don’t Go Messin With A Country Boy. JR is given the task of explaining the tag title scene this year. Good luck good sir. You’ll be needing it.

Sunny as a cowgirl is incredibly attractive to say the least. Billy shouts about something unintelligible. She should have been one of the biggest names ever. Not just because of her looks either as she just had a great presence about her. You could see she just knew what to do in front of a camera. That’s a talent that no amount of looks can buy you. Yep, the champions are heels here, I guess along with the Bodydonnas and maybe the Rockers.

This is starting off very slow as would be expected until get the comedy idea of having the Guns fight each other. This lasts about 8 seconds as Zip comes in. He gets tripped and pinned very fast as I think Skip’s neck injury was legit. It seemed way too convenient and pointless to have them out there and eliminated so fast, so I’m assuming his neck really was hurt. I think they were faces or at least tweeners actually, which surprises me. Rockers take over on Hank.

This doesn’t last long as Hank realizes he’s fighting the freaking New Rockers and beats them up with relative ease, pinning one of them after the Slop Drop, bringing it down to the Guns vs. the Godwins. Due to the rules being the way they are, any way this ends means the titles can change hands. Not sure if that makes sense but it’s mid 90s WWF stuff so I’m just going to go with it. Billy just will not shut up and I’m sick of it already.

They beat on Henry for a long time until Billy being the brains of the team sets for a corner splash but screams first, leading to him getting caught. This allows for the lukewarm tag that no one could care less about. Apparently Bill Clinton is turning 50 today.

Hillbilly Jim goes after Sunny which allows for the double team to end the match and the Guns keep the titles. Afterwards Sunny talks about how great she is and offers a gift to the arena unveiling a massive poster of herself, which I’m certainly not complaining about.

Rating: B-. Eh, it was a pretty bland four team match but it let the Guns keep the belts with relative ease and it filled in some time on the card. It wasn’t particularly good, but it certainly did the job it was supposed to: title defense that took up some time and made the champions look good. That’s as good as it can get I guess.

British Bulldog vs. Sid

Not entirely sure why they’re fighting but I think Sid is feuding with all of Camp Cornette at this point. No Cornette with him though as Jim is with Vader. Sid says his usual insane stuff that goes nowhere at all. Again, why was he so freaking popular? Vince thinks Psycho Sid is crazy. Nice one there Vinny Mac.

Vince thinks fans are the same all over the world. Does he sleep through the Canadian shows? After Ross says don’t expect a lot of technical stuff from Sid he breaks out a headlock takeover and various suplexes, the last of which is countered into Davey’s suplex. Clarence Mason comes down to be pointless. Yes we have two big power guys here, laying on the mat with headlocks. I give up.

We see Vader warming up in the back with Cornette. They get it right here for the most part though by showing this while Sid is out on the floor rather than in the middle of action. Powerslam to Sid but Cornette comes out to yell at Mason. A second powerslam is blocked into a chokeslam and powerbomb by Sid to end it.

Rating: D. Boring match that did nothing at all but further the horrible Cornette vs. Mason feud for control over his stable. Once Mason took over the stable died completely. This was just a quick match that had nothing at all going for it and no one cared at all, or at least I didn’t.

Quick video on Shawn.

Goldust vs. Marc Mero

This is stemming from Goldust hitting on Sable a lot in the past few weeks. At least there’s a reason for them to fight. That’s a nice lesson that the writers today need to learn: it’s very possible to have a decent feud with even the most basic of stories. Running in to beat on someone isn’t really a storyline. That’s the common issue that starts “feuds” anymore and that just doesn’t get it done most of the time. Mero says that he’s going to win.

Goldust has been calling Sable mommy or something like that. That was never really explained which I think is the best move. Vince says that Mero and Sable are special people. I’m guessing it means he slept with Sable. JR hints at something called the Wild Thing. It’ll end the match. Naturally in a Goldust match it starts with random stuff from him that inspired the character that is known as KB. I’ve always found Mero to be overrated but he’s doing pretty well here.

Who would have thought that Goldust would still be active 13 years later? Ahmed Johnson, the IC Champion, is out with an injury and they’re not sure what’s going to be done about the belt. It’s vacated very soon if I remember correctly. Correction it was vacated earlier in the week. Mero would win it in a tournament in about a month or so. Goldust takes over for awhile until Mero is beaten down pretty badly.

Mankind comes out for no apparent reason as he and Goldust were working together for no apparent reason. Mero goes into the corner and comes off with a….well he jumped off and…it was kind of like….well he just jumped backwards and hit Goldust. This was of course very risky since it was from Mero. We’re told that Pillman is interviewing Sid on the Superstar line. Have to love that they’ve gotten over Sid nearly killing him in the War Games match in the early 90s.

The fans and commentators are just bored out of their mind but the classic ten punches in the corner gets them going a bit. Mero finally gets in the air a bit and wakes the people up somewhat. After beating Goldust up, they completely screw this up as Mero debuts the Wild Thing, more commonly known as a Shooting Star Press. Now, Mero just debuted a new big move that was clearly a finisher. So the logical thing would be to have him get the pin with it right?

Apparently not as Marlena is on the ropes for all of 5 seconds, which added to the two count is enough for Goldust to kick out. Yeah, that’s great. Let Goldust just kick out of it. If you’re going to do that, have the two count and THEN Marlena up on the apron so the count stops and Mero goes after her. Just don’t kill the move’s credibility that quickly.

They show the double screen of Mero doing and talk about how great it was. Goldust hits the Curtain Call for the pin. I just don’t get that. What’s the point of debuting a huge move like that and have him lose? Goldust tries to kiss Sable but Mero beats him up pretty well for it.

Rating: C+. This just has me shaking my head. It made the Wild Thing look weak here to have Goldust simply kick out of it, as well as just have Goldust beat him clean maybe 90 seconds after it. The wrestling was fine, but I do not get what the point was of the Wild Thing.

Sunny and Farrooq come out, as Sunny’s stable now consists of two cowboys and a black supremacist/gladiator. Does that sound like the beginning of a bad joke to anyone else? Two cowboys, a gladiator and a gold digging woman? Either a bad joke or a cheap porn movie. His blue helmet just looks so stupid.

He’s out there yelling about not being the IC Champion. To make even more sense, he lost the tournament in the finals to Mero of all people. Simmons desperately needs to get in the Nation of Domination. Sunny says she gets what she wants and she wants the IC Title. Does that mean she’s going to be in the tournament?

We see a recap of Lawler vs. Jake Roberts. Now this was a very interesting and intense albeit short feud. The idea is simple: Roberts is a recovering alcoholic and Lawler is making fun of him for it, even having a big bottle of alcohol in the corner with him for the matches and offering Jake a drink. Lawler, as a heel, has a huge fear of snakes. Some of the this is actually really disturbing as Jake has a bad issue with alcohol, which means I don’t think it should be used as an angle.

Before the match, we’re introduced to the World’s Strongest Man, Mark Henry. Oh dear. He comes out to Luger’s music of all things so you know this is going to be bad. He can’t even get the headset on right to do commentary. For a guy like Vince that is obsessed with musclemen, this is just a big orgasm, complete with pyro for Henry.

Jerry Lawler vs. Jake Roberts

He’s been on commentary 10 seconds and I’m already annoyed with him. Lawler has a bag of his own but we don’t see what’s inside yet. He’s also rocking a Baltimore Ravens jersey, which is considered cheap heat but to me that’s just pure awesomeness. For an Indians fan like me, this is just fun. Sandy Alomar is there and he says he’s left tickets for the Modells. He brings Jake’s partners, the Jim Beam twins.

He insults Jake’s wife as Henry is cracking up at the jokes, despite being a face. They point out that Henry was injured in the Olympics, as Lawler says that he’s dumb enough to bronze a gold medal. Henry is just awful on commentary. His comebacks are that of a 6th grader. Lawler is just doing one liners here as is his trademark. I never realized how tall Jake is but he’s about 6’5 which is taller than Orton and HHH.

Harvey Whippleman is the referee so Lawler is the most normal person in the ring. Lawler shows what’s in his bag: a massive bottle of alcohol. Henry shows that he’s a long term heel, saying that he’s afraid of snakes. Roberts wraps Revelations, the big yellow snake, around the King. Wouldn’t that be a foreign object? Ross sounds like he’s giving moral support to Henry which is just stupid sounding. After about 7 minutes of stalling, they finally make contact.

However in this case, I’m ok with the stalling as it makes sense here. Vince talks about how Jake is a veteran. I’d think Lawler has more experience actually. Lawler steals a soda from the floor and throws it at Jake. Henry of course is concerned about the fan’s drinking tonight. My goodness he’s terrible at this. Ross suggests that Henry learn the DDT. Yeah that’s a big negative. Lawler hits Roberts in the throat with a bottle to pin him with the tights.

The ironic part of Perfect being on commentary was that he was a huge alcoholic too. After the match, Lawler pours whiskey down Jake’s throat. He gets another bottle to do the same, but Henry, the face, stops him. This got really quite intense, but it was better in ROH when Raven did it to Punk, with Dreamer’s help.

Rating: C-. This was all about the angle and not about the match at all. The match itself would probably be an F, but the angle is very solid. It’s a real life angle that can actually work out. The sad part was how Roberts fell apart with alcohol and drugs in the future as has been well documented.

Backlund is campaigning to be President.

Recap of Taker vs. Mankind. Nothing here that needs explaining.

Boiler Room Brawl: Mankind vs. Undertaker

The way you win here is to come to the ring and claim the urn from Paul Bearer, who will be standing in the ring for the whole match. This is an odd match as Taker comes into the boiler room and immediately stats looking for Mankind. The big problem at first is you can’t see anything. The lighting is terrible and it’s a lot of lurking in the shadows and stuff, which is fine but not for a wrestling match.

Everything is way too dark to really get anything going. The commentators are talking about how Mankind could be anywhere. Now we get to the weird part: as soon as Mankind sneaks up on Taker and beats him up, we lose commentary. It’s not like the audio dies, but they just stop talking. It’s really weird to have a match like this with no audio at all other than the wrestlers themselves and whatever sounds they make while beating on things.

As for the match itself, it’s mainly the two of them hitting each other with random objects, which is fine as it’s just a big brawl in an odd place but the chemistry they have is perfect with each other, making this very fun. We get random things from the announcers, but it’s like a word between all three of them a minute. I’m assuming there’s closed circuit or something in the arena. The video goes out momentarily too but Vince says they’re sorry for it. Ah there it is.

This is mainly just weapons use, which is ok but can only go on for so long. Mankind launches some steam at Taker, which may or may not have been scalding. The crowd pops huge for Taker getting a pipe to the balls for some reason. This is really starting to show how important commentary is to a match as it would help a lot here. Running knee to the area near Taker’s head into a steel door would hurt horribly I think, if nothing else it would hurt Mankind’s knee.

Taker is getting his head handed to him like never before, which seems to happen in every match he competes in against a big time heel. Mankind’s incoherent babbling is a very nice touch. More technical difficulties as I’m pretty sure the fans are watching on closed circuit as they boo the heck out of it. This is the longest its been out for, although we pop in long enough to see Taker being slammed. We’re back now and Mankind has a ladder.

When I say ladder, I mean an old wooden one, not the kind in ladder matches. Here’s where we get the most seen spot of this match, with Taker pulling Mankind off the ladder and him falling onto a bunch of pipes and pieces of metal and wood. Oh, apparently it was a big box. As Taker goes for the door, a thought occurs to me: when Taker was looking around for Mankind just after coming in, why didn’t he just turn around and leave?

The rules just said once they were both in the first to get to the urn in the ring wins, so why not just turn and run? Probably because it wouldn’t be much of a match if that’s what they did I suppose. Big shot with a fire extinguisher which is always cool. They get through the door which is good as this match was in bad need of a change of venue. Mankind does something very smart and barricades the door. That’s actually a brilliant move when you think about it.

The dumb part comes when he stands there to help barricade it. Isn’t the point of blocking the door to be able to run from it? It’s weird seeing wrestlers standing in the hallway as these two fight. Mankind throws hot coffee on Taker, which could be fake I suppose. After about 20 minutes they’re in the arena. The good part is that it doesn’t feel like this has been going that long, which to me says it hasn’t been boring.

Ah good we have TV monitors there to show the people what was going on during the earlier part of the match. That’s nice of them. They fight even more trying to get into the ring. This is a great touch as it’s just more brawling and I like that after this long there’s no real leader. In a sick looking spot, both are on the apron and Taker slings the ropes back and Mankind slams down on the concrete. Taker gets in the ring and takes the knee, but Bearer won’t give him the urn.

Mankind takes him out with the claw as Bearer is laughing. He slaps Taker as JR screams to stop that. Taker crawls to Paul, reaching up for the urn. Bearer slams him in the head with it and hands Mankind the urn for the win. This was huge at the time as Taker had always had Paul Bearer with him. As they leave, Bearer says he’s Paul Bearer and you’re not. Well I’m glad he can say his own name. Maybe next he’ll know his phone number.

We get a single gong which I thought was a mistake but the lights go out and druids start singing. They head to the ring I guess to help Taker. What was it like when they got to the arena? I’m trying to imagine them asking where their dressing room is. The druids carry him out in more darkness.

Naturally, he’d be back soon but feuding with Vader over the WWF Title #1 contender spot, eventually taking the belt at Mania. This would in turn lead to what was likely the biggest angle of his career, as in less than a year, Bear would mention the name of the man called Kane.

Rating: A-. This was a very good fight. The angle was huge at the end, but I think the brawling in the boiler room went on a bit too long. Coupling that with the lack of commentary and it’s just below a classic. This at the time was one of the most brutal matches ever, but what they would do in the summer of 98 blew this so far out of the water it’s unreal. Still, this was great.

In Your House promo.

Vader and Cornette, who is still a bigger name than Mark Madden as he’s on Summerslam here cutting a promo just before the main event, say that they’re going to beat up Shawn and take the title.

WWF Title: Vader vs. Shawn Michaels

Vader had been built up as unstoppable all year and had pinned Shawn the previous month in a 6 man tag. The opening/formula is exactly what you would expect: Shawn starts off hot by throwing all kinds of high risk stuff and punches at Vader and they work for a long while. However, soon Vader takes over after landing a power bomb on the floor. Granted that’s the same move that nearly killed Mick Foley, but we can let that slide I suppose.

Shawn is just getting the tar beaten out of him here so he’s following the Bret Hart formula of start hot, look good getting beaten up, and then make your comeback. Shawn has some mini comebacks and Vader counters with a thumb to the eye. There’s something funny about that to me. Perfect drops the term go home, which means to end the match. That doesn’t happen at the moment of course though as that would just suck for a main event.

Shawn skins the cat which to me is one of the most athletic moves you can do along with the nip up. He gets caught though and Vader just throws him which is a cool looking move. Perfect just hates Shawn to say the least. Shawn keeps trying to come back with punches and clotheslines but they just don’t work. In an odd spot, he slides down to try a sunset flip but Vader puts his foot on Shawn’s chest. Shouldn’t that be a pin since Shawn’s shoulders are down?

He finally takes Vader down with a big clothesline. I think Shawn botches a move as he has Vader down to the elbow but he pulls up and just kind of lands next to Vader on his feet. I think he was trying to make it look like a big stomp but it just missed totally. I wonder why it wasn’t the elbow at that moment. They go to the floor and brawl again, but this time Vader picks up Shawn and drops him over the railing chest/ribs first.

Vader slides into the ring for the count out win. Wait, what the heck? Yes, Vader wins by count out that quick. The female fan at ringside is SCREAMING at Shawn to get up as apparently Becca has made her way to Cleveland. Cornette is ticked off and shouts into the mic that it’s not over yet and demands to keep going. Shawn is called a coward and agrees to keep going of course. Vader beats the tar out of Shawn but a powerbomb is countered by a bunch of punches.

Shawn finally gets the elbow but Cornette throws in the racket. Shawn catches it and beats the heck out of Vader, which is merely Shawn returning the favor for Cornette beating on Shawn earlier in the match. Vader wins by DQ. And so ends Summerslam…again with Shawn leaving to fight another day. Apparently it doesn’t though as Cornette is talking (stop the presses!) again.

Shawn of course accepts one more restart and they’re at it again. Shawn is killing him to start but gets caught. In between the ref goes down and there’s no one to count the pin. Also, Vader gets up from SCM. They set for the Vader Bomb but Shawn moves as the big man goes for the moonsault. He hits a moonsault from the top of his own onto Vader to get the pin. Perfect is ticked off and leaves the announce booth. He comes back all of three seconds later. Shawn poses us out to end the show.

Rating: A-. This was another very good match, but the triple ending just kind of left me scratching my head. It would have been fine had they just done a standard match by giving Vader a ton of time to beat on Shawn, ending with the moonsault to win in. Either way, this was a fine version of David vs. Goliath with Shawn looking like the giant killer at the end of it all to send the fans home happy.

Overall Rating: A. This show was AWESOME. It was the polar opposite of that excuse for a show we had last year. Every match is at least good with some solid angles, brutal matches and good technical stuff. I really liked what I saw here tonight and yes, this certainly lvies up to the hype. It’s certainly in the running for best Summerslam to date and perhaps best ever, but at the moment I’ll have to go with 92 just ahead of it. Still, excellent show and a big recommendation.

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

We’re in the Monday Night Wars era now and it’s all about Shawn at the moment. He’s back from injury and in the Rumble tonight, looking to become the second person ever to win back to back Rumbles. Other than that we’ve got Bret vs. Undertaker which is another of those matches that can be hit or miss. It’s hard to say what we’ll get here….well not really because I’ve seen this show a bunch of times. Let’s get to it.

We open with Sunny in a bathtub, saying this show is graphic and view discretion is advised.

The opening video is about how the champion is defined by Hart, as in Bret Hart. Tonight though he’s against a force who has no heart, in the form of Undertaker. The IC Title match (Ramon vs. Goldust) and the Rumble are talked about as well.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Ahmed Johnson

Last month at IYH, Jarrett hit Johnson with a gold record to set this up. Johnson is basically Ezekiel Jackson with a bit of skill and charisma. Jarrett immediately bails to the floor to hide. Back in he tries a hiptoss and Ahmed is like boy are you stupid or something? A headlock is easily countered by a throw from Johnson and a clothesline takes Jarrett down. There’s a World’s Strongest Slam for two for Ahmed and things slow down again. Johnson misses a clothesline by a mile but Jeff sells it anyway of course.

A cross body misses as well but this time Johnson goes flying over the top, getting his hand caught in the ropes on the way down. A HARD whip into the steps puts Johnson down and we head back in. Ahmed starts no selling stuff and catches a dive in a bearhug. That goes nowhere so Johnson sends him to the floor and hits a big dive. Back in and Ahmed misses a FREAKING SWANTON (remember that he weighs like 280) and there’s the Figure Four from Jarrett. Johnson powers out of it twice, so Jarrett cracks him with the guitar off the top for the LAME DQ.

Rating: C-. I was always an Ahmed fan so this was an easy pass for me. The image of the Swanton looked great if nothing else, which is more than enough to give this a pass. Jarrett was such a mess at this point and never went anywhere in the WWF. The ending completely sucked though and it really brought things down.

BUY OUR STUFF!

Diesel isn’t worried about the Rumble tonight and doesn’t think it’s Vader Time. He doesn’t care who he faces at Mania, but he isn’t happy with Taker being the #1 contender.

Tag Titles: Smoking Gunns vs. Bodydonnas

The Bodydonnas are Skip (Chris Candido) and Zip (Tom Prichard with a BIG haircut). They have Sunny with them and my goodness is she smoking (no pun intended) here. The Guns are defending. Skip and Billy start things off with Skip taking over with a headscissors. Just like Ahmed earlier, Billy misses a charge against the ropes and crashes to the outside. Both Gunns get double teamed until Bart ducks out of the way, allowing a charging Billy to dive onto both Donnas on the floor.

Things settle down a bit and it’s back to Billy vs. Skip with the champion in control. Sunny hits on Bart until it’s Bart vs. Zip. A gorilla press puts Zip down but he makes a blind tag, allowing Skip to take over. The champions are fine with the double teaming stuff too, and take over on Skip very easily. Sunny gets on the apron and is knocked off just as quickly, giving us a nice upskirt shot in the process.

Now we get to the important part of the match as Billy goes to check on Sunny, allowing the Donnas to pound away on Bart. Skip hits a nice plancha onto Billy before suplexing Zip onto Billy for two back inside. Billy gets to play Ricky Morton for awhile, being put in a chinlock by Zip. This goes on for awhile until we get a sloppy spot where the Donnas collide and Skip rams heads will Billy. This would work a bit better if Billy wasn’t about eight inches taller than Candido.

Hot tag brings in Bart and everything breaks down with the champions taking over. The Sidewinder (side slam/guillotine legdrop combo) crushes Zip but Sunny’s distraction lets Skip break things up and take Zip’s place. Ignore the fact that one has the straps of his singlet up and the other doesn’t, and the fact that they look as different as Demolition did. In an ending the Expresses used back in the 80s, the Donnas load up a double suplex on Bart, but Billy spears Skip down, causing Bart to fall on Zip for the pin to retain.

Rating: C-. Tag wrestling at this time was really weak with very few solid teams anywhere to be found. The Gunns were ok at best and the Donnas were only popular because of Sunny. Billy would turn heel relatively soon and would eventually join up with Road Dogg to form the New Age Outlaws and turn the division completely upside down. Nothing much to see here but it certainly wasn’t terrible.

We get some of the Billionaire Ted skits, which were unfunny shots at Ted Turner. Not his wrestling company directly, but Turner himself. I’m still not sure why they decided to do these but no one liked them and they came off as mean instead of funny or witty. Note Vince Russo as one of the executives in the board room skit.

We recap Razor vs. Goldust, where Goldust is hitting on Razor to mess with his mind before the match tonight. To say Goldust’s character got them in hot water around this point is a huge understatement.

Intercontinental Title: Razor Ramon vs. Goldust

The yet to be named Marlena debuts with Goldie here. Razor is defending as is his custom. Feeling out process to start with Goldust playing his usual mind games, which means rubbing himself. Razor cranks on the arm before grabbing a headlock which goes nowhere. Goldust goes behind Razor and molests him a bit to psych Razor out even more. They head to the corner with Razor having his head rubbed a bit, ticking him off even more.

Razor goes for the arm so Goldust slaps him in the face. Perfect keeps making sex jokes as Razor slaps Goldust right back in the face. He spanks Goldie once as well, but the painted dude likes it. We head to the floor where Goldust hides behind Marlena as the stalling continues. Back in and Razor tries three straight headscissors before punching Goldust to the floor with a single shot.

We get more stalling which is called playing mind games before Ramon clotheslines him right back to the outside. Razor has to move Marlena out of the way, allowing Goldust to FINALLY do something, taking over with a shot to the ribs. Back in and Goldust focuses on the ribs, but not too much because that might mean we have some speed to this match. A bulldog gets two for Goldust as does a slingshot belly to back suplex.

Off to a sleeper, which Perfect suggests Goldust could use to do “whatever he wants” to Goldust. Much like everything else in the match, this goes on way too long until Razor fights up and kicks Goldust low. He’s so spent though that Goldie gets a two count, causing Razor to start his comeback. He fires off his usual punches and the chokeslam gets two. A belly to back superplex hit but Marlent distracts the referee, allowing the 1-2-3 Kid to come in and kick Razor’s head off. Goldust gets the easy pin and the title.

Rating: D-. Sweet freaking goodness this was dull. It went on WAY too long and had a bad ending on top of that, plus the stupid “psychology” from Goldust which wound up being more unpleasant than interesting or intelligent. Goldust would get WAY better when he became more of a comedy/parody character rather than this freaky dude that he was to start his WWF run. The matches got a lot better as a result too.

Wrestlemania 12 is coming.

We get the usual promos for the Rumble, but we start with a statement from Shawn’s doctor who says he’s back and healthy. Thankfully this is kept VERY short and he’s not dull. We hear from Owen, Roberts, Lawler, Horowitz, Vader and Shawn. Shawn would be the most obvious winner ever in the Rumble since…..well since last year when he was the absolutely obvious pick to win.

Vince and Perfect talk about the Rumble a bit.

Royal Rumble

HHH is #1, having lost a match on the Free for All to Duke Droese, who won the right to be #30. Henry Godwinn is #2 and I believe he’s feuding with HHH at this point. Helmsley pounds away in the corner to start but gets backdropped down very quickly. The intervals are back to two minutes this year thank goodness. Trips pokes him in the eye and chokes away until Bob Backlund is #3. Backlund saves HHH before pounding away on him. These wide shots are showing how nearly empty the upper deck is.

Jerry Lawler is #4 as HHH hits the jumping knee to the face of Godwinn. The fans chant Burger King and you know Lawler isn’t going to pass up a chance to rile up a crowd. He goes to get the slop bucket that Godwinn brought with him, but Henry clears the ring and gets the bucket, throwing it over the top onto Lawler and some of Backlund. Bob Holly is #5 and things slow down a bit until HHH erupts on Godwinn for some reason.

We get some slow paced elimination teases until Mabel is #6. Still nothing happens so here’s Jake Roberts at #7 to an ERUPTION. No one is eliminated yet. Jake throws in the snake and everyone but Lawler can get to the floor. After nearly giving him a heart attack with the snake, Lawler disappears for a good while as he hides under the ring. Mabel gets tied up in the ropes and pounded on for a bit until Dory Funk Jr. is #8.

The DDT is countered by HHH as we hear about a friendship between Terry Funk and Bruce Willis of all people. Backlund and Funk go at it because they’re both old and I doubt Dory knows most of the other people in the ring. Lawler is seen hiding under the ring. Yokozuna is #9 as there are WAY too many people in the match at the moment. Backlund puts Dory in the chickenwing and is eliminated by Yoko for a prize. Yoko crushes Godwinn in the corner but Mabel splashes Yoko, killing Henry in the process.

The 1-2-3 Kid is #10 but Razor charges down the aisle to chase him away (not eliminated). Officials get Razor off the Kid but it takes Mabel beating Razor down to stop the chases. It amazes me that Razor wasn’t in more Rumbles. Come to think of it….he was NEVER in a Rumble. Omori, a Japanese star that doesn’t mean much yet, is #11. At the moment we’ve got HHH, Godwinn, Lawler (under the ring), Holly, Mabel, Roberts, Funk, Yoko, the Kid and Omori in the match.

Wait where is Godwinn? I guess he went out off camera. Yoko and Mabel double team Omori until Jake pounds away on Yoko to the loudest reactions of the match so far. Funk hits a double underhook suplex on the Kid as Savio Vega is #12. He spinwheel kicks Mabel down, allowing Yoko to dump the reigning King (Mabel if you’re lucky enough to not remember that gimmick). Omori goes out thanks to Roberts and things slow down again.

Vader debuts at #13 and lumbers around while not doing much. He picks Bob Holly of all people to beat on first as Vega eliminates Dory. Vader pulls Savio back in from the apron for no apparent reason other than he wants to beat on him some more. Doug Gilbert from Memphis is #14 and HHH goes right after him for no apparent reason. Vader and Yoko slug it out to a big reaction but Vader has to stop to clothesline Roberts out.

The camera work in this is really bad as they keep looking at corners of the ring instead of the full thing, making us miss a lot of stuff. Savio pounds on Vader until one of the Squat Team members (BIG fat guys who are there because they’re fat and look alike) is #15. Vader sloppily throws Gilbert out and does the same to the Squat Team dude. Yoko and Vader slug it out again and people respond again.

The other member of the Squat Team is #16 but they both get in to double team Vader. The Mastodon (Vader) punches their faces in as only Vader can do before knocking them both to the floor. Owen Hart is #17 and everyone but Yoko is on one side of the ring for some reason. Vader and Yoko double team Savio who doesn’t seem interested in selling at all. A pair of splashes in the corner crushes him, as do a regular splash and the big leg from Yoko.

Shawn is #17 to a decent pop but significantly smaller than Jake’s. Vader throws out Savio as Shawn goes after HHH and the Kid. Vader and Yoko slug it out a bit before slugging it out a lot. They fight against the ropes, so Shawn gets a running start and dumps them BOTH AT ONCE. Now THAT wakes up the crowd. If that’s not enough, Shawn gorilla presses (!) the Kid to the floor as the ring is suddenly very thin. Hakushi is #19 as the big guys fight on the floor.

Scratch the floor part as Vader gets back in and cleans house, but none of the eliminations count because he’s not legal. Once he’s finally taken away, we’ve got Shawn, HHH, Holly, Hart, Hakushi and Lawler underneath the ring. Tatanka is #20 as Shawn thrown Jim Cornette, Vader’s manager, out. Hakushi hits a Muta elbow on Hart in the corner as HHH of course goes after Shawn.

Michaels teases a bunch of eliminations to try to make us think he’s not winning. Owen dumps Hakushi as Aldo Montoya (Justin Credible with a jock strap over his face) is #21. Shawn gets sent through the ropes to the floor, where he pulls Lawler out and sends him back into the ring. Tatanka puts out Montoya as Shawn puts out Lawler.

Here’s Diesel at #22 and house is cleaned. There goes Tatanka at the hands of the tall one and it’s time for Shawn vs. Diesel which gets a pop but is too short to mean much. Kama (Godfather) is #23 as this continues to go slowly. Shawn pounds on Holly (why is he still in this?) in the corner as Kama and Diesel slug it out. The Ringmaster (Steve Austin who is brand new here) is #24. He’s in white boots which is a really strange thing to see for him.

Shawn does his usual overblown self safe as Holly and Austin fight. FINALLY Holly goes out after nearly forty minutes. HHH vs. Austin happens about three years before it would mean anything. Barry Horowitz (with the AWESOME rock version of Hava Nagila) is #25 and he goes after Diesel. Well no one ever accused him of being brilliant. Shawn nips up to knock Owen to the apron, but Hart skins the cat back in. Cool little sequence there.

HHH punches Diesel, so Diesel grabs him by the head and LAUNCHES him to the floor. The Game made it about 48 minutes which isn’t bad at all. MAKING A DIFFERENCE Fatu (don’t ask. PLEASE don’t ask) is #26 and he doesn’t do much. Shawn and Owen can’t suplex the other one out so here’s Isaac Yankem DDS (Kane) at #27. The ring is WAY too full but Barry is put out to thin it out a bit.

Owen hits the enziguri on Shawn which put Michaels on the shelf leading up to this match. Shawn hangs on AGAIN though and puts Owen out while we’re looking at a double feature. Austin kills Shawn with a clothesline and here’s Marty Jannetty at #28. Fatu superkicks Kane as the burst of energy from Marty is already gone. Shawn and Jannetty go at it because they’re former partners. Perfect: “They’re rocking now aren’t they?” They punch each other down and the British Bulldog is #29.

Smith goes right for Shawn because of what happened last year. I love little bits of continuity like that which you never get anymore. Davey puts out Marty as Fatu GOES OFF on Austin before clotheslining him out off camera. Yankem puts out Fatu and here’s Duke Droese at #30. The final group is Shawn, Droese, Diesel, Smith, Yankem and Kama.

Smith and Michaels fight to the floor and Owen jumps Shawn for good measure. Shawn shrugs it off and goes in to dropkick Yankem out. Kama and Diesel put out Droese to get us down to four. Shawn clotheslines Smith out before skinning the cat back in. Diesel dumps Kama and Shawn superkicks the tall one (in the shoulder) out to win for the second year in a row.

Rating: D. Oh this was DULL. The problem here was that like last year (although to a MUCH weaker degree), there were very few guys you could buy as a winner here. It’s FAR better than last year’s match but the crowd was dead for long stretches of this, mainly due to boredom. You could see the star power of the future, but that’s the problem: they weren’t stars yet and no one bought them at this point. The match isn’t bad, but it’s definitely not good if that makes sense.

Diesel is ticked off about the ending and goes back in as Shawn is stripping. They do their old Wolfpack thing in the middle of the ring (a high five where Shawn has to jump) and all is cool. Shawn poses for a long time post match.

Oh yeah we’ve got a thirty minute match left to go.

WWF World Title: Undertaker vs. Bret Hart

Bret is defending and Taker is still in his skull mask period. Diesel is still straggling behind and stares at Taker during his entrance. They brawl with neither guy getting much of an advantage. Since this is WWF, we recap what we just say two minutes ago. After all that, here’s the world champion. Taker stands in the middle of the ring and Bret circles him for a bit. Hart pounds away in the corner and Taker stares at him.

Taker LAUNCHES him into the corner which is one of my favorite of his moves. He chokes Bret in the air and moves very slowly. Off to a smother hold which goes on for a LONG time. Bret finally makes the rope so there’s Old School….which sets up the smother again. Bret fights up and hits a middle rope clothesline followed by a regular one to send Taker to the floor. There’s a dive to take out the challenger as this finally picks up the pace a bit.

Bret tries to dive off the apron at Taker but is pulled out of the air and rammed into the post. Taker rams him into various other things until Bret reverses a whip into the steps, trying to damage Taker’s knees. Back in and Bret works over the knee as this is going nowhere. The Figure Four goes on….and on…..and on……and Taker turns it over.

Bret gets to the rope, so let’s put on ANOTHER LEG HOLD! It’s that always riveting one where Bret drops an elbow on the leg and just lays on it. This is also known as the Dusty Rhodes Special. He does however mix it up by trying to take off Taker’s mask. After being in this for literally about three minutes, Taker smashes his free leg on Bret’s head before we head back to the floor. Taker chokes away with a cord and sends Bret into the barricade as we head back in.

The champ goes back to the freaking knee as the fans loudly boo Bret. Taker’s leg is wrapped around the post a few times and it’s back to laying on the leg. Dear goodness get this over with already. We’re over twenty minutes into this and NOTHING has happened. To save my sanity the hold doesn’t last as long this time and Taker fights back. There are some legdrops and a clothesline as Taker’s knee seems fine. He loads up the Tombstone but Bret slides down his back and guillotines Taker on the ropes.

A DDT puts Taker down and Bret starts headbutting the back. We get the Russian legsweep but Taker sits up. The bulldog takes Taker down and there’s the middle rope elbow. Bret gives the fans a thumbs down and loads up the Sharpshooter. Taker grabs him by the throat to block it but Bret knees him in the ribs. A double clothesline puts both guys down and we lay around a bit more.

Bret is up first and takes off the buckle from a corner. He goes for the mask again and gets it off to reveal….the same Undertaker we’ve seen for like five years at this point. Seriously he looks fine. Taker fights back but gets rammed into the exposed buckle. That gets no sold and it’s a Tombstone for Bret. Since this is such a dull match though, Diesel pulls the referee out at two for a DQ.

Rating: D+. This started VERY slow but got better for the last ten minutes or so, but the ending brings it right back down again. If this had been a fifteen minute match or so it would have been WAY better, but they only had so many other matches on the card, meaning this had to be longer. Diesel would face Taker at Mania of course.

Gorilla Monsoon makes Diesel vs. Bret for the title at the next PPV.

Shawn says the 90s will be his time.

Taker comes in to yell at Gorilla, saying that Diesel won’t be champion on his watch. Gorilla makes it a cage match so Taker can’t interfere.

Diesel goes on a big rant about how he’s not afraid of the dark and says he’s going to have his hands in everything from now on because the WWF is running on Diesel Power. This was his official heel turn.

Cornette says Vader cannot be ignored. He pretty much was until Summerslam.

Overall Rating: D. This is a really weird show to grade because while most of the matches got bad grades, it’s not that bad of a show overall. Don’t get me wrong: it’s bad, but it’s really not as bad as it sounds. The first two matches are certainly watchable, but they’re not that good. The Rumble is also passable, but it’s dull at times. Not horrible, but definitely not worth seeing.

Ratings Comparison

Ahmed Johnson vs. Jeff Jarrett

Original: D+

Redo: C-

Smoking Gunns vs. Bodydonnas

Original: D

Redo: C-

Goldust vs. Razor Ramon

Original: D

Redo: D-

Royal Rumble

Original: D

Redo: D

Bret Hart vs. Undertaker

Original: C-

Redo: D+

Overall Rating

Original: D-

Redo: D

Amazingly enough I liked it a bit better this time.

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

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/01/15/royal-rumble-count-up-1996-shawns-texas-two-step/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jeff Jarrett vs. Ahmed Johnson

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

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

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

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

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

Buy WWF stuff, t-shirts in this case.

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

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

Tag Titles: Smoking Guns vs. Body Donnas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Intercontinental Title: Goldust vs. Razor Ramon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Royal Rumble

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WWF Title: Undertaker vs. Bret Hart

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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IMG Credit: WWE

Monday Night Raw
Date: August 5, 1996
Location: Key Arena, Seattle, Washington
Attendance: 6,755
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jim Ross

We’re coming up on Summerslam and Shawn Michaels is still on high. For some reason, tonight’s main event is a battle royal with the winner getting a title shot AFTER Summerslam, because it’s never too early to start planning ahead. Shawn Michaels has all he can deal with for Summerslam with Vader though. Let’s get to it.

Opening sequence.

Jerry Lawler is in the ring to start and he has a bottle wrapped in brown paper to talk about Jake Roberts. He wants Roberts to write a tell all book about his drinking but shifts over to Aldo Montoya, who beat him on Superstars last week. Montoya comes out so Lawler pulls out a bottle of Jim Beam as Roberts’ partner.

Aldo Montoya vs. Jerry Lawler

Lawler grabs the mic and talks during the match, before dropping it to ask if Montoya has anything to say to him. The beating is on in a hurry and Lawler drops him with a suplex. Montoya is back with a bunch of right hands and a hard whip into the corner, followed by a top rope right hand to the head. The DDT (how Montoya won last week) sends Lawler into the corner to grab the referee so Montoya hits a backdrop instead. Lawler is right back with the piledriver though and a second finishes Montoya off. Energetic while it lasted.

Post match Lawler pours the booze into Montoya’s mouth. Lawler: “Hey Jake, don’t get jealous!” Referees break it up but Lawler manages to do it again because referees are horrible at their secondary jobs.

New Rockers vs. Bodydonnas

Hillbilly Jim is on commentary and the Rockers jump the Bodydonnas at the entrance. Zip gets dropped onto the top rope to start but manages a small package for two on Jannetty. Everything breaks down with Jim thinking they have a lot left in them. The match has been on for a minute and a half so I’d hope so.

Jannetty sends Zip into the ropes so Skip makes a blind tag as we go split screen to Skip and Faarooq Asaad. Next week Faarooq debuts against Skip, as Sunny’s new man is going to prove that her old man just doesn’t measure up. Faarooq rants about being a tiger from birth and being a maneater. Dude she’s right next to you. Back to full screen with Zip chopping at Cassidy and cutting off Jannetty despite a second blind tag.

As Jim gets in his fifth “you know what I mean” in about three minutes, we cut to the Godwinns and the Smoking Gunns watching the match. As in we aren’t seeing the match at all at the moment. Back again with Skip hitting a top rope headbutt for two on Marty, who is right back up to throw Skip over the top. Cassidy hits a neckbreaker on the floor and throws Skip back in for the two. It’s off to Cassidy to slug away at Skip as we go split screen AGAIN to look at Jim on commentary.

After fifteen seconds of full screen, we look at Gorilla Monsoon reinstating Crush (not named) after weapons and drug charges. Marty pulls Skip down by the trunks and sends him into the corner as we take a break. Back with Cassidy getting crotched on top so Skip can go up, only to have the Gunns run in for the DQ. Jim asks “WHAT’S GOING ON” about five times in a row.

Rating: D. Not only was the match boring and longer than it needed to be before a bad (though logical) ending, but sweet goodness I’ve never seen a match where the company was so uninterested in watching it. This was designed to set up a four way Tag Team Title match at Summerslam but they need a better way to make me interesting. Really dull match here and the cuts made it worse.

Post match the Godwinns come in as well and clear the ring with the Bodydonnas.

Shawn Michaels has been beaten up lately, including by Vader in a six man tag at In Your House IX. He could lose at any given time but he isn’t losing to Vader at Summerslam. Nothing matters to him as much as being WWF Champion and he’ll do anything to keep it. To take it from him means beating everyone behind him and that isn’t happening. Oh and he’d love Bret Hart being back because it’s like peanut butter without jelly. Uh, peanut butter on its own is quite delightful. Shawn talks about how great he is to wrap it up.

As appropriate as it is, we go to clips of Shawn at a house show. In Montreal.

Battle Royal

Undertaker, Mankind, Sid, British Bulldog, Justin Hawk Bradshaw, Owen Hart, Steve Austin, Goldust, Marc Mero, Savio Vega, Ahmed Johnson

The winner gets a WWF Title shot in two weeks, Ahmed Johnson’s Intercontinental Title isn’t on the line and he has a bad kidney coming in. Undertaker SPRINTS to the ring to go after Mankind and they’re both eliminated in about ten seconds. They fight to the back, leaving the other nine to fight on the ropes and tease eliminations. Johnson throws Bulldog out as I try to get my head around Austin having writing on his trunks.

Sid backdrops Bradshaw out in an elimination that would mean a lot more a long way down the line. There isn’t much going on in between these eliminations, making it a pretty typical battle royal. Mero throws Owen out and the big fit takes us to a break. Back (after a video of British Bulldog powerslamming Savio Vega thanks to Jim Cornette) with all six still in it and Mero being backdropped out before I can finish a sentence. Savio hits his running spinwheel kick in the corner but eliminates himself by mistake. Nitwit.

Undertaker and Mankind fight through the crowd, back into the ring, and then back into the crowd. Johnson hits a hard clothesline on Goldust but stops to try and get rid of Austin. Goldust breaks that up as this has slowed way down in a hurry. Sid saves himself and then saves Ahmed as Vince plugs Summerslam every chance he can. Goldust is sent to the apron but pulls himself back in, only to walk into a spinebuster.

We see Undertaker and Mankind brawling in the back and take another break. Back again with the same final four and Sid powerbombing Goldust. He does the same to Austin and grabs a reverse chinlock as Goldust hits a Curtain Call on Johnson. The match is so boring that we go to the back to watch previous clips of Undertaker beating up Mankind.

They do throw in some fresh brawling before we come back to see the same four people having the same fight. Cue Owen and Bulldog for a distraction so Austin can eliminate Sid. Goldust stands back as Austin stomps on Johnson before going with the double cross. Austin saves himself from being eliminated and hammers on Goldust until Johnson kicks him in the ribs.

Johnson and Goldust team up (?) to toss Austin and it’s Ahmed slugging away as we’re down to two. A shot to the face puts Johnson down and Goldust drops an elbow on the bad kidney. There’s a piledriver and we take ANOTHER break as this match just can’t end. Back with Ahmed grabbing….a bodyscissors? They get up and collide next to the rope but Ahmed hangs on by the legs to survive and win the title shot.

Rating: D-. Oh sweet goodness no. I’m not sure what they were thinking here as the match ran about twenty four minutes counting commercials and had the final four after about ten minutes. That’s a very strange layout and it’s not like the sections with the final four or three were anything spectacular. I don’t get this one, but dang Ahmed could have been something had he been remotely healthy.

Post match Ahmed says he and Shawn are friends but a match against Vader sounds like a party. Faarooq runs in for the brawl to end the show.

Overall Rating: F. Justin Credible and Jerry Lawler just had the match of the night and it didn’t even break three minutes. WCW is just killing them at this point and that is getting very obvious in a hurry. The company is looking like a zombie and this show was horrible, with nothing looking interesting outside of Undertaker vs. Mankind. If this is supposed to make me want to see Summerslam, sign me up for Winterfest.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: May 27, 1996
Location: Cumberland County Memorial Auditorium, Fayetteville, North Carolina
Attendance: 5,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jerry Lawler

We’re past In Your House VIII and….we saw about half the show. In a pretty famous moment, the arena’s power was knocked out by an electrical storm and aside from the first and last matches, the arena was dark for most of the night. Therefore this is actually a go home show with Tuesday offering a live Beware of Dog II. Let’s get to it.

Oh and over on Nitro, Scott Hall jumped the barricade.

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Goldust vs. Ultimate Warrior

Rematch from their disaster of a “match” at In Your House VII and Goldust’s Intercontinental Title isn’t on the line. Warrior has to chase him on the floor to start and it’s time for the 80s offense to begin. Goldust’s right hands and forearms have no effect as Warrior easily throws him down.

A trip to the floor sees both guys being sent into various metal objects as Vince talks about Warrior’s completely insane (like, insane even by Warrior’s standards) comic book. An electric chair drop sends Goldust bailing but Ahmed Johnson drags him back to the ring as we head to a break.

Back with Warrior being thrown through Goldust’s wooden chair, drawing in some canned Warrior chants. Warrior’s banged up shoulder doesn’t prevent him from hitting a powerslam (suplex according to that nitwit Vince) but we hit the chinlock anyway. The comeback sends Goldust out to the floor with Warrior following him out for a horrible double countout.

Rating: D-. Was there something in the water in 1996? Who decided to book all these horrible non-finishes after such stupidly long matches? Warrior was just so out of place in 1996 and it showed more and more every time he got in the ring. The business had just passed him by at this point and there was no way around it. That and Goldust hadn’t sped his offense up yet to make him watchable. Just awful here, but that had to be expected.

Lawler threatens Warrior with the broken chair, setting off their infamous feud where Lawler claimed people didn’t care because Warrior wore a hat during a promo. Seriously, it’s on the Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior DVD. Is there any wonder why Warrior sued over that hatchet job?

We go over Beware of Dog and the issues setting up the second show. This is a rare instance where things were out of the company’s hands and they did the only possible option.

Ted DiBiase thinks Savio Vega cheated in the dark last night so he’s willing to put up his WWF career in the rematch. The ending to that was flat out smart.

Smoking Gunns vs. BodyDonnas

The Gunns’ Tag Team Titles aren’t on the line (that would make too much sense) and they have Sunny with them after she tricked Phineas into making her their manager, which set up her turning on them less than a week later to get the belts on the Gunns. That makes this the BodyDonnas faces somehow and Hillbilly Jim is on commentary. Bart works on Zip’s arm to start and gorilla presses him down as we take an early break.

Back with various shots of cowgirl Sunny (that works) and Bart getting double teamed on the floor. Skip’s legdrop gets two and Zip’s gutwrench powerbomb is good for the same. We hit the chinlock for a long bit until Phineas Godwinn comes out to plead his case with Sunny. Jim and the Godwinns leave as Bart takes a double slingshot suplex. The illegal Skip goes up but Bart rolls through the high crossbody for the fast pin.

Rating: D+. WAY better match here as it actually felt entertaining at times. The Tag Team Title division needed a few adjustments but the Sunny story was better than having nothing at all. Once they got the face/heel alignment straightened out (that took some time) and got rid of Hillbilly Jim, everything wound up being….well it wound up being pretty dull but it was better than anything else we had seen for awhile.

We recap last night’s main event which ended in a double pin. I know Shawn gets a lot of flack for not drawing during this time but his first long feud was with British Bulldog. That’s no on Shawn.

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Ahmed Johnson vs. Vader

Owen Hart is on commentary. They slowly shove each other to start and Ahmed isn’t intimidated in the slightest. Vader actually gets pummeled down in the corner and the place goes NUTS, giving one of the true genuinely strong reactions outside of Undertaker/Shawn you’ll ever see in this era.

Vader gets in a few shots but Ahmed shrugs it off and crossbodies Vader to the floor, taking the mask off in the process. Back from a break with Vader kneeing him in the ribs and hitting the middle rope clothesline for two. Ahmed comes back with his own hard clothesline but Vader drops him all over again. They’re beating the heck out of each other here and it’s pretty close to awesome.

We hit the chinlock as Owen claims that Ahmed cheated in the Kuwaiti Cup. He doesn’t give any reason why but insists that it happened. Simple yet effective heel stuff there, which is what often works best. Vader tries the moonsault and fails as usual, allowing Ahmed to get in a powerslam. Jim Cornette gets dragged in (Owen: “GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF MY MANAGER!”) and Ahmed spinebusters Vader, only to have Owen sneak in with a cast shot to the head to give Vader the pin. That’s Ahmed’s first loss.

Rating: C+. This is a good example of a match that might not be the highest quality but it was a lot of fun, which is exactly what a show like this needed. Vader was selling the heck out of Ahmed’s offense and the fans ate it up because Ahmed wasn’t like everyone else at this point. Vader could sell like few others and it’s no surprise that both of these guys would be in the main event scene soon.

Ahmed is taken out on a stretch and Goldust gives him mouth to mouth, leaving gold paint on his lips. Johnson loses it and chokes Bob Holly to find out where Goldust is. Ahmed runs through a guy in pink (who I thought was Bret Hart at the time) to get into Goldust’s locker room. That goes nowhere so Ahmed punches out the cameraman to end the show.

Overall Rating: C. Once we got past the endless opener, this turned into a much, much more entertaining show due to an actual story and a really fun main event. Johnson seemed destined to be a star and if he could speak anything close to English he would have been World Champion easily. Anyway, far better show than the last few weeks but that’s not saying much.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: February 19, 1996
Location: Cincinnati Gardens, Cincinnati, Ohio
Attendance: 8,500
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jerry Lawler

We’re done with In Your House VI and the big story is that it’s time for Wrestlemania. There’s barely anything to talk about coming out of last night’s show other than Bret is still champion, Diesel vs. Undertaker is pretty clear for Wrestlemania and it’s a countdown until Shawn wins the title. Let’s get to it.

Sunny, on the beach in a black swimsuit (my goodness) tells us that this show might not be appropriate for all fans.

We recap last night’s main event with Undertaker pulling Diesel through the mat.

Intercontinental Title: Razor Ramon vs. Goldust

Goldust is defending and I had forgotten he was even champion at this point. Marlena tries to blow smoke in Razor’s face to no effect (not clear how) and it’s time to rip off Goldust’s robe. A clothesline puts the champ on the floor for a breather as Lawler wonders if Goldust likes being manhandled. Goldust gets in a backdrop and we take a break. Back with Goldust grabbing a sleeper but getting crotched on top a few seconds later. Razor gives him a fall away slam over the top for a bad sounding crash. Jerry: “He probably broke his golden globes!” The belly to back superplex sends Goldust running up the aisle for the countout.

Rating: D. Nothing match here as it felt like they were out there for about two minutes worth of action. It’s pretty clear that this is going to be setting up something in the future and probably would have had it not been for all of Razor’s issues at the time. Bad match though and not a good way to start off a show.

Post match Razor grabs the mic and begs Roddy Piper to give him a fight with Goldust because he doesn’t want his kids watching that stuff on TV.

Undertaker walks out of a casket.

Slam Jam recaps almost everything from last night and eats up a lot of time.

BodyDonnas vs. Aldo Montoya/Barry Horowitz

And never mind as Vader beats up the jobbers before the match starts.

The Ultimate Warrior is coming back.

Sunny sings Happy Birthday to Mr. President. I smell a stupid impression.

Bob Backlund campaigns in the crowd.

Ringmaster vs. Marty Jannetty

Vince during Ringmaster’s entrance: “You talk about a stone cold man.” Austin isn’t interested in having any of this wrestling stuff and sends Marty outside earlier. The Stun Gun sends us to a break and we come back with Austin driving a knee into the ribs. We hit the STF and get some LOUD spot calling, which is the kind of thing Austin would complain about today. We hit a neck crank as the fans aren’t that thrilled with Austin as a submission guy. Marty makes his really simple comeback but gets caught in the Million Dollar Dream for the fast submission.

Rating: D+. Marty is a good choice to do a job here as the fans like him and he’s certainly going to put on a solid performance in defeat. Austin really needed a feud though as this character is hardly interesting and isn’t going anywhere at the moment. To be fair though he had to start somewhere and this is better than a lot of the nonsense that some characters got.

Mankind is coming and might even bring his rat.

Tatanka vs. Undertaker

Undertaker chokes Tatanka into the corner like he’s the Undertaker and he’s facing Tatanka. A Samoan drop gives Tatanka a breather but here’s Diesel with an ax to steal a cameraman as we go to a break. Back with Diesel hacking up Undertaker’s casket and Undertaker fighting out of a chinlock. Old School looks to set up the Tombstone but Tatanka counters into a DDT. Diesel is STILL breaking up the casket as the Tombstone puts Tatanka away.

Rating: D-. I’m almost never a fan of a match happening as a backdrop for the angle or whatever else you would call Diesel breaking up a casket. Tatanka can’t be around much longer after this as he’s certainly not around for Wrestlemania and it’s not like he’s been interesting in years at this point.

And now, a new twist on the Billionaire Ted skits: Larry Fling Live on BNN (Billionaire News Network). After some stupid jokes, Randy from Sarasota and Terry from Tampa call in. Huckster needs time off because of a shoe to the eye. The third caller is Jane from Hanoi (Ted Turner’s wife) and this goes nowhere. Larry brings up the predatory practices that Vince whined about for months and Turner suddenly can’t speak about all the charges against him. More next week.

Undertaker and Paul Bearer are angry/distraught to end the show.

Overall Rating: F+. What am I even watching anymore? I know they’re getting ready for Wrestlemania but that doesn’t mean everything is all ok. The Billionaire Ted skits, which are closing the show almost every week now, just aren’t funny. They’re basically Vince’s therapy airing on TV and that doesn’t make for good TV for anyone other than him. The wrestling is the mess that you would expect and these shows get worse and worse every single week.

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In Your House #9: International Incident
Date: July 21, 1996
Location: General Motors Place, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Attendance: 14,804
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross

The People’s Posse originally had the Ultimate Warrior teaming up with Johnson and Michaels, but Warrior bailed on the company again for asking for too much time off. Warrior claimed he was leaving due to not getting money he was owed and Vince McMahon claiming that he didn’t buy Warrior’s excuse of grieving over his father’s death. Either way, we get Sid tonight which might actually be the better option. Let’s get to it.

Earlier tonight on the Free For All, Cornette swung the tennis racket at Jose Lothario but got punched in the face for his efforts. Vader and Shawn came in to prevent any further violence. The main catch for the

Smoking Gunns vs. Bodydonnas

The Gunns are champions and have Sunny with them but this is non-title. The Bodydonnas have turned face with a new manager named Cloudy (a man in woman’s clothing), but no one cares about them at all either way. Sunny, who looks great as a cowgirl, won’t let Vince hold the tag titles. The Gunns are sent to the floor to start before we get down to Bart vs. Zip. They trade chops with neither guy seeming all that interested in selling for the other. Zip takes him down with an armdrag into an armbar before bringing in Skip to crank on it as well.

Bart gets tired of having his arm pulled apart so he throws Skip down and brings in Billy to fire off some right hands. A nice headscissors puts Billy down and Skip spins out of a few hiptosses, only to be punched down for his efforts. Skip grabs another armbar as the match slows down all over again. Out of nowhere Sunny collapses but as Skip goes to check on her she slaps him in the face, allowing the Gunns to clothesline him down.

Back in and the Gunns take over with Bart whipping Skip HARD into the corner to take him down. Skip comes back with a quick clothesline and goes up top, only to dive into a sweet powerslam for two. With Skip draped throat first over the top and Bart holding his legs up, Billy tries to jump over his partner’s back to land on Skip’s back but can’t get up and over Bart. If you can’t do the spot, don’t try it.

Skip and Bart mistime something out of the corner and awkwardly stop in the middle of the ring. Bart goes up top but jumps into an atomic drop, allowing for the hot tag off to Zip. Billy trips Zip down but can’t get in place for the Sidewinder (side slam/guillotine legdrop combo), allowing Skip to hit a missile dropkick on Bart to give Zip the pin.

Rating: D. This was a horrible choice for an opening match with WAY too much time and the botches dragging the match down. On top of that, why in the world would you make this a non-title match? To set up a future rematch? Why in the world wouldn’t you do this on Raw and then have the title match here? Very dull match here.

Camp Cornette rants about the fight with Cornette and Lothario while guaranteeing a win later.

Mankind vs. Henry Godwinn

Mankind is one of the most bizarre characters in wrestling history. He debuted the night after Wrestlemania and immediately targeted the Undertaker, easily beating him down like no one else ever had before. Mankind lives in a boiler room, often sits on the mat and rocks back and forth and is known to pull out his hair. He also wears a leather mask that covers half of his face and is missing part of an ear. Henry is substituting for Jake Roberts who didn’t show up for the show.

Mankind jumps Godwinn from behind to start but Henry is more than comfortable in a slugout. He punches Mankind in the face a few times and powerslams him down for two. Mankind pounds him down with shots to the back as Lawler makes jokes about Roberts’ substance abuse issues. Henry sweeps Mankind’s legs out and hits some HARD shots to the face, only to have Mankind choke him for a breather.

A running knee to Henry’s face has him in even more trouble so Mankind goes to the floor and pulls back the mats. Henry gets taken down by a swinging neckbreaker onto the concrete. Back in and Mankind misses a charge into the corner but he easily sends Henry out to the floor. Godwinn comes right back by slamming Mankind from the apron to the concrete but the Slop Drop is countered with into Mankind’s Mandible Claw for the win.

Rating: D+. Nothing great here but it was a nice brawl while it lasted. Henry was stuck in a stupid gimmick but he could throw some great right hands and brawl with the best of them. There’s nothing wrong with having a guy like that around as you’re going to get an entertaining match more often than not. Still though, nothing great here.

Mankind sprints up the aisle but stops at the entrance because he’s a bit strange.

Marc Mero vs. Steve Austin

This is a rematch from the King of the Ring tournament. Austin jumps him right after the bell but Mero comes back with a quick armbar. That gets him nowhere so Steve grabs a headlock and takes him down to the mat. Back up and they slug it out with Mero, a former New York Golden Gloves Champion, easily taking control. Austin is knocked to the floor and goes after Sable, only to be jumped from behind.

Back inside and Steve gets rolled up for two but manages to send Mero out to the floor to take over. A catapult sends Mero face first into the post and another shot knocks him off the apron and into the barricade. Back in and a middle rope elbow gets two for Austin and we hit a reverse chinlock. Austin slaps Mero in the back of the head but misses a charge and lands on the middle rope to give Marc a breather.

Steve goes up but gets crotched down, allowing Mero to pull him down and hook a hurricanrana to send both guys to the floor. A moonsault press off the apron takes Austin down again and a slingshot moonsault gets two back inside. Mero pounds away with right hands in the corner but Austin shoves him to the side, crotching Mero on the top rope. Marc blocks Austin’s Stunner finisher and gets two off a slingshot legdrop. For some reason Marlena comes out to watch the ending. Not that it matters though Austin comes back with a quick chop block and the Stunner connects for the pin.

Rating: C. Good stuff here for the most part but the match felt off for some reason. It’s very interesting to see Austin evolve the Stunner over the years as there’s no kick to the ribs yet and he just snaps it off. Mero wasn’t bad in the ring at all but he never quite fit in the WWF.

Former WWF Champion Bob Backlund is running for President of the United States and looks for registered voters in the crowd.

Highlight video on the Undertaker’s feuds with Mankind and Goldust, which is set up like a music video for some reason.

Goldust vs. Undertaker

Goldust, who has since lost the Intercontinental Title to Ahmed Johnson, bails to the floor to start and does so again after Undertaker moves towards him. He gets in again and hides behind the referee for a few moments before doing his trademark deep breath. It only earns him an uppercut to the jaw, sending Goldust right back to the floor for more stalling. Lawler makes movie references as Goldust teases walking out and VERY slowly gets back in the ring.

Undertaker finally goes out after him and chokeslams Goldust down onto the steps in an awkward looking sequence. Undertaker picks up the steps but won’t crush Marlena along with Goldust. Apparently he’s a zombie with a heart. Back in and Goldust gets clotheslined down before a legdrop gets two for Undertaker. This has been one sided so far. Goldust finally comes back with some knees in the corner to take over but Undertaker grabs him by the throat and throws him into the corner to hand out a beating.

The fans chant Rest in Peace (Undertaker catchphrase) as he connects with Old School and some uppercuts. Goldust clotheslines Undertaker over the top rope but Undertaker lands on his feet and keeps firing off uppercuts. Something resembling a Stunner across the top rope snaps Goldust’s neck back but he uses the distraction to pull the turnbuckle pad away. Undertaker is sent back first into the exposed steel to finally give Goldust control.

They head outside again so Goldust can drop the steps on Undertaker’s back to further his advantage. Back in and Goldust puts on a reverse chinlock to keep the pace of the match very slow. The fans chant for Undertaker so Goldust breaks the hold like any idiot heel would do. Undertaker comes back with a big boot to the face and a small package of all things for two. The flying clothesline takes Goldust down and there’s the Tombstone, drawing Mankind up through a hole in the ring for the DQ.

Rating: D-. Way too long here and horribly boring due to all of the stalling. Goldust and Undertaker had some of the least interesting matches I can ever remember for two guys with as much talent as they have. It was clearly just a backdrop for Undertaker vs. Mankind, which isn’t something you spend three months on.

Mankind pulls Undertaker through the hole with the Mandible Claw before crawling back out on his own. The lights flicker and Undertaker’s music plays but he comes out of another hole to sneak up on Mankind. They brawl to the back to one of the only good reactions of the night.

The announcers talk about the main event while the ring is repaired.

We go to the back to see the brawl between Undertaker and Mankind continue.

Goldust and Marlena are in the boiler room where Mankind and Undertaker were fighting earlier. Goldust quotes Kramer vs. Kramer when Mankind pops up and calls Goldust mommy. Mankind rams his head into a cabinet while screaming about what mommy wants, mommy gets.

The announcers ignore what we just saw and talk about the main event a bit more.

We recap the main event six man tag which started at King of the Ring. Shawn pinned British Bulldog in the rematch but Vader and Owen Hart came in for a post match attack. Ultimate Warrior and Ahmed Johnson came in for the save, setting up the six man. Ultimate Warrior was suspended a few weeks after for reasons already mentioned, so Shawn and Ahmed brought in Sid to take his place. It’s not clear if Sid can be trusted though.

The People’s Posse says they can trust Sid and they’ll win tonight.

People’s Posse vs. Camp Cornette

If Camp Cornette loses, Cornette has to pay back all of the fans, which would cost him millions. Also Owen has a broken arm coming in. Vader and Ahmed start things off but Vader wants the world champion instead. Shawn is happy to oblige and is easily shoved away by the monster. Vader lifts Shawn into the air in a choke but Shawn punches his way to freedom. Shawn speeds things up and actually hits a running hurricanrana to take Vader down. A cross body sends Vader to the floor and Michaels follows with a nice plancha to take the monster down.

Shawn tries another hurricanrana but gets hit a bit low to give Vader control. Vader pounds away in the corner and Shawn is in quick trouble. Michaels manages to escapes a belly to back suplex and makes the hot tag off to Sid for a battle of the giants. Sid cleans house and sends all of Camp Cornette out to the floor, drawing a HUGE reaction from the crowd. Owen tries to sneak in from behind but is easily taken down by another clothesline. Off to Johnson who actually rolls German suplexes on Owen.

Johnson misses an elbow drop and it’s off to the Bulldog to pound away for a bit until he gets caught in a spinebuster. Ahmed hits his Pearl River Plunge tiger bomb but it’s Owen making the save. Off to Vader for some power but Ahmed pounds him down in the corner to keep the fans into things the entire way through. Vader easily reverses a whip into the corner and hits a hard splash followed by even more fists to the head and body. Another splash attempt is caught in a slam which looked WAY easier than it should have for Ahmed.

Owen comes in and takes Johnson down with a spinwheel kick but Johnson pops up at two. Johnson keeps coming back with a gorilla press slam and it’s back to Sid for a big boot to the face before firing off some very fast right hands in the corner. Sid whips Owen into the Cornette corner and it’s time for the Bulldog vs. Sid power match. Smith actually lifts him up in the delayed vertical suplex and a Vader elbow is good for two. Vader runs Sid over again and brings Smith back in for some headbutts.

Sid is able to get in a shot to the face and makes the tag off to Shawn, but Bulldog quickly avoids a charge to send Shawn shoulder first into the post. Shawn sends Bulldog into Vader to knock the big man off the apron and get a pair of two counts on Smith. Back to Owen to trade some VERY fast rollups with Shawn for two each before Shawn gets two more off a cross body. A victory roll gets the same for Michaels and they head to the mat before bridging into Ric Flair’s trademark pinfall reversal sequence. Outstanding sequence there.

Back to Bulldog for a legdrop but Michaels avoids an elbow drop to get a breather. Owen finally uses the cast on the bad arm to put Shawn down and it’s back to Vader to pound away on the world champion. Shawn is whipped across the ring and goes over the corner and out to the floor in a big crash. After Owen and Bulldog get in some cheap shots on the floor it’s back in for a half standing chinlock/half bearhug on Shawn with Vader’s arms wrapped around his neck and under his arms. Not a bad looking hold actually.

The hold stays on for awhile as a fan tries to interfere and is easily run off by Bulldog and the referee. After several minutes of the hold, Vader throws Shawn down and splashes him but Ahmed comes in to break up a cover. Bulldog comes in and puts on an over the shoulder backbreaker followed by a fallaway slam for two. Smith misses a charge into the corner but it’s Hart breaking up the hot tag attempt yet again.

Shawn punches Owen down but can’t follow up, allowing for another tag back to Davey, whose cover is quickly broken up by a Sid legdrop. Vader gets the tag and Shawn crawls over to make one as well, but the referee doesn’t see Ahmed get the tag. Johnson protests but Shawn gets triple teamed, giving Bulldog another two count. Owen tries a missile dropkick but hits Bulldog by mistake, allowing Shawn to FINALLY make the tag off to Sid.

The big man cleans house and chokeslams every member of Camp Cornette before launching Shawn off the top onto Vader for two. Everything breaks down and Cornette throws in the tennis racket but Shawn intercepts it to clock Vader in the head. Somehow that’s only good for two so Shawn tunes up the band, only to have Cornette trip him up. Vader runs Michaels over and hits the Vader Bomb for the pin to suck the life out of the crowd.

Rating: A-. REALLY good match here with everyone working hard and having a match that had the fans going nuts. Sid’s popularity is nearly astounding as the guy was just crazy over on about three moves. The ending was obvious, but on rare occasions that’s not a bad thing with this being a good example of that.

Post match Sid and Ahmed clean house with powerbombs to Owen and Bulldog but Vader is pulled to safety. Shawn dives over the top and takes out Vader, sending Camp Cornette running off. A lot of posing ends the show.

Overall Rating: D. The only thing that is holding up this show is the main event. Let’s look at this entire card: what in the world would you want to pay for on this show? There are five matches, zero titles on the line, and the one match that might draw some interest had a telegraphed ending. This was a terribly uninteresting show which set a record for the lowest buyrate in company history as not many people cared about seeing this show. It also doesn’t help that two weeks prior to this, Hulk Hogan turned heel in WCW, lighting the fire that would burn the WWF as close to a crisp as you can be for the next year and a half.

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