Author: Big Cal

2001 Royal Rumble

Time to find out if this awesome event holds up!

Match 1 – Edge & Christian Vs The Dudley Boys – Some great tag team action to kick us off! Belts are on the line too. Dudley’s took a beating on both Raw and SD leading up to this show, so WWE logic tells us that The Dudley Boys are getting the win tonight lol. Good team work from E&C, going after D-Von’s head which was injured in the attacks last week. Hot tag is really a HOT TAG with the crowd going fucking nuts. Great finishing stretch with some awesome near falls that don’t require them using finishing moves. E&C getting cocky and trying to do the WASSSSUUUP headbutt backfires and The Dudley Boys land a 3-D and become new champs! Everything you could want in a tag match and a hot opener for the show too. Not the best tag match going or anything, add another 10 minutes and it probably could have reached those levels. ***1/4.

DREW CAREY. I’m a fan. Love Whose Line is it Anyway? and The Drew Carey Show. The All Star Improv shows that he is plugging here are great too. His stuff with HHH and Stephanie is pretty great.

APA. You show me yours and I’ll show you mine. RR entrant numbers of course. The world needs more APA. CRASH HOLLY. He’s come to tell them that even though they’re friends, he’s gonna throw them out if he gets the chance. AND THEY CALL US DRUNKS! God I love the APA.

Match 2 – Chris Benoit Vs Chris Jericho – Ladder match for the IC title. FUCK YES. These guys started feuding back in 2000 leading into WM (along with Angle). Did a couple of months after that too, then moved on to other things but every so often they’d have some interaction, which leads back to this “blow off” match (they would eventually team after WM). They have the long rivalry and plenty of HATE~! to build upon. Some great ladder spots, and holy FUCK at Benoit’s dive through the ropes, where he goes head first into a chair that Jericho holds up. Looked and sounded SICK, and probably didn’t help Benoit… XFL MENTION. This match essentially takes the original classics between HBK and Razor, with the one on one action and plenty of WRESTLING in between spots, then mixes it with the tag matches we’d started to see (E&C, Dudleys, Hardys) and throws in big sick spots like they were giving us. All these combined give us perhaps the greatest singles ladder match ever. May have to give HBK/Razor SS 95 another watch to see which I prefer (WM 10 would definitely be just below this one). ****3/4.

TRISH AND DREW CAREY. He’s trying to come on to her. She’s not interested, she’s doing Vince. Vince walks in and says he can impress Trish by… ENTERING THE ROYAL RUMBLE. I’m marking out, bro!

Match 3 – Chyna Vs Ivory – Women’s title match. Guess the world needed a piss break. Val gave Chyna a piledriver and she “injured her neck and nearly had to retire”. Story of this match is that Chyna might have come back too early. Best part of this feud (aka the only good thing) was Ivory mocking Chyna and doing a parody of her sit down interview with JR. Chyna dominates Ivory, then hits that shitty elbow (backflip makes it more powerful!) and collapses with her neck. Ivory wins. Commentators act like someone died. Fuck off. DUD.

STEPHANIE~! She needs her hair fixed. TRISH~! Stephanie says she will have no problem touching her. HLA!!!

Harvey Wippleman hands Drew some wrestling gear. Drew meets Kane. Not for the last time tonight!

D-Lo and Chaz with Tiger Ali whatshisname. Trying to decide who will be in the RR. None of them will be because they got replaced by DREW CAREY. Ha.

Match 4 – Kurt Angle Vs Triple H – WWF Title time. Trish is out with Angle, and Stephanie with HHH. Fun start to this with Angle outwrestling THE GAME. HHH can only turn the tide by turning the match into a fight on the outside. With HHH in control, he goes back to his early style of being more “technical” and begins to work over the leg of the champ. HHH uses the ropes of leverage during a figure four, so Trish gets in the ring to try and tell the ref, leading to Stephanie dragging her out and they both CAT FIGHT. Match stops for all of this lol. WWF Title match on the Royal Rumble PPV is just to build to a women’s match at the next PPV! LOL! The distraction allows Kurt to recover a little and get back into the match. RAZOR’S EDGE BY TRIPLE H. FUCKING EPIC. Kurt has a bad leg. So he tries to go for a moonsault. TWICE. First time is countered into the Razor’s Edge, second time actually hits. And doesn’t break HHH’s arm, so that’s a plus. Still a fucking stupid move. In fact, has Kurt EVER done a moonsault when it wasn’t fucking stupid to do so? The answer is no, btw. LMAO, Earl Hebner gets his head smashed into the steel steps. TWICE. Austin costs HHH the title, revenge for a few weeks ago when HHH cost Austin the belt. Good match, not as great as I remembered, but still really good. ***1/2.

Lame Rock promo. He tries to be funny. He fails.

Match 5 – 30 Man Royal Rumble Match – #1 is Jeff Hardy, #2 is… BULL BUCHANAN. Matt and Jeff end up fighting themselves. DREW CAREY. Hardy’s eliminate each other. KANE. Drew Carey + Kane was awesome. Tries to make friends with him. Tries to bribe him. Is about to get Chokeslammed until Raven shows up for the save. Drew eliminates himself so he gets away unharmed lol. One of my favourite parts in a RR match. Screw the haters. Love the hardcore aspect of this RR match. Plenty of fun shit going on until Kane goes crazy and eliminates everyone. BIG SHOW return was awesome. Chokeslams the fuck out of everyone… and then Rock eliminates him in under 2 minutes. So Show chokeslams him through a table lol. I remember watching this on channel 4 back in the day, and there was an ad break just as Big Show was making his entrance! UNDERTAKER AND KANE BACK TOGETHER. Poor Scotty 2 Hotty. He has terrible luck in RR matches. He looks terrified as he has to enter the match alone with just Undertaker and Kane waiting for him. HAKU RETURN. Austin gets attacked and busted open by HHH on his way to the ring, but still makes it unto the match and… wins. Bah. Kane was awesome throughout. Lasting nearly an hour and eliminating 11 men, breaking the previous record of 10 by Austin in 1997. Took a bunch of chair shots to get him out. Made Kane look strong as shit, shame they didn’t really follow it up as he ended up tagging with Undertaker, but hey, that was awesome too.  Immensely fun RR match, one of the best. Kane’s performance is great, Drew Carey was fun, some cool returns, Undertaker and Kane reuniting. ****1/2.

2000 Royal Rumble

I has super fond memories of this event! My first wrestling PPV in over 2 years at the time!

Match 1 – Kurt Angle Vs Tazz – Angle is undefeated, and this is Tazz’s debut for the company! It’s shot, but it’s fun. SUPLEXES. Tazz chokes out Angle, gets a big win in his debut, while Angle can still claim he’s undefeated due to the fact he was choked out and that’s illegal. Everybody wins! **.

Match 2 – The Dudley Boys Vs The Hardy Boys – First ever tag team tables match in the WWF! And honestly based on my memory (which I admit isn’t the best source lol), it’s probably still the best. Best tables match in general as well actually. Yeah, I love this match. Some great spots. Matt and Jeff jumping at the same time and landing on Bubba putting him through a table is great, especially with the camera angle as we don’t even see Jeff, he just flies across the screen and lands on Bubba. The spot with D-Von avoiding near death twice, resulting in both Hardy Boys putting themselves through tables is awesome. Tables, Ladders and Chairs are all used in this match too! Final spot is nice and memorable too, with Bubba falling through 2 tables then Jeff Swantoning D-Von through one for the win. It’s the first tag team tables match (first ever tables match in WWF then? Were there any singles ones before this?), and has a ton of unique spots, most of which were never replicated. Really helps the replay value of the match too imo.  ***3/4.

Match 3 (I guess?) – The Kat Vs Terri Vs Luna Vs Ivory Vs Jacqueline Vs B.B. Vs Mae Young – Miss Rumble Contest. A bunch of legends (and Tony Garea) are the judges. Lawler is the host. The Kat has the worst outfit by far. Bubble Wrap. Which looks terrible and isn’t revealing or anything haha. Terri looks great if you ignore her face. Ivory is nice. Jacky is alright. BB is hot. Luna can GTFO. Mae Young gets her tits out. Eeeewwww. She wins because all the judges are old people. DUD.

Match 4 – Chyna Vs Chris Jericho Vs Hardcore Holly – First ever triple threat match at a RR event! IC title on the line. Jericho & Chyna are currently co champs. This is kinda slow and not very good. Chyna sucks. Literally from what I hear (no way I’m watching her pornos lol, so I’ll take other people’s word). Anywho, the match is slow because she’s terrible and can’t really go at a fast pace. Plus most offence done to her or she does looks bad too. LOL at Holly having to take a Pedigree from her. At least he kicks out. Jericho wins. Didn’t care for this one. *.

Match 5 – The New Age Outlaws Vs APA – APA. Fuck YES. One of my all time favourite teams. NAO were awesome too. With the tag division hitting an all time high in 2000 (well, since the mid-late 80’s anyway), I just wish the NAO could have been around to join in (Billy got injured a few weeks after this). E&C, Hardys, Dudleys, T&A (LMFAO, wrote that as TNA first), 2 Cool and some others all did great, and Road Dogg/X-Pac were a good team but throw the NAO into that time too and yeah, could have been epic. This match is super shot but good GOD is it fun. FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN. APA just massacre the tag champs, with NAO taking some great bumps (BIlly’s bump from the Clothesline from Hell is probably the best thing he ever did). X-Pac interferes, kicks Bradshaw in the head and allows Billy to hit the Fameasser for the win. Under 3 minutes long, and might be the greatest match ever under 3 minutes lol. **.

Match 6 – Triple H Vs Cactus Jack – Fuck yes, time for the epic street fight over the title. Build up for this is just awesome. If anyone gets the chance to, go back and watch Raw and SD in 2000 to see how all this comes together. The SD where Mankind “transforms” into Cactus Jack is tremendous. The Raw before that which leads to Cactus returning is awesome. 2000 in general was just fucking awesome. I don’t think there was a single bad show all year. Even if a show didn’t have a “great” match on it, you’d damn sure get a handful of fun matches at the very least, along with some great promos and segments. Oh how I miss those days. Today we might get 1 good match per Raw and SD, then the rest is pure shite (which is even worse now Raw is 3 hours). RR Anthology edits haven’t bothered me much at all so far (except for the one edit of Bossman’s theme), but this event is where it gets bad. Different music for the opening video package. Different music for the build up video of this match, and different fucking music for Cactus Jack. The fuck? Plenty of blurring out the WWF logo too because it seems to be plastered EVERYWHERE at this event lol, but I can manage with that. It’s the audio edits that annoy me. Their choice in music the first time around was great and really helped MAKE those video packages. Replacing it with generic music is terrible. JR reminds me of my grandma at one point, when she tries to say someone’s name and runs through everyone else’s name in the family before getting to it. Manki…Mic… CACTUS JACK. DING DONG THE CHALLENGER MAY BE DEAD. One of the best street fights ever no doubt. Cactus is the MAN in it too. HHH may have been champion a couple of times by now. Feuded with Austin and McMahon in main events. But it was THIS match and MICK FOLEY who truly got him over as a main eventer. Looking back I’m not sure if we should be thanking him for that or not lol. Plenty of blood here, and not just for the sake of it. This has the story and HATE and buildup that a match should have for there to be the kind of blood and weapon shots used in it. Man, that gash in HHH’s leg is pretty sick. I do find it amusing that this match is NO DQ, absolutely anything goes… but a 2×4 in barbed wire is TOO MUCH DAMMIT. So much so they have to replace it with a fake one when it comes to HHH’s time to be hit with it LOL. Last year, the announce table broke far too early. This year, it barely even breaks! Repeat of last year with Foley getting handcuffed. Luckily HHH isn’t a cunt like Rock and doesn’t go to town on his head with a steel chair. Rock makes the save and a cop releases Cactus. PEDIGREE. KICK OUT. THUMBTACKS. PEDIGREE IN THE THUMBTACKS. Epic match. Pure awesomesauce. ****3/4.

Match 7 – 30 Man Royal Rumble Match – LOL, D-Lo and Grand Master Sexy as #1 and #2. Pretty piss poor haha. Tom is Gay. I don’t know who this Tom is, but he’s gay. Gotta love signs in the AE. PORK was my favourite. If you watch back a bunch of shows from the AE you’ll see it numerous times. KAI-EN-TAI. Not in the match, but they get eliminated anyway. A bunch of times. Taka’s face smashes on the floor at one point and he’s injured for a couple of months. Rikishi comes in and he becomes the main focus of the match for a while, eliminating the most guys this year. 2 Cool and Rikishi are left alone at one point and they dance, and fuck me it’s the most over thing ever. And then Rikishi throws his buddies out lol. Rikishi Vs Viscera still makes me mark out a little lol. Not as much as BOB FUCKING BACKLUND. Even my 11 year old self marked out for BOB back in the day lol. A group effort finally takes care of Rikishi and the ring starts to fill up. Some good, some meh guys. Better than the previous year that’s for sure. Road Dogg is awesome when he just lays down on the floor and holds onto the bottom rope hoping nobody bothers him. Fans get bored and chant “We want Rocky” for a good few minutes before he shows up. I don’t give a fuck. BIG SHOW gets a big reaction because they KNOW shit is about to go down. MEAN STREET POSSE. They eliminate Farooq, then come back out for Bradshaw but he takes care of them, only to have the Outlaws come from behind and eliminate him! Final Four are Kane, X-Pac, Show and Rock. X-Pac gets eliminated but the refs miss it, and he is able to eliminate KANE of all people before being eliminated a second time. Show takes a People’s Elbow and NO SELLS the fuck out of it (and why shouldn’t he? It’s a terrible move and nothing more than a basic elbow). AWESOME Chokeslam to Rock, then he throws him out! Rock holds on though, and despite the fact ROCKY’S FEET HIT THE GROUND FIRST, he’s given the win. Bah. Solid match. Gets a little dull in parts though, so certainly not one of the best. ***.

1999 Royal Rumble

Oh god.

Match 1 – Road Dogg Vs The Big Bossman – Oh god. Bear Hug. Urgh. Only good part was Road Dogg screaming “OHHH SHIIIIT” when he gets caught in it. Bossman makes a lazy cover, and Lawler responds with “BAD COP. NO DONUT FOR YOU!” LMAO. Match sucked. DUD.

Match 2 – Billy Gunn Vs Ken Shamrock – THINK ABOUT HIS HAIRY BUTT RIGHT IN YOUR SISTER’S FACE. Some ok stuff here. Literally nothing worth writing about though. Val appearance. Shamrock still wins. *.

Match 3 – Gangrel Vs X-Pac – This is fun. Not great, but a fun sprint that doesn’t go too long. Teddy Long botches a pin at one point by counting to 3 when it was supposed to be a 2 count… then pretending he only counted 2 and letting the match continue until the real finish lol. **.

Shane McMahon. With some really strange shitty theme music. He introduces Luna. Ok.

Match 4 – Sable Vs Luna – Oh god. Women’s title match. Strap match. This is gonna be terrible. So I’m skipping it. NO.

Match 5 – Mankind Vs The Rock – I Quit match for the WWF title. STEEL STAIRS INTO THE BACK, WHAT A CHAIR SHOT. Vintage botch commentary from Cole! LOL, an announcer botches, followed by the announce table! Breaks while both guys are just stood on it, before they can do the Rock Bottom spot. YOU GO PISS YOURSELF. Liked how the turned out the lights when Mankind takes the bump into the electrical equipment. Little things like that add to the realism of the match, something I doubt we’d get today. So this match is most known for THOSE chairshots. You know, the ones to Mankind’s unprotected head. Where Rock nails him MORE than they had agreed. FUCK YOU ROCK. Overall though, match is a good brawl. ***3/4. Bright spot on one of the single worst PPV’s ever.

Match 6 – 30 Man Royal Rumble Match – Austin is #1, McMahon is #2. $100,000 reward to whoever eliminates Austin. There are literally only about 3 people out of the 30 who realistically have a chance of winning this match. And none of them win. Match is 90% filled with JOBBERS. Austin and McMahon end up brawling backstage, Austin gets sent to the hospital, then comes back at the end to take out McMahon but McMahon ends up eliminating him and winning the RR match. Yeah. Worst. Royal Rumble Match. Ever. Highlight is definitely GILBERG though. DUD.

1998 Royal Rumble

First PPV in 1998, following a number of incidents in 97 that were starting to gain the company momentum.

Match 1 – Vader Vs The Artist Formally Known as Goldust – Ever need proof that Vince Russo is NOT a creative genius, look no further than the massacre of the Goldust character (one that Russo himself had a HUGE hand in btw…). Shitty gimmicks aside, on paper this should be great. Dustin is great, Vader is great, they’ve had great matches in the past back in WCW. Then again… Dustin was having problems at this time which affected his work, and Vader was never allowed to be VADER in the WWF. That and the heel/face roles are reversed. Goldust takes what might be the worst steel ring steps bump I have ever witnessed. Goldust kisses Vader, so Vader clotheslines him straight, or at least attempts to. Finish sees Vader hitting a Vader Bomb with Luna on his back. Not as bad as I remember, but has nothing on their WCW matches. **.

Austin arrives, ignore Michael Cole. Godwins… or Southern Justice I think they go by now(?) chase after Austin, who is a marked man. Whoever stops him winning the RR or something gets money.

SUNNY. Short shorts. Nice. As a ginger, being out in the sun for too long isn’t the best thing, but I’d happily risk getting burnt to spend some time in Sunny. Too much information? Tough!

Match 2 – 3 Minis Vs 3 Other Minis – Not sure if a match or Jerry Lawler challenge for most bad midget jokes… either that or an excuse to put Sunny in shorts. I choose to believe the shorts thing. Match is filled with arm drags and head scissors. Then the babyface minis win. 1/4*.

Backstage and the Nation of Domination are looking for Austin too. They decide to send in Mark Henry first so he can prove himself. They charge into his locker room and find a giant foam middle finger in a chair waiting for them. Mike Tyson is sat watching the event in a skybox with Vince and Shane.

Rock getting interviewed before his IC title defence. They show footage of the free for all show where all the NOD members argue over who will eliminate Austin. Nothing worth mentioning from Rock’s promo. No surprise there.

Match 3 – The Rock Vs Ken Shamrock – Intercontinental title is on the line here. Not too much to say here other than its actually a good match. Shamrock looks like a competent pro wrestler, and Rock isn’t nearly as annoying and shitty in the ring as he would later become. Though he does rake the eyes of Shamrock about 20 times because apparently he doesn’t know any other heel ways of stopping the momentum of his opponents. D-Lo and Kama show up and get knocked on their arses… well… D-Lo gets his leg caught in the ropes for about a minute lol. Rock uses some brass knucks, Shamrock kicks out and no sells, hitting a Belly to Belly to win the IC title! Until Rock tells the ref he got hit with knucks, and the ref checks Shamrock and finds them on him, and reverses the decision. Had to rewind to see how they got there, turns out Rock put them there after he used them. I quite liked that idea. Rock can’t get caught with them if they are in his opponents crotch region, and should things go wrong (like Shamrock kicking out), he has a great way to cheat his way out of a loss. ***1/4.

Backstage, Shamrock attacks The Rock in the locker room. Los Boricuas are also backstage and now looking for Austin too. They attack some bald guy and it turns out to be someone from the DOA who brawl with Los Boricuas. Fuck, how many stables did WWF have back then? And how many were actually good? Too many and not enough is the answer.

Match 4 – Legion of Doom Vs New Age Outlaws – Tag titles on the line now. LOD want to MURDER the Outlaws following a vicious beating a while back which resulted in Hawk’s legendary Mohawk being cut, and Animal powerbombed through the announce table. Animal walks to the ring like he’s shit himself. Wow, NWA and AWA mention. Outlaws get the shit kicked out of them in the early going. Road Dogg’s mouth is busted open. Oh wow, Hawk applies an STF that looks worse than Cena’s. Seriously! After some heel tactics the Outlaws gain control, and Road Dogg gets revenge for being busted open by literally kicking Animal while he’s down. Repeatedly lol. Then Hawk gets pissed off and starts manhandling the tag champs until he goes shoulder first into the ring post. Now BOTH of LOD are down and hurting! So what do the Outlaws do? Handcuff Hawk to the ring post of course! I like how the ref doesn’t give a shit and just carries on refereeing the match like normal. Animal manages to hold his own for a little while and nearly wins the match, but Road Dogg cracks him in the back with a chair repeatedly and gets DQ’d. They really wear out Animal’s back, which I *think* was genuinely injured at this time, and Hawk finally breaks free to come to the aid of his partner. Match is nothing special but certainly fun. **1/2.

Mildred wins a pickup truck.

Match 5 – 30 man Royal Rumble Match – So Austin is the big focus of this match, with McMahon putting a bounty on his elimination. I wonder who will win… Anywho, CACTUS FUCKING JACK carrying weapons is the first entrant! All hail Mick Fucking Foley. And #2 is… TERRY FUCKING FUNK. All hail Terry Fucking Funk. Ok, so he’s Chainsaw Charlie here. Which means Funk carries a chainsaw around and puts a stocking over his head. Only Terry could do that and still remain the greatest thing ever. They destroy each other with chairs. Funk removes the stocking so Cactus can see its him under there. Because it’s the greatest disguise since Superman’s glasses. They both take turns at letting each other hit them with chairs. Crazy, awesome bastards.OMG ITS TOM BRANDY! TOM BRANDY! TOM BRANDY! He gets eliminated immediately. Damn, I put money on him to win. Rock is in next, and he went from looking good in his IC title match to looking fucking terrible here. Awful kicks, awful punches. Foley and Funk beat the shit out of him, but only knock him through the ropes rather than over dammit. JARRETT IS NOTHING BUT A BACK JUMPER. His man boobs must be freezing. Ahh Kurgan. The Great Khali of his time. Tall and useless, comes in as a big unstoppable monster, then becomes a dancing joke. If Andre’s body didn’t let him down in his later years, I wonder if he would have been “getting down with it” at some point… MANKIND. Didn’t Foley already enter? Yes he did! Which makes this whole thing awesome. Don’t remember when he got eliminated though haha. He eliminates Funk, who eliminated Cactus… at some point. Goldust (in a new outfit) eliminates Mankind. I’m sad. If only some dude could cheer me up. Jarrett gets the biggest pop of his career… when Owen Hart eliminates him. Honky Tonk Man? Uhhhh ok. HHH and Chyna follow him out, and distract Owen Hart, hit him with a crutch (HHH was on crutches at this time), and eliminate him. DX really didn’t like the Hart family. LMFAO they show Owen run after HHH through the curtain… and he falls over. And Lawler acknowledges it. Ahmed Johnson comes out, and JR mentions that he’s had numerous injuries but he’s 100% now. He barely manages to slide in the ring and stand up. Looks fat and out of shape. Not as bad as his BIG T days in WCW though. Austin finally shows up, and everyone stops fighting each other and turns to the entrance way to meet him. He comes from behind, eliminates a few people… and everyone else IGNORES HIM. They built up the fact that EVERYONE is out to get him all through the PPV. Then when he comes out nobody gives a shit. Good job guys! THE ROCK AND KAMA, JUST WAILING ON EACH OTHER’S NOB HERE. JR is coming out with some funny shit lol. DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE LOVE! DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE LOVE! Austin wins. Christ this match seemed to last forever. Wiki claims its 55 minutes, but it could be wrong. Felt like 2 hours. Not the worst Rumble match by any means, but honestly the only highlights are Cactus and Funk battling at the start, then Foley entering the match 2 more times as Mankind and Dude Love. **3/4.

COLD STONE IS MY MAN! Mike Tyson can’t even say the name of his favourite wrestler.

Match 6 – Shawn Michaels Vs The Undertaker – WWF Title Casket Match time! Good god what a build up video package for this match. If only the AE was more like this… and less like the utter shite we mostly got (SWERVE~! TRANNY~! CHOPPY CHOPPY YOUR PEE PEE~! SWERVE~! MAKES NO SENSE~! SWERVE~! SWERVE~! SWERVE~! NO SENSE~! NO LOGIC~! SWERVE SWERVE SWERVE~!). Great display of power from Undertaker early on and then…. CRACK. Bye bye HBK’s back. See you in 4 years. Crazy that he didn’t feel anything until the day after. Kinda hard to watch him take all those back bumps afterwards when you know what happened to him lol. But I’m still able to watch and love this match regardless lol. They mention that Undertaker has only lost 1 casket match, to Yoko at the RR in 94. Uhhh… didn’t he lose to Goldust in 96? Man I love that piledriver on the steel steps. Did HBK do it to anyone else other than Undertaker and then Cena in 07? Undertaker pretty much has the match won and then… New Age Outlaws + Job Squa… no, Los Boricuas, show up to beat the hell out of him. Cue KANE to make the save… and then its SWERVE~! time. Undertaker loses, then gets locked in the casket, and then MY GOD THE CASKET’S ON FIRE! THE CASKET IS ON FIRE! UNDERTAKER IS IN THE CASKET AND ITS ON FIRE! Home Video exclusive shows the fire being put out… and NO UNDERTAKER inside! Where could he be? Yeah this rules. ****.

1997 Royal Rumble

Still remember the day I bought this on VHS lol.

Match 1 – Hunter Heart-Helmsley Vs Goldust – IC title match. Build up video sees Lawler ask Goldust if he’s queer. He says no and decks Lawler. I guess all that molesting men thing was just experimentation, right? LOL. HHH has Mr Hughes randomly with him. Brawl early on, and Goldust uses the ring steps and the ref doesn’t DQ him. Oh, it’s Earl “I make up my own damn rules” Hebner. Match is pretty dull. So much so they have Todd Pettengill interview someone in the audience. Felt like it lasted an hour. *.

RR interviews. Bret is determined to win. Mankind just wants to beat people up.

Match 2 – Farooq Vs Ahmed Johnson – Who WERE all those people in the original NOD? There were like 20 of them and only Farooq and Crush were wrestlers. JUOR GUING DURN. Gotta love Ahmed’s promo ability. Or general speaking ability. His wrestling ability is on par too. This match has been brewing for a long time according to Vince. Speaking of brewing for a long time, I need to toilet. And I’m back. Is this match No DQ? Because Ahmed used a chair while the ref was right there. Then again, the ref took it away so it must be illegal. What the fuck does it take to cause a DQ? All the NOD members piling into the ring and getting their arses kicked, apparently. BAD. 1/2*.

Match 3 – Vader Vs The Undertaker – Ahhh, two of my favourites (one being my all time fav of course), beating the fuck out of each other. Given some of the shit I’ve watched so far today (Impact and SD, first 2 matches of this show), I’m hoping to just get ANY kind of enjoyment out of a match. Vader and ‘Taker smashing each other in the face should do it. Some fun offence from both men… and Todd interviews some random fan who follows HBK across the country or something. She saved up money from babysitting. How many fucking babysitting jobs did she take to be able to follow HBK around? And why did we need to know about that? In the middle of a match? Not often you see Undertaker powerbombed. Or Vader powerslammed while jumping off the ropes. Fans are horrible, usually only making noise when a big move is hit. PAUL BEARER. JR: I see Paul Bearer!. Vince: I don’t see him THERE HE IS. Bearer cracks the Urn over Undertaker’s head, Vader hits the Vader Bomb from the corner and this one is over! Solid match, nothing too special though. Vader 93 Vs Undertaker 07 would be epic though. ***.

Austin RR interview. YOU TV GUYS ALWAYS GOT THE CAMERA WHERE YOU DON’T BELONG. LMFAO, it’s Bulldog. BECAUSE I’M BAZAAR.

Match 4 – Héctor Garza, Perro Aguayo & El Canek Vs Jerry Estrada, Heavy Metal & Fuerza Guerrera – They’re in Texas, so they decide to throw in a random Mexican 6 man match. Wow this fucking SUCKED. I actually used to think very highly of this match. I must have been high. Except I don’t get high. So I was drunk. That’s it. 2 guys flip about. Slowly and with little shit given. They each tag out. Repeat the flipping about slowly while not giving a shit. Tag out. They do that a few times, then someone randomly gets a win. The fans are silent until the match ends. They cheer because they are glad it’s over. DUD.

Match 5 – 30 Man Royal Rumble Match – #1 is none other than the awesome, the legendary, the amazing, the one and only… CRUSH. Maybe #2 will be good. It’s Ahmed Johnson.  BOTCH TIME. FAKE RAZOR. He doesn’t even get entrance music lol. He gets eliminated in seconds anyway. Johnson eliminates himself. Because he’s retarded. He sees Farooq and chases after him. Hey Ahmed, you could have gone UNDER the ropes and chased him still. Then come back later to possibly win the match. Oh well. I’m 16 years too late in telling him. LMAO, they have clock problems so nobody knows when someone is gonna enter. Austin is #4. He’s pretty badass here. I liked Austin’s character around this time, more so than in 98/99/00/01 when he was the uber popular babyface. BRITISH BULLDOG. HE’S GONNA WIN BECAUSE HE’S BAZAAR. Ring fills up. Half WWF guys, half AAA guys (that nobody gives a fuck about). Austin clears the ring. Bret’s music hits and Austin looks terrified. Lawler’s music hits. He says “it takes a King”, then gets in the ring, gets knocked out straight away, returns to the announce table “to know a King” and pretends that he never even entered lol. FUNK. MANKIND. FAKE DIESEL AKA KANE. 2 Cold FLASH FUNK. A young Rock. So mostly great talent in the ring lol. IT’S FUCKING VADER TIME BITCHES. GOAT #30… The Undertaker of course! Poor Fake Diesel is just stood in the corner minding his own business when Undertaker punches him in the face. So next year he comes back and sets a casket on fire with Undertaker in it. Austin wins despite being thrown out by Bret, but the refs didn’t see it. Fake Diesel is in the final four, but for some reason is excluded from the FINAL FOUR match at the next PPV. No wonder he went around setting people on fire a year later! First half of this match is pretty shitty, second half is really good. ***

Match 6 – Shawn Michaels Vs Sid – WWF Title time. HBK’s home town. Or state. Whatever. Fans still chant for SID. Take that, boy toy. Sid gets too much hate. He’s good. He knows how to draw heat, he knows how to get fans to cheer him, and he knows wrestling psychology. Nice back work from Sid, which will aid him when it comes to the POWERBOMB. He even uses a bear hug and I’m NOT pissed off. That’s a feat in itself. Oh and Sid has great facials too. LMAO at HBK’s parents sat watching looking bored shitless. His mum looks like “oh shit, did I leave the oven on?” and his dad is like “hmmm… I wonder how being bazaar was really going to help Bulldog win the RR…”. POWERBOMB ON THE FLOOR. Shawn practically no sells it. Chokeslam. Sid should have won but the ref was down. Bah. Camera to the back of Sid as revenge for Survivor Series, followed by SWEET CHIN MUSIC (minus the awesome call from Vince like we got at SS). New champ. Good match, enjoyable. **3/4.

1995 Royal Rumble

The first PPV of what is normally considered the WORST year in WWF/E history! However, my memory screams that this is a pretty good even for the most part at least! Yey. Starts off with Pamela Anderson getting out of a limo and all the wrestlers hitting on her.

Match 1 – Jeff Jarrett Vs Razor Ramon – IC title match! Razor’s punches are pretty awesome. Did I mention that yesterday? If I didn’t I should have because I thought it. Jarrett was perfect in this position on the card. Mid carder having matches with good talent who could go through him to the main event. He himself is NOT a main eventer. Booking himself as a main eventer in TNA doesn’t make him one. Sure, a number of wrestlers in the old days booked themselves as top guy, but guess what? They drew. Jeff didn’t. There was that time in WCW too, but the company was dying anyway and Russo was in love with him or something (anyone seen his second RF shoot interview? He talks about how it’s impossible NOT to love Jeff because of his long blond hair, big smile and charm…). And he still didn’t draw shit lol. So after a bunch of fun sequences of Razor outsmarting Jarrett, Jarrett getting mad then cheating and acting like he’s the greatest thing ever when he manages to get one over on Razor… The Roadie clips Razor’s knee on the outside and gets him counted out. That means he keeps the title! Jarrett gets a mic and calls Razor a coward and tricks him into restarting the match. With his knee being fucked, it’s only a matter of time before Jarrett get the win and the IC belt. Good stuff. ***1/2.

Match 2 – I.R.S. Vs The Undertaker – Urgh. Not sure even I can sit through this as like, the world’s biggest Undertaker fan lol. It’s slow, plodding, dull, but it has its moments (thanks to Undertaker). Poor Undertaker would have to wait basically an entire year to finally get put in matches with guys who could be remotely entertaining. And when he was in that situation, he started putting on great matches and showing that he was more than the zombie character that we saw for so many years. *.

Match 3 – Bret Hart Vs Diesel – WWF Title is on the line in Diesel’s first title defence since winning the belt in an 8 second match in MSG against Bob Backlund. Both are faces, so they kinda do the whole “respect” thing at the start… then they implode pretty quickly and try to beat the fuck out of each other and I’m loving it. Bret Vs someone bigger than him = LEG WORK. But he’s really good at it so I’m not complaining. Diesel’s power comes into play allowing him to gain the advantage. Diesel manages to hit his powerbomb… and HBK runs in to break the count and attack Diesel. So it’s over, right? NOPE LOL. That would be the usual, traditional thing to do. Diesel gets attacked but somehow it is fair for the match to continue. Ha. Almost like the company don’t WANT Diesel to leave with the title. Except they do and they want him to keep it for almost a full year. LOL. So Diesel got attacked AND has a bad knee, Bret has bad ribs. Both men target those injuries and do a real nice job of it. Diesel punching the ribs of Bret while he’s in a figure four is pretty awesome. Bret uses a CHAIR on Diesel… but misses. Not sure if it was an intentional miss or not, but the ref doesn’t do anything (not that he would anyway apparently), and McMahon says it missed too. Owen attacks Bret. Match continues. LOL. Bret throwing massive punch after punch and finally taking down the giant is an awesome sequence. Bret fakes a knee injury and rolls up Diesel for a 2 count. WHAT A HERO BRET IS. That would be the actual finish to their match later in the year. Ref gets knocked out and a bunch of guys show up to attack BOTH men. This is too much now. Double DQ or No Contest or something lol. Awesome match, dumb finish. ****1/2.

Match 4 – 123-Kid & Bob Holly Vs Bam Bam Bigelow & Tatanka – Tag titles on the line. HBK and Diesel were champs but they broke up and the titles became vacant. Cue tournament. This be the finals. I mentioned the streak of great tag matches on RR events since it first started in 1988. Well this would be the last tag match worth seeing (from what I remember anyway) until 2000. SPARKY. Big tough Bob Holly and he gets stuck with Sparkplug aka SPARKY gimmick. LOL. HOLY SHIT! Bigelow throws Kid in the air and catches him for a powerbomb, which is awesome in iteself… but then Kid hits a hurricanrana! Such a shame the “kliq” didn’t like Bigelow because he’s a pretty great big man. Should have had a Henry/Rey SD 06 type match on PPV. That would have been epic. At least we got a great singles match with Bigelow and Kid which I think happened a week or so before this match. Bigelow puts on a tremendous performance in this match. He really is the star of the match and certainly his team. He’s great at cutting Holly off from making the tag and shit. Plus I love his offence which is a mix of power and high flying. OH YEAH, THERE’S TED’S FACE. Commentary cracks me up. THERE’S STILL A SPARK (get it) LEFT IN BOB HOLLY…andtatankastopsitwitharaketotheface. Vince is awesome. Big upset win and the Kid & Holly win the tag belts! This is an AWESOME tag match. Liked it more than on last watch too! Aftermath sees LT and Bigelow get into a pushing confrontation, and WM 11’s main event is set! ****.

Match 6 – 30 Man Royal Rumble Match – This match is only 5 minutes longer than the 1988 RR match… and that one had 20 guys instead of 30! Instead of 2 minutes or 90 seconds between entrants, this one is the only RR match to feature 60 second intervals. Guess they didn’t have faith in HBK lasting over an hour and winning from #1 that way haha. More likely is that the talent for the match is so thin they didn’t want to subject is to an hour of it. Plus, who the fuck would be excited at the end of each 2 minutes when we get the likes of Timothy Well and Tom Pritchard? LMAO at Mo charging into the ring like he’s gonna win… and he gets thrown out straight away by BUNDY. Then Mabel shows up to gain revenge. He eliminates Bundy in the slowest way possible. Takes Bundy like 10 seconds to touch the floor. Only one of Shawn Michaels’ feet hit the ground. He wins. And that is about all you need to know about this shite match. Worst RR so far. Soon to be the second. **.

1994 Royal Rumble

McMahon and DiBiase on commentary. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Match 1 – Tatanka Vs Bam Bam Bigelow – Why on earth was Tatanka undefeated for so long? Did he ever really get any kind of push? Bigelow has his MAIN SQUEEZE Luna with him. That’s how they announce her lol. God damn motherfucking BEAR HUG. Stop using this move people. STOP IT. It’s just murders any momentum you have going in the match. The fans could be loving what you are doing… right up until you lock in a Bear Hug and the fans just stop caring. Happened in Rock/Cena too (though a Bear Hug certainly wasn’t the only thing wrong with that pile of turd), and it was in Rock’s fucking home town or whatever. Aside from the Bear Hug spot though, this is good. Bigelow is a great big man, and while I don’t think Tatanka deserved the long undefeated streak or anything he was solid too and could pull out some good stuff. **1/2.

We see the history of the Hart Brothers and their issues that started back at the Survivor Series. Bret refuses to fight his own Brother. Guess Owen is gonna have to put him in a casket and set him on fire. Wait, I may be confusing this with another feud. They are friends now. Kinda. Tag match coming up.

Match 2 – Bret & Owen Hart Vs The Quebecers – RR seems to have a great history up to this point of really good tag matches. I think there has been at least one good one on each event so far. And I already know it continues here, and goes into 1995 as well. But that’s for 2morrow. This is today, and I can’t wait to re-watch this one. Ha, Raven is the manager of the Quebecers. Johnny Polo at this time. I *think* he’s supposed to be like some rich guy who golfs and shit. Fuck knows. Don’t care tbh. Though I do think Raven was at his best in that role lol. Never was a fan of the Raven character and always thought his promos were overrated to hell. Great back and forth action for about 10 minutes, then we transition into a full on FIP segment with Bret having his leg taken out and the Quebecers take full advantage. They work over the injured Bret, then Bret finds an opening… and decides to attempt a Sharpshooter rather than tag his brother! He can’t apply the hold, and the referee decides that Bret cannot continue, giving the match to the Quebecers. Owen is PISSED. Bret chose to try and win the match himself rather than tag in his brother. So Owen KICKS HIS LEG FROM OUT OF HIS LEG. That’ll teach him. ****.

Match 3 – Razor Ramon Vs I.R.S. – IC title on the line. Rotunda went from being a great wrestler… to being the dullest bastard on the face of the planet the moment he put on a suit and became the Tax Man. Maybe that was the point. Tax Men are portrayed as being the dullest people on earth, so maybe he HAD to change his style to rest holds. Huh, JR and Monsoon are on commentary now. JR is awesome. IRS is literally DRIPPING WITH SWEAT. Eeeewww. Doesn’t help that he’s wearing a white shirt. It’s practically see through by the end of this. HBK attacks Razor with HIS IC title belt (He was IC champ, got suspended and refused to give up the title belt. New one was made, Razor won it, HBK came back with his, feud began and they have the ladder match at WM), and IRS gets the win! New champ! Until Earl Hebner comes out and tells the ref what happened. Match restarts and Razor wins. I never understand how they can do that one match then let anything slide in another lol. Decent match. **.

DOUBLE WIDE, DOUBLE DEEP CASKET. Paul Bearer promo. Loved those segments showing Undertaker making the casket and shit lol. Undertaker’s “Ho. Ho. Ho.” might be the creepiest christmas thing ever.

Match 4 – Yokozuna Vs The Undertaker – Casket Match for the WWF Title! Undertaker looks like an unstoppable zombie early on, taking Yoko apart, but the fear of being put in a casket encourages Yoko to fight back. Did anyone other than Undertaker and Bret get good singles matches out of Yoko? They do some fun shit together until Undertaker lands a massive chokeslam and puts Yoko in the casket, but CRUSH shows up to prevent the title from changing hands. Kabuki and fucking TENRYU show up to help out Yoko too. Then Bam Bam. They keep having to bring out guys because Undertaker is unstoppable lol. Fuji steals the urn but Bearer steals it back and decks Fuji and Cornette over the year with it lol, and Undertaker fights back once again. ADAM BOMB comes out to even the odds… for the heels because 5 guys isn’t enough. Neither is 6 apparently as Jeff Jarrett shows up. LMAO Undertaker STILL fights back and another few guys come out including Diesel… and it STILL isn’t enough yet! Not even Cena could overcome these odds for this long. Yoko gets the urn and levels Undertaker with it, and then green smoke escapes from it. Everyone starts attacking Undertaker individually and Undertaker is DONE. And then he cuts a promo from inside the casket, and “floats up to heaven” or something. Crazy, weird, strange, but kinda cool. Fun match, but I think the beatdown on Undertaker lasts longer than the Undertaker/Yoko parts lol. **3/4.

Match 5 – 30 Man Royal Rumble Match – #1 is Scott Steiner. #2 is none other than Samu. What a dull way to start the rumble. I wonder if everyone gets entrance music this year. Had to have started soon, right? Nope. Not this year. GOD FUCKING DAMMIT. This year instead of having someone last 40+ minutes and puts in a great performance, we have Diesel simply DOMINATE the match for a short period of time, eliminating the most men up to that point, before he’s eliminated by a group effort. Backlund puts up one hell of a fight using his great amateur skills to use by keeping low to the ground and closing in on Diesel’s legs, and holy fuck does it look like he’s trying to SHOOT eliminate the big man lol. Might be the most convincing non elimination ever. You know how when someone is trying to throw someone else out, and you can clearly see them basically helping to make sure he DOESN’T go out? Well not here lol. Backlund looks like he wants to throw Diesel out and win this thing legit. Then he gets eliminated. Dammit. Virgil is a replacement for someone (I forget) and Diesel looks like he’s trying to stiff the shit out of him before throwing him out haha. The two favourites to win this are Lex Luger and Bret Hart. Hart has the leg injury from the match earlier in the night, and Luger got attacked backstage by Kabuki and TENRYU. You ain’t lived until you’ve seen TENRYU threaten people with a broom, then put it down and walk past everyone like he’s the fucking BOSS. Because he is. ALL HAIL TENRYU. Anywho, yeah, 2 favourites, both with injury angles to overcome. But only ONE of them can win. Right? Nah, both win. Match is mostly good. Gets a little dull towards the end for me though. **3/4.

1993 Royal Rumble

The first RR where a winner gets a title shot at WM! Also the first RR of the “new generation”, and between the presentation and some of the wrestlers, the difference between this and 1992 is pretty huge tbh. It all “feels” very different, at least it does to me.

Match 1 – The Beaverly Brothers Vs The Steiner Brothers – Yeah, I’ll sit through a BB match. After all, it should be fun to see the Steiners throw them around. Fun match. Steiners suplex the fuck out of the BB, BB get a short control segment on Scott and do ok, then Rick gets a hot tag and tears them apart. Frankensteiner from Scott and it’s over. Solid opener. **3/4

Match 2 – Shawn Michaels Vs Marty Jannetty – So they broke up… early 92 (or late 91?)… finally get a match in 93 lol. Marty got released before they could follow up on the angle at the time haha. Sherri is at ringside, but nobody knows who she’ll side with. Marty hit her in the head with a mirror… but Shawn moved her in front of him for it to happen. I do not have fond memories of this match. They have 2 Raw matches later in the year, one really good, and one great, but for some reason they only seem to talk about the really good one and only put that one on sets and shit. Didn’t care for it on this watch either. Shawn bored the fuck out of my while on offence. Sherri slaps him at one point. Probably because she too thought he was boring. Sherri accidentally hits Marty with her shoe or something too (I faded out by then) and Shawn follows up with a superkick and its over. Thankfully. *.

Match 3 – Bam Bam Bigelow Vs The Big Bossman – BAM BAM. BAM BAM. BAM BAM. BAM BAM. HE CARRIES A BIG STICK, A BALL AND CHAIN TOO. Big different in theme songs here lol. LMAO apparently Bossman is good with handcuffs. Perve. Fucking BEAR HUGS. I hate them. So fucking dull. Headbutt from the ropes and Bam Bam wins. Didn’t care for this either. *.

Razor promo. He likes gold. He wants Bret’s gold. From the day before. He’s at a basketball game.

Match 4 – Bret Hart Vs Razor Ramon – Bret gives his sunglasses to a kid like normal. Razor throws his toothpick at the kid! Ha. Bret goes to work on the legs early, smart in a match against a bigger opponent. LMAO, Bret reaches out to grab Razor’s leg at one point… and misses. Excellence of Execution my arse! Before Lawler, there was Heenan mocking Bret’s parents. Bret keeps working the legs, but Razor finds an opening when he reverses Bret and sends him rib first into the ring post, and thus begins Razor’s control segment and rib work over. Razor does a nice job of working the ribs, Bret sells well until he makes his comeback and uhhh… doesn’t even Monsoon mentions it lol. Then he has no choice but to sell them again when Razor goes back to them in order to slow down Bret’s momentum. Finish is cool. Bret hooks in some crazy pin, Razor kicks out so Bret turns that into a Sharpshooter. Good match. ***1/4.

Bobby Heenan introduces the debuting Lex Luger. And seems to be infatuated with his body. The fans don’t give a single fuck.

Julius Caesar and Cleopatra are in the ring where Caesar himself tells us about WM 9. Again, the fans don’t give a single fuck. Ha.

Match 5 – 30 Man Royal Rumble Match – #1 is none other than Ric Flair, and #2? BOB FUCKING BACKLUND. Oh I so wish their match in the early 80’s wasn’t lost forever. This is as close as we’ll ever get to see it. And that makes me sad. LMAO, Flair pokes Bob in the eyes and Bob doesn’t even react, almost like he has no idea what Flair just did to him. Did anyone ever poke him in the eyes back in the day? Maybe it’d never happened to him before lol. PAPA SHANGO. No music in this RR either. Dammit.  Shango must be cursed or something because he’s gone in about 30 seconds. DiBiase is out next. Oh man, DiBiase, Flair and Backlund? Bring out ARN and we’ve got a great FOUR HORSEMEN group! JERRY LAWLER. Oh wow, Lawler, Backlund, DiBiase and Lawler in the ring at the same time? Get Virgil out of the ring and this could be fucking awesome. Oh shit, Flair and Lawler exchanges. MARK OUT MODE ACTIVATED. TENRYU. FLAIR AND TENRYU. OH SWEET JEBUS I’M STUCK IN PERMANENT MARK OUT MODE. MR PERFECT. HOW IS VIRGIL THE JOBBER KING STILL IN THERE? GET HIM OUT SO WE CAN HAVE ONE OF THE MOST AWESOME RR’S EVER. Poor Tenryu, nobody wants to play with him. He just walks about waiting for someone. Dammit Flair’s gone. At least he had moments with everyone, and that made my day. Month even. Screw it, lifetime. GREATEST THING EVER. Oh man, LMFAO. “Look at Koko unloading on the King” followed by “There’s a lot of people who want to unload on the King”. Seriously though, what is the deal with Tenryu? Nobody seems to want to do anything with him. He’s constantly stood around doing nothing lol. Perfect eliminates Lawler, then Perfect is in trouble on the apron and Lawler helps make sure he’s eliminated too. They brawl. Did they have a singles match? OMG UNDERTAKER. UNDERTAKER AND TENRYU IN THE SAME MATCH. BACKLUND IS IN THERE TOO. OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG. Undertaker eliminates Tenryu. The Berzerker (Bruiser Brody wannabe) attacks Backlund on the floor with a chair. Neither man is eliminated though lol. The ring gets cleared of everyone leaving Undertaker (Backlund still on the floor), and out comes Giant Gonzales, one of the worst wrestlers of all time. So of course he’s Undertaker’s next opponent. He eliminates Undertaker and… eliminates himself? Is he even in the Rumble? I don’t care, he’s terrible. The battle for a while then Gonzales goes away and leaves Undertaker out cold in the ring still while the match continues.  YOKO. YOKO AND EARTHQUAKE CONFRONTATION. Yoko eliminates him with a belly to belly. Bob goes. Booo. Savage and Yoko are the last 2. Savage goes for a pin. Yoko throws him off and he goes over the ropes. LOL. Yoko wins. Decent match. Gets really dull after the Undertaker beatdown. Before then we had great talent, afterwards it was mainly jobbers. **3/4