WWF Royal Rumble – 1.21.96
-The Royal Rumble starts off with…the free-for-all. That’s kinda cool that I have that one here. Let’s see who drew #1 and #30.
-Mr. Perfect and Vince McMahon on commentary, awesome.
-The first WWF appearance of Vader, and Jim Cornette announces that he’s signed Vader!
-“The Prince of Power”…Vader should’ve used that nickname more. I like that one.
-IT’S VADER TIME! Man, I never saw Vader in WCW, but I LOVED him in the WWF.
-Another returnee – Jake the Snake Roberts! Was this the only time Jake was a face? Loved Jake as well.
-Hunter Hearst Helmsley drew a blank spot…but more importantly, THE FINK IS BACK! THANK GOD!
-…oh geez. The other guy is Duke Droese. It hasn’t been long enough since we saw the Dumpster.
-HHH clocks Droese with a pair of knucks and tucks them in his tights, and gets the win, but Monsoon comes down and overturns the decision. Even though just a couple of months ago they were making a huge deal about the referee’s decision being final. Way to be consistent WWF! Referee reverses the decision, and Droese gets #30.
-Perfect and Vince talking about Razor/Goldust…and HBK’s music randomly hits. This is a fairly eventful Free For All, actually. Michaels hits the ring, fireworks go off (for a free-for-all?!), blah blah.
-Pettingoof asks HBK to reveal his #. Really?
-HBK’s first reference to “The Kliq” (his fans)…I always hated that about his title run, even though he was my favorite wrestler.
-Now we can start the damn PPV!
-The debut of the infamous Sunny bathtub/viewer discretion is advised promo:
-From MUUUUUUUSIC CITY, USA….here comes Jeff Jarrett, to get destroyed by AHMED JOHNSON.
-AHMED reverses Jarrett’s Figure Four. A friend put me in the Figure Four once as a kid and I reversed it. It did NOTHING.
-Jarrett climbs the rope and smashes the guitar over Ahmed’s head, getting himself blatantly disqualified. AHMED chases him to the back.
-According to Diesel’s watch, it’s not Vader Time, it’s Big Daddy Cool Time. Where can I get that kind of watch?
-Smoking Gunns defending the WWF Tag Titles against the Bodydonnas – aka the debut of Flip/Zip/whatever.
-Billy accidentally knocks Sunny off the ring apron…he goes to check on her, he gets ambushed by the Donnas, and Sunny begins cheering.
– McMahon called Zip “Flip” at one point, and Perfect called him out on it. LOL
-Gunns get the win. Yawn.
-Here’s a question for you all, as Goldust heads to the ring…do you think McMahon should’ve given him a run as the WWF Champion? I LOVED his run with this character, personally.
-Nice! The debut of Marlena!
-Hell, let’s ask the same question…what about Hall? I think Ramon would’ve made for a legitimate WWF Champion.
-Marlena hits the ring and “twists her ankle”…Tim White tries to help her out of the ring, and the 1-2-3 Kid hits the ring and hits a spinning heel kick from the top rope. Goldust makes the cover, and we have a NEWWWWWWWW Intercontinental Champion!
-Oh, now suddenly HBK’s doctor thinks he’s okay to get back in the ring. Aka, let’s brush that injury storyline under the rug.
-Did they call Vader “the Mastodon” in WCW as well?
-Hunter Hearst Helmsley hits the ring as the #1 entrant in the Rumble, per the incident from the Free-For-All.
-The debut of the “Don’t go messin’ with a country boy” music…as Henry Godwinn draws #2.
-#3 is Bob Backlund!! #4 is Jerry Lawler.
-Backlund and Lawler get slopped.
-#5 is Bob Holly. “Start your engines!” Vince says. No, Vince. No. #6 is King Mabel. Blah.
-#7 is Jake the Snake! He gets a nice pop, and an even bigger one when he lets Damien out in the ring…the ring completely clears. I guess it’s not Damien, but that snake is ENORMOUS…and Lawler gets it thrown on him.
-King has gone missing.
-#8 is…Dory Funk. He looks about 80. Vince mentions that Terry Funk was invited to the Rumble for some reason…I’m not really sure why.
-Lawler’s hiding under the ring. #9…the mighty Yokozuna. Funk gets the CHICKEN WING slapped on him by Backlund, but Yoko breaks it up and eliminates Bobby B. #10 is the 1-2-3 Kid, who’s chased into the ring by Razor Ramon. Razor can’t catch the Kid though, and the suits catch up to him. Razor breaks free and hits the ring, but Kid slips away.
-Omari is #11. Who?? Savio Vega is #12. Yokozuna eliminates big Mabel. #13 is the WWF debut of VADER.
-Doug Gilbert at #14. Who?
-“One of the SWAT Team members”. Some big fat dude with makeup. Who is he?
-The second one was #16. I think they were just piles of dough to bump for Vader, as he quickly eliminated both. #17 is the King of Harts!
-Shawn Michaels hits the ring at #18 to a HUGE pop from the crowd.
-Vader and Yokozuna start slugging it out. Cornette is pissed…and Michaels dumps them both over, followed by the Kid. If it wasn’t obvious by now that Michaels was going to win this thing, it sure as hell would’ve been after that.
-Yokozuna and Vader continue fighting on the outside as Hakushi enters at #19. Vader re-enters the ring and goes to work on Michaels, tossing him over. That’s not a legal elimination, although in later Royal Rumbles it would be. CONSISTENCY PEOPLE.
-Vader clears the ring, and officials and Monsoon come down to the ring. Monsoon orders Vader out, and they have a staredown before Vader finally leaves to a pretty big ovation.
-Tatanka! He’s been away for quite awhile. The ring fills back up and we’re back at it.
-Aldo Montoya is #21. Michaels meanwhile finally outs Lawler, and eliminates him…meanwhile, Diesel is #22.
-Kama is #23. Yawn.
-Here comes Austin at #24 – McMahon calls him “Steve Austin” for the first time. I LOVED Austin’s old school music, too. Random trivia note that I WILL mention again, when we get to that point – I attended the PPV where Austin debuted the “glass shatter” theme. I remember it hitting and thinking “who the hell is this…oh wow this is badass”
-Horriblewitz at #25!
-Fatu at #26. I guarantee he doesn’t make a difference here either. Yankem is #27, Marty Jannetty #28, and the British Bulldog at #29, which makes #30 Droese.
-Final four are the Bulldog, HBK, Diesel, and Kama. One of these things is not like the other…
-HBK eliminated Bulldog, Kama gets taken out by Diesel…and HBK eliminates his best friend to win the Royal Rumble for the second year in a row.
-Diesel is livid…takes out Bulldog, threatens Dok Hendrix, and heads back to the ring where Michels is celebrating. Music stops, they go face to face, Diesel tightens his glove…and holds the hand up. Michaels does the jumping high-five. Was really waiting on Diesel to obliterate Michaels here.
-Diesel bumps into Undertaker on Taker’s way down into the ring…and they get into it, fighting in the aisleway. Most entertaining Undertaker entrance I’ve seen during the rewatch thus far.
-Man…for the two people involved here (Bret/Undertaker), this is one snoozer of a match.
-Bret’s getting MAJOR heel heat during this one…this crowd is definitely 100% Undertaker. REALLY strong boos for Bret throughout…strange.
-Bret unmasks Taker…and he looks completely normal!
-Taker hits the Tombstone and goes for the pin…but Diesel shows up and pulls the referee out of the ring, and Undertaker wins via disqualification – and therefore not winning the WWF Title.
