Live Time Machine Blog: the 1997 WWF Royal Rumble

Yeah, that's right. I said "WWF Royal Rumble" and not "WWE Royal Rumble". Here at nyiforlife.com, we are not afraid of no bamboo-eating pandas. WWF!

So, the 1997 WWF Royal Rumble. What does it say to me? Well, I think that this event in particular was the second event in the series of events where the star of Stone Cold Steve Austin was made. The character was just starting to really get over and Steve himself was beginning to get the character psychology down. Overall, a satisfying event to revisit.

I know I just wrote "satisfying event" phrase and that alone should surprise you when I tell you who the first two entrants in the Rumble were: Crush and Ahmed Johnson. The two were arguing over whether or not Ahmed should join the Nation of Domination. That seems even more stupid when I type it, but it was true. No truth to the rumor that Alicia Keys was influenced by Crush's hairstyle either. He just looked stupid and, by the way, had a tattoo on his forehead because they were playing up his real-life prison record. Seriously.

So we start out with those two and already you're tempted to take a pee break. Don't leave your chair or you'll miss the fake Razor Ramon, who came out at number three and lasts an entire seventeen seconds before Johnson tosses him out. That wasn't even really long enough to see if he had the Razor mannerisms down or not.

Phinneas Godwinn is number 4. He throws out Crush. At number five, we have Steve Austin. I really like his chances.

Once Stone Cold clears the ring of Jake the Snake, Austin is all alone in the ring. Hilariously, he props himself on the turnbuckles and looks at his pretend wristwatch. Vince McMahon, doing the announcing, really tries to make SCSA a heel but I can tell you that back in the day, me and a friend were laughing our backsides off at Austin's antics. He was just so out of the box for the time. Unless you're a long-time fan, you just won't get it.

Here comes The British Bulldog! Good Ol' JR says that bidness is gonna pick up! He and Ahmed must have had some kind of weird contest over who could be the bigger red flag. The Bulldog should have changed his name to Sunoco because he was full of the gas. Davey Roid goes right after Stone Cold because that is what he was supposed to do and we have some more Royal Rumble action that is hard to describe.

Next in is AAA wrestler Pierroth. Vince doesn't know who he is and I can tell you that at the time, I didn't either. Hell, it's eleven years later and I still don't give a rat's ass. He's the dude in the yellow and black but he doesn't look like a bee. Jim Ross tries to get him over with actual Lucha Libre credentials but I still don't care. Say 'ello to da Bee Guy!

Speaking of not caring, The Sultan follows him at 10. At 11 is the legendary Mil Máscaras. Now, him, I know. And he must have been in his fifties then and let me say that for a guy that old, he was still sort of active in the ring. Of course, true to his rep, he is going to end up eliminating himself with a suicide dive onto another Lucha dude on the floor because he never wanted to do a job.

Number 12 is Hunter Hearst Helmsley. Ugh. It is funny how a grudge you have in present day can carry over into the way-back machine as well. 13 is Owen Hart and he will eventually dump his brother-in-law and tag team partner, Davey Roid, so they'll tease a bit of dissention there...and it hits me that both guys are dead. Not good.

Check out this Lazy Man recap: 14 Goldust...15 Cibernético (he gets dumped by Mascaras) and 16 Marc Mero (he gets dumped by Sable)...17 Latin Lover (gets dumped by 18 Faarooq; who dumps himself when Ahmed makes like Jim Duggan and chases him with the largest 2X4 in wrestling history)...and suddenly, the ring is empty again. Never forget the hustle.

Savio Vega runs in and gets paid a full night of work for about 30 seconds. Stone Cold is alone again, naturally. Vince and JR try to put over the "classic" and "epic" strap match the two previously had and I can tell you that after seeing it on the new Legacy of Stone Cold DVD set that the match was kinda "enh" even though they were going at it pretty good. Nothing to get excited about.

"Double J" Jesse James is in and he gets to do a few Elvis moves before The former Road Dogg is sent packing. This was right after Jeff Jarrett had done that singing gimmick where it was exposed that the Road Dogg was the actual man behind the curtain. Weak gimmick at the time and Vince was clearly in Vindictive Mode after losing the real Razor and Diesel and Jeff Jarrett to WCW. Weak weak weak.

So, you know, Austin is again all by himself sitting on the top turnbuckle, selling a little bit of tired this time. Suddenly--as if this was the plan all along--Bret Hart's music hits and the arena comes alive. The crowd in the arena is a lot like the viewer would be at home...you know...waiting for something cool to happen. Aside from Stone Cold, so far this Rumble has been fairly average and really displayed that the WWF was at a low ebb as far as having real main event talent that people cared about.

Bret and Steve are going at it fists and fire! The crowd is clearly behind Bret and solidly against Austin in this one. Funny how sometimes you forget that it did actually take a while for Stone Cold to move up the card. Back then, he was hot but not bigger-than-Hogan hot.

Another comedy spot. Jerry Lawler leaves the announcing table to enter the Rumble. After 4 seconds--yes, four seconds--The King is dumped by Bret and he will spend the rest of the show pretending that he had never entered the Rumble at all. Jim Ross will try at times to get The King to quit being delusional, but Jerry keeps up the hustle. It's not as funny as it sounds..

Big Fake Diesel, come on down! That's right, former evil dentist and future Undertaker brother Glenn "Ron Paul in '08" Jacobs makes it to the big time. Diesel is given a good amount of work, too, and even gets a mention for effort later in the broadcast. Bret will dump him near the end.

Anyhoo, next out is Terry Funk. It's always great to see The Hardcore Legend. I think I may be the only person who liked it when he wore the stocking on his head and pretended to be Chainsaw Charlie later in the year. He and his protégé, Mankind Foley, figure into the finish...which I will jump ahead to now.

OK, so Mankind dumps Terry Funk and eventually, once the Undertaker (#30) dumps Mankind Foley, Mick and the Funker are fighting outside the ring. This brawl prompts both refs on the floor to take their eyes off the action in the ring. Wouldn't you know it, Bret Hart tosses out Stone Cold and he hits the floor. Of course, like I said, the refs don't see it and as Vince says, "If the refs don't see it, it didn't happen!" Steve climbs back in the ring and in short order, he dumps Vader and the Undertaker and ultimately, Bret Hart. Stone Cold is deemed the winner of the 1997 Royal Rumble while the referees were distracted on the other side of the ring. Pretty simple but very good booking, I'd say.

This Travesty of Injustice (TM) causes Bret Hart to totally lose it. He goes mental and get pissed and starts yelling at Vince and screaming at the referees--you know, the standard reaction. Refs screwed Bret. Stone Cold's music is playing and Bret is essentially acting like a kid who is like four years old.

Retro Live Blog: 1988 Royal Rumble

We got us a new feature on the site for you all on this All-Star weekend. WWE 24/7 recently replayed the 1988 Royal Rumble. While I remember watching it on the USA Network back in the day, I decided to give it another shot and add some perspective from twenty years later. That's right: here on nyiforlife.com we do own a time machine. Don't tell anyone!

So, like I said, the first televised "Royal Rumble" was in 1988 and it was originally called the "Rumble Royale". Seems like every time Vince or Jesse would have said "Rumble Royale" that the WWE switcho-chango machine has dubbed in the more correct "Royal Rumble". Just another way Vince is re-making history one event at a time!

First off, we have a match featuring Ravishing Rick Rude (RIP) and Ricky Steamboat. Now remember, this is January of 1988 and Steamboat had lost his Intercontinental belt to the Honky Tonk Man in the summer so that he could take some time off for the birth of his kid. I mention that to say this: I'm fairly sure this is one of his last WWF matches before he left the company and the business until reappearing on TBS in January of 1989 as Eddie Gilbert's mystery partner to start the series of legendary matches with Ric Flair.

Anyhoo, not a great match by any stretch here. It's actually worse that you'd think it should be. Finish comes when Rude pulls the referee in front of him while Steamboat jumps off the top rope. Twenty minutes of stalling and they just don't (didn't?) click. Official match rating: Enh.

The rest of the night apart from the Rumble was just filler stuff. Jumping Bomb Angels bleech and Jimmy Hart bleech. Hogan shilling for the match with Andre "coming up" on NBC (the brilliant twin referee angle) and Hogan always makes me sick. They're doing the contract signing gimmick and Andre turns the table over on Hogan while Ted DiBiase cackles his rich boy ass off; that sort of thing. One thing that jumps out is that Ted was really, really good as the Million Dollar Man. He was better than I remembered here and I always thought he was pretty good to begin with. Angle rating: Lame.

High comedy comes when the freakishly-pushed hack known as Dino Bravo is going to try to break what was called the world bench press record of over 700 pounds. Seriously, I can't do this justice. It is on a high hill of high comedy in wrestling. Suffice to say there's a lot of stalling and Jimmy Hart hyperactive silliness and that Bravo--who at this point looked like a jacked-up oversized baby rhino with a bad dye job--"beats" the record with a little help from segment host Jesse Ventura. After the record-setting lift, the angle did wonders for Dino Bravo. I made me care even less for him as a performer 20 years later. Actually, it made me recall that back in the day I was wondering about the NWA Bunkhouse Stampede show that was taking place at the Coliseum that night because the segment was just boring me to tears at the time. Angle rating: Ach! Unintended comedy rating: 4 out of ten.

So there was also another tag match on the show. The first one was that JBA crap that no one cared about and the other 2-out-of-3-falls match was Bobby Heenan's Islanders (as opposed to Terry Simpson's Islanders) beating the Young Stallions in 2 straight falls. This match actually was interrupted for an interview by Andre and DiBiase to hype the NBC match. Again, Ted was maniacal and Andre talked like he had a head full of phlegm and about eleven Tootsie Rolls in his yap. Seriously. He sounds like he could hock up something about the size of Lord Littlebrook. Yikes. No one ever confused Andre with Arn Anderson in regards to promo ability but this was not good in any way. Andre's teeth are a particular shade of manila folder here as well. Probably hard to see a dentist when you can't fit in the waiting room chairs. I give myself a three-star rating for using Lord Littlebrook in that joke because I think he's funnier than Little Beaver.

That brings us to the Rumble itself, always one of my favorite gimmick matches. You know the rules so I'll just get to the recap:

We start out with Bret Hart and "Strike Force member" Tito Santana in the ring. They picked numbers one and two and go at it pretty good until The Natural Butch Reed comes in at number 3. I had pretty much forgotten about Reed. Funny thing here is that in the age of faces vs. heels, Reed doesn't know who to go after here at first. McMahon thinks that Bret is at a distinct advantage but Reed seems a little confused. Eventually they team up on the man Ventura called Chico until Reed is dumped by Jake Roberts (#4) after about three minutes of work. Nice seeing you, Butch.

Talk about distinct advantages--here comes human fire plug Jim Neidhart at four! Between he and The Snake, that's a lotta crack! King Harley Race is next. Race is rocking a mushroom cloud honky 'fro and I don't care how much they try to put him over, Harley never struck me as a "WWF wrestler" even though they tried to push him as one at the time. Yes, we all know Harley Race and the stories of what a bad ass he was/is but back then, he just looked like some old dude with a distended belly and one hell of a weird hairstyle who seemed to wrestle in slow motion. Other than that, he rocked!

Speaking of rocked, check out this Murderer's Row: Jim Brunzell; Sam Houston; Former referee Danny Davis; and Boris Zhukov, the man who had such a big head that I am surprised that there weren't ten or twenty people holding ropes underneath him on Thanksgiving mornings. Seriously, this guy could not buy hats off the rack. I know that sounds like a line from Gorilla Monsoon--and it may be--but his head is really, really huge. I'm surprised he could balance a VW Bug on his shoulders like that!

At eleven we have The Rock, Don Muraco. He looks like he has spent a fortnight saying his prayers and eating his vitamins. Muraco has those freaky veins on his shoulders that I simply do not have and never will even pretend to have had at one time in my life. Behind him is #12, Nikolai Volkoff. The Russian obviously jumped his cue by coming out with Muraco and the night's best comedy comes when the refs on the floor have to pretend to hold back this angry competitor who wants to get in the ring. At least they didn't send him back to the dressing room to come out again in a minute or two later. The refs are grinning and Volkoff is obviously laughing as he pantomimes joining the Rumble before his time. McMahon and Jesse are trying to get over that Volkoff is just such a game competitor even though everyone on the floor is obviously joking around.

Jim Duggan is next at thirteen. I like his chances tonight.

Ventura puts over Bret Hart about fifty times for lasting as long as he has to this point. I think The Body may have owed Bret some money that week because he is laying it on pretty thick. Yes, Bret does last quite a while until he gets dumped by Muraco, who also tosses Harley Race and the man at number 14, Outlaw Ron Bass. Not a bad showing for a man who was Magnificent no more.

Another streak of top competitors here: B. Brian Blair; Hillbilly Jim; and Dino Bravo. All three are going to meet their fates at the hands of #19, the One Man Gang. I like the Gang's chances tonight too. I think he may make it to the end!

Number 18 is The Ultimate Warrior. He's gonna last about 4 minutes before Bravo and the Gang team up to kick him out. A year or so from now, both guys will be bumping around for The Warrior like ping pong balls but in January of 1988, we haven't been bored and confused by Jim Hellwig too much yet. No snorts. No inane interviews. No day-glo tassels around the arms. Just a few minutes of tepid work and little juice ('juice' meaning excitement) for the former Dingo Warrior.

JYD is at twenty. No truth to the rumor that he snacked on arena hotdogs while training to run this gauntlet. He'd really let himself go at this point. The only shape The Dog was in was "round". Still, at the time, I thought hed be the winner of this Rumble because he didn't look like he was going to be able to bump over the top rope without having a heart attack. And yes, I know I skipped a lot of alleged action from the match. The Rumble is just too hard to give a real good running tally as you watch it so I just go for cheap jokes. You're welcome.

Anyhoo, we come down to the last two guys: Hacksaw Duggan and the One Man Gang. I always liked the OMG. The gimmick was a winner to me because once you get a skull and crossbones tattooed on the side of your head, you've made a commitment to not wear a tie to work for the rest of your life. The Gang is a full year apart from being UWF champion for Bill Watts and a full year or so from "going back to his roots" to become Akeem the African Dream with the Reverend Slick. Again, if you have no idea what I am talking about, you may be lucky on the Akeem stuff. I was never sure if that was supposed to be funny or serious, that gimmick. It just was so wrong to do and yet, strangely hilarious at the time.

But back to the Rumble, the Gang was a house of fire! He eliminated Jake Roberts; Muraco; Blair; Hillbilly Jim; Dino Bravo; and the Warrior. The man totally earned his paycheck for less that ten minutes of work. Duggan eventually wins the match after ducking a charging One Man Gang. Gang's momentum sends him over the top rope and to the floor. I still hate Jim Duggan.

I find myself yawning again. I bet I did the same thing back in the day too. Never a big fan of Duggan's when he was in the WWF or WCW or the UWF-slash-Mid-South when Bill Watts would call him "Doogan" all the time. Another one that always looked like he was fighting underwater. Still, overall, the match was pretty cool at the time and Pat Patterson should always be proud of this baby. Now, much older and much more jaded, the first televised Royal Rumble show does not hold up for repeat viewing. There were no performances like Ric Flair's when he won the title at the Rumble in 1992 (after 2 straight years of Hogan winning the event) or the 1997 Steve Austin show where he was sitting on the turnbuckles looking at his imaginary watch after clearing the ring. But if you take the 1988 Royal Rumble as a jumping off point, you could see that the event would be a winner. It was different enough to be novel and yet simple enough to understand.

And now, because of me, you don't have to sit through it again. Just another service we have for you here at nyiforlife.com!