Mike Reviews WWF Royal Rumble 1995

Mike Reviews WWF Royal Rumble 1995

Happy Saturday Everyone!

We’re getting into Rumble season, so here’s a Royal Rumble review as we take a look at Royal Rumble 1995. I quite enjoy this show, as there’s some good wrestling on it, although the Rumble match is a bit controversial due to them limiting the entrance intervals to just one minute. I seem to remember it still being relatively watchable though, but let’s see if watching it again in 2024 will disabuse me of that notion.

You can view the card for Royal Rumble 1995 by clicking below;

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=1915&page=3

Royal Rumble 1995 is emanating from Tampa, Florida on the 22nd of January 1995

Calling the action are Vince McMahon Jr. and Jerry The King Lawler

Pamela Anderson w/ wacky porno styled music shows up and the entire WWF Locker-room is very happy to see her whilst she just looks amused by it all.

Vinny Mac and Kingfish do a brief run-through of the card. Key word being “brief”, as we get entrances for the opener after a scant 150 seconds. Please take note WCW

Opening Match
WWF Intercontinental Title
Champ: The Bad Guy Razor Ramon Vs Double J Jeff Jarrett w/ The Roadie

Razor had been the Champ since the summer of 1994 and was a solid part of the WWF’s upper mid-card. Jarrett had come in as a Heel on his own originally, with the gimmick being that he was trying to use wrestling fame as a way to kick-start his music career. At the time it was seen as a silly gimmick, but if you think about it, people using their wrestling careers as a route to a different career path is hardly unheard of. Adding Roadie (Brian “Road Dogg” James) to the act ended up being a bit of a masterstroke, as giving Jarrett a lackey who could help him win matches actually made him a bit of a genuine threat after a long period of being little more than a comedy punching bag.

Vince actually mentions Buddy Rogers on commentary, owing to Jarrett using the Figure Four Leg Lock as a finisher. This was atypical of the time as Vince had spent years not mentioning wrestling history and pretending everything pre-1984 didn’t really happen. Razor shines on Jarrett to start, with Jarrett taking some fantastic bumps for him in order to make the Champ look good. These two usually had solid chemistry together as opponents, as I believe Jarrett was reasonably chummy with the backstage club of Razor, Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash and Sean Waltman, so when he wrestled those guys they’d be willing to have good matches with him and not make him look bad. The crowd makes good noise whenever Razor is putting a whupping on his challenger, and they are some “ooohs” when Jarrett takes Razor down and messes up his hair. Careful Jeffery…

Indeed, Razor punches Jarrett square in the mush and then clotheslines Jarrett to the floor for good measure, which the crowd enjoys mightily. Jarrett was perfect for these kind of matches where you give the babyface an extended shine, due to his bumping being so top notch and the fact the fans thought he was a bit of a goof, so watching the babyface clobber him never really gets boring. As much as Jarrett was a bad choice to be the World Champ in WCW and TNA, he was an excellent act in the mid-card who could have entertaining matches and compete for the secondary belts. In some ways Jarrett was almost a new take on The Honky Tonk Man character, even down to him playing a musically themed character from Tennessee, although Jarrett was a more exciting in-ring performer in my opinion.

Jarrett delivers some nice dropkicks, which allows him to put Razor on the back-foot, but Razor is usually able to get back on top of things, as we’ve had two or three false cut offs so far. Jarrett manages to snap off a neckbreaker and tries to get a rope assisted pin for the win, but the referee catches him and puts a stop to that, leading to Razor dragging the challenger Nashville first into the ring post before following with a bulldog for two. Jarrett seems to finally manage to cut Razor off by flinging him over the top rope to the floor, which leads to Razor coming up limping. Roadie indulges his inner Mongo McMichael by delivering a chop block to Razor whilst the referee is distracted and that leads to Razor losing by count out. However, Jarrett goads Razor into continuing the bout as he can’t win the belt on that finish. Razor is a gallant babyface and agrees, leading to the bout continuing.

Razor now has a bad wheel, but he releases his inner Yoshinari Ogawa by getting some roll-up’s for some two counts. Jarrett not unreasonably targets the leg with aims of making Razor submit to the Figure Four, as it looks like the crowd is starting to get genuinely worried that Razor might lose. It’s a very effective sell job from Razor, with the crowd reacting whenever it looks like the Champ might be able to fight back, especially when Jarrett applies the Figure Four and Razor does the big dramatic attempt to turn the hold over. Honestly, a very fine finish here would be for Razor to roll the hold over and Jarrett to tap out like the snivelling coward he is despite Razor being the one with an injured leg, but I don’t think that finish has ever been done in the history of wrestling.

Razor eventually manages to break the hold by using the very scientific approach of punching Jarrett really hard in the mouth. I believe Frank Gotch used a similar technique in his famed 655 minute 6 Falls out of 11 bout with Belgian Champion Constant le Boucher on the outskirts of the Schönberg mountains in the autumn of 1901. Razor makes the comeback following that, even managing to get a one legged back suplex from the second rope at one stage. Jarrett shifts his weight to land on top of that, but Razor then rolls through THAT to get a nicely executed near fall. The crowd reactions for this have been a lot of fun, as the two wrestlers have mostly had them eating out of the palm of their hands. Razor tries to put Jarrett away with The Razor’s Edge, but his leg gives out and Jarrett gets an inside cradle to the win the belt and the crowd is in SHOCK.

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: DOUBLE J
RATING: ***3/4

Thoughts: This was a great match, with Jarrett getting pummelled for the majority of the early stages but eventually managing to find a way to win. It wasn’t an entirely clean win due to Roadie giving Razor the chop block, but it may as well have been, which instantly gave Jarrett a credibility he’d been sorely lacking prior to this whilst doing little-to-no damage to Razor’s standing as he bravely fought on despite his leg injury and still almost managed to win. It elevated Jarrett (and even Roadie to some degree as he was integral to the win) and protected Razor, whilst giving us a really well wrestled bout for good measure. This was a fine way to start the show!

Stephanie Wiand (a short-lived interviewer that didn’t make it through the remainder of the year) is backstage looking for an interview with Jeff Jarrett but he hasn’t arrived yet, so she sends to Todd Pettengill who is with Pamela Anderson, who is showing off all of the gifts she’s been receiving from the wrestlers. Todd is pretty funny playing a love-struck goof. Meanwhile, Jarrett has finally joined Wiand, but he’s not interested in doing an interview right now.

Match Two
Irwin R. Schyster w/ The Million $ Man Ted Dibiase Vs The Undertaker w/ Paul Bearer

The story going on here was that Ted Dibiase had brought in a fake Undertaker during the summer of 1994, which had agitated the onions of the real Undertaker, leading to a feud between Undertaker and all of Dibiase’s cronies. It wasn’t an especially well-liked or fondly remembered feud, and it led to Taker having an awful match at WrestleMania XI. However, before we can get to a rubbish match at Mania, we have to get through this dull one here at Royal Rumble 1995. It’s funny how stale IRS felt in 1995, as he’d only been around since 1991, but it felt much longer for some reason. Mike Rotunda was a “perfectly cromulent” worker as Scott Keith would say, but this gimmick had long outlived it’s usefulness by the time 1995 rolled around. IRS was certainly zero threat to a star the level of Undertaker.

I’m sure there’s an alternate timeline where Taker and IRS teamed up to form the dreaded tandem known as Death & Taxes who dominated the WWF tag ranks for many years. IRS tries to stick and move in the early going, with Undertaker being more annoyed by it than anything else. It succeeds in drawing some groans and boos from the crowd, but it’s not especially exciting to watch. The crowd does react at least when Taker is able to catch IRS with a big boot to finally bring the Tax Man’s stalling tactics to an end for a bit. IRS takes some nice bumps for Taker, as he was mechanically a solid in-ring performer, he just had a gimmick that was so stale you could take it down to the park and feed the ducks with it. Dibiase tries to help his man at one stage, but Taker foils that, leading to Money Inc have a tiff at ringside.

Dibiase decides to bring some druids down to the ring, as you do, which I believe was something he was doing on TV at the time as a way of angering Taker. They distract Taker briefly, but IRS is still too much of a goober to gain an advantage in the out. Finally the druids manage to knock Taker off the top rope whilst Dibiase distracts the ref, which leads to IRS giving Taker a clothesline to the floor and an axe handle off the apron to seemingly finally get the heat on the Dead Man. The Druids make sure to get some cheap shots in whilst the ref is distracted as well, which is standard druid behaviour. Bloody druids, coming here stealing our mistletoe and attacking our un-dead zombies. I blame lax druid immigration laws. Build a wall I say!!

Anyway, IRS has Undertaker down and drops some dreaded elbows onto his fallen foe, rather than doing something useful like going for his Write Off clothesline and getting the pin. We get a double down, which leads to a druid draping IRS on top for two. Heel miscommunication with another druid leads to Taker going for the Tombstone, only for IRS to slip out and get the Write Off. However, IRS is too knackered to make the cover, which gives Undertaker time to sit up and deliver a Choke Slam for the three count and a sizeable pop from the crowd.

WINNER: THE UNDERTAKER
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: Against all odds, the crowd actually got quite into this once the druids showed up and it looked like Undertaker was actually in some semblance of jeopardy. The wrestling was mostly meh, but it wasn’t a disaster like some of Taker’s matches from this period were as IRS could actually take the majority of big moves that Taker had in his arsenal, meaning that the crowd actually got to see some of the stuff they wanted to see. Not a particularly good match, but not horrendous either

The druids attack Undertaker following the bout, but he manages to fend them off. However, King Kong Bundy shows up to establish himself as Taker’s dance partner for WrestleMania XI. IRS steals the urn from Paul Bearer and Bundy runs through the gambit of his ground based moves including an elbow drop, knee drop and the Big Daddy Splash. Taker is left lying following that, with no urn to magically revive him. Eventually the crowd claps and cheers enough that Taker is able to get to his feet and fight another day.

Earlier today, Todd Pettengill interviews WWF Champ Diesel who doesn’t want to answer any questions as he’s getting ready for the match later. Bret Hart doesn’t really want to talk about it either, but he says that it’s war tonight even though he does like Diesel.

Jerry Lawler does a great job getting across what being in a big Title match feels like for a wrestler, which is something they didn’t let him do that much but he sells it really well.

Match Three
WWF Title
Champ: Big Daddy Cool Diesel Vs Bret The Hitman Hart

Bret had been the Champion but he’d been screwed out of the belt at Survivor Series 1994 due to a combination of Bob Backlund and Owen Hart conspiring against him. Diesel had then promptly turned babyface and crushed Backlund in a match at a Madison Square Garden House Show in just 8 seconds. This denied Bret the chance to get a rematch at Backlund, but it was decided that he’d get a shot against Diesel at Royal Rumble 1995 instead. So Diesel had just turned Face and now this is his first pay per view Title defence was against an already established babyface that fans really liked. I know that Kevin Nash is often made fun of for being a poorly drawing Champion, but the WWF hardly helped him out when it came to his booking, especially when they changed him from a cool bad ass into a generic smiling babyface.

Diesel makes sure to say hello to Lawrence Taylor in the front row prior to the match in order to establish them as friends for something that would come up during WrestleMania season. This one gets pretty intense from the early going, with the two trading strikes and Diesel eventually giving Bret a clothesline to the floor. I think from watching the early exchanges it looks like they’re setting Diesel up to be the babyface in this one, as he’s doing all of the typical babyface shine stuff by bumping Bret around, whilst Bret does the aggressive more underhanded stuff like tripping Diesel by pulling his leg from outside of the ring and then slamming the leg into the post and ring apron. Bret slips quite easily into something more akin to his Heel character from the 80’s, as he quite viciously targets Diesel’s leg now that he has the big man down, showing little to no mercy and not being especially Face-like in his behaviour.

This doesn’t really draw any boos though, even though it looks to be them trying to establish that Bret is going to be Heel for the night whilst Diesel plays the babyface role. I think the fans like and respect Bret too much to boo him here, especially as Diesel had only recently just turned Face whilst Bret had been a babyface since 1988. In many ways Bret was the beloved figure and Diesel was the replacement, and it would have probably been prudent to keep them apart until Diesel had been more established as a babyface, but the WWF didn’t have much roster depth at the time and with the Rumble match taking place, Bret Hart was probably the best genuine contender they had who was available, so the match had to be booked. Bret manages to bust out a TOPE SUICIDA at one stage, but then Diesel starts upping his own intensity by sending Bret into the steps at ringside and then delivering his trademark elbows in the corner back inside the ring before following up with his Side Slam for two. If this were a Dino Bravo bout then we’d have a new Champion right now!

I have to say that both wrestlers are really bringing their A Game when it comes to selling here, with both making it look like the other is almost draining them of their very life force when it comes to delivering big moves and attacks. I say this a lot when I review Kevin Nash matches but I feel it bears repeating that he’s an excellent seller for a guy his size, especially when you compare him to goofs like Sid and Giant Gonzalez who were of similar height but couldn’t sell to save their lives. Big guys are so rarely getting worked over that their selling is usually always sub-par in comparison to smaller wrestlers who have to sell a lot more, but Nash managed to bridge the gap and was a very good and very believable seller. Bret continues to target Diesel’s leg, going as far as to tape Diesel’s legs together around the ring post so that he can stomp and punch away whilst Diesel is unable to get away. The referee eventually unties Diesel, but Bret was able to get some good shots in first before that happened, and he fires off a lovely looking bulldog headlock for two straight after.

Bret actually manages to muscle Diesel up for his trademark pendulum back breaker at one stage, and then comes off his own rope with an elbow for two. Bret tries following up with a plancha following that, but Diesel catches Bret and rams him into the ring post, which leads to Lawler shifting his pick to the Champ after previously saying that Bret would win. That also shows that Diesel isn’t afraid to get nasty either. Diesel looks to have it won following that with his Jack Knife Powerbomb, but Shawn Michaels runs in to break it up. This isn’t a DQ for whatever reason, as a second referee (Dangerous Danny Davis) makes Shawn leave whilst Earl Hebner declares that the bout will continue, because apparently he can just do that if he wants. Shawn made sure to attack Diesel’s leg whilst he was out there, which leads to Bret targeting the appendage again in order to weaken his bigger foe further.

Bret actually clobbers Diesel’s leg with a chair at one stage, which Vince explains away by saying that Bret actually missed which is why the match is going on, but Diesel sure sells like the chair made contact. Bret applies the Sharpshooter and looks to have things won, but now Owen Hart runs in and puts a beat down on Bret in order to prevent his brother from winning. The ref once again decides that we’ll keep going, which is probably fair after not DQ’ing Bret earlier on. Bret manages to kick out of Diesel’s resulting pin attempt, which leads to Bret managing to actually put Diesel down with a series of punches, only for Diesel to lurch back up to his feet and reply in kind to his opponent before heading out to get a chair. Seeing as Bret used the chair first, this kind off keeps Diesel as the ostensible babyface due to him just giving back what he’d already suffered. Bret flees the chair and then plays possum back inside before getting an Inside Cradle for two in a great near fall that they’d call back to in a future match between the two.

The ref ends up taking a bump, and that leads to Shawn Michaels, Owen Hart, Bob Backlund, Jeff Jarrett and Roadie all running in to attack both wrestlers. This is finally the point where the refs just can’t allow this to go on anymore, leading to the match being declared a No Contest. To be honest, if they were going to ignore the previous run-in’s then they needed to REALLY up the ante to finally justify stopping it, and this mostly did the trick.

NO CONTEST
RATING: ****

Thoughts: This was an excellent match with an all-time terrible finish. They did eventually pay it off by having the two wrestle a No DQ match in November 1995, but it took a while to get there. There’s no way to do that finish and not have it be an absolute momentum killer, but they didn’t want Bret to lose and they didn’t want Diesel to drop the belt yet, so that was the finish we got. Ideally they wouldn’t have booked the match at all if they were worried about that sort of thing, but I guess they thought that needs must. In all honesty, Diesel winning after Owen or Backlund cost Bret the match wouldn’t have made him look any better than fighting to a No Contest, as any other result than him winning clean was going to make him look lesser as a Champion by not being able to defeat the previous babyface Champ and they weren’t going to have Bret eat a clean pin after only just dropping the belt to Backlund. The work was fantastic, with both competitors selling consistently throughout and both of them also showing off their more aggressive sides in order to get across the intensity of the battle. Finish aside, this match is brilliant and well worth seeking out if you’ve never seen it before

Following the match, Diesel rallies to send the Heels packing and then helps Bret up so that we can have a mutual showing of respect that the crowd appreciates.

Todd is still in Pam Anderson’s locker room, and she asks him to get her purse for her, which leads to Todd stumbling around in humorous fashion

Stephanie is backstage with 1-2-3 Kid and Bob Holly, who cut a generic babyface promo saying that they are getting their chance tonight.

Jerry Lawler messes around with footage of Pam Anderson showing up earlier.

Match Four
Final of the WWF Tag Team Title Tournament
The Million $ Team: The Beast From The East Bam Bam Bigelow and The Native American Tatanka w/ Million $ Man Ted Dibiase Vs The 1-2-3 Kid and Bob Spark-plug Holly

The storyline here was that Diesel and Shawn Michaels were the Tag Champs, but they had a big falling out and the belts have now been vacated. They held a tournament for the vacant belts, with Holly and Kid getting entered at the semi-final stage as a replacement for The Smoking Gunns due to one of The Gunns supposedly suffering an injury at a rodeo. Somehow the underdog team advanced and now they’ve got a shot to win the belts here at Royal Rumble 1995. I’m not sure if one of the Gunn’s genuinely did hurt themselves whilst rodeoing or if that was just a kayfabe excuse to explain why they had to bow out of the tournament. The Gunns will be getting a match against the winners on Raw tomorrow due to them having to step away from the tournament.

Bammer and Tatanka of course were hated foes at one stage, but Dibiase’s money has brought them together, not unlike how Shang Tsung’s sorcery brought Sub-Zero and Scorpion together in the Mortal Kombat movie. Bigelow defeated Holly in a singles match on TV to hype this up, whilst Tatanka defeated Kid, just to really ram home the idea that Kid and Holly are big underdog’s here. Kid had briefly been a Tag Champ previously with Marty Jannetty as his partner, whilst Holly hadn’t won any belts in the WWF yet, although he would go on to be a multiple time Hardcore Champ during the Atttitude Era of course. Apparently it was actually Kid that did the jobski for Bammer on TV during the build for this, as Lawler actually corrects Vince for once. Kid and Holly get mostly clobbered from the get-go, although there is a really cool spot where Kid counters a Bigelow powerbomb into a rana at one stage, only for Bammer to immediately clobber Kid with a big enziguri.

Kid of course sells really well whilst The Million $ Team work him over (I know, you’re probably SHOCKED to read that Sean Waltman of all people is good at selling) whilst Bigelow and Tatanka look good on offence. The crowd reactions are a little disappointing when you consider that the first three bouts had such great crowd heat, but the crowd could be getting tired and they might also just not think that Kid and Holly have a genuine chance of winning. The match structure might not have helped too much either, as Kid and Holly didn’t really get much of a babyface shine before getting worked over by the Heels, so the crowd didn’t really have a chance to get into the match early on. It makes sense why you’d forgo a traditional shine when you have such an underdog babyface team, but it doesn’t feel like it’s really working for the crowd.

Eventually some Heel miscommunication allows the babyfaces to ram the Heels together, leading to Holly getting the tag and roll-up onto Tatanka for two before busting out his Jumbo Tsuruta styled dropkick onto the Native American. However, Bigelow low-bridges Holly to send Holly careening to the floor, which gives us our second heat segment. Holly also sells well (although Kid is in another league to him and most of the rest of the WWF roster at this time) and eventually he gets a window to fight back when Tatanka accidentally attacks Bigelow with a chop from the top rope. However, Tatanka distracts Kid and that means that Holly has no one to tag, although he does try a Sunset Flip at one stage in order to briefly give us an Aloha-Bigelow moment until Bammer blocks the move.

Eventually Tatanka and Holly both go for a cross body at the same time, which gives us a double down and a hot tag to The Kid, which the crowd responds to as they’re finally starting to get into the match. Kid looks great on offence too, flying around and believably using his size and agility to put the Heels on the back-foot. Kid ends up taking an absolute arse burger of a bump when Bigelow presses him from inside the ring to the floor, but when Bigelow heads up top to finish things, Tatanka accidentally hits the ropes at the same time and that leads to Bigelow taking a tumble to the mat. Bammer appears to be out from that, so Kid drapes an arm and the underdogs manage to pick up the shock victory.

WINNERS AND NEW CHAMPIONS: KID & HOLLY
RATING: **3/4

Thoughts: This was mostly a decent match, although I personally felt that the heat segment went on for a little too long. I get that they were trying to push Kid and Holly as big underdogs, so that meant that the Heels were going to take the lion’s share of the offence, but I think it got to the point that it actively made the Heels look weak that they couldn’t put their opponents away. The match went just over 15 minutes but I think they could have told the same story in a more effective way if they’d maxed the run time out at 10 minutes instead. It was still a decent outing though and the crowd loved the upset victory for the babyfaces, so it was a success overall

Bammer is very unhappy to have lost and ends up getting into an argument with Lawrence Taylor at ringside. LT attempts to laugh it all off and offers a handshake to try and quell things, but Bigelow shoves him down instead. This was all done to set up the Main Event of WrestleMania XI, with Bigelow and LT going at it. It was a very effective angle.

We get clips from last year’s Royal Rumble, as Diesel eliminates a bunch of a people and gets really over, but Shawn Michaels ends up playing a part in Diesel’s elimination. We then get a quick promo from Shawn who puts himself over ahead of the Rumble tonight. That was a decent promo from Shawn. Next up we get clips of Lex Luger and Bret Hart becoming co-winners the previous year. We then get a Luger promo, where he cuts an intense promo about how he’s sick of being contender and now it’s time to become a Champion. That wasn’t too bad, with Luger showing an angrier edge.

Vince apologies to Lawrence Taylor for what just happened.

Main Event
Royal Rumble 1995 Match
Featuring;
Adam Bomb, Bushwhacker Luke, Kwang, The King of Harts Owen Hart, Headshrinker Fatu, Duke The Dumpster Droese, The Doctor of Desire Tom Prichard, Headshrinker Sionne, Crush, The Walking Condominium King Kong Bundy, Doink The Clown, Gigolo Jimmy del Ray, Bart Gunn, Made in the USA Lex Luger, Mantaur, The Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels, Eli Blu, The British Bulldog, The Portuguese Man O’ War Aldo Montoya, Jacob Blu, Henry O. Godwinn, Mr. Bob Backlund, Rick The Model Martel, Bushwhacker Butch, Mabel, Billy Gunn, Steven Dunn, Timothy Well, Captain Redneck Dick Murdoch and Mo

As previously mentioned, a big bone of contention some have with Royal Rumble 1995 is that the Rumble match has 60 second intervals instead of the usual 90/120. I think they made the decision to chop down the run-time due to the WWF just not having the roster depth at the time to make a 50-60 minute Rumble match work, with them playing it up on TV as a positive that the match would be faster and more exciting due to the quicker intervals. Hey, when life gives you lemons eh? Dave Meltzer actually approved of the decision in his newsletter, but in general most people didn’t like it and they put the intervals back to “normal” for the 96 Rumble match. The winner here not only gets a WWF Title shot at WrestleMania XI, but they also get Pam Anderson as their manager for the big night.

Entrant #1: The Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels

Entrant #2: The British Bulldog

Shawn and Bulldog usually worked well together, and that’s the case here as well, as they have an enjoyable quick paced little exchange for a minute until the next wrestler enters.

Entrant #3: Eli Blu

This was the last Rumble to not play the entrance music when someone enters, and watching this you can really see why it was a good idea to start playing music during entrances as it helps with the crowd pop sometimes. Blu doesn’t really do much.

Entrant #4: Duke The Dumpster Droese

Shawn takes some bumps for The Dumpster and then sells a bear hug whilst Blu stomps away on Bulldog.

Entrant #5: Gigolo Jimmy Del Ray

Sadly Del Ray goes right for Blu and The Dumpster, thus robbing us of seeing him wrestle Shawn, although that does finally start happening, leading to Shawn teasing that he might be thrown out.

Entrant #6: Headshrinker Sione

Sione goes straight for Shawn, thus giving Shawn more chances to try and squirm his way out of an elimination, whilst Bulldog clotheslines Jimmy Del Ray into a graffiti character.

Jimmy Del Ray Eliminated by The British Bulldog (1)

Blu and Sione tease a mean guy fight, but Shawn then breaks that up. Sione would perhaps be better known as The Barbarian of the Powers of Pain/Faces of Fear depending on whether you watched wrestling in the late 80’s or late 90’s.

Entrant #7: The Doctor of Desire Tom Prichard

Prichard is Del Ray’s partner, he goes after Blu and doesn’t do much, whilst Sione keeps trying to throw Shawn out and Shawn keeps managing to avoid it.

Entrant #8: Doink The Clown

Ray Apollo is playing Doink tonight, and he goes straight after Sione, although Sione doesn’t really sell any of it. Prichard and Bulldog have a brief exchange but it doesn’t really lead to much.

Entrant #9: Kwang

Kwang would go on to be Savio Vega later in the year, but at this stage he’s still a mysterious masked martial artist. I believe you could unlock him on one of the Fourth Gen WWF video games. The highlight of this section is Doink clattering Shawn with a forearm smash and Shawn taking a big bump off of it.

Entrant #10: Rick The Model Martel

Martel had held the longevity record at one stage until Ric Flair took it from him in 1992. We’ve got 9 guys in there at the moment and we could do with some people getting thrown out.

Entrant #11: The King of Harts Owen Hart

Bret Hart rushes down to attack Owen during his entrance as revenge for earlier, giving the match the most heat it’s had all evening from the crowd. Bret looks great putting the beating on Owen and it’s a really good intense beat down. Owen of course sells it all spectacularly.

Entrant #12: Timothy Well

The crowd pops really loudly for Well, which makes me think they thought he was someone else. I actually thought it was Marty Jannetty at first so maybe they though it too? The pop could be for British Bulldog eliminating Owen just as he enters the ring though. Shawn also dumps The Dumpster not too soon after.

Owen Hart Eliminated by The British Bulldog (2)

Duke Droese Eliminated by Shawn Michaels (1)

Well is barely in there before he gets flung out by Bulldog, whilst Martel also gets an early night when Sione eliminates him. Dumping out guys like Dumpster and Well I can understand, but Martel was a seasoned pro who had been in quite a few Rumbles and him only getting about two minutes seems like a real waste. Shawn also throws out Dr. Tom, as we’ve had some quickfire eliminations there, which the match needed in all fairness.

Timothy Well Eliminated by The British Bulldog (3)

Rick Martel Eliminated by Sione (1)

Tom Prichard Eliminated by Shawn Michaels (2)

Sione back body drops Doink over the top following that, but Doink lands on the apron and lamps Sione, only to then be super kicked off the apron to the floor by Kwang to give us our next elimination.

Doink The Clown Eliminated by Kwang (1)

Entrant #13: Bushwhacker Luke

As Luke is making his way to the ring, Sione puts Kwang out and then both Blu and Sione eliminate each other in order to leave us with just Shawn and Bulldog again. Luke enters and tries to get involved, but he’s quickly thrown out by Shawn in order to keep the pace moving.

Kwang Eliminated by Sione (2)

Sione (3) and Eli Blu (1) Eliminate each other

Bushwhacker Luke Eliminated by Shawn Michaels (3)

Shawn chokes away on Bulldog following that, which was a clip Sky Sports used to make Shawn look good when he showed up to watch “The Blackburn Rovers” play against West Ham.

Entrant #14: Jacob Blu

So now we’ve got Shawn and Bullodg in there with a Blu twin, as I’m started to get deja-vu. Shawn quickly back body drops Jacob out though and we go back to Shawn Vs Bulldog, which continues to be good.

Jacob Blue Eliminated by Shawn Michaels (4)

Entrant #15: The Walking Condominium King Kong Bundy

Bundy goes straight for Bulldog whilst Shawn gets a bit of a breather and then stupidly tries to throw Bundy out, which goes about as well as you’d think.

Entrant #16: Mo

Mo very quickly gets dumped out by Bundy. Hardly worth getting dressed really.

Mo Eliminated by King Kong Bundy (1)

Bulldog tries to slam Bundy following that but Bundy blocks it whilst Vince ponders who could slam Bundy (Spoiler: it was The Undertaker at WrestleMania XI).

Entrant #17: Mabel

Mabel is just as big as Bundy, so they have the big man collision, with the crowd getting into it. It’s about on par with Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy going at it, with Mabel eventually managing to muscle Bundy over the top and eliminate him. Wow, I wasn’t expecting Mabel to make such easy work of Undertaker’s next big feud, but hey-ho.

King Kong Bundy Eliminated by Mabel (1)

Entrant #18: Bushwhacker Butch

Butch gets the same treatment as Luke, getting thrown out sharpish by Shawn Michaels

Bushwhacker Butch Eliminated by Shawn Michaels (5)

Mabel and Bulldog almost eliminate Shawn, but he manages to tangle himself on the ropes in such a way that he can hold on.

Entrant #19: Made in the USA Lex Luger

Luger runs wild on everyone and flings Mabel out to a good pop.

Mabel Eliminated by Lex Luger (1)

Luger looks great here actually, showing some good intensity and getting himself over with the crowd.

Entrant #20: Mantaur

Mantaur was part-man part-bull (well, part bull-$hit at least) but he looks decent enough as he runs wild on Shawn.

Entrant #21: The Portuguese Man O’ War Aldo Montoya

Montoya would go on to become Justin Credible in ECW, but he could never fully wash the stink of this gimmick off of him. Montoya was mostly an enhancement talent whose primary role seemed to be to make a Heel look good when they were due to fight an actually over babyface on an upcoming pay per view.

Entrant #22: Henry O’ Godwinn

Henry clobbers Bulldog and that leads to Luger clobbering him, whilst the camera focuses on a bored looking Pam Anderson.

Entrant #23: Billy Gunn

Gunn does his trademark long slide into the ring and goes straight for Mantaur, whilst Shawn has a fun mini-match with Montoya on the other side of the ring. Bulldog and Luger appear to be working together here.

Entrant #24: Bart Gunn

Mantaur is actually one of the most impressive guys in there thus far, as he’s actually quite a believable hefty slugger. If they’d actually given him a gimmick that didn’t suck then he might have had a chance of getting over as budget Vader-type worker.

Entrant #25: Mr. Bob Backlund

Bret makes another appearance here to start clobbering Backlund as revenge for earlier in the night. This might be one of my favourite recurring gags in a Rumble match actually!

Entrant #26: Steven Dunn

Dunn is Timothy Well’s partner (Well-Dunn, get it?) and he doesn’t do much whilst Luger eliminates Backlund

Bob Backlund Eliminated by Lex Luger (2)

Bret continues to attack Backlund in the aisle whilst agents try to separate them.

Entrant #27: Captain Redneck Dick Murdoch

Murdoch was a former tag team partner of Dusty Rhodes and Adrian Adonis, and was highly regarded as an in-ring performer. He apparently harboured some questionable views on race relations though, so that has sullied his reputation somewhat. He looks good whilst he’s in there though and he actually gets kind of over as the match wears on too. The ring is getting a bit full again so I expect we’ll have another clear out soon.

Entrant #28: Adam Bomb

I think Adam Bomb was a babyface at this stage after initially entering the promotion as a Heel. He would go on to be Wrath in WCW as part of their Blood Runs Cold division. Mantaur decides to mix it up with Lex Luger, but Bomb rescues Luger from elimination.

Entrant #29: Headshrinker Fatu

Fatu would end up becoming Rikishi and he trades some nice punches with William Gunn. Luger makes Mantaur find out for messing around by using the bounciness of the ropes to leverage Mantaur out to the floor. Whisper it, but Mantaur actually looked quite good whilst he was in there. Does admitting that mean I now have to have my IWC card revoked?

Entrant #30: Crush

Crush’s first act is to dump out both of The Gunns, whilst Aldo Montoya actually gets to eliminate someone when he back body drops Dunn out of the ring.

The Smoking Gunns Eliminated by Crush (2)

Steven Dunn Eliminated by Aldo Montoya (1)

KroniK EXPLODES next, with Crush and Adam Bomb going at it in the corner., and it’s okay. Montoya and Luger do a little bit in the corner, with Montoya’s work looking good. It’s a shame they saddled poor PJ Polaco with such a loser gimmick as he was a solid in-ring performer. Murdoch’s strikes look really good, as he clobbers Fatu, only to mistakenly try and head butt his Samoan opponent, which goes about as well as you’d expect for him. Crush ends up winning the battle of the future KroniK team members by dumping Bomb.

Adam Bomb Eliminated by Crush (3)

Shawn gets another elimination by ending Montoya’s night, but almost gets eliminated himself by Murdoch, although Luger breaks that up for some reason.

Aldo Montoya Eliminated by Shawn Michaels (6)

Crush and Fatu are having their own private war in there, with Crush eventually flinging Fatu out.

Headshrinker Fatu Eliminated by Crush (4)

Murdoch gets the old aeroplane spin on Henry in the age old battle of redneck Vs hillbilly, but Muroch ends up making himself so dizzy that he ends up stumbling out over the top whilst Henry manages to hold on.

Dick Murdoch Eliminates Himself

So amazingly Henry O. Godwinn has found himself in the Final Five of this match, and he promptly holds Luger so that Shawn can unload on him with punches. The three Heels of Shawn, Henry and Crush appear to be working together, but that doesn’t help Henry O. as Luger manages to knock him out of the ring to leave us with four.

Henry O. Godwinn Eliminated by Lex Luger (3)

Shawn and Crush continue to work together, with them trying to put Luger out, but Luger manages to keep holding on and fight back. Luger gets a good reaction for fighting back, but he stupidly goes for a ten punch on Crush and that allows Shawn to knock him to the floor.

Lex Luger Eliminated by Shawn Michaels (7) and Crush (5)

Shawn and Crush have some joy working Bulldog over, but Crush ends up turning on Shawn and that leads to Shawn going to the eyes so that Bulldog can clothesline Crush out.

Crush Eliminated by The British Bulldog (4)

So now we’re left with the first two that started, which was the first time something like that had happened in a Rumble match, and the crowd reacts big realising what has happened. The crowd is mightily into the action, popping big at the elimination teases, especially with Shawn’s incredible selling. Bulldog looks to have thrown Shawn out, but only one of Shawn’s feet touched the floor, so Shawn throws out Bulldog whilst Bulldog is celebrating (complete with his music playing whilst he celebrated) and thus the winner of Royal Rumble 1995 is Shawn Michaels!

WINNER: SHAWN MICHAELS
MOST ELIMINATIONS: SHAWN MICHAELS (8)
RATING: ***

Thoughts: Well, I wasn’t bored at any stage, so there’s that at least. In all honesty, the shortened intervals didn’t really do too much harm to this as it’s not like the WWF had a stacked roster at the time, although it did lead to the ring filling up a lot quicker than usual. The Final Four ended up being the four most likely to win, with the final three being entrants 1, 2 and 30 respectively, which isn’t something you see all the time. I believe the next time they did that was in 2006 with Triple H, Rey Mysterio Jr and Randy Orton. Shawn Michaels was great in this of course, with Lex Luger and Crush also looking good. Bulldog was knackered by the the time the end of the match came along, but Shawn bumped for a thousand men in order to make that final section entertaining

As for the under card/guest stars; Murdoch entered a solid performance whilst both Mantaur and Aldo Montoya actually looked quite good in there despite their loser gimmicks, which makes you think that if they’d been given better characters then they might have been reasonable additions to the mid-card. Sione got a bit of a mini-push by getting a couple of eliminations and being able to look competitive, with Fatu looking okay later on as well, although not much became of the new Headshrinker unit. Despite being Undertaker’s WrestleMania dance partner, they didn’t really do that much to protect King Kong Bundy here, with Mabel dispatching him rather easily in the battle of the big blokes. Overall there have been better Rumbles, but what we got here was mostly fine and the sections with Shawn going at it with the likes of Luger and Bulldog bump it up to a “good” rating for me

Shawn celebrates with Pam Anderson following that, with Pam seemingly being into it at first, although by the time WrestleMania rolled around they would be at odds with one another.

In Conclusion

I still find this to be an enjoyable show and a pretty easy watch. Only one match isn’t that good (IRS/Taker) whilst the rest of the card ranges from decent (Tag Title Match) to good (Rumble) to great (IC Title) to excellent (WWF Title). For a five match card that isn’t a bad return. The WWF was in the doldrums at the time, with WrestleMania XI ending up being a pretty lousy event, but Royal Rumble 1995 is a really good show and an easy thumbs up from me.

Recommended show!!