Mike Reviews: WWF King of the Ring 1997

Happy Royal Friday Everyone!

King of the Ring 1997 is the first WWE show that I’m watching on Netflix, so let’s see how the viewing experience is. I haven’t ever watched this show all the way through, so I thought I would give it a full viewing now.

Originally King of the Ring 1997 was supposed to feature a Shawn Michaels Vs Bret Hart match, but then they were not getting along at the time (and in fact had a scuffle backstage for real the day after King of the Ring) and the card was moved around, with Shawn now taking on Steve Austin.

Elsewhere we’ve got the King of the Ring tournament itself, with Triple H, Mankind, Jerry Lawler and Ahmed Johnson all going for the crown. Undertaker also defends the WWF Title in the Main Event against Faarooq.

You can view the full card for King of the Ring by clicking below;

WWF King of the Ring 1997 Card

King of the Ring is emanating from Providence, Rhode Island on the 8th of June 1997

Calling the action are Vince McMahon and Jim Ross

Opening Match
King of the Ring Semi-Final
Hunter Hearst Helmsley w/ Chyna Vs Ahmed Johnson

Tri was of course supposed to win in 1996 until he got punished for the Curtain Call incident. Ahmed had been on the pathway to superstardom until injuries and a poor attitude slowed down his momentum. Ahmed had actually already defeated HHH in a previous round, but Tri got a second bite of the cherry and now he’s made it to the King of the Ring pay per view and has a shot at claiming the crown. The commentary team basically gives the game away by saying that Ahmed is the clear favourite to win the tournament, which is commentator speak for “this feller ain’t winning no tournament neighbour”. This one does have some good crowd reactions at least though due to the crowd liking Ahmed.

The match itself tells a decent story, with HHH being overpowered and thrown around in a fair fight and needing to use intelligence and nefarious tactics in order to have a chance. Ahmed is essentially playing the Goldberg role, and thankfully he manages not to accidentally kill Hunter with any of his customary sloppy and/or overly stiff offence. Ahmed’s babyface shine consists of clotheslines and power moves, with Hunter eventually managing to cut Ahmed off and work some heat. Ahmed does the Hulk Up, leading to them screwing up a move of some kind where their timing is way off.

I think Ahmed was going for a Spine Buster but he was too early, as it looked like they were setting up for it and Tri didn’t go up because it wasn’t time. Ahmed does eventually get the Spine Buster after bumping HHH around a few more times, which leads to Chyna distracting Ahmed so that HHH can attack the Big Johnson from behind and follow-up with a Pedigree for three. Because even when he’s outmatched physically against a monster babyface, Triple H still has to hit his finisher and win semi-clean, because Triple H.

WINNER: TRIPLE H
RATING: *3/4

Thoughts: Outside of the horrid botch with the first Spine Buster, this was basically fine. Ahmed did his power stuff successfully without killing anyone, HHH took some nice bumps, and the crowd seemed to enjoy it until the finish totally took the air out of their sails

Ahmed doesn’t really bother selling the Pedigree that much and quickly gets up in order to chase the Heels away. Normally I’d complain about something like that, but there was zero need for HHH to win that match with his finisher when a dodgy trunks assisted roll-up would have served just fine, so Ahmed no selling the Pedigree seems like fair recompense for the big man.

Match Two
King of the Ring Semi-Final
Jerry “The King” Lawler Vs Mankind

Lawler went on a classic Heel Memphis run in an effort to claim the crown, whilst Mankind was gradually turning babyface due to some well done personality pieces on him combined with his desire to be friends with Steve Austin. Lawler and Mankind had a confrontation on the previous edition of Raw when Mankind won his Quarter Final match over Savio Vega. Mankind cuts a promo before the match, and he is sad that his former manager, Paul Bearer, is more interested in managing Undertaker right now. Mankind then goes on a fantastic rambling promo about what kind of king he’ll be if he win, which of course involves references to nudity. The crowd enjoys it though, and Vince McMahon laughs riotously on commentary, so you know that the WWF machine was getting behind Mick Foley at the time.

Lawler then does his own pre-match promo, which involves him walking down to the ring with the microphone and insulting the crowd in hilarious fashion before then directing his ire towards Mankind. Once the match starts, it’s mostly based around character work, so it’s entertaining but there’s not the sort of bout you’re going to want to watch if you’re looking for crisp technical wrestling. Mankind gets the better of the early exchanges until Lawler uses the dreaded “hidden weapon that probably doesn’t exist, but Lawler sells it really well so you believe that it might actually exist after all” spot in order to take control. Mankind sells well whilst on the defensive and Lawler mostly sticks to punches and crowd work, and he’s good at both of those.

Mankind of course makes sure to take some sickening bumps, both into the ring steps and the metal railings at ringside. That leads to a Piledriver on the floor, which would be grounds to call a priest for last rites back in Mempho, but in the WWF it’s just a count out tease. Mankind eventually starts fighting back, and the crowd responds well to that, mainly because Mankind is the last hope for them to see a babyface winner of the King of the Ring tournament this year. We sadly get one spot where the timing is off between them, which leads to Lawler getting a pretty rough looking neck breaker at one stage. They power on through it though, with Mankind catching Lawler in the Mandible Claw OUTTA NOWHERE for the victory and a decent pop from the crowd.

WINNER: MANKIND
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: This was a bit of a clash of styles, but it was mostly fun outside of that one jarring botched move towards the end. Mankind sold well and Lawler was in full Memphis coward villain pomp, so there was plenty to be entertained by here, even if the wrestling itself didn’t always live up to the character work

Todd Pettengill is interviewing Loose Cannon Brian Pillman backstage in the locker room. Pillman takes responsibility for getting Stone Cold and Shawn Michaels to fight tonight. Speak of the devil, that leads to Stone Cold attacking Pillman from behind and shoving him face first into a toilet, complete with the rarely seen “Swerly-cam”. That was a fun segment, with both Pillman and Austin doing some fantastic facial expressions throughout.

Match Three
Crush w/ Clarence Mason and D-Lo Brown Vs Goldust w/ Marlena

Crush was on his way to being chucked out of the Nation of Domination due to poor performances, whilst Goldust had been feuding on and off with the group for a few months. Goldust actually gets a decent babyface pop for his entrance, which is interesting to see as it had taken a while for fans to really buy into him in that role after months of trying. This one is mostly punching and playing to the crowd, but the crowd likes Goldust and doesn’t like Crush, so that works well enough for the most part. A really long and boring rest hold from Crush slows things down a bit and pretty much takes a wrecking ball to any momentum the match was building, but Goldust does his utmost to get the crowd to clap for him, and eventually he manages it. Never let it be said that Dustin Rhodes isn’t one heck of a babyface. Goldust survives another rest hold and makes the comeback, which leads to D-Lo and Mason harassing Marlena at ringside. Goldust heads out to put a stop to that, but that leads to Crush attacking Goldust to seemingly set Crush up for the win. However, Goldust manages to catch Crush with a DDT and that’s the three count.

WINNER: GOLDUST
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: This one started out okay, but then Crush bored the crowd with a series of rest holds and the bout just never got back on track. Goldust was a decent babyface, but at times he was trying to get the crowd going from a standing start, and that’s always going to be difficult. The crowd did at least give Goldust a decent pop when he got the three count though

Goldust and Marlena are all lovey-dovey following the match, but they’d no longer be an on-screen couple by the end of 1997 and I don’t think they lasted much longer in real-life either.

Michael Hayes is interviewing The Road Warriors and Sycho Sid backstage. Lots of yelling takes place, but they seem to be on the same page enough to win tonight.

Todd Pettengill is interviewing Davey Boy Smith, Owen Hart and Jim Neidhart. They say they will win the upcoming match, because they’re family and Neidhart might even be crazier than Sid!

Match Four
The Hart Foundation (Intercontinental Champ Owen Hart, European Champ Davey Boy Smith and Jim Neidhart) Vs The Road Warriors (Hawk and Animal) and Sycho Sid

The Hart’s had cheated The Roadie’s out of the Tag Titles back in April, so this is the latter’s chance at some revenge here. Owen in particular was really on a role during this period with the shorter hair and the slightly harder edge than he’d had previously, and it felt like he was on his way to an upper card position, but then The Owen Driver happened and he never really bounced back from it. Sid is of course ludicrously over here, despite being so bad at wrestling that if he tried to wrestle his way out of a paper bag then the bag would squash him. All of the babyface team are pretty rough in this one actually, with Animal probably being the best of them, but Owen basically wrestles himself at points in order to try and make them look good, and he almost succeeds.

Davey Boy of course comes in for some impressive power spots at points, but Sid pops up from a hanging suplex and the crowd utterly LOSES it. Man, this crowd have been awesome for the most part so far on King of the Ring! Anvil and Hawk have a No-Sell-off at one stage, with neither really being willing to budge until Hawk is able to come off the top with a clothesline, which is enough for Anvil to generously decide to bump. The crowd just keeps chanting for Sid throughout, but sadly for them I think Sid was gone after this and didn’t show up in the WWF again until years later when he came in to squash Heath Slater. Anvil eventually manages to clock Animal with a chair when the ref isn’t looking, and because Animal is actually willing to sell a little bit, that gives us the heat segment.

Animal does manage to knock Davey down at one stage and has a clear route to tagging out, but apparently this car crash of a match has to keep going, so Animal instead decides to head up top for some reason and that leads to him getting suplexed back down and the heat segment continuing. No fair, I wanted the hot tag, at least then we could get closer to this match finally being over! The crowd just keeps wanting to see Sid, so when Hawk gets the hot tag they don’t really care, and Hawk doesn’t even get to make much of a comeback for the babyfaces anyway, as he is soon cut off and worked over as well. Did they make the tag early or something there and they had to ad-lib another quickie heat segment on Hawk? Sid does eventually get the tag, and the crowd goes ape as expected. Sid looks to have Davey all set up for a Powerbomb, but Owen comes off the top with the world’s sloppiest Sunset Flip and that’s enough for three.

WINNERS: THE HART FOUNDATION
RATING: 1/2*

Thoughts: I’m honestly amazed that this match was as bad as it was when you consider the talent involved within it. Owen Hart was the only in there who even approached having a decent performance, and even then he messed up the finish! Hawk and Davey looked like they were sleepwalking through the bout, Anvil was trying, but he’s Anvil, and Sid was inexplicably more popular than when the machinery breaks down at the local bakery and they give away all of the iced buns for free, but he was still utterly atrocious once he got into the ring. I almost have to recommend this one because it was SO awful that it should be studied

We get clips of Stone Cold Steve Austin winning King of the Ring the previous year, although they dub in his current theme instead of the Ringmaster one he was using at the time.

Todd Pettengill interviews Mankind, who says he doesn’t feel like a million bucks, but Triple H better be willing to run Mankind over with a train, because it’s the only way Tri will be King of the Ring tonight.

Match Five
King of the Ring Final
Hunter Hearst Helmsley w/ Chyna Vs Mankind

This was the beginning of a many months long feud between the two. Right now the next two matches need to at least be decent or we might be looking at King of the Ring slipping into stinker territory. These two work best when they get in there and brawl with one another, but they actually start this one out with a more wrestling based slow build, working holds and the like. Jim Ross makes a quip about whether Hunter has ever tried to buy the WWF, and it turned out he didn’t need to when all was said and done. This one actually feels a bit flat compared to their usual standard of match together, but they had some cracking outings in 1997 and 2000 so the bar has been exceptionally high when it comes to a Tri Vs Foley contest, perhaps unfairly so. Everything they do looks good here, with both of them selling well for the other, but it feels like it takes quite a while to get going and the crowd just isn’t getting into it, which is surprising when you consider that they’ve mostly been quite receptive during the other bouts, even when they’ve been outright stinkers like the 6 Man tag.

The story they eventually settle into is that Mankind took a beating in the Semi-Final and his noggin is slowly going from yellow to red on the health bar, with HHH showing a bit of a harder edge by targeting the injury, whilst Chyna gets some shots in when she can in order to stack the deck even further against Mick Foley. Everyone plays their allotted part well enough, but the match is a probably a bit too long at 20 minutes and the crowd never really bites, even though the work is decent and the story they’re telling makes sense. Mankind eventually manages to bust out two high impact moves in a row, the elbow off the apron and the Double Arm DDT, but Chyna distracts the referee and that gives Tri enough time to kick out. Mankind catches HHHH with the Mandible Claw OUTTA NOWHERE following that, and that finally wakes the crowd up, but Chyna again saves her boss by dragging Mankind out of the ring whilst the referee is distracted checking if Hunter is going to tap out.

They at least have the crowd invested now, which makes me think that if they’d shortened the run time and upped the pace then they might have had better luck with getting the crowd to care about the contest. Mankind manages to fire off a Cactus Clothesline to send he and HHH out of the ring, but Chyna drags Tri out of the way when Mankind tries a diving move off the apron, and that leads to Mankind crashing into the metal railings and essentially ending his night. HHH adds a Pedigree onto the English commentary table and then Chyna clocks Mankind with the sceptre when the ref isn’t looking. Mankind adds in a Nestea Plunge off the apron down to the floor when Tri clocks him, and the Pedigree back inside the ring FINALLY ends it for Triple H after Mankind gets one last kick out following the Plunge in order to give the crowd some hope first and get him over as an insane tough madman before doing the clean job. That’s just Mick Foley’s career in a nutshell huh?

WINNER: TRIPLE H
RATING: **3/4

Thoughts: I think if they chopped 5-8 minutes out of that and went right into the “Mankind’s head is ruined and he’s barely holding on” story then it would have worked better. They had the idea for a good dramatic match, but the execution wasn’t quite there, and the longish run time didn’t help with that. Once they went into Mankind taking ridiculous bumps and Chyna getting involved, the crowd got into it and the last 5 minutes or so were a combination of good action and strong storytelling. Sadly the first 15 minutes dragged it down a bit, hence the rating, but the match wasn’t even approaching “bad” and was almost knocking on the door of “good”

Triple H and Chyna beatdown Mankind following the match in order to keep this feud going, leading to two very enjoyable matches at the next two pay per view events.

We get a video package for the next match.

The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Davey Boy Smith, Brian Pillman and Jim Neidhart) join us for some promo time ahead of the next match, as Bret is supposedly here to do commentary. The gist is that Bret’s injury is healing up, so soon he’ll be dishing out some payback to people he doesn’t like. Pillman keeps mugging for the camera, and Bret even looks annoyed by it at one stage. We get a challenge laid down for a ten man tag at the next pay per view, which ended up being a heck of a match. This wasn’t one of Bret’s best promo’s from 1997, but it set the table for a big match and established that The Hart’s are in the building tonight.

Michael Hayes is interviewing Stone Cold Steve Austin backstage. Austin says that he doesn’t want to cripple Shawn Michaels tonight, because then Austin will have to give up his half of the Tag Titles, but he will beat Shawn up tonight in order to show him who the real captain of the team is. This was a quick promo that did the job it needed to.

Co-Main
Tag Team Champions Collide
“The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels Vs “Stone Cold” Steve Austin

Shawn and Austin had won the tag belts but still didn’t like one another, hence we have a match between them here. In reality we were supposed to be getting Bret Hart Vs Shawn Michaels in a 10 minute time limit match with a gaggle of whacky stipulations attached to it, but Bret and Shawn were NOT getting on at the time and Bret wasn’t really at 100% yet physically following a knee injury, so they subbed in Stone Cold instead to do the “Tag Partners who don’t like one another but still somehow manage to win the Tag belts” shtick here instead (You can tell that ECW was having an influence on the product at the time with one of Paul Heyman’s favourite storyline tropes rearing it’s head).

A gaggle of road agents and other warm bodies come down to get The Hart Foundation to leave before the match starts, meaning that Bret doesn’t get to sit in on commentary in the end. Austin jaws with The Hart’s on his way to the ring, whilst Shawn doesn’t interact with them but he looks a little bit distracted tonight and not really in to this. There’s a notable bit before the match really kicks in where a young lad with special needs ends up at ringside somehow, which leads to Shawn helping the youngster to the back. According to the commentary team that was a Special Olympian, although I don’t know if that was actually the case or if the commentary team was just making something up in order to cover for it. Shawn dealt with that reasonably well if it wasn’t part of the plan at least, and it’s interesting to see this version of Shawn not being a total douche, which Shawn could normally be capable of before he found religion.

The action in this one is really good, with some nice back and forth wrestling between the two. The crowd gets into the wrestling, with neither wrestler really getting booed. Austin is the more aggressive of the two when it comes to striking etc, but Shawn is more than happy to hold up his end of things in that domain as well, although Shawn mostly focuses on using holds and quick counters. It’s a good example of two wrestlers making a styles clash work, as they play the difference in styles into the story of the bout, with things simmering and building gradually so that you want to see things really explode, even though that then means that the Tag Champs will be playing into the hands of the Heels by tearing one another apart rather than just focusing on having a cleaner more scientific bout. Austin’s neck wasn’t destroyed by the Owen Driver yet, so he’s able to take a bunch of quickfire bumps that you wouldn’t really see him taking once his neck got wrecked and he was more of a walk around brawler.

The women in the crowd are certainly more into Shawn, and shriek whenever he’s in control or looks to be in some kind of serious jeopardy. Shawn of course takes some trademark big bumps in the match, such as when Austin LAUNCHES Shawn over the top to the floor at one stage. Austin actually reveals the concrete at ringside after moving the mats, as Austin looks like he might just try to cripple his tag partner after all. Austin does get some boos for throwing Shawn onto the concrete, but he still mostly gets cheers. Shawn times his flurries and comeback attempts perfectly, with him never really staying dead for a prolonged period of time. It’s a good example of the old Ricky Steamboat method of either doing something, or at least trying to do something, when you’re getting worked over so that the crowd never really loses faith in you. Case in point; Austin puts Shawn in a chinlock at one stage, which could normally be an excuse to just rest up and lie around for a bit, but Shawn kicks his legs and makes it look like he’s trying to get out of the hold, which turns it from a rest hold into a working hold. Austin adds to that by trying to put his feet on the ropes for extra leverage, but referee Tim White eventually catches Austin and that leads into Shawn being able to fight back once the hold is broken.

The women in the crowd totally LOSE IT once Shawn starts making the proper comeback, complete with running forearm and inverted Atomic Drop, but then Shawn misses a charge in the corner and the Austin fans in the crowd LOVE that and react accordingly. The crowd reactions for this one have been fantastic, with the women getting VERY excited when Shawn’s tights get pulled down a little bit. It’s like how crowds would get in the 1980’s when The Rock ‘N’ Roll Express were at their peak. Few wrestlers have been as beloved by women (and I’m sure some of the men to, although I’m guessing they wouldn’t be vocalising it in such a way back in 1997) as Shawn Michaels was, and I get it, the dude had the looks. He’s no Apostolos Vellios mind you, but he was a handsome chap back in 1997, no doubt. Sadly the match doesn’t end up having a pin fall finish, as Tim White gets bumped and misses a potential winning pin fall for both competitors, which earns him a Stunner from Austin. Replacement referee Mike Chioda is more interested in checking on White, which earns him a Superkick from Shawn, and that leads to Earl Hebner running down and stopping the fight like he’s Butters in that episode of South Park.

DOUBLE DQ
RATING: ***3/4

Thoughts: This was a really good match with a terrible finish that went over about as well as a fart in church. I guess neither of them could have jobbed, but this is a rare instance where I might have preferred the “nWo Finish” with The Hart Foundation running in, as it wouldn’t have been as lame as the way they did the Double DQ here. Still though, the wrestling was really good and it makes me sad that Shawn had a destroyed back and Austin had a destroyed neck when they wrestled again at WrestleMania XIV, as based off of this contest they might have genuinely had a chance to have the best WrestleMania Main Event ever

Austin and Shawn argue following the match, but then both agree that Earl Hebner is a jerk and that they’ll call a truce for the time being. That was really well done at least, with them both leaving side by side because they don’t want the other getting a chance to get the drop on them. Crappy finish to the match itself, but the angle at the end redeemed it somewhat.

Main Event
WWF Title
Champ: The Undertaker w/ Paul Bearer Vs Faarooq w/ Clarence Mason, Crush, D-Lo Brown and Savio Vega

The story here was that Bearer was blackmailing Taker into taking him on as his manager again, due to knowing a devastating secret of some kind. That secret ended up being that Kane was still alive I believe. Faarooq has little sympathy for Taker and declares in the pre-match interview that the only blackmail Taker has to worry about is “this one right here”. I don’t want to be seen as encouraging a race baiting Pro Wrestling storyline, but I will concede that that’s a bad ass line from Faarooq right there.

The Nation consisted of Faarooq, Crush and Savio Vega around this time along with a crew of mostly unnamed additional lackeys, one of which one was D-Lo Brown. They had been having some problems in the build up to this show and eventually the group would fragment to set up the much loathed “Gang Warz” that rumbled on throughout the second half of 1997. Taker was doing the much more impressive explosion raising of the lights during this period, but they stopped doing that in 1998 and went back to him slowly raising them again. I definitely recall the explosion going off in Taker’s face once, which probably led to them understandably dropping it in favour of the safer version. Faarooq jumps Taker whilst he squabbles with Bearer, but Taker fights back and shines on Faarooq with punches.

Bearer keeps barking instructions, which actually causes more harm than good for Taker by distracting him and allowing Faarooq to attack him. That Nation makes sure to get their licks in when the opportunity presents itself, which leads to Taker diving off the top rope onto them in an impressive spot. There are so many Nation members though that Taker can’t take them all out and they are eventually to crotch him on the top rope when he tries to go for Old School on Faarooq.

Faarooq tries to hit Taker with the ring steps outside the ring, but Taker kicks them into his face to put a stop on that. This hasn’t been a bad match so far. It’s been mostly slugging and power moves, but those matches have their place and the crowd is in to Taker, so it’s been watchable. The only thing that could drag it down is if the heat starts to drag. They’ve kept it relatively back and forth thus far and that’s worked out well, as it’s allowed the match to ebb and flow a bit.

Faarooq does eventually slow things down by working a long chin lock, which Taker manages to fight out of but he can’t get any momentum going as he always misses an attempt at a follow up move. Thankfully for him though The Nation continues its issues by squabbling at ring side, which distracts Faarooq and allows Undertaker to catch him with a Tombstone Piledriver for the three count.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: THE UNDERTAKER
RATING: **

Thoughts: This one needed a proper Undertaker comeback, as the heat had started to drag and the crowd needed something to get them back up again. It was an okay match but was lacking in certain areas and the out of nowhere style win for Taker didn’t really work for me at all

Post-match Bearer demands that Taker keep beating up Faarooq. Taker reluctantly complies, which leads to former Faarooq enemy Ahmed Johnson coming down to try and talk Taker out of it. That doesn’t go so well, so Ahmed drops the WWF Champ with a Pearl River Plunge to tease his eventual joining of Faarooq’s new and improved Nation.

In Conclusion

You could really feel the ECW elements creeping into the WWF’s product during this timeframe. Everything just felt a little edgier, and even a bit grimier too. I don’t know if that was an intentional thing on the WWF’s part or if it was more of a budgetary thing, but everything here felt kind of dark and even a bit dirty. It could just be that the building they were holding King of the Ring in was a bit of a hole, but everything from the entrance way to the backstage interview area to the locker rooms just felt dark, gloomy and bit unkempt. You might even say the product had a notable “Attitude” to it…

Shawn Vs Austin was good enough that I wouldn’t call King of the Ring 1997 a Stinker or anything, but I wouldn’t say it’s a show you desperately need to watch either. The Cold Day in Hell show that came before it has a fun Vader Vs Shamrock UWFi styled match on it, as well as a solid Austin Vs Undertaker bout, whilst Canadian Stampede is one of the best shows the WWF ever put on, so I would recommend checking out either of those shows if you want to watch a pay per view from the Spring/Summer of 1997. Not a terrible show, but not a particularly good one either.

Not recommended