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After re-watching the Haku/Race match from the ’90 Rumble (as reviewed by ’12 Scott Keith), I realized that at least 5 wrestlers have used “The Great Gate of Kiev” as a theme song: Race, Haku, Duggan, Savage and Lawler.  What other songs can you think of that have been recycled?  I can name the following:
Generic Japanese Song (WWF): Orient Express, Bull Nakano and Aja Kong
Real American (WWF): Hogan, Orndorff, Patterson/Brisco and the US Express
Generic Metal Song: Blitzkrieg, Bunkhouse Buck
This list must be incomplete.

Yeah, WCW used to recycle the shit out of their music.  The Hollywood Blondes theme became Austin’s theme, and then became Greg Valentine’s and a few others.  WWE famously turned the Patriot’s song into Kurt Angle’s.  The Hardy Boyz and Holly Cousins’ music are both public domain pieces that were kicking around for years before and can generally be heard on Spike TV’s commercials among other places.  Both are generally used in those “World’s Wildest Police Chases” shows.  There’s many, MANY other examples, though, because it’s an easy way to save money in the days before selling songs on Itunes became yet another revenue stream. 

After re-watching the Haku/Race match from the ’90 Rumble (as reviewed by ’12 Scott Keith), I realized that at least 5 wrestlers have used “The Great Gate of Kiev” as a theme song: Race, Haku, Duggan, Savage and Lawler.  What other songs can you think of that have been recycled?  I can name the following:
Generic Japanese Song (WWF): Orient Express, Bull Nakano and Aja Kong
Real American (WWF): Hogan, Orndorff, Patterson/Brisco and the US Express
Generic Metal Song: Blitzkrieg, Bunkhouse Buck
This list must be incomplete.

Yeah, WCW used to recycle the shit out of their music.  The Hollywood Blondes theme became Austin’s theme, and then became Greg Valentine’s and a few others.  WWE famously turned the Patriot’s song into Kurt Angle’s.  The Hardy Boyz and Holly Cousins’ music are both public domain pieces that were kicking around for years before and can generally be heard on Spike TV’s commercials among other places.  Both are generally used in those “World’s Wildest Police Chases” shows.  There’s many, MANY other examples, though, because it’s an easy way to save money in the days before selling songs on Itunes became yet another revenue stream. 

After re-watching the Haku/Race match from the ’90 Rumble (as reviewed by ’12 Scott Keith), I realized that at least 5 wrestlers have used “The Great Gate of Kiev” as a theme song: Race, Haku, Duggan, Savage and Lawler.  What other songs can you think of that have been recycled?  I can name the following:
Generic Japanese Song (WWF): Orient Express, Bull Nakano and Aja Kong
Real American (WWF): Hogan, Orndorff, Patterson/Brisco and the US Express
Generic Metal Song: Blitzkrieg, Bunkhouse Buck
This list must be incomplete.

Yeah, WCW used to recycle the shit out of their music.  The Hollywood Blondes theme became Austin’s theme, and then became Greg Valentine’s and a few others.  WWE famously turned the Patriot’s song into Kurt Angle’s.  The Hardy Boyz and Holly Cousins’ music are both public domain pieces that were kicking around for years before and can generally be heard on Spike TV’s commercials among other places.  Both are generally used in those “World’s Wildest Police Chases” shows.  There’s many, MANY other examples, though, because it’s an easy way to save money in the days before selling songs on Itunes became yet another revenue stream. 

After re-watching the Haku/Race match from the ’90 Rumble (as reviewed by ’12 Scott Keith), I realized that at least 5 wrestlers have used “The Great Gate of Kiev” as a theme song: Race, Haku, Duggan, Savage and Lawler.  What other songs can you think of that have been recycled?  I can name the following:
Generic Japanese Song (WWF): Orient Express, Bull Nakano and Aja Kong
Real American (WWF): Hogan, Orndorff, Patterson/Brisco and the US Express
Generic Metal Song: Blitzkrieg, Bunkhouse Buck
This list must be incomplete.

Yeah, WCW used to recycle the shit out of their music.  The Hollywood Blondes theme became Austin’s theme, and then became Greg Valentine’s and a few others.  WWE famously turned the Patriot’s song into Kurt Angle’s.  The Hardy Boyz and Holly Cousins’ music are both public domain pieces that were kicking around for years before and can generally be heard on Spike TV’s commercials among other places.  Both are generally used in those “World’s Wildest Police Chases” shows.  There’s many, MANY other examples, though, because it’s an easy way to save money in the days before selling songs on Itunes became yet another revenue stream. 

After re-watching the Haku/Race match from the ’90 Rumble (as reviewed by ’12 Scott Keith), I realized that at least 5 wrestlers have used “The Great Gate of Kiev” as a theme song: Race, Haku, Duggan, Savage and Lawler.  What other songs can you think of that have been recycled?  I can name the following:
Generic Japanese Song (WWF): Orient Express, Bull Nakano and Aja Kong
Real American (WWF): Hogan, Orndorff, Patterson/Brisco and the US Express
Generic Metal Song: Blitzkrieg, Bunkhouse Buck
This list must be incomplete.

Yeah, WCW used to recycle the shit out of their music.  The Hollywood Blondes theme became Austin’s theme, and then became Greg Valentine’s and a few others.  WWE famously turned the Patriot’s song into Kurt Angle’s.  The Hardy Boyz and Holly Cousins’ music are both public domain pieces that were kicking around for years before and can generally be heard on Spike TV’s commercials among other places.  Both are generally used in those “World’s Wildest Police Chases” shows.  There’s many, MANY other examples, though, because it’s an easy way to save money in the days before selling songs on Itunes became yet another revenue stream. 

The Netcop Retro Rant for Royal Rumble 1990. – Live from Orlando, Florida. – Your hosts are Tony Skee-A-Vone and the Governor of Minnesota.– Opening match: The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers v. The Bushwhackers. Jacques is sporting a beard here. The Rougeaus were basically retired at this point and this is a one-shot comeback to put over the Sheepwhackers. We get the SEVEN MINUTE STALL OF DOOM to start, then a comedy segment as the Rougeau’s tactics backfire and the ‘Whackers start biting people in the ass. That beard really doesn’t work on Jacques. And the Rougeaus are being made to look like idiots, with all the heel tactics going wrong. More stalling. But alas, Luke gets caught in the corner and choked out. More stalling. Sadly, I can tell that the Rougeaus are dogging it, but I can’t tell if the Sheepwhackers are trying or if they just suck that bad. (2012 Scott sez:  They suck that bad.)  Luke takes a couple of decent bumps to bring it out of negative stars. You know the heels have it in neutral when Raymond forgoes the savate kick-abdominal stretch double-team in favor of simply punching the guy. Luke makes the hot tag to Butch, and Jacques bumps like a madman (hoping to win a singles push, I’d guess). Jimmy Hart gets involved and allows the Rougeaus a comeback. But while Raymond comforts Jacques after a bump, the Bushwhackers hit the battering ram and get the pin. Ugly comedy match. DUD – Mean Gene accuses Dibiase of rigging the draw in 1989, and then the hand of irony interjects itself as Dibiase reveals that he drew #1 this year. Wow, continuity and stuff. (2012 Scott sez:  These days I can barely remember who WON the Rumble the year before.)  – The Genius v. Brutus Beefcake. Someone should really publish a book of Poffo’s poetry. This is a couple of weeks after Poffo’s glorious victory over Hulk Hogan on Saturday Night’s Main Event. Stalling a go-go. The sad thing is that Poffo is one of the most talented guys in the business and he doesn’t need to resort to that sort of thing. This match, of course, was meant to transfer the heat on Mr. Perfect from Hogan to Beefcake. Poffo does the most melodramatic atomic drop sell I’ve ever seen, working in three rolls. I kid you not. Poffo has to play it gay to stay in character, which means lots of eye-scratching, back-scratching, and cartwheels. More stalling from Poffo. I wonder if Lanny Poffo was the inspiration for Johnny B Badd? Genius gets about an 8 on the Fag-O-Meter at any given time, so it’s not out of the question. Poffo gets a long stretch of token jobber offense in (kick, punch, slam) but Beefcake catches him coming off the top rope and quickly hooks a the sleeper…but Poffo escapes and causes a ref bump. A ref bump in a LANNY POFFO MATCH? I’d be flattered if I was Poffo. And now of course Beefcake gets the sleeper, but the ref is out. Beefcake gets his scissors and starts cutting, but Mr. Perfect saves his manager from a haircut. Referee wakes up and calls a no-contest, I guess. Genius and Perfect brutalize Beefcake with a chair. Yeesh, talk about needless overbooking. DUD  (2012 Scott sez:  This of course would never make it past Smackdown today.  Like, a midcarder against a manager on PPV?  Different times, indeed.)  – Sean Mooney has words with the Heenan Family, and stirs up shit. – Submission match: Rugged Ronnie Garvin v. Greg Valentine. Both guys have LOADED SHIN-GUARDS OF DEATH! Stiff shots from both guys in the opening slugfest. We get the inevitable “Pinfall attempt but it’s a submission match” bits to establish the stips for the REALLY dumb people in the audience. (2012 Scott sez:  And I bet some of those people went on to book TNA.)  More slugging and a Garvin headbutt leads to a double-KO. They go through a pinning combo sequence that means nothing because IT’S A SUBMISSION MATCH. The Sledgehammer of Plot is in full effect tonight. Another double knockout. Hammer goes for the figure-four but Garvin pushes him off and cradles him. Duh. Did they forget the stips or something? Hammer takes him down again and slaps on the figure-four (with help from the evil shin-brace) but see, Garvin has his own shin-brace, which counter-acts the evil mojo of Valentine’s, and as a result the figure-four has no effect. Garvin makes faces at Valentine to reinforce the point. Somebody hook me up the guy who delivered the drugs for the bookers for this show, because I’ve GOT to try them. Garvin makes a comeback and applies an Indian deathlock. Jesse makes SKINNY jokes about Tony. About TONY! (2012 Scott sez:  Tony was pretty fat at the point when I was writing this review.)  They fight outside the ring and Valentine backdrops out of a piledriver. Have I mentioned how stupid and AWA-ish it is for Garvin to try to get a submission with a fucking INDIAN DEATHLOCK? Why not try for a pin with a bodyslam, like in the 50s, while we’re at it. Another double KO, and Jimmy Hart slips something into Valentine’s shin-guard, and this time the dreaded SHIN-GUARD OF DOOM is able to overcome Garvin’s Hammer Jammer shin-guard. (2012 Scott sez:  Yeah, the shin-guard had a name, and it was MOTHERFUCKING HAMMER JAMMER, bitch.)  But Ronnie is Rugged, so he reverses the figure-four. Garvin’s shin-guard seems to have disappeared along the way. Garvin keeps trying for the pin. Oh, I see, Hart stole it. Garvin is selling the knee injury well, I’ll give him that. Jimmy Hart gets involved (and beat up) and Garvin is able to whack Valentine with his own shin-guard and apply a sharpshooter for the submission. Silliness of the angle behind it aside, it wasn’t bad for a Garvin match. **1/4 – Curt Hennig gloats about beating up Beefcake, and then gloats because he drew #30 in the Rumble. – Brother Love gets 20 minutes of PPV time to waste. Special guests: Sapphire and Sherri. Love and Sherri verbally abuse Sapphire until she hauls off and smacks Sherri, and a big brawl with the women, Dusty Rhodes and Randy Savage erupts. Rhodes beats up Brother Love and tosses him. Nice bump from Pritchard. – Big Bossman v. Hacksaw Duggan. Slick, nearing the end of his WWF run, doesn’t even get funky. Everything else after this was lame stuff like the Warlord and Power and Glory. (2012 Scott sez:  Power & Glory was pretty awesome, though.)  Bossman shows his improvement by selling like a champ for Duggan’s offense and bumping like a madman. Good for him. I forget the angle behind this, but it probably involves something stolen and a nightstick beating. Bossman pulls out an enzuigiri. Whoa! Bossman lays a beating on Duggan with his usual weak offense. Duggan keeps getting up and Bossman keeps putting him down. Duggan comes back again, clotheslining Bossman over the top rope in another nice bump for Bossman. Duggan comeback stalls again as he misses a blind charge and gets clotheslined. Bossman’s top rope splash misses, however, and we get a double knockout spot. Miscommunication spot between Slick and Bossman, but Bossman still ends up with the nightstick and beats on Duggan for the DQ. Weak ending to a Duggan match that DIDN’T SUCK! Go fig. Duggan cleans house with the 2×4. **1/2 (2012 Scott sez:  Face turn ahoy for Big Bossman!)  – Pre-Rumble interview medley. Earthquake! Bravo! Ax! Smash! Bad News! Dusty! Shawn! Marty! Hercules! Martel! Santana! Snuka! Akeem! Warrior! – 5 minute intermission! Oops, got caught up in the excitement there. And why did they take those intermissions, anyway?  (2012 Scott sez:  I think people weren’t really used to a 3 hour show at that point, and the intermission served the same basic purpose as the Divas match today:  Cooling down the crowd before the main event.  Can’t imagine what they’d made of ROH iPPVs today.  4 hours is way too long for a show that’s not Wrestlemania.)  – Pre-Rumble interview medley: The Sequel. Savage! Warlord! Barbarian! Roberts! Bret! Anvil! Honky Tonk! Hogan! Lessee, with Dibiase, Hennig, Rude, Haku and Andre, that’s still only 27 guys accounted for. Oh, and Piper didn’t get an interview, so that’s 28. – Royal Rumble: Dibiase gets #1 of course. Ah, there we go, Koko B Ware got #2. That’s 29 accounted for. Managers are allowed at ringside this year for some reason. Koko has ugly painted on sideburns. Koko does a blind charge and gets backdropped out in short order. Well that was a quick night. Marty Jannetty is #3. He works in the triple somersault clothesline sell 30 seconds in. Dibiase works in his own somersault sell coming off the second rope soon after. Jannetty goes for a cross-body…and goes over the top rope. Two down, 27 to go for Dibiase. Jake Roberts is #4, and I’m pretty sure he’ll last longer. They have an issue, so they fight on the floor and Dibiase gets taken to the post. Dibiase and Roberts get a pretty good little match going as Randy Savage is #5. A three-way between Savage, Dibiase and Roberts? Works for me. Savage and Dibiase pair off against Roberts. Roddy Piper (#6) makes the save and blows the roof off. Piper and Snake clean house. Warlord is #7. Not much of note happens. Bret Hart is #8 and he turns the tide for the faces…and why are they working together, anyway? The “good guys and bad guys” spirit was still very much in effect, even in the every-man-for-himself event. Everyone pairs off. Bret gets Warlord. Bad News Brown is #9 and he goes right after Bret Hart. Roberts goes for a DDT on Dibiase and Savage clotheslines him over the top. Roberts isn’t very good at these things. Dusty Rhodes is #10 and of course he immediately goes after Savage, and tosses him a few seconds later. If you look fast, you can see referee Shane McMahon telling Savage to go back to the dressing room. Andre the Giant is #11. He knocks Warlord out with one hand. Heenan and Fuji get into a yelling match about it. Andre beats on Piper and Dusty. Terry Taylor (not that other name) is #12. Piper backdrops Bad News out, and Brown pulls Piper out in retaliation. You get a better view of young Shane as they fight back to the dressing room. Andre is whomping Taylor. Demolition Ax is #13. Andre dumps Taylor. Ax and Dusty double-team him. Haku is #14, which puts the tag champs in there together. Dibiase and Bret Hart are having a dandy little match-let over in the corner. And of course, Smash is #15 to give us the Demolition v. Colossal Connection matchup. Nothing noteworthy going on. Akeem is #16. The Demos actually manage to put Andre out! (2012 Scott sez:  That’s pretty awesome, actually, given Andre’s propensity for battle royales.  Of course, his short stay had more to do with not being able to move, but still, way to go Demolition.)  Bret gets knocked out off-camera. Jimmy Snuka is #17. He knocks out the dancing Akeem in short order. Dino Bravo is #18. Man, we need Warrior to clear out some of this deadwood. The Demos work over Dibiase, who’s been in for more than half an hour. Earthquake is #19 and he gets on my good list by tossing Big Dust. Then Ax. Jim Neidhart is #20 and goes right after Earthquake. Everyone helps out and they alley-oop him over the top. (2012 Scott sez:  There’s some smart booking tonight, with everyone going after the big threats.)  More people beat on Dibiase. Warrior is #21 and watch the bodies fly now. Bravo is gone. Warrior beats on everyone, showing no favorites. Rick Martel is #22. Haku backdrops Smash to the apron, then thrust kicks him to the floor to knock him out. Tito Santana is #23 and goes after Martel, of course. Honky Tonk Man is #24. We’re just lining up the targets for Hogan at this point. Neidhart is knocked out by a double-team effort. Warrior finally knocks Dibiase out after 48 minutes+. And here I thought the Orange Goblin would get the honors. Hogan is #25 and Snuka is right on him. Buh bye, Superfly. Buh bye, Haku. Have a seat, Santana. Shawn Michaels is #26 as Honky is sacrificed to Hogan. Michaels goes bye-bye. Martel is gone via the Warrior, and we’re left with Hogan v. Warrior and 4 guys to go. Shoving match and they do the CRISS-CROSS OF DOOM and damned if the entire arena isn’t standing on their seats. (2012 Scott sez:  I was almost literally pooping my pants in 1990.  POOPING MY PANTS.)  Double KO, which is rudely interrupted by Barbarian at #27. Rude enters prematurely at #28. Barbarian takes Hulk and Rude takes Warrior. Barbarian and Rude work over Warrior, and Hulk crashes into them, knocking Warrior out. Hercules is #29. Hulk and Herc work over the heels until Hennig’s entrance at #30 to complete the entrants. Herc backdrops Barbarian out. Final four: Hennig, Hogan, Herc and Rude. Rude clotheslines Herc out, leaving Rude and Hennig against Hogan. Hennig ends up on the apron, and as he climbs to his feet, he pulls down the top rope, sending Rude over and out by accident. Hennig beats on Hogan and applies the Perfectplex, which does no good in the context of a battle royale, but Hulk hulks up. Hennig takes his contractually obligated slingshot to the post and Hogan clotheslines the shit out of him and dumps him over the top to win the match. Good Rumble. **** The Bottom Line: Interesting story: Curt Hennig was booked to win the Rumble for months prior to this, but Hogan vetoed it as usual, because god forbid he should put a worker over. So instead he had to take “last man out” as consolation. And the Intercontinental title later on. At any rate, fast forward through the undercard and catch a great performance from Dibiase, even if the ending does suck. Mildly recommended.

The Netcop Retro Rant for Royal Rumble 1990. – Live from Orlando, Florida. – Your hosts are Tony Skee-A-Vone and the Governor of Minnesota.– Opening match: The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers v. The Bushwhackers. Jacques is sporting a beard here. The Rougeaus were basically retired at this point and this is a one-shot comeback to put over the Sheepwhackers. We get the SEVEN MINUTE STALL OF DOOM to start, then a comedy segment as the Rougeau’s tactics backfire and the ‘Whackers start biting people in the ass. That beard really doesn’t work on Jacques. And the Rougeaus are being made to look like idiots, with all the heel tactics going wrong. More stalling. But alas, Luke gets caught in the corner and choked out. More stalling. Sadly, I can tell that the Rougeaus are dogging it, but I can’t tell if the Sheepwhackers are trying or if they just suck that bad. (2012 Scott sez:  They suck that bad.)  Luke takes a couple of decent bumps to bring it out of negative stars. You know the heels have it in neutral when Raymond forgoes the savate kick-abdominal stretch double-team in favor of simply punching the guy. Luke makes the hot tag to Butch, and Jacques bumps like a madman (hoping to win a singles push, I’d guess). Jimmy Hart gets involved and allows the Rougeaus a comeback. But while Raymond comforts Jacques after a bump, the Bushwhackers hit the battering ram and get the pin. Ugly comedy match. DUD – Mean Gene accuses Dibiase of rigging the draw in 1989, and then the hand of irony interjects itself as Dibiase reveals that he drew #1 this year. Wow, continuity and stuff. (2012 Scott sez:  These days I can barely remember who WON the Rumble the year before.)  – The Genius v. Brutus Beefcake. Someone should really publish a book of Poffo’s poetry. This is a couple of weeks after Poffo’s glorious victory over Hulk Hogan on Saturday Night’s Main Event. Stalling a go-go. The sad thing is that Poffo is one of the most talented guys in the business and he doesn’t need to resort to that sort of thing. This match, of course, was meant to transfer the heat on Mr. Perfect from Hogan to Beefcake. Poffo does the most melodramatic atomic drop sell I’ve ever seen, working in three rolls. I kid you not. Poffo has to play it gay to stay in character, which means lots of eye-scratching, back-scratching, and cartwheels. More stalling from Poffo. I wonder if Lanny Poffo was the inspiration for Johnny B Badd? Genius gets about an 8 on the Fag-O-Meter at any given time, so it’s not out of the question. Poffo gets a long stretch of token jobber offense in (kick, punch, slam) but Beefcake catches him coming off the top rope and quickly hooks a the sleeper…but Poffo escapes and causes a ref bump. A ref bump in a LANNY POFFO MATCH? I’d be flattered if I was Poffo. And now of course Beefcake gets the sleeper, but the ref is out. Beefcake gets his scissors and starts cutting, but Mr. Perfect saves his manager from a haircut. Referee wakes up and calls a no-contest, I guess. Genius and Perfect brutalize Beefcake with a chair. Yeesh, talk about needless overbooking. DUD  (2012 Scott sez:  This of course would never make it past Smackdown today.  Like, a midcarder against a manager on PPV?  Different times, indeed.)  – Sean Mooney has words with the Heenan Family, and stirs up shit. – Submission match: Rugged Ronnie Garvin v. Greg Valentine. Both guys have LOADED SHIN-GUARDS OF DEATH! Stiff shots from both guys in the opening slugfest. We get the inevitable “Pinfall attempt but it’s a submission match” bits to establish the stips for the REALLY dumb people in the audience. (2012 Scott sez:  And I bet some of those people went on to book TNA.)  More slugging and a Garvin headbutt leads to a double-KO. They go through a pinning combo sequence that means nothing because IT’S A SUBMISSION MATCH. The Sledgehammer of Plot is in full effect tonight. Another double knockout. Hammer goes for the figure-four but Garvin pushes him off and cradles him. Duh. Did they forget the stips or something? Hammer takes him down again and slaps on the figure-four (with help from the evil shin-brace) but see, Garvin has his own shin-brace, which counter-acts the evil mojo of Valentine’s, and as a result the figure-four has no effect. Garvin makes faces at Valentine to reinforce the point. Somebody hook me up the guy who delivered the drugs for the bookers for this show, because I’ve GOT to try them. Garvin makes a comeback and applies an Indian deathlock. Jesse makes SKINNY jokes about Tony. About TONY! (2012 Scott sez:  Tony was pretty fat at the point when I was writing this review.)  They fight outside the ring and Valentine backdrops out of a piledriver. Have I mentioned how stupid and AWA-ish it is for Garvin to try to get a submission with a fucking INDIAN DEATHLOCK? Why not try for a pin with a bodyslam, like in the 50s, while we’re at it. Another double KO, and Jimmy Hart slips something into Valentine’s shin-guard, and this time the dreaded SHIN-GUARD OF DOOM is able to overcome Garvin’s Hammer Jammer shin-guard. (2012 Scott sez:  Yeah, the shin-guard had a name, and it was MOTHERFUCKING HAMMER JAMMER, bitch.)  But Ronnie is Rugged, so he reverses the figure-four. Garvin’s shin-guard seems to have disappeared along the way. Garvin keeps trying for the pin. Oh, I see, Hart stole it. Garvin is selling the knee injury well, I’ll give him that. Jimmy Hart gets involved (and beat up) and Garvin is able to whack Valentine with his own shin-guard and apply a sharpshooter for the submission. Silliness of the angle behind it aside, it wasn’t bad for a Garvin match. **1/4 – Curt Hennig gloats about beating up Beefcake, and then gloats because he drew #30 in the Rumble. – Brother Love gets 20 minutes of PPV time to waste. Special guests: Sapphire and Sherri. Love and Sherri verbally abuse Sapphire until she hauls off and smacks Sherri, and a big brawl with the women, Dusty Rhodes and Randy Savage erupts. Rhodes beats up Brother Love and tosses him. Nice bump from Pritchard. – Big Bossman v. Hacksaw Duggan. Slick, nearing the end of his WWF run, doesn’t even get funky. Everything else after this was lame stuff like the Warlord and Power and Glory. (2012 Scott sez:  Power & Glory was pretty awesome, though.)  Bossman shows his improvement by selling like a champ for Duggan’s offense and bumping like a madman. Good for him. I forget the angle behind this, but it probably involves something stolen and a nightstick beating. Bossman pulls out an enzuigiri. Whoa! Bossman lays a beating on Duggan with his usual weak offense. Duggan keeps getting up and Bossman keeps putting him down. Duggan comes back again, clotheslining Bossman over the top rope in another nice bump for Bossman. Duggan comeback stalls again as he misses a blind charge and gets clotheslined. Bossman’s top rope splash misses, however, and we get a double knockout spot. Miscommunication spot between Slick and Bossman, but Bossman still ends up with the nightstick and beats on Duggan for the DQ. Weak ending to a Duggan match that DIDN’T SUCK! Go fig. Duggan cleans house with the 2×4. **1/2 (2012 Scott sez:  Face turn ahoy for Big Bossman!)  – Pre-Rumble interview medley. Earthquake! Bravo! Ax! Smash! Bad News! Dusty! Shawn! Marty! Hercules! Martel! Santana! Snuka! Akeem! Warrior! – 5 minute intermission! Oops, got caught up in the excitement there. And why did they take those intermissions, anyway?  (2012 Scott sez:  I think people weren’t really used to a 3 hour show at that point, and the intermission served the same basic purpose as the Divas match today:  Cooling down the crowd before the main event.  Can’t imagine what they’d made of ROH iPPVs today.  4 hours is way too long for a show that’s not Wrestlemania.)  – Pre-Rumble interview medley: The Sequel. Savage! Warlord! Barbarian! Roberts! Bret! Anvil! Honky Tonk! Hogan! Lessee, with Dibiase, Hennig, Rude, Haku and Andre, that’s still only 27 guys accounted for. Oh, and Piper didn’t get an interview, so that’s 28. – Royal Rumble: Dibiase gets #1 of course. Ah, there we go, Koko B Ware got #2. That’s 29 accounted for. Managers are allowed at ringside this year for some reason. Koko has ugly painted on sideburns. Koko does a blind charge and gets backdropped out in short order. Well that was a quick night. Marty Jannetty is #3. He works in the triple somersault clothesline sell 30 seconds in. Dibiase works in his own somersault sell coming off the second rope soon after. Jannetty goes for a cross-body…and goes over the top rope. Two down, 27 to go for Dibiase. Jake Roberts is #4, and I’m pretty sure he’ll last longer. They have an issue, so they fight on the floor and Dibiase gets taken to the post. Dibiase and Roberts get a pretty good little match going as Randy Savage is #5. A three-way between Savage, Dibiase and Roberts? Works for me. Savage and Dibiase pair off against Roberts. Roddy Piper (#6) makes the save and blows the roof off. Piper and Snake clean house. Warlord is #7. Not much of note happens. Bret Hart is #8 and he turns the tide for the faces…and why are they working together, anyway? The “good guys and bad guys” spirit was still very much in effect, even in the every-man-for-himself event. Everyone pairs off. Bret gets Warlord. Bad News Brown is #9 and he goes right after Bret Hart. Roberts goes for a DDT on Dibiase and Savage clotheslines him over the top. Roberts isn’t very good at these things. Dusty Rhodes is #10 and of course he immediately goes after Savage, and tosses him a few seconds later. If you look fast, you can see referee Shane McMahon telling Savage to go back to the dressing room. Andre the Giant is #11. He knocks Warlord out with one hand. Heenan and Fuji get into a yelling match about it. Andre beats on Piper and Dusty. Terry Taylor (not that other name) is #12. Piper backdrops Bad News out, and Brown pulls Piper out in retaliation. You get a better view of young Shane as they fight back to the dressing room. Andre is whomping Taylor. Demolition Ax is #13. Andre dumps Taylor. Ax and Dusty double-team him. Haku is #14, which puts the tag champs in there together. Dibiase and Bret Hart are having a dandy little match-let over in the corner. And of course, Smash is #15 to give us the Demolition v. Colossal Connection matchup. Nothing noteworthy going on. Akeem is #16. The Demos actually manage to put Andre out! (2012 Scott sez:  That’s pretty awesome, actually, given Andre’s propensity for battle royales.  Of course, his short stay had more to do with not being able to move, but still, way to go Demolition.)  Bret gets knocked out off-camera. Jimmy Snuka is #17. He knocks out the dancing Akeem in short order. Dino Bravo is #18. Man, we need Warrior to clear out some of this deadwood. The Demos work over Dibiase, who’s been in for more than half an hour. Earthquake is #19 and he gets on my good list by tossing Big Dust. Then Ax. Jim Neidhart is #20 and goes right after Earthquake. Everyone helps out and they alley-oop him over the top. (2012 Scott sez:  There’s some smart booking tonight, with everyone going after the big threats.)  More people beat on Dibiase. Warrior is #21 and watch the bodies fly now. Bravo is gone. Warrior beats on everyone, showing no favorites. Rick Martel is #22. Haku backdrops Smash to the apron, then thrust kicks him to the floor to knock him out. Tito Santana is #23 and goes after Martel, of course. Honky Tonk Man is #24. We’re just lining up the targets for Hogan at this point. Neidhart is knocked out by a double-team effort. Warrior finally knocks Dibiase out after 48 minutes+. And here I thought the Orange Goblin would get the honors. Hogan is #25 and Snuka is right on him. Buh bye, Superfly. Buh bye, Haku. Have a seat, Santana. Shawn Michaels is #26 as Honky is sacrificed to Hogan. Michaels goes bye-bye. Martel is gone via the Warrior, and we’re left with Hogan v. Warrior and 4 guys to go. Shoving match and they do the CRISS-CROSS OF DOOM and damned if the entire arena isn’t standing on their seats. (2012 Scott sez:  I was almost literally pooping my pants in 1990.  POOPING MY PANTS.)  Double KO, which is rudely interrupted by Barbarian at #27. Rude enters prematurely at #28. Barbarian takes Hulk and Rude takes Warrior. Barbarian and Rude work over Warrior, and Hulk crashes into them, knocking Warrior out. Hercules is #29. Hulk and Herc work over the heels until Hennig’s entrance at #30 to complete the entrants. Herc backdrops Barbarian out. Final four: Hennig, Hogan, Herc and Rude. Rude clotheslines Herc out, leaving Rude and Hennig against Hogan. Hennig ends up on the apron, and as he climbs to his feet, he pulls down the top rope, sending Rude over and out by accident. Hennig beats on Hogan and applies the Perfectplex, which does no good in the context of a battle royale, but Hulk hulks up. Hennig takes his contractually obligated slingshot to the post and Hogan clotheslines the shit out of him and dumps him over the top to win the match. Good Rumble. **** The Bottom Line: Interesting story: Curt Hennig was booked to win the Rumble for months prior to this, but Hogan vetoed it as usual, because god forbid he should put a worker over. So instead he had to take “last man out” as consolation. And the Intercontinental title later on. At any rate, fast forward through the undercard and catch a great performance from Dibiase, even if the ending does suck. Mildly recommended.

The Netcop Retro Rant for Royal Rumble 1990. – Live from Orlando, Florida. – Your hosts are Tony Skee-A-Vone and the Governor of Minnesota.– Opening match: The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers v. The Bushwhackers. Jacques is sporting a beard here. The Rougeaus were basically retired at this point and this is a one-shot comeback to put over the Sheepwhackers. We get the SEVEN MINUTE STALL OF DOOM to start, then a comedy segment as the Rougeau’s tactics backfire and the ‘Whackers start biting people in the ass. That beard really doesn’t work on Jacques. And the Rougeaus are being made to look like idiots, with all the heel tactics going wrong. More stalling. But alas, Luke gets caught in the corner and choked out. More stalling. Sadly, I can tell that the Rougeaus are dogging it, but I can’t tell if the Sheepwhackers are trying or if they just suck that bad. (2012 Scott sez:  They suck that bad.)  Luke takes a couple of decent bumps to bring it out of negative stars. You know the heels have it in neutral when Raymond forgoes the savate kick-abdominal stretch double-team in favor of simply punching the guy. Luke makes the hot tag to Butch, and Jacques bumps like a madman (hoping to win a singles push, I’d guess). Jimmy Hart gets involved and allows the Rougeaus a comeback. But while Raymond comforts Jacques after a bump, the Bushwhackers hit the battering ram and get the pin. Ugly comedy match. DUD – Mean Gene accuses Dibiase of rigging the draw in 1989, and then the hand of irony interjects itself as Dibiase reveals that he drew #1 this year. Wow, continuity and stuff. (2012 Scott sez:  These days I can barely remember who WON the Rumble the year before.)  – The Genius v. Brutus Beefcake. Someone should really publish a book of Poffo’s poetry. This is a couple of weeks after Poffo’s glorious victory over Hulk Hogan on Saturday Night’s Main Event. Stalling a go-go. The sad thing is that Poffo is one of the most talented guys in the business and he doesn’t need to resort to that sort of thing. This match, of course, was meant to transfer the heat on Mr. Perfect from Hogan to Beefcake. Poffo does the most melodramatic atomic drop sell I’ve ever seen, working in three rolls. I kid you not. Poffo has to play it gay to stay in character, which means lots of eye-scratching, back-scratching, and cartwheels. More stalling from Poffo. I wonder if Lanny Poffo was the inspiration for Johnny B Badd? Genius gets about an 8 on the Fag-O-Meter at any given time, so it’s not out of the question. Poffo gets a long stretch of token jobber offense in (kick, punch, slam) but Beefcake catches him coming off the top rope and quickly hooks a the sleeper…but Poffo escapes and causes a ref bump. A ref bump in a LANNY POFFO MATCH? I’d be flattered if I was Poffo. And now of course Beefcake gets the sleeper, but the ref is out. Beefcake gets his scissors and starts cutting, but Mr. Perfect saves his manager from a haircut. Referee wakes up and calls a no-contest, I guess. Genius and Perfect brutalize Beefcake with a chair. Yeesh, talk about needless overbooking. DUD  (2012 Scott sez:  This of course would never make it past Smackdown today.  Like, a midcarder against a manager on PPV?  Different times, indeed.)  – Sean Mooney has words with the Heenan Family, and stirs up shit. – Submission match: Rugged Ronnie Garvin v. Greg Valentine. Both guys have LOADED SHIN-GUARDS OF DEATH! Stiff shots from both guys in the opening slugfest. We get the inevitable “Pinfall attempt but it’s a submission match” bits to establish the stips for the REALLY dumb people in the audience. (2012 Scott sez:  And I bet some of those people went on to book TNA.)  More slugging and a Garvin headbutt leads to a double-KO. They go through a pinning combo sequence that means nothing because IT’S A SUBMISSION MATCH. The Sledgehammer of Plot is in full effect tonight. Another double knockout. Hammer goes for the figure-four but Garvin pushes him off and cradles him. Duh. Did they forget the stips or something? Hammer takes him down again and slaps on the figure-four (with help from the evil shin-brace) but see, Garvin has his own shin-brace, which counter-acts the evil mojo of Valentine’s, and as a result the figure-four has no effect. Garvin makes faces at Valentine to reinforce the point. Somebody hook me up the guy who delivered the drugs for the bookers for this show, because I’ve GOT to try them. Garvin makes a comeback and applies an Indian deathlock. Jesse makes SKINNY jokes about Tony. About TONY! (2012 Scott sez:  Tony was pretty fat at the point when I was writing this review.)  They fight outside the ring and Valentine backdrops out of a piledriver. Have I mentioned how stupid and AWA-ish it is for Garvin to try to get a submission with a fucking INDIAN DEATHLOCK? Why not try for a pin with a bodyslam, like in the 50s, while we’re at it. Another double KO, and Jimmy Hart slips something into Valentine’s shin-guard, and this time the dreaded SHIN-GUARD OF DOOM is able to overcome Garvin’s Hammer Jammer shin-guard. (2012 Scott sez:  Yeah, the shin-guard had a name, and it was MOTHERFUCKING HAMMER JAMMER, bitch.)  But Ronnie is Rugged, so he reverses the figure-four. Garvin’s shin-guard seems to have disappeared along the way. Garvin keeps trying for the pin. Oh, I see, Hart stole it. Garvin is selling the knee injury well, I’ll give him that. Jimmy Hart gets involved (and beat up) and Garvin is able to whack Valentine with his own shin-guard and apply a sharpshooter for the submission. Silliness of the angle behind it aside, it wasn’t bad for a Garvin match. **1/4 – Curt Hennig gloats about beating up Beefcake, and then gloats because he drew #30 in the Rumble. – Brother Love gets 20 minutes of PPV time to waste. Special guests: Sapphire and Sherri. Love and Sherri verbally abuse Sapphire until she hauls off and smacks Sherri, and a big brawl with the women, Dusty Rhodes and Randy Savage erupts. Rhodes beats up Brother Love and tosses him. Nice bump from Pritchard. – Big Bossman v. Hacksaw Duggan. Slick, nearing the end of his WWF run, doesn’t even get funky. Everything else after this was lame stuff like the Warlord and Power and Glory. (2012 Scott sez:  Power & Glory was pretty awesome, though.)  Bossman shows his improvement by selling like a champ for Duggan’s offense and bumping like a madman. Good for him. I forget the angle behind this, but it probably involves something stolen and a nightstick beating. Bossman pulls out an enzuigiri. Whoa! Bossman lays a beating on Duggan with his usual weak offense. Duggan keeps getting up and Bossman keeps putting him down. Duggan comes back again, clotheslining Bossman over the top rope in another nice bump for Bossman. Duggan comeback stalls again as he misses a blind charge and gets clotheslined. Bossman’s top rope splash misses, however, and we get a double knockout spot. Miscommunication spot between Slick and Bossman, but Bossman still ends up with the nightstick and beats on Duggan for the DQ. Weak ending to a Duggan match that DIDN’T SUCK! Go fig. Duggan cleans house with the 2×4. **1/2 (2012 Scott sez:  Face turn ahoy for Big Bossman!)  – Pre-Rumble interview medley. Earthquake! Bravo! Ax! Smash! Bad News! Dusty! Shawn! Marty! Hercules! Martel! Santana! Snuka! Akeem! Warrior! – 5 minute intermission! Oops, got caught up in the excitement there. And why did they take those intermissions, anyway?  (2012 Scott sez:  I think people weren’t really used to a 3 hour show at that point, and the intermission served the same basic purpose as the Divas match today:  Cooling down the crowd before the main event.  Can’t imagine what they’d made of ROH iPPVs today.  4 hours is way too long for a show that’s not Wrestlemania.)  – Pre-Rumble interview medley: The Sequel. Savage! Warlord! Barbarian! Roberts! Bret! Anvil! Honky Tonk! Hogan! Lessee, with Dibiase, Hennig, Rude, Haku and Andre, that’s still only 27 guys accounted for. Oh, and Piper didn’t get an interview, so that’s 28. – Royal Rumble: Dibiase gets #1 of course. Ah, there we go, Koko B Ware got #2. That’s 29 accounted for. Managers are allowed at ringside this year for some reason. Koko has ugly painted on sideburns. Koko does a blind charge and gets backdropped out in short order. Well that was a quick night. Marty Jannetty is #3. He works in the triple somersault clothesline sell 30 seconds in. Dibiase works in his own somersault sell coming off the second rope soon after. Jannetty goes for a cross-body…and goes over the top rope. Two down, 27 to go for Dibiase. Jake Roberts is #4, and I’m pretty sure he’ll last longer. They have an issue, so they fight on the floor and Dibiase gets taken to the post. Dibiase and Roberts get a pretty good little match going as Randy Savage is #5. A three-way between Savage, Dibiase and Roberts? Works for me. Savage and Dibiase pair off against Roberts. Roddy Piper (#6) makes the save and blows the roof off. Piper and Snake clean house. Warlord is #7. Not much of note happens. Bret Hart is #8 and he turns the tide for the faces…and why are they working together, anyway? The “good guys and bad guys” spirit was still very much in effect, even in the every-man-for-himself event. Everyone pairs off. Bret gets Warlord. Bad News Brown is #9 and he goes right after Bret Hart. Roberts goes for a DDT on Dibiase and Savage clotheslines him over the top. Roberts isn’t very good at these things. Dusty Rhodes is #10 and of course he immediately goes after Savage, and tosses him a few seconds later. If you look fast, you can see referee Shane McMahon telling Savage to go back to the dressing room. Andre the Giant is #11. He knocks Warlord out with one hand. Heenan and Fuji get into a yelling match about it. Andre beats on Piper and Dusty. Terry Taylor (not that other name) is #12. Piper backdrops Bad News out, and Brown pulls Piper out in retaliation. You get a better view of young Shane as they fight back to the dressing room. Andre is whomping Taylor. Demolition Ax is #13. Andre dumps Taylor. Ax and Dusty double-team him. Haku is #14, which puts the tag champs in there together. Dibiase and Bret Hart are having a dandy little match-let over in the corner. And of course, Smash is #15 to give us the Demolition v. Colossal Connection matchup. Nothing noteworthy going on. Akeem is #16. The Demos actually manage to put Andre out! (2012 Scott sez:  That’s pretty awesome, actually, given Andre’s propensity for battle royales.  Of course, his short stay had more to do with not being able to move, but still, way to go Demolition.)  Bret gets knocked out off-camera. Jimmy Snuka is #17. He knocks out the dancing Akeem in short order. Dino Bravo is #18. Man, we need Warrior to clear out some of this deadwood. The Demos work over Dibiase, who’s been in for more than half an hour. Earthquake is #19 and he gets on my good list by tossing Big Dust. Then Ax. Jim Neidhart is #20 and goes right after Earthquake. Everyone helps out and they alley-oop him over the top. (2012 Scott sez:  There’s some smart booking tonight, with everyone going after the big threats.)  More people beat on Dibiase. Warrior is #21 and watch the bodies fly now. Bravo is gone. Warrior beats on everyone, showing no favorites. Rick Martel is #22. Haku backdrops Smash to the apron, then thrust kicks him to the floor to knock him out. Tito Santana is #23 and goes after Martel, of course. Honky Tonk Man is #24. We’re just lining up the targets for Hogan at this point. Neidhart is knocked out by a double-team effort. Warrior finally knocks Dibiase out after 48 minutes+. And here I thought the Orange Goblin would get the honors. Hogan is #25 and Snuka is right on him. Buh bye, Superfly. Buh bye, Haku. Have a seat, Santana. Shawn Michaels is #26 as Honky is sacrificed to Hogan. Michaels goes bye-bye. Martel is gone via the Warrior, and we’re left with Hogan v. Warrior and 4 guys to go. Shoving match and they do the CRISS-CROSS OF DOOM and damned if the entire arena isn’t standing on their seats. (2012 Scott sez:  I was almost literally pooping my pants in 1990.  POOPING MY PANTS.)  Double KO, which is rudely interrupted by Barbarian at #27. Rude enters prematurely at #28. Barbarian takes Hulk and Rude takes Warrior. Barbarian and Rude work over Warrior, and Hulk crashes into them, knocking Warrior out. Hercules is #29. Hulk and Herc work over the heels until Hennig’s entrance at #30 to complete the entrants. Herc backdrops Barbarian out. Final four: Hennig, Hogan, Herc and Rude. Rude clotheslines Herc out, leaving Rude and Hennig against Hogan. Hennig ends up on the apron, and as he climbs to his feet, he pulls down the top rope, sending Rude over and out by accident. Hennig beats on Hogan and applies the Perfectplex, which does no good in the context of a battle royale, but Hulk hulks up. Hennig takes his contractually obligated slingshot to the post and Hogan clotheslines the shit out of him and dumps him over the top to win the match. Good Rumble. **** The Bottom Line: Interesting story: Curt Hennig was booked to win the Rumble for months prior to this, but Hogan vetoed it as usual, because god forbid he should put a worker over. So instead he had to take “last man out” as consolation. And the Intercontinental title later on. At any rate, fast forward through the undercard and catch a great performance from Dibiase, even if the ending does suck. Mildly recommended.

The Netcop Retro Rant for Royal Rumble 1990. – Live from Orlando, Florida. – Your hosts are Tony Skee-A-Vone and the Governor of Minnesota.– Opening match: The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers v. The Bushwhackers. Jacques is sporting a beard here. The Rougeaus were basically retired at this point and this is a one-shot comeback to put over the Sheepwhackers. We get the SEVEN MINUTE STALL OF DOOM to start, then a comedy segment as the Rougeau’s tactics backfire and the ‘Whackers start biting people in the ass. That beard really doesn’t work on Jacques. And the Rougeaus are being made to look like idiots, with all the heel tactics going wrong. More stalling. But alas, Luke gets caught in the corner and choked out. More stalling. Sadly, I can tell that the Rougeaus are dogging it, but I can’t tell if the Sheepwhackers are trying or if they just suck that bad. (2012 Scott sez:  They suck that bad.)  Luke takes a couple of decent bumps to bring it out of negative stars. You know the heels have it in neutral when Raymond forgoes the savate kick-abdominal stretch double-team in favor of simply punching the guy. Luke makes the hot tag to Butch, and Jacques bumps like a madman (hoping to win a singles push, I’d guess). Jimmy Hart gets involved and allows the Rougeaus a comeback. But while Raymond comforts Jacques after a bump, the Bushwhackers hit the battering ram and get the pin. Ugly comedy match. DUD – Mean Gene accuses Dibiase of rigging the draw in 1989, and then the hand of irony interjects itself as Dibiase reveals that he drew #1 this year. Wow, continuity and stuff. (2012 Scott sez:  These days I can barely remember who WON the Rumble the year before.)  – The Genius v. Brutus Beefcake. Someone should really publish a book of Poffo’s poetry. This is a couple of weeks after Poffo’s glorious victory over Hulk Hogan on Saturday Night’s Main Event. Stalling a go-go. The sad thing is that Poffo is one of the most talented guys in the business and he doesn’t need to resort to that sort of thing. This match, of course, was meant to transfer the heat on Mr. Perfect from Hogan to Beefcake. Poffo does the most melodramatic atomic drop sell I’ve ever seen, working in three rolls. I kid you not. Poffo has to play it gay to stay in character, which means lots of eye-scratching, back-scratching, and cartwheels. More stalling from Poffo. I wonder if Lanny Poffo was the inspiration for Johnny B Badd? Genius gets about an 8 on the Fag-O-Meter at any given time, so it’s not out of the question. Poffo gets a long stretch of token jobber offense in (kick, punch, slam) but Beefcake catches him coming off the top rope and quickly hooks a the sleeper…but Poffo escapes and causes a ref bump. A ref bump in a LANNY POFFO MATCH? I’d be flattered if I was Poffo. And now of course Beefcake gets the sleeper, but the ref is out. Beefcake gets his scissors and starts cutting, but Mr. Perfect saves his manager from a haircut. Referee wakes up and calls a no-contest, I guess. Genius and Perfect brutalize Beefcake with a chair. Yeesh, talk about needless overbooking. DUD  (2012 Scott sez:  This of course would never make it past Smackdown today.  Like, a midcarder against a manager on PPV?  Different times, indeed.)  – Sean Mooney has words with the Heenan Family, and stirs up shit. – Submission match: Rugged Ronnie Garvin v. Greg Valentine. Both guys have LOADED SHIN-GUARDS OF DEATH! Stiff shots from both guys in the opening slugfest. We get the inevitable “Pinfall attempt but it’s a submission match” bits to establish the stips for the REALLY dumb people in the audience. (2012 Scott sez:  And I bet some of those people went on to book TNA.)  More slugging and a Garvin headbutt leads to a double-KO. They go through a pinning combo sequence that means nothing because IT’S A SUBMISSION MATCH. The Sledgehammer of Plot is in full effect tonight. Another double knockout. Hammer goes for the figure-four but Garvin pushes him off and cradles him. Duh. Did they forget the stips or something? Hammer takes him down again and slaps on the figure-four (with help from the evil shin-brace) but see, Garvin has his own shin-brace, which counter-acts the evil mojo of Valentine’s, and as a result the figure-four has no effect. Garvin makes faces at Valentine to reinforce the point. Somebody hook me up the guy who delivered the drugs for the bookers for this show, because I’ve GOT to try them. Garvin makes a comeback and applies an Indian deathlock. Jesse makes SKINNY jokes about Tony. About TONY! (2012 Scott sez:  Tony was pretty fat at the point when I was writing this review.)  They fight outside the ring and Valentine backdrops out of a piledriver. Have I mentioned how stupid and AWA-ish it is for Garvin to try to get a submission with a fucking INDIAN DEATHLOCK? Why not try for a pin with a bodyslam, like in the 50s, while we’re at it. Another double KO, and Jimmy Hart slips something into Valentine’s shin-guard, and this time the dreaded SHIN-GUARD OF DOOM is able to overcome Garvin’s Hammer Jammer shin-guard. (2012 Scott sez:  Yeah, the shin-guard had a name, and it was MOTHERFUCKING HAMMER JAMMER, bitch.)  But Ronnie is Rugged, so he reverses the figure-four. Garvin’s shin-guard seems to have disappeared along the way. Garvin keeps trying for the pin. Oh, I see, Hart stole it. Garvin is selling the knee injury well, I’ll give him that. Jimmy Hart gets involved (and beat up) and Garvin is able to whack Valentine with his own shin-guard and apply a sharpshooter for the submission. Silliness of the angle behind it aside, it wasn’t bad for a Garvin match. **1/4 – Curt Hennig gloats about beating up Beefcake, and then gloats because he drew #30 in the Rumble. – Brother Love gets 20 minutes of PPV time to waste. Special guests: Sapphire and Sherri. Love and Sherri verbally abuse Sapphire until she hauls off and smacks Sherri, and a big brawl with the women, Dusty Rhodes and Randy Savage erupts. Rhodes beats up Brother Love and tosses him. Nice bump from Pritchard. – Big Bossman v. Hacksaw Duggan. Slick, nearing the end of his WWF run, doesn’t even get funky. Everything else after this was lame stuff like the Warlord and Power and Glory. (2012 Scott sez:  Power & Glory was pretty awesome, though.)  Bossman shows his improvement by selling like a champ for Duggan’s offense and bumping like a madman. Good for him. I forget the angle behind this, but it probably involves something stolen and a nightstick beating. Bossman pulls out an enzuigiri. Whoa! Bossman lays a beating on Duggan with his usual weak offense. Duggan keeps getting up and Bossman keeps putting him down. Duggan comes back again, clotheslining Bossman over the top rope in another nice bump for Bossman. Duggan comeback stalls again as he misses a blind charge and gets clotheslined. Bossman’s top rope splash misses, however, and we get a double knockout spot. Miscommunication spot between Slick and Bossman, but Bossman still ends up with the nightstick and beats on Duggan for the DQ. Weak ending to a Duggan match that DIDN’T SUCK! Go fig. Duggan cleans house with the 2×4. **1/2 (2012 Scott sez:  Face turn ahoy for Big Bossman!)  – Pre-Rumble interview medley. Earthquake! Bravo! Ax! Smash! Bad News! Dusty! Shawn! Marty! Hercules! Martel! Santana! Snuka! Akeem! Warrior! – 5 minute intermission! Oops, got caught up in the excitement there. And why did they take those intermissions, anyway?  (2012 Scott sez:  I think people weren’t really used to a 3 hour show at that point, and the intermission served the same basic purpose as the Divas match today:  Cooling down the crowd before the main event.  Can’t imagine what they’d made of ROH iPPVs today.  4 hours is way too long for a show that’s not Wrestlemania.)  – Pre-Rumble interview medley: The Sequel. Savage! Warlord! Barbarian! Roberts! Bret! Anvil! Honky Tonk! Hogan! Lessee, with Dibiase, Hennig, Rude, Haku and Andre, that’s still only 27 guys accounted for. Oh, and Piper didn’t get an interview, so that’s 28. – Royal Rumble: Dibiase gets #1 of course. Ah, there we go, Koko B Ware got #2. That’s 29 accounted for. Managers are allowed at ringside this year for some reason. Koko has ugly painted on sideburns. Koko does a blind charge and gets backdropped out in short order. Well that was a quick night. Marty Jannetty is #3. He works in the triple somersault clothesline sell 30 seconds in. Dibiase works in his own somersault sell coming off the second rope soon after. Jannetty goes for a cross-body…and goes over the top rope. Two down, 27 to go for Dibiase. Jake Roberts is #4, and I’m pretty sure he’ll last longer. They have an issue, so they fight on the floor and Dibiase gets taken to the post. Dibiase and Roberts get a pretty good little match going as Randy Savage is #5. A three-way between Savage, Dibiase and Roberts? Works for me. Savage and Dibiase pair off against Roberts. Roddy Piper (#6) makes the save and blows the roof off. Piper and Snake clean house. Warlord is #7. Not much of note happens. Bret Hart is #8 and he turns the tide for the faces…and why are they working together, anyway? The “good guys and bad guys” spirit was still very much in effect, even in the every-man-for-himself event. Everyone pairs off. Bret gets Warlord. Bad News Brown is #9 and he goes right after Bret Hart. Roberts goes for a DDT on Dibiase and Savage clotheslines him over the top. Roberts isn’t very good at these things. Dusty Rhodes is #10 and of course he immediately goes after Savage, and tosses him a few seconds later. If you look fast, you can see referee Shane McMahon telling Savage to go back to the dressing room. Andre the Giant is #11. He knocks Warlord out with one hand. Heenan and Fuji get into a yelling match about it. Andre beats on Piper and Dusty. Terry Taylor (not that other name) is #12. Piper backdrops Bad News out, and Brown pulls Piper out in retaliation. You get a better view of young Shane as they fight back to the dressing room. Andre is whomping Taylor. Demolition Ax is #13. Andre dumps Taylor. Ax and Dusty double-team him. Haku is #14, which puts the tag champs in there together. Dibiase and Bret Hart are having a dandy little match-let over in the corner. And of course, Smash is #15 to give us the Demolition v. Colossal Connection matchup. Nothing noteworthy going on. Akeem is #16. The Demos actually manage to put Andre out! (2012 Scott sez:  That’s pretty awesome, actually, given Andre’s propensity for battle royales.  Of course, his short stay had more to do with not being able to move, but still, way to go Demolition.)  Bret gets knocked out off-camera. Jimmy Snuka is #17. He knocks out the dancing Akeem in short order. Dino Bravo is #18. Man, we need Warrior to clear out some of this deadwood. The Demos work over Dibiase, who’s been in for more than half an hour. Earthquake is #19 and he gets on my good list by tossing Big Dust. Then Ax. Jim Neidhart is #20 and goes right after Earthquake. Everyone helps out and they alley-oop him over the top. (2012 Scott sez:  There’s some smart booking tonight, with everyone going after the big threats.)  More people beat on Dibiase. Warrior is #21 and watch the bodies fly now. Bravo is gone. Warrior beats on everyone, showing no favorites. Rick Martel is #22. Haku backdrops Smash to the apron, then thrust kicks him to the floor to knock him out. Tito Santana is #23 and goes after Martel, of course. Honky Tonk Man is #24. We’re just lining up the targets for Hogan at this point. Neidhart is knocked out by a double-team effort. Warrior finally knocks Dibiase out after 48 minutes+. And here I thought the Orange Goblin would get the honors. Hogan is #25 and Snuka is right on him. Buh bye, Superfly. Buh bye, Haku. Have a seat, Santana. Shawn Michaels is #26 as Honky is sacrificed to Hogan. Michaels goes bye-bye. Martel is gone via the Warrior, and we’re left with Hogan v. Warrior and 4 guys to go. Shoving match and they do the CRISS-CROSS OF DOOM and damned if the entire arena isn’t standing on their seats. (2012 Scott sez:  I was almost literally pooping my pants in 1990.  POOPING MY PANTS.)  Double KO, which is rudely interrupted by Barbarian at #27. Rude enters prematurely at #28. Barbarian takes Hulk and Rude takes Warrior. Barbarian and Rude work over Warrior, and Hulk crashes into them, knocking Warrior out. Hercules is #29. Hulk and Herc work over the heels until Hennig’s entrance at #30 to complete the entrants. Herc backdrops Barbarian out. Final four: Hennig, Hogan, Herc and Rude. Rude clotheslines Herc out, leaving Rude and Hennig against Hogan. Hennig ends up on the apron, and as he climbs to his feet, he pulls down the top rope, sending Rude over and out by accident. Hennig beats on Hogan and applies the Perfectplex, which does no good in the context of a battle royale, but Hulk hulks up. Hennig takes his contractually obligated slingshot to the post and Hogan clotheslines the shit out of him and dumps him over the top to win the match. Good Rumble. **** The Bottom Line: Interesting story: Curt Hennig was booked to win the Rumble for months prior to this, but Hogan vetoed it as usual, because god forbid he should put a worker over. So instead he had to take “last man out” as consolation. And the Intercontinental title later on. At any rate, fast forward through the undercard and catch a great performance from Dibiase, even if the ending does suck. Mildly recommended.

The Netcop Retro Rant for Royal Rumble 1990. – Live from Orlando, Florida. – Your hosts are Tony Skee-A-Vone and the Governor of Minnesota.– Opening match: The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers v. The Bushwhackers. Jacques is sporting a beard here. The Rougeaus were basically retired at this point and this is a one-shot comeback to put over the Sheepwhackers. We get the SEVEN MINUTE STALL OF DOOM to start, then a comedy segment as the Rougeau’s tactics backfire and the ‘Whackers start biting people in the ass. That beard really doesn’t work on Jacques. And the Rougeaus are being made to look like idiots, with all the heel tactics going wrong. More stalling. But alas, Luke gets caught in the corner and choked out. More stalling. Sadly, I can tell that the Rougeaus are dogging it, but I can’t tell if the Sheepwhackers are trying or if they just suck that bad. (2012 Scott sez:  They suck that bad.)  Luke takes a couple of decent bumps to bring it out of negative stars. You know the heels have it in neutral when Raymond forgoes the savate kick-abdominal stretch double-team in favor of simply punching the guy. Luke makes the hot tag to Butch, and Jacques bumps like a madman (hoping to win a singles push, I’d guess). Jimmy Hart gets involved and allows the Rougeaus a comeback. But while Raymond comforts Jacques after a bump, the Bushwhackers hit the battering ram and get the pin. Ugly comedy match. DUD – Mean Gene accuses Dibiase of rigging the draw in 1989, and then the hand of irony interjects itself as Dibiase reveals that he drew #1 this year. Wow, continuity and stuff. (2012 Scott sez:  These days I can barely remember who WON the Rumble the year before.)  – The Genius v. Brutus Beefcake. Someone should really publish a book of Poffo’s poetry. This is a couple of weeks after Poffo’s glorious victory over Hulk Hogan on Saturday Night’s Main Event. Stalling a go-go. The sad thing is that Poffo is one of the most talented guys in the business and he doesn’t need to resort to that sort of thing. This match, of course, was meant to transfer the heat on Mr. Perfect from Hogan to Beefcake. Poffo does the most melodramatic atomic drop sell I’ve ever seen, working in three rolls. I kid you not. Poffo has to play it gay to stay in character, which means lots of eye-scratching, back-scratching, and cartwheels. More stalling from Poffo. I wonder if Lanny Poffo was the inspiration for Johnny B Badd? Genius gets about an 8 on the Fag-O-Meter at any given time, so it’s not out of the question. Poffo gets a long stretch of token jobber offense in (kick, punch, slam) but Beefcake catches him coming off the top rope and quickly hooks a the sleeper…but Poffo escapes and causes a ref bump. A ref bump in a LANNY POFFO MATCH? I’d be flattered if I was Poffo. And now of course Beefcake gets the sleeper, but the ref is out. Beefcake gets his scissors and starts cutting, but Mr. Perfect saves his manager from a haircut. Referee wakes up and calls a no-contest, I guess. Genius and Perfect brutalize Beefcake with a chair. Yeesh, talk about needless overbooking. DUD  (2012 Scott sez:  This of course would never make it past Smackdown today.  Like, a midcarder against a manager on PPV?  Different times, indeed.)  – Sean Mooney has words with the Heenan Family, and stirs up shit. – Submission match: Rugged Ronnie Garvin v. Greg Valentine. Both guys have LOADED SHIN-GUARDS OF DEATH! Stiff shots from both guys in the opening slugfest. We get the inevitable “Pinfall attempt but it’s a submission match” bits to establish the stips for the REALLY dumb people in the audience. (2012 Scott sez:  And I bet some of those people went on to book TNA.)  More slugging and a Garvin headbutt leads to a double-KO. They go through a pinning combo sequence that means nothing because IT’S A SUBMISSION MATCH. The Sledgehammer of Plot is in full effect tonight. Another double knockout. Hammer goes for the figure-four but Garvin pushes him off and cradles him. Duh. Did they forget the stips or something? Hammer takes him down again and slaps on the figure-four (with help from the evil shin-brace) but see, Garvin has his own shin-brace, which counter-acts the evil mojo of Valentine’s, and as a result the figure-four has no effect. Garvin makes faces at Valentine to reinforce the point. Somebody hook me up the guy who delivered the drugs for the bookers for this show, because I’ve GOT to try them. Garvin makes a comeback and applies an Indian deathlock. Jesse makes SKINNY jokes about Tony. About TONY! (2012 Scott sez:  Tony was pretty fat at the point when I was writing this review.)  They fight outside the ring and Valentine backdrops out of a piledriver. Have I mentioned how stupid and AWA-ish it is for Garvin to try to get a submission with a fucking INDIAN DEATHLOCK? Why not try for a pin with a bodyslam, like in the 50s, while we’re at it. Another double KO, and Jimmy Hart slips something into Valentine’s shin-guard, and this time the dreaded SHIN-GUARD OF DOOM is able to overcome Garvin’s Hammer Jammer shin-guard. (2012 Scott sez:  Yeah, the shin-guard had a name, and it was MOTHERFUCKING HAMMER JAMMER, bitch.)  But Ronnie is Rugged, so he reverses the figure-four. Garvin’s shin-guard seems to have disappeared along the way. Garvin keeps trying for the pin. Oh, I see, Hart stole it. Garvin is selling the knee injury well, I’ll give him that. Jimmy Hart gets involved (and beat up) and Garvin is able to whack Valentine with his own shin-guard and apply a sharpshooter for the submission. Silliness of the angle behind it aside, it wasn’t bad for a Garvin match. **1/4 – Curt Hennig gloats about beating up Beefcake, and then gloats because he drew #30 in the Rumble. – Brother Love gets 20 minutes of PPV time to waste. Special guests: Sapphire and Sherri. Love and Sherri verbally abuse Sapphire until she hauls off and smacks Sherri, and a big brawl with the women, Dusty Rhodes and Randy Savage erupts. Rhodes beats up Brother Love and tosses him. Nice bump from Pritchard. – Big Bossman v. Hacksaw Duggan. Slick, nearing the end of his WWF run, doesn’t even get funky. Everything else after this was lame stuff like the Warlord and Power and Glory. (2012 Scott sez:  Power & Glory was pretty awesome, though.)  Bossman shows his improvement by selling like a champ for Duggan’s offense and bumping like a madman. Good for him. I forget the angle behind this, but it probably involves something stolen and a nightstick beating. Bossman pulls out an enzuigiri. Whoa! Bossman lays a beating on Duggan with his usual weak offense. Duggan keeps getting up and Bossman keeps putting him down. Duggan comes back again, clotheslining Bossman over the top rope in another nice bump for Bossman. Duggan comeback stalls again as he misses a blind charge and gets clotheslined. Bossman’s top rope splash misses, however, and we get a double knockout spot. Miscommunication spot between Slick and Bossman, but Bossman still ends up with the nightstick and beats on Duggan for the DQ. Weak ending to a Duggan match that DIDN’T SUCK! Go fig. Duggan cleans house with the 2×4. **1/2 (2012 Scott sez:  Face turn ahoy for Big Bossman!)  – Pre-Rumble interview medley. Earthquake! Bravo! Ax! Smash! Bad News! Dusty! Shawn! Marty! Hercules! Martel! Santana! Snuka! Akeem! Warrior! – 5 minute intermission! Oops, got caught up in the excitement there. And why did they take those intermissions, anyway?  (2012 Scott sez:  I think people weren’t really used to a 3 hour show at that point, and the intermission served the same basic purpose as the Divas match today:  Cooling down the crowd before the main event.  Can’t imagine what they’d made of ROH iPPVs today.  4 hours is way too long for a show that’s not Wrestlemania.)  – Pre-Rumble interview medley: The Sequel. Savage! Warlord! Barbarian! Roberts! Bret! Anvil! Honky Tonk! Hogan! Lessee, with Dibiase, Hennig, Rude, Haku and Andre, that’s still only 27 guys accounted for. Oh, and Piper didn’t get an interview, so that’s 28. – Royal Rumble: Dibiase gets #1 of course. Ah, there we go, Koko B Ware got #2. That’s 29 accounted for. Managers are allowed at ringside this year for some reason. Koko has ugly painted on sideburns. Koko does a blind charge and gets backdropped out in short order. Well that was a quick night. Marty Jannetty is #3. He works in the triple somersault clothesline sell 30 seconds in. Dibiase works in his own somersault sell coming off the second rope soon after. Jannetty goes for a cross-body…and goes over the top rope. Two down, 27 to go for Dibiase. Jake Roberts is #4, and I’m pretty sure he’ll last longer. They have an issue, so they fight on the floor and Dibiase gets taken to the post. Dibiase and Roberts get a pretty good little match going as Randy Savage is #5. A three-way between Savage, Dibiase and Roberts? Works for me. Savage and Dibiase pair off against Roberts. Roddy Piper (#6) makes the save and blows the roof off. Piper and Snake clean house. Warlord is #7. Not much of note happens. Bret Hart is #8 and he turns the tide for the faces…and why are they working together, anyway? The “good guys and bad guys” spirit was still very much in effect, even in the every-man-for-himself event. Everyone pairs off. Bret gets Warlord. Bad News Brown is #9 and he goes right after Bret Hart. Roberts goes for a DDT on Dibiase and Savage clotheslines him over the top. Roberts isn’t very good at these things. Dusty Rhodes is #10 and of course he immediately goes after Savage, and tosses him a few seconds later. If you look fast, you can see referee Shane McMahon telling Savage to go back to the dressing room. Andre the Giant is #11. He knocks Warlord out with one hand. Heenan and Fuji get into a yelling match about it. Andre beats on Piper and Dusty. Terry Taylor (not that other name) is #12. Piper backdrops Bad News out, and Brown pulls Piper out in retaliation. You get a better view of young Shane as they fight back to the dressing room. Andre is whomping Taylor. Demolition Ax is #13. Andre dumps Taylor. Ax and Dusty double-team him. Haku is #14, which puts the tag champs in there together. Dibiase and Bret Hart are having a dandy little match-let over in the corner. And of course, Smash is #15 to give us the Demolition v. Colossal Connection matchup. Nothing noteworthy going on. Akeem is #16. The Demos actually manage to put Andre out! (2012 Scott sez:  That’s pretty awesome, actually, given Andre’s propensity for battle royales.  Of course, his short stay had more to do with not being able to move, but still, way to go Demolition.)  Bret gets knocked out off-camera. Jimmy Snuka is #17. He knocks out the dancing Akeem in short order. Dino Bravo is #18. Man, we need Warrior to clear out some of this deadwood. The Demos work over Dibiase, who’s been in for more than half an hour. Earthquake is #19 and he gets on my good list by tossing Big Dust. Then Ax. Jim Neidhart is #20 and goes right after Earthquake. Everyone helps out and they alley-oop him over the top. (2012 Scott sez:  There’s some smart booking tonight, with everyone going after the big threats.)  More people beat on Dibiase. Warrior is #21 and watch the bodies fly now. Bravo is gone. Warrior beats on everyone, showing no favorites. Rick Martel is #22. Haku backdrops Smash to the apron, then thrust kicks him to the floor to knock him out. Tito Santana is #23 and goes after Martel, of course. Honky Tonk Man is #24. We’re just lining up the targets for Hogan at this point. Neidhart is knocked out by a double-team effort. Warrior finally knocks Dibiase out after 48 minutes+. And here I thought the Orange Goblin would get the honors. Hogan is #25 and Snuka is right on him. Buh bye, Superfly. Buh bye, Haku. Have a seat, Santana. Shawn Michaels is #26 as Honky is sacrificed to Hogan. Michaels goes bye-bye. Martel is gone via the Warrior, and we’re left with Hogan v. Warrior and 4 guys to go. Shoving match and they do the CRISS-CROSS OF DOOM and damned if the entire arena isn’t standing on their seats. (2012 Scott sez:  I was almost literally pooping my pants in 1990.  POOPING MY PANTS.)  Double KO, which is rudely interrupted by Barbarian at #27. Rude enters prematurely at #28. Barbarian takes Hulk and Rude takes Warrior. Barbarian and Rude work over Warrior, and Hulk crashes into them, knocking Warrior out. Hercules is #29. Hulk and Herc work over the heels until Hennig’s entrance at #30 to complete the entrants. Herc backdrops Barbarian out. Final four: Hennig, Hogan, Herc and Rude. Rude clotheslines Herc out, leaving Rude and Hennig against Hogan. Hennig ends up on the apron, and as he climbs to his feet, he pulls down the top rope, sending Rude over and out by accident. Hennig beats on Hogan and applies the Perfectplex, which does no good in the context of a battle royale, but Hulk hulks up. Hennig takes his contractually obligated slingshot to the post and Hogan clotheslines the shit out of him and dumps him over the top to win the match. Good Rumble. **** The Bottom Line: Interesting story: Curt Hennig was booked to win the Rumble for months prior to this, but Hogan vetoed it as usual, because god forbid he should put a worker over. So instead he had to take “last man out” as consolation. And the Intercontinental title later on. At any rate, fast forward through the undercard and catch a great performance from Dibiase, even if the ending does suck. Mildly recommended.

Why do they push him, bury him (rinse-repeat), give him this great storyline about having a gold-ticket to headline WM, bury him again, give him another great storyline where the issue is whether he really has what it takes to headline and then they just give him the title? If they have no faith in Bryan, why do they keep putting him in these amazing positions?

Because it amuses Vince McMahon to do so, I think.  If they had legitimate faith in Bryan, then they wouldn’t keep spending money to fly Mark Henry around on a torn groin.  Heel Daniel should be fun, though.  Plus, if nothing else, he’s done something that no one ever thought would be possible based on being that size, so he’ll always have that. 

Why do they push him, bury him (rinse-repeat), give him this great storyline about having a gold-ticket to headline WM, bury him again, give him another great storyline where the issue is whether he really has what it takes to headline and then they just give him the title? If they have no faith in Bryan, why do they keep putting him in these amazing positions?

Because it amuses Vince McMahon to do so, I think.  If they had legitimate faith in Bryan, then they wouldn’t keep spending money to fly Mark Henry around on a torn groin.  Heel Daniel should be fun, though.  Plus, if nothing else, he’s done something that no one ever thought would be possible based on being that size, so he’ll always have that. 

Why do they push him, bury him (rinse-repeat), give him this great storyline about having a gold-ticket to headline WM, bury him again, give him another great storyline where the issue is whether he really has what it takes to headline and then they just give him the title? If they have no faith in Bryan, why do they keep putting him in these amazing positions?

Because it amuses Vince McMahon to do so, I think.  If they had legitimate faith in Bryan, then they wouldn’t keep spending money to fly Mark Henry around on a torn groin.  Heel Daniel should be fun, though.  Plus, if nothing else, he’s done something that no one ever thought would be possible based on being that size, so he’ll always have that. 

Why do they push him, bury him (rinse-repeat), give him this great storyline about having a gold-ticket to headline WM, bury him again, give him another great storyline where the issue is whether he really has what it takes to headline and then they just give him the title? If they have no faith in Bryan, why do they keep putting him in these amazing positions?

Because it amuses Vince McMahon to do so, I think.  If they had legitimate faith in Bryan, then they wouldn’t keep spending money to fly Mark Henry around on a torn groin.  Heel Daniel should be fun, though.  Plus, if nothing else, he’s done something that no one ever thought would be possible based on being that size, so he’ll always have that. 

Why do they push him, bury him (rinse-repeat), give him this great storyline about having a gold-ticket to headline WM, bury him again, give him another great storyline where the issue is whether he really has what it takes to headline and then they just give him the title? If they have no faith in Bryan, why do they keep putting him in these amazing positions?

Because it amuses Vince McMahon to do so, I think.  If they had legitimate faith in Bryan, then they wouldn’t keep spending money to fly Mark Henry around on a torn groin.  Heel Daniel should be fun, though.  Plus, if nothing else, he’s done something that no one ever thought would be possible based on being that size, so he’ll always have that. 

The Netcop Retro Rant for Royal Rumble 1989. – Live from Houston, Texas. – Your hosts are Jesse and Gorilla.– Opening match, 2/3 falls: Hacksaw Duggan & The Hart Foundation v. The Rougeau Brothers & Dino Bravo. Neidhart and Bravo do the feeling out process until a pier-six erupts and Bret gets decked by the heels to become face-in-peril. I think Dino Bravo does the most dramatic tag in the history of wrestling. Rougeaus get a quick fall on Hart with La Bombe Des Rougeaus. Hart gets the holy hell beat out of him as the Rougeaus and Bravo run through their entire offense on the poor guy. Jesse points out the inherent idiocy of chanting “USA” for the Canadian Hart. No wonder he got so bitter in 1997. Harts do the false tag bit. Bret takes more of a beating. This entire second fall is just non-stop Bret beatdown. Hot tag to Duggan and you’d think Steve Austin just came out from the pop. Anvil gets slingshotted (slingshotten? slungshot?) in onto Jacques for two, and Duggan drops an elbow for three to take the second fall. Now Duggan is Ricky Morton. Is it me, or does Jacques do an awful lot of moves that involve rubbing his crotch into someone’s face? I take a Dorito break. It should be noted that Cool Ranch Doritos and Rolo candy are the only food products (outside of various brands of iced tea) that I would ever agree to shill were I to become a celebrity. (2012 Scott sez:  I would like to update that list to include Rockstar energy drinks and Big Turk chocolate bars.  Really gets you through the workday.)  Hart gets the hot tag, and Duggan bops Bravo with the 2×4 to give Bret the pin. It had it’s moments. **1/2 – Ted Dibiase draws his number for the Rumble, and ends up seeking a trade with Slick. HTM, the Bushwhackers, Bad News Brown, Jake the Snake and the Rockers all draw as well, with varying degrees of happiness. Today, Shawn gets 20 minute interview blocks. Back then, he turns to Marty and says “Good luck”.  (2012 Scott sez:  But the WAY he said it made you think he’d be a star.  OK, I’m just saying that.  But I do really miss the drawing segments where people react to their luck of the draw.)  – WWF Women’s title match: Rockin’ Robin v. Judy Martin. For those who weren’t around back then, Rockin’ Robin (Robin Smith, sister of Jake Roberts) beat Sherri Martel to win the Women’s title and basically tank the division. Picture Sam Houston, except even skinnier. The push was a disaster, given the utterly dead crowd reaction to her. This match is pretty decent by the generally crappy standards of the time, with non-stop two counts, although myself and the crowd couldn’t give shit one about it. Robin hits a bodypress off the second rope after a head-fake for the pin. **3/4 – Slick responds to the accusations of tampering with the draw. These kinds of little, non-drawn-out, character building segments are lacking today, especially in WCW. – Super Posedown. Today, this is the very definition of something that goes on Nitro or RAW rather than a PPV. In this case, it’s out there to build to the Rude-Warrior match at Wrestlemania V. Rude poses. The crowd boos. Warrior poses. The crowd cheers. Rude poses again. The crowd boos. Warrior poses (with Jesse actually analyzing the posing). The crowd cheers. Rude poses. The crowd boos. Warrior poses. The crowd cheers. Geez, why didn’t Rude just attack him during the first pose? Rude goes through a pose medley. The crowd boos. Warrior goes through a pose medley and (duh) Rude attacks him. Bit of a waste of 15 minutes when it could have been done on Superstars. I mean, really, who DIDN’T see that coming? I know I bitch about the WCW Sledgehammer of Plot a lot, but this is really a shining example of what I mean by it. Even if it was the WWF.  (2012 Scott sez:  Weird that I gave this more play-by-play treatment than most of the matches on this show.)  – Crown match: King Haku v. Harley Race. The story: Race was King, but got put through a table by the Orange Goblin and basically had his career ended. This was a one-shot comeback match to “legitimize” Haku’s claim to the crown. Haku controls with “martial arts” (which roughly translated means “chops while screaming”) but Race wins a headbutt battle (he’s got a loaded head, you know) and hits a piledriver for two. Race with more 70s offense and goes for a piledriver on the floor, but Haku backdrops out of it. They fight for a bit and then Race hits the piledriver for real. Pretty weak one, though. Crowd is gone, not really caring about either guy. More kneedrops and neckbreakers from Race, but Haku fights back with “martial arts” and a headbutt off the top, which misses. Race tries the same, and misses. Double knockout, and Race is up first. He comes off the ropes and eats Haku’s SWEET thrust kick finisher for the pin to retain the crown. Pretty good job of carrying the un-carryable Haku by Race, actually. ***  (2012 Scott sez:  I wouldn’t actually call Haku “un-carryable”.  I’ve seen people get a good match out of him given the right circumstances.)  – More pre-Rumble soundbites from the participants. Big John Studd gives a horrible interview. Savage sounds pretty whacked out. The Powers of Pain breathe heavily a lot. – Five minute intermission. – We’re back with last-minute words from Dibiase, who is now MUCH happier. But there’s no shenanigans, no sir. – The Heenan Family adds their thoughts. Andre the Giant notes that he’ll toss the Brainbusters out if he has to. Then, in a spectacular moment, Arn Anderson whispers something in Tully Blanchard’s ear, behind Heenan’s back. Now who else would actually have the forethought to add overtones of scheming against his own stable-mates without actually having to say so?  (2012 Scott sez:  Arn Anderson was the master of “shades of grey” years before Russo ever came to power.)  – The Orangle Goblin spouts hot air. – The Royal Rumble: We start with a classic moment: Ax draws #1, Smash draws #2. Then, to reinforce the idea of the Rumble, they give a quick look and then go to town on each other. The Demos demonstrate why they never fought each other, because their segment is pretty lousy. Andre the Giant gets #3. The Demos immediately drop their hostilities and go after Andre. Andre can handle himself, because he’s the world’s largest athlete and all. Perfect is #4. Andre casually tosses Smash. Ax turns on Perfect, who ends up doing a Bret-esque turnbuckle charge bump. Ronnie Garvin is #5. Joy. (2012 Scott sez:  The Rumble is actually the kind of match where Garvin would excel, because he can come in, do his high-impact stuff, and then leave.)  Ax, Hennig and Garvin all go after Andre. He fights them off. Hennig does the OVERSELL~! of an Andre punch, which is a situation where it works. (2012 Scott sez:  Fuck off, it always works.)  Valentine is #6. Guess who he goes right after. Poor Andre. Buh-bye, Garvin. Jake is #7, and since he was feuding with Andre, that’s who he goes after. Things settle down a bit as everyone finds a partner and dances. Valentine works in a Flair flop off an Andre headbutt. Ron Bass is #8. Andre tosses Jake. It should be noted that despite the inherent tastelessness of the Ric Flair heart attack angle, the WWF did the same thing (albeit in a more cartoonish way) with the “Andre fears snakes” angle in 1989. (2012 Scott sez:  I think the “Bad News Brown fears snakes” angle was much more tasteless for the racist aspect.)  Shawn Michaels is #9, years before that meant anything. Ax gets dumped Perfectly. Michaels and Hennig start fighting and go into a series of overblown somersault sells and intricate ways to go over the top rope without getting eliminated. Show-offs. Bushwhacker Butch is #10, and Jake follows quickly with Damien, chasing Andre over the top and out of the match prematurely in cheap fashion. Honky Tonk Man is #11. We’re in kind of a lull here. We now have three of the most melodramatic sellers in history in the ring at the same time. The crowd is really getting into the elimination attempts, which just underlines the brilliance of the Rumble concept: It’s a battle royale for people with limited attention span, so you can concentrate on one or two battles at a time, with fresh guys in every few minutes. You know what’s weird? Today we remember feuds from years ago and they’re incorporated into angles all the time, but Santana (#12) was fighting Valentine here and no mention is made of their long-running feud in 1985. (2012 Scott sez:  Now we’ve swung back the other way, with guys feuding one month and then teaming up the next, with only CM Punk even remembering to acknowledge it.)  Honky gets tossed via a double-team. Bad News Brown is #13 (how fitting) and does nothing of note. Marty Jannetty gets #14 and the Rockers reunite to double-dropkick Bass out. Savage is #15 to a big pop. Arn Anderson is #16 as Valentine gets tossed by Macho. Arn and Shawn pair off. Savage joins in…on Arn’s side. They toss Michaels. Tully Blanchard is #17. There’s some pretty damn good workers in there right now…Bad News, Savage, Jannetty, Anderson, Blanchard, Santana, Hennig…I guess Butch is the exception that proves the rule. The Brainbusters double-team Jannetty mercilessly. Hogan is #18. Open mouth, insert dick. Hennig is the first victim of Goblin-mania. Santana gets tossed off-camera. Luke is #19. Butch gets tossed by Bad News. Wow, look, Hulk’s selling for Arn. Koko B.Ware is #20. Yeah, that’ll turn the tide. You’d think Arn would learn NOT TO GO TO THE TOP ROPE after 15 years of getting slammed off it. Especially in a battle royale. Hulk dumps Luke. Warlord is #21 as Hogan dumps the Brainbusters at the same time. (2012 Scott sez:  More dream matches we never got:  Brainbusters v. Megapowers.)  Bastard. Warlord in, Warlord out. Savage and Bad News are fighting on the ropes and Hogan dumps both of them. Savage freaks out. Hey, Hogan, keep that in mind in three years when the same shit would happen to you and YOU threw a temper tantrum. Hogan and Savage make up, only to have a violent breakup a month later. Bossman (#22) breaks up the Megapower love-in. Hogan and Bossman are all alone and Bossman takes over on Hulk. Gorilla: “He’s been out there for half an hour!” Jesse: “You idiot, he’s only been there for five minutes or so…”. Akeem is #23, so the Twin Towers assualt poor Hogan. Hogan’s got his working boots on tonight. The Towers continue the beatdown and unceremoniously eliminate Hogan, to the shock of the crowd. Hogan throws a tantrum and beats up Bossman. Brutus Beefcake is #24. The Towers beat on him, too, but Hogan cheats and pulls Bossman out over the top rope to eliminate him. What a role model. One thing does bother me: If Dibiase was unhappy enough with his number to trade, that would indicate he got a low number to start with. But Bossman ended up with 22 and Akeem got 23, so why would Dibiase have been unhappy with either of those? (2012 Scott sez:  Because he’s a rich white guy who would be unhappy with anything less than #30, of course.  That’s the great part about the character.)  Oh well, minor point. Terry Taylor (aka The Red You-Know-What) is #25. He’s not very effective. Barbarian is #26 as Taylor and Beefcake work over Akeem. We’re getting into the dregs of the draw. Akeem splashes Taylor and dances. All the girlies say he’s pretty fly for a white guy, you know. (2012 Scott sez:  Yeah, this was written in 1999, wanna fight about it?)  John Studd is #27 and man is Taylor taking a shitkicking. Hercules is #28. Geez, the crowd sure died off once Hogan and Savage left. This is like the lost puppy section of the SPCA in terms of star power. Rick Martel is #29, a few months before his heel turn. He goes after Akeem, but Studd pushes him away, like everyone else who tries to go after Akeem. Studd wants him for himself, you see. And of course, Ted Dibiase is #30 thanks to his investment. Okay, so the final tally: Dibiase, Akeem, Studd, Taylor, Beefcake, Hercules, Barbarian and Martel. Oops, there goes Taylor via Dibiase. What a sad group of finalists. Beefcake puts Hercules in a sleeper and Dibiase pushes both of them over at once. Barbie misses a BIG BOOT OF DOOM and Martel dropkicks him out. Final four: Martel, Dibiase, Akeem, Studd. Well, 50% don’t suck. Akeem casually dumps Martel off a bodypress attempt. Akeem and Dibiase double-team Studd. Well, actually, Akeem beats on Studd and Dibiase supervises. Oops, he got caught in between. Studd knocks out the stunned Akeem, leaving Studd and Dibiase. Studd dominates and tosses Dibiase to win the “first” Royal Rumble. First 2/3 was super-hot, but it died off once Hogan left. *** The Bottom Line: Hey, wow, nothing sucked here. Seriously, this was a surprisingly solid card (albeit completely forgettable) from top to bottom. Okay, discount the Super Posedown. Everyone seemed to be making an effort tonight for once. This was pretty much nearing the end of the Golden Age, too, so it’s something of an abomination. Recommended.

The Netcop Retro Rant for Royal Rumble 1989. – Live from Houston, Texas. – Your hosts are Jesse and Gorilla.– Opening match, 2/3 falls: Hacksaw Duggan & The Hart Foundation v. The Rougeau Brothers & Dino Bravo. Neidhart and Bravo do the feeling out process until a pier-six erupts and Bret gets decked by the heels to become face-in-peril. I think Dino Bravo does the most dramatic tag in the history of wrestling. Rougeaus get a quick fall on Hart with La Bombe Des Rougeaus. Hart gets the holy hell beat out of him as the Rougeaus and Bravo run through their entire offense on the poor guy. Jesse points out the inherent idiocy of chanting “USA” for the Canadian Hart. No wonder he got so bitter in 1997. Harts do the false tag bit. Bret takes more of a beating. This entire second fall is just non-stop Bret beatdown. Hot tag to Duggan and you’d think Steve Austin just came out from the pop. Anvil gets slingshotted (slingshotten? slungshot?) in onto Jacques for two, and Duggan drops an elbow for three to take the second fall. Now Duggan is Ricky Morton. Is it me, or does Jacques do an awful lot of moves that involve rubbing his crotch into someone’s face? I take a Dorito break. It should be noted that Cool Ranch Doritos and Rolo candy are the only food products (outside of various brands of iced tea) that I would ever agree to shill were I to become a celebrity. (2012 Scott sez:  I would like to update that list to include Rockstar energy drinks and Big Turk chocolate bars.  Really gets you through the workday.)  Hart gets the hot tag, and Duggan bops Bravo with the 2×4 to give Bret the pin. It had it’s moments. **1/2 – Ted Dibiase draws his number for the Rumble, and ends up seeking a trade with Slick. HTM, the Bushwhackers, Bad News Brown, Jake the Snake and the Rockers all draw as well, with varying degrees of happiness. Today, Shawn gets 20 minute interview blocks. Back then, he turns to Marty and says “Good luck”.  (2012 Scott sez:  But the WAY he said it made you think he’d be a star.  OK, I’m just saying that.  But I do really miss the drawing segments where people react to their luck of the draw.)  – WWF Women’s title match: Rockin’ Robin v. Judy Martin. For those who weren’t around back then, Rockin’ Robin (Robin Smith, sister of Jake Roberts) beat Sherri Martel to win the Women’s title and basically tank the division. Picture Sam Houston, except even skinnier. The push was a disaster, given the utterly dead crowd reaction to her. This match is pretty decent by the generally crappy standards of the time, with non-stop two counts, although myself and the crowd couldn’t give shit one about it. Robin hits a bodypress off the second rope after a head-fake for the pin. **3/4 – Slick responds to the accusations of tampering with the draw. These kinds of little, non-drawn-out, character building segments are lacking today, especially in WCW. – Super Posedown. Today, this is the very definition of something that goes on Nitro or RAW rather than a PPV. In this case, it’s out there to build to the Rude-Warrior match at Wrestlemania V. Rude poses. The crowd boos. Warrior poses. The crowd cheers. Rude poses again. The crowd boos. Warrior poses (with Jesse actually analyzing the posing). The crowd cheers. Rude poses. The crowd boos. Warrior poses. The crowd cheers. Geez, why didn’t Rude just attack him during the first pose? Rude goes through a pose medley. The crowd boos. Warrior goes through a pose medley and (duh) Rude attacks him. Bit of a waste of 15 minutes when it could have been done on Superstars. I mean, really, who DIDN’T see that coming? I know I bitch about the WCW Sledgehammer of Plot a lot, but this is really a shining example of what I mean by it. Even if it was the WWF.  (2012 Scott sez:  Weird that I gave this more play-by-play treatment than most of the matches on this show.)  – Crown match: King Haku v. Harley Race. The story: Race was King, but got put through a table by the Orange Goblin and basically had his career ended. This was a one-shot comeback match to “legitimize” Haku’s claim to the crown. Haku controls with “martial arts” (which roughly translated means “chops while screaming”) but Race wins a headbutt battle (he’s got a loaded head, you know) and hits a piledriver for two. Race with more 70s offense and goes for a piledriver on the floor, but Haku backdrops out of it. They fight for a bit and then Race hits the piledriver for real. Pretty weak one, though. Crowd is gone, not really caring about either guy. More kneedrops and neckbreakers from Race, but Haku fights back with “martial arts” and a headbutt off the top, which misses. Race tries the same, and misses. Double knockout, and Race is up first. He comes off the ropes and eats Haku’s SWEET thrust kick finisher for the pin to retain the crown. Pretty good job of carrying the un-carryable Haku by Race, actually. ***  (2012 Scott sez:  I wouldn’t actually call Haku “un-carryable”.  I’ve seen people get a good match out of him given the right circumstances.)  – More pre-Rumble soundbites from the participants. Big John Studd gives a horrible interview. Savage sounds pretty whacked out. The Powers of Pain breathe heavily a lot. – Five minute intermission. – We’re back with last-minute words from Dibiase, who is now MUCH happier. But there’s no shenanigans, no sir. – The Heenan Family adds their thoughts. Andre the Giant notes that he’ll toss the Brainbusters out if he has to. Then, in a spectacular moment, Arn Anderson whispers something in Tully Blanchard’s ear, behind Heenan’s back. Now who else would actually have the forethought to add overtones of scheming against his own stable-mates without actually having to say so?  (2012 Scott sez:  Arn Anderson was the master of “shades of grey” years before Russo ever came to power.)  – The Orangle Goblin spouts hot air. – The Royal Rumble: We start with a classic moment: Ax draws #1, Smash draws #2. Then, to reinforce the idea of the Rumble, they give a quick look and then go to town on each other. The Demos demonstrate why they never fought each other, because their segment is pretty lousy. Andre the Giant gets #3. The Demos immediately drop their hostilities and go after Andre. Andre can handle himself, because he’s the world’s largest athlete and all. Perfect is #4. Andre casually tosses Smash. Ax turns on Perfect, who ends up doing a Bret-esque turnbuckle charge bump. Ronnie Garvin is #5. Joy. (2012 Scott sez:  The Rumble is actually the kind of match where Garvin would excel, because he can come in, do his high-impact stuff, and then leave.)  Ax, Hennig and Garvin all go after Andre. He fights them off. Hennig does the OVERSELL~! of an Andre punch, which is a situation where it works. (2012 Scott sez:  Fuck off, it always works.)  Valentine is #6. Guess who he goes right after. Poor Andre. Buh-bye, Garvin. Jake is #7, and since he was feuding with Andre, that’s who he goes after. Things settle down a bit as everyone finds a partner and dances. Valentine works in a Flair flop off an Andre headbutt. Ron Bass is #8. Andre tosses Jake. It should be noted that despite the inherent tastelessness of the Ric Flair heart attack angle, the WWF did the same thing (albeit in a more cartoonish way) with the “Andre fears snakes” angle in 1989. (2012 Scott sez:  I think the “Bad News Brown fears snakes” angle was much more tasteless for the racist aspect.)  Shawn Michaels is #9, years before that meant anything. Ax gets dumped Perfectly. Michaels and Hennig start fighting and go into a series of overblown somersault sells and intricate ways to go over the top rope without getting eliminated. Show-offs. Bushwhacker Butch is #10, and Jake follows quickly with Damien, chasing Andre over the top and out of the match prematurely in cheap fashion. Honky Tonk Man is #11. We’re in kind of a lull here. We now have three of the most melodramatic sellers in history in the ring at the same time. The crowd is really getting into the elimination attempts, which just underlines the brilliance of the Rumble concept: It’s a battle royale for people with limited attention span, so you can concentrate on one or two battles at a time, with fresh guys in every few minutes. You know what’s weird? Today we remember feuds from years ago and they’re incorporated into angles all the time, but Santana (#12) was fighting Valentine here and no mention is made of their long-running feud in 1985. (2012 Scott sez:  Now we’ve swung back the other way, with guys feuding one month and then teaming up the next, with only CM Punk even remembering to acknowledge it.)  Honky gets tossed via a double-team. Bad News Brown is #13 (how fitting) and does nothing of note. Marty Jannetty gets #14 and the Rockers reunite to double-dropkick Bass out. Savage is #15 to a big pop. Arn Anderson is #16 as Valentine gets tossed by Macho. Arn and Shawn pair off. Savage joins in…on Arn’s side. They toss Michaels. Tully Blanchard is #17. There’s some pretty damn good workers in there right now…Bad News, Savage, Jannetty, Anderson, Blanchard, Santana, Hennig…I guess Butch is the exception that proves the rule. The Brainbusters double-team Jannetty mercilessly. Hogan is #18. Open mouth, insert dick. Hennig is the first victim of Goblin-mania. Santana gets tossed off-camera. Luke is #19. Butch gets tossed by Bad News. Wow, look, Hulk’s selling for Arn. Koko B.Ware is #20. Yeah, that’ll turn the tide. You’d think Arn would learn NOT TO GO TO THE TOP ROPE after 15 years of getting slammed off it. Especially in a battle royale. Hulk dumps Luke. Warlord is #21 as Hogan dumps the Brainbusters at the same time. (2012 Scott sez:  More dream matches we never got:  Brainbusters v. Megapowers.)  Bastard. Warlord in, Warlord out. Savage and Bad News are fighting on the ropes and Hogan dumps both of them. Savage freaks out. Hey, Hogan, keep that in mind in three years when the same shit would happen to you and YOU threw a temper tantrum. Hogan and Savage make up, only to have a violent breakup a month later. Bossman (#22) breaks up the Megapower love-in. Hogan and Bossman are all alone and Bossman takes over on Hulk. Gorilla: “He’s been out there for half an hour!” Jesse: “You idiot, he’s only been there for five minutes or so…”. Akeem is #23, so the Twin Towers assualt poor Hogan. Hogan’s got his working boots on tonight. The Towers continue the beatdown and unceremoniously eliminate Hogan, to the shock of the crowd. Hogan throws a tantrum and beats up Bossman. Brutus Beefcake is #24. The Towers beat on him, too, but Hogan cheats and pulls Bossman out over the top rope to eliminate him. What a role model. One thing does bother me: If Dibiase was unhappy enough with his number to trade, that would indicate he got a low number to start with. But Bossman ended up with 22 and Akeem got 23, so why would Dibiase have been unhappy with either of those? (2012 Scott sez:  Because he’s a rich white guy who would be unhappy with anything less than #30, of course.  That’s the great part about the character.)  Oh well, minor point. Terry Taylor (aka The Red You-Know-What) is #25. He’s not very effective. Barbarian is #26 as Taylor and Beefcake work over Akeem. We’re getting into the dregs of the draw. Akeem splashes Taylor and dances. All the girlies say he’s pretty fly for a white guy, you know. (2012 Scott sez:  Yeah, this was written in 1999, wanna fight about it?)  John Studd is #27 and man is Taylor taking a shitkicking. Hercules is #28. Geez, the crowd sure died off once Hogan and Savage left. This is like the lost puppy section of the SPCA in terms of star power. Rick Martel is #29, a few months before his heel turn. He goes after Akeem, but Studd pushes him away, like everyone else who tries to go after Akeem. Studd wants him for himself, you see. And of course, Ted Dibiase is #30 thanks to his investment. Okay, so the final tally: Dibiase, Akeem, Studd, Taylor, Beefcake, Hercules, Barbarian and Martel. Oops, there goes Taylor via Dibiase. What a sad group of finalists. Beefcake puts Hercules in a sleeper and Dibiase pushes both of them over at once. Barbie misses a BIG BOOT OF DOOM and Martel dropkicks him out. Final four: Martel, Dibiase, Akeem, Studd. Well, 50% don’t suck. Akeem casually dumps Martel off a bodypress attempt. Akeem and Dibiase double-team Studd. Well, actually, Akeem beats on Studd and Dibiase supervises. Oops, he got caught in between. Studd knocks out the stunned Akeem, leaving Studd and Dibiase. Studd dominates and tosses Dibiase to win the “first” Royal Rumble. First 2/3 was super-hot, but it died off once Hogan left. *** The Bottom Line: Hey, wow, nothing sucked here. Seriously, this was a surprisingly solid card (albeit completely forgettable) from top to bottom. Okay, discount the Super Posedown. Everyone seemed to be making an effort tonight for once. This was pretty much nearing the end of the Golden Age, too, so it’s something of an abomination. Recommended.

The Netcop Retro Rant for Royal Rumble 1989. – Live from Houston, Texas. – Your hosts are Jesse and Gorilla.– Opening match, 2/3 falls: Hacksaw Duggan & The Hart Foundation v. The Rougeau Brothers & Dino Bravo. Neidhart and Bravo do the feeling out process until a pier-six erupts and Bret gets decked by the heels to become face-in-peril. I think Dino Bravo does the most dramatic tag in the history of wrestling. Rougeaus get a quick fall on Hart with La Bombe Des Rougeaus. Hart gets the holy hell beat out of him as the Rougeaus and Bravo run through their entire offense on the poor guy. Jesse points out the inherent idiocy of chanting “USA” for the Canadian Hart. No wonder he got so bitter in 1997. Harts do the false tag bit. Bret takes more of a beating. This entire second fall is just non-stop Bret beatdown. Hot tag to Duggan and you’d think Steve Austin just came out from the pop. Anvil gets slingshotted (slingshotten? slungshot?) in onto Jacques for two, and Duggan drops an elbow for three to take the second fall. Now Duggan is Ricky Morton. Is it me, or does Jacques do an awful lot of moves that involve rubbing his crotch into someone’s face? I take a Dorito break. It should be noted that Cool Ranch Doritos and Rolo candy are the only food products (outside of various brands of iced tea) that I would ever agree to shill were I to become a celebrity. (2012 Scott sez:  I would like to update that list to include Rockstar energy drinks and Big Turk chocolate bars.  Really gets you through the workday.)  Hart gets the hot tag, and Duggan bops Bravo with the 2×4 to give Bret the pin. It had it’s moments. **1/2 – Ted Dibiase draws his number for the Rumble, and ends up seeking a trade with Slick. HTM, the Bushwhackers, Bad News Brown, Jake the Snake and the Rockers all draw as well, with varying degrees of happiness. Today, Shawn gets 20 minute interview blocks. Back then, he turns to Marty and says “Good luck”.  (2012 Scott sez:  But the WAY he said it made you think he’d be a star.  OK, I’m just saying that.  But I do really miss the drawing segments where people react to their luck of the draw.)  – WWF Women’s title match: Rockin’ Robin v. Judy Martin. For those who weren’t around back then, Rockin’ Robin (Robin Smith, sister of Jake Roberts) beat Sherri Martel to win the Women’s title and basically tank the division. Picture Sam Houston, except even skinnier. The push was a disaster, given the utterly dead crowd reaction to her. This match is pretty decent by the generally crappy standards of the time, with non-stop two counts, although myself and the crowd couldn’t give shit one about it. Robin hits a bodypress off the second rope after a head-fake for the pin. **3/4 – Slick responds to the accusations of tampering with the draw. These kinds of little, non-drawn-out, character building segments are lacking today, especially in WCW. – Super Posedown. Today, this is the very definition of something that goes on Nitro or RAW rather than a PPV. In this case, it’s out there to build to the Rude-Warrior match at Wrestlemania V. Rude poses. The crowd boos. Warrior poses. The crowd cheers. Rude poses again. The crowd boos. Warrior poses (with Jesse actually analyzing the posing). The crowd cheers. Rude poses. The crowd boos. Warrior poses. The crowd cheers. Geez, why didn’t Rude just attack him during the first pose? Rude goes through a pose medley. The crowd boos. Warrior goes through a pose medley and (duh) Rude attacks him. Bit of a waste of 15 minutes when it could have been done on Superstars. I mean, really, who DIDN’T see that coming? I know I bitch about the WCW Sledgehammer of Plot a lot, but this is really a shining example of what I mean by it. Even if it was the WWF.  (2012 Scott sez:  Weird that I gave this more play-by-play treatment than most of the matches on this show.)  – Crown match: King Haku v. Harley Race. The story: Race was King, but got put through a table by the Orange Goblin and basically had his career ended. This was a one-shot comeback match to “legitimize” Haku’s claim to the crown. Haku controls with “martial arts” (which roughly translated means “chops while screaming”) but Race wins a headbutt battle (he’s got a loaded head, you know) and hits a piledriver for two. Race with more 70s offense and goes for a piledriver on the floor, but Haku backdrops out of it. They fight for a bit and then Race hits the piledriver for real. Pretty weak one, though. Crowd is gone, not really caring about either guy. More kneedrops and neckbreakers from Race, but Haku fights back with “martial arts” and a headbutt off the top, which misses. Race tries the same, and misses. Double knockout, and Race is up first. He comes off the ropes and eats Haku’s SWEET thrust kick finisher for the pin to retain the crown. Pretty good job of carrying the un-carryable Haku by Race, actually. ***  (2012 Scott sez:  I wouldn’t actually call Haku “un-carryable”.  I’ve seen people get a good match out of him given the right circumstances.)  – More pre-Rumble soundbites from the participants. Big John Studd gives a horrible interview. Savage sounds pretty whacked out. The Powers of Pain breathe heavily a lot. – Five minute intermission. – We’re back with last-minute words from Dibiase, who is now MUCH happier. But there’s no shenanigans, no sir. – The Heenan Family adds their thoughts. Andre the Giant notes that he’ll toss the Brainbusters out if he has to. Then, in a spectacular moment, Arn Anderson whispers something in Tully Blanchard’s ear, behind Heenan’s back. Now who else would actually have the forethought to add overtones of scheming against his own stable-mates without actually having to say so?  (2012 Scott sez:  Arn Anderson was the master of “shades of grey” years before Russo ever came to power.)  – The Orangle Goblin spouts hot air. – The Royal Rumble: We start with a classic moment: Ax draws #1, Smash draws #2. Then, to reinforce the idea of the Rumble, they give a quick look and then go to town on each other. The Demos demonstrate why they never fought each other, because their segment is pretty lousy. Andre the Giant gets #3. The Demos immediately drop their hostilities and go after Andre. Andre can handle himself, because he’s the world’s largest athlete and all. Perfect is #4. Andre casually tosses Smash. Ax turns on Perfect, who ends up doing a Bret-esque turnbuckle charge bump. Ronnie Garvin is #5. Joy. (2012 Scott sez:  The Rumble is actually the kind of match where Garvin would excel, because he can come in, do his high-impact stuff, and then leave.)  Ax, Hennig and Garvin all go after Andre. He fights them off. Hennig does the OVERSELL~! of an Andre punch, which is a situation where it works. (2012 Scott sez:  Fuck off, it always works.)  Valentine is #6. Guess who he goes right after. Poor Andre. Buh-bye, Garvin. Jake is #7, and since he was feuding with Andre, that’s who he goes after. Things settle down a bit as everyone finds a partner and dances. Valentine works in a Flair flop off an Andre headbutt. Ron Bass is #8. Andre tosses Jake. It should be noted that despite the inherent tastelessness of the Ric Flair heart attack angle, the WWF did the same thing (albeit in a more cartoonish way) with the “Andre fears snakes” angle in 1989. (2012 Scott sez:  I think the “Bad News Brown fears snakes” angle was much more tasteless for the racist aspect.)  Shawn Michaels is #9, years before that meant anything. Ax gets dumped Perfectly. Michaels and Hennig start fighting and go into a series of overblown somersault sells and intricate ways to go over the top rope without getting eliminated. Show-offs. Bushwhacker Butch is #10, and Jake follows quickly with Damien, chasing Andre over the top and out of the match prematurely in cheap fashion. Honky Tonk Man is #11. We’re in kind of a lull here. We now have three of the most melodramatic sellers in history in the ring at the same time. The crowd is really getting into the elimination attempts, which just underlines the brilliance of the Rumble concept: It’s a battle royale for people with limited attention span, so you can concentrate on one or two battles at a time, with fresh guys in every few minutes. You know what’s weird? Today we remember feuds from years ago and they’re incorporated into angles all the time, but Santana (#12) was fighting Valentine here and no mention is made of their long-running feud in 1985. (2012 Scott sez:  Now we’ve swung back the other way, with guys feuding one month and then teaming up the next, with only CM Punk even remembering to acknowledge it.)  Honky gets tossed via a double-team. Bad News Brown is #13 (how fitting) and does nothing of note. Marty Jannetty gets #14 and the Rockers reunite to double-dropkick Bass out. Savage is #15 to a big pop. Arn Anderson is #16 as Valentine gets tossed by Macho. Arn and Shawn pair off. Savage joins in…on Arn’s side. They toss Michaels. Tully Blanchard is #17. There’s some pretty damn good workers in there right now…Bad News, Savage, Jannetty, Anderson, Blanchard, Santana, Hennig…I guess Butch is the exception that proves the rule. The Brainbusters double-team Jannetty mercilessly. Hogan is #18. Open mouth, insert dick. Hennig is the first victim of Goblin-mania. Santana gets tossed off-camera. Luke is #19. Butch gets tossed by Bad News. Wow, look, Hulk’s selling for Arn. Koko B.Ware is #20. Yeah, that’ll turn the tide. You’d think Arn would learn NOT TO GO TO THE TOP ROPE after 15 years of getting slammed off it. Especially in a battle royale. Hulk dumps Luke. Warlord is #21 as Hogan dumps the Brainbusters at the same time. (2012 Scott sez:  More dream matches we never got:  Brainbusters v. Megapowers.)  Bastard. Warlord in, Warlord out. Savage and Bad News are fighting on the ropes and Hogan dumps both of them. Savage freaks out. Hey, Hogan, keep that in mind in three years when the same shit would happen to you and YOU threw a temper tantrum. Hogan and Savage make up, only to have a violent breakup a month later. Bossman (#22) breaks up the Megapower love-in. Hogan and Bossman are all alone and Bossman takes over on Hulk. Gorilla: “He’s been out there for half an hour!” Jesse: “You idiot, he’s only been there for five minutes or so…”. Akeem is #23, so the Twin Towers assualt poor Hogan. Hogan’s got his working boots on tonight. The Towers continue the beatdown and unceremoniously eliminate Hogan, to the shock of the crowd. Hogan throws a tantrum and beats up Bossman. Brutus Beefcake is #24. The Towers beat on him, too, but Hogan cheats and pulls Bossman out over the top rope to eliminate him. What a role model. One thing does bother me: If Dibiase was unhappy enough with his number to trade, that would indicate he got a low number to start with. But Bossman ended up with 22 and Akeem got 23, so why would Dibiase have been unhappy with either of those? (2012 Scott sez:  Because he’s a rich white guy who would be unhappy with anything less than #30, of course.  That’s the great part about the character.)  Oh well, minor point. Terry Taylor (aka The Red You-Know-What) is #25. He’s not very effective. Barbarian is #26 as Taylor and Beefcake work over Akeem. We’re getting into the dregs of the draw. Akeem splashes Taylor and dances. All the girlies say he’s pretty fly for a white guy, you know. (2012 Scott sez:  Yeah, this was written in 1999, wanna fight about it?)  John Studd is #27 and man is Taylor taking a shitkicking. Hercules is #28. Geez, the crowd sure died off once Hogan and Savage left. This is like the lost puppy section of the SPCA in terms of star power. Rick Martel is #29, a few months before his heel turn. He goes after Akeem, but Studd pushes him away, like everyone else who tries to go after Akeem. Studd wants him for himself, you see. And of course, Ted Dibiase is #30 thanks to his investment. Okay, so the final tally: Dibiase, Akeem, Studd, Taylor, Beefcake, Hercules, Barbarian and Martel. Oops, there goes Taylor via Dibiase. What a sad group of finalists. Beefcake puts Hercules in a sleeper and Dibiase pushes both of them over at once. Barbie misses a BIG BOOT OF DOOM and Martel dropkicks him out. Final four: Martel, Dibiase, Akeem, Studd. Well, 50% don’t suck. Akeem casually dumps Martel off a bodypress attempt. Akeem and Dibiase double-team Studd. Well, actually, Akeem beats on Studd and Dibiase supervises. Oops, he got caught in between. Studd knocks out the stunned Akeem, leaving Studd and Dibiase. Studd dominates and tosses Dibiase to win the “first” Royal Rumble. First 2/3 was super-hot, but it died off once Hogan left. *** The Bottom Line: Hey, wow, nothing sucked here. Seriously, this was a surprisingly solid card (albeit completely forgettable) from top to bottom. Okay, discount the Super Posedown. Everyone seemed to be making an effort tonight for once. This was pretty much nearing the end of the Golden Age, too, so it’s something of an abomination. Recommended.

The Netcop Retro Rant for Royal Rumble 1989. – Live from Houston, Texas. – Your hosts are Jesse and Gorilla.– Opening match, 2/3 falls: Hacksaw Duggan & The Hart Foundation v. The Rougeau Brothers & Dino Bravo. Neidhart and Bravo do the feeling out process until a pier-six erupts and Bret gets decked by the heels to become face-in-peril. I think Dino Bravo does the most dramatic tag in the history of wrestling. Rougeaus get a quick fall on Hart with La Bombe Des Rougeaus. Hart gets the holy hell beat out of him as the Rougeaus and Bravo run through their entire offense on the poor guy. Jesse points out the inherent idiocy of chanting “USA” for the Canadian Hart. No wonder he got so bitter in 1997. Harts do the false tag bit. Bret takes more of a beating. This entire second fall is just non-stop Bret beatdown. Hot tag to Duggan and you’d think Steve Austin just came out from the pop. Anvil gets slingshotted (slingshotten? slungshot?) in onto Jacques for two, and Duggan drops an elbow for three to take the second fall. Now Duggan is Ricky Morton. Is it me, or does Jacques do an awful lot of moves that involve rubbing his crotch into someone’s face? I take a Dorito break. It should be noted that Cool Ranch Doritos and Rolo candy are the only food products (outside of various brands of iced tea) that I would ever agree to shill were I to become a celebrity. (2012 Scott sez:  I would like to update that list to include Rockstar energy drinks and Big Turk chocolate bars.  Really gets you through the workday.)  Hart gets the hot tag, and Duggan bops Bravo with the 2×4 to give Bret the pin. It had it’s moments. **1/2 – Ted Dibiase draws his number for the Rumble, and ends up seeking a trade with Slick. HTM, the Bushwhackers, Bad News Brown, Jake the Snake and the Rockers all draw as well, with varying degrees of happiness. Today, Shawn gets 20 minute interview blocks. Back then, he turns to Marty and says “Good luck”.  (2012 Scott sez:  But the WAY he said it made you think he’d be a star.  OK, I’m just saying that.  But I do really miss the drawing segments where people react to their luck of the draw.)  – WWF Women’s title match: Rockin’ Robin v. Judy Martin. For those who weren’t around back then, Rockin’ Robin (Robin Smith, sister of Jake Roberts) beat Sherri Martel to win the Women’s title and basically tank the division. Picture Sam Houston, except even skinnier. The push was a disaster, given the utterly dead crowd reaction to her. This match is pretty decent by the generally crappy standards of the time, with non-stop two counts, although myself and the crowd couldn’t give shit one about it. Robin hits a bodypress off the second rope after a head-fake for the pin. **3/4 – Slick responds to the accusations of tampering with the draw. These kinds of little, non-drawn-out, character building segments are lacking today, especially in WCW. – Super Posedown. Today, this is the very definition of something that goes on Nitro or RAW rather than a PPV. In this case, it’s out there to build to the Rude-Warrior match at Wrestlemania V. Rude poses. The crowd boos. Warrior poses. The crowd cheers. Rude poses again. The crowd boos. Warrior poses (with Jesse actually analyzing the posing). The crowd cheers. Rude poses. The crowd boos. Warrior poses. The crowd cheers. Geez, why didn’t Rude just attack him during the first pose? Rude goes through a pose medley. The crowd boos. Warrior goes through a pose medley and (duh) Rude attacks him. Bit of a waste of 15 minutes when it could have been done on Superstars. I mean, really, who DIDN’T see that coming? I know I bitch about the WCW Sledgehammer of Plot a lot, but this is really a shining example of what I mean by it. Even if it was the WWF.  (2012 Scott sez:  Weird that I gave this more play-by-play treatment than most of the matches on this show.)  – Crown match: King Haku v. Harley Race. The story: Race was King, but got put through a table by the Orange Goblin and basically had his career ended. This was a one-shot comeback match to “legitimize” Haku’s claim to the crown. Haku controls with “martial arts” (which roughly translated means “chops while screaming”) but Race wins a headbutt battle (he’s got a loaded head, you know) and hits a piledriver for two. Race with more 70s offense and goes for a piledriver on the floor, but Haku backdrops out of it. They fight for a bit and then Race hits the piledriver for real. Pretty weak one, though. Crowd is gone, not really caring about either guy. More kneedrops and neckbreakers from Race, but Haku fights back with “martial arts” and a headbutt off the top, which misses. Race tries the same, and misses. Double knockout, and Race is up first. He comes off the ropes and eats Haku’s SWEET thrust kick finisher for the pin to retain the crown. Pretty good job of carrying the un-carryable Haku by Race, actually. ***  (2012 Scott sez:  I wouldn’t actually call Haku “un-carryable”.  I’ve seen people get a good match out of him given the right circumstances.)  – More pre-Rumble soundbites from the participants. Big John Studd gives a horrible interview. Savage sounds pretty whacked out. The Powers of Pain breathe heavily a lot. – Five minute intermission. – We’re back with last-minute words from Dibiase, who is now MUCH happier. But there’s no shenanigans, no sir. – The Heenan Family adds their thoughts. Andre the Giant notes that he’ll toss the Brainbusters out if he has to. Then, in a spectacular moment, Arn Anderson whispers something in Tully Blanchard’s ear, behind Heenan’s back. Now who else would actually have the forethought to add overtones of scheming against his own stable-mates without actually having to say so?  (2012 Scott sez:  Arn Anderson was the master of “shades of grey” years before Russo ever came to power.)  – The Orangle Goblin spouts hot air. – The Royal Rumble: We start with a classic moment: Ax draws #1, Smash draws #2. Then, to reinforce the idea of the Rumble, they give a quick look and then go to town on each other. The Demos demonstrate why they never fought each other, because their segment is pretty lousy. Andre the Giant gets #3. The Demos immediately drop their hostilities and go after Andre. Andre can handle himself, because he’s the world’s largest athlete and all. Perfect is #4. Andre casually tosses Smash. Ax turns on Perfect, who ends up doing a Bret-esque turnbuckle charge bump. Ronnie Garvin is #5. Joy. (2012 Scott sez:  The Rumble is actually the kind of match where Garvin would excel, because he can come in, do his high-impact stuff, and then leave.)  Ax, Hennig and Garvin all go after Andre. He fights them off. Hennig does the OVERSELL~! of an Andre punch, which is a situation where it works. (2012 Scott sez:  Fuck off, it always works.)  Valentine is #6. Guess who he goes right after. Poor Andre. Buh-bye, Garvin. Jake is #7, and since he was feuding with Andre, that’s who he goes after. Things settle down a bit as everyone finds a partner and dances. Valentine works in a Flair flop off an Andre headbutt. Ron Bass is #8. Andre tosses Jake. It should be noted that despite the inherent tastelessness of the Ric Flair heart attack angle, the WWF did the same thing (albeit in a more cartoonish way) with the “Andre fears snakes” angle in 1989. (2012 Scott sez:  I think the “Bad News Brown fears snakes” angle was much more tasteless for the racist aspect.)  Shawn Michaels is #9, years before that meant anything. Ax gets dumped Perfectly. Michaels and Hennig start fighting and go into a series of overblown somersault sells and intricate ways to go over the top rope without getting eliminated. Show-offs. Bushwhacker Butch is #10, and Jake follows quickly with Damien, chasing Andre over the top and out of the match prematurely in cheap fashion. Honky Tonk Man is #11. We’re in kind of a lull here. We now have three of the most melodramatic sellers in history in the ring at the same time. The crowd is really getting into the elimination attempts, which just underlines the brilliance of the Rumble concept: It’s a battle royale for people with limited attention span, so you can concentrate on one or two battles at a time, with fresh guys in every few minutes. You know what’s weird? Today we remember feuds from years ago and they’re incorporated into angles all the time, but Santana (#12) was fighting Valentine here and no mention is made of their long-running feud in 1985. (2012 Scott sez:  Now we’ve swung back the other way, with guys feuding one month and then teaming up the next, with only CM Punk even remembering to acknowledge it.)  Honky gets tossed via a double-team. Bad News Brown is #13 (how fitting) and does nothing of note. Marty Jannetty gets #14 and the Rockers reunite to double-dropkick Bass out. Savage is #15 to a big pop. Arn Anderson is #16 as Valentine gets tossed by Macho. Arn and Shawn pair off. Savage joins in…on Arn’s side. They toss Michaels. Tully Blanchard is #17. There’s some pretty damn good workers in there right now…Bad News, Savage, Jannetty, Anderson, Blanchard, Santana, Hennig…I guess Butch is the exception that proves the rule. The Brainbusters double-team Jannetty mercilessly. Hogan is #18. Open mouth, insert dick. Hennig is the first victim of Goblin-mania. Santana gets tossed off-camera. Luke is #19. Butch gets tossed by Bad News. Wow, look, Hulk’s selling for Arn. Koko B.Ware is #20. Yeah, that’ll turn the tide. You’d think Arn would learn NOT TO GO TO THE TOP ROPE after 15 years of getting slammed off it. Especially in a battle royale. Hulk dumps Luke. Warlord is #21 as Hogan dumps the Brainbusters at the same time. (2012 Scott sez:  More dream matches we never got:  Brainbusters v. Megapowers.)  Bastard. Warlord in, Warlord out. Savage and Bad News are fighting on the ropes and Hogan dumps both of them. Savage freaks out. Hey, Hogan, keep that in mind in three years when the same shit would happen to you and YOU threw a temper tantrum. Hogan and Savage make up, only to have a violent breakup a month later. Bossman (#22) breaks up the Megapower love-in. Hogan and Bossman are all alone and Bossman takes over on Hulk. Gorilla: “He’s been out there for half an hour!” Jesse: “You idiot, he’s only been there for five minutes or so…”. Akeem is #23, so the Twin Towers assualt poor Hogan. Hogan’s got his working boots on tonight. The Towers continue the beatdown and unceremoniously eliminate Hogan, to the shock of the crowd. Hogan throws a tantrum and beats up Bossman. Brutus Beefcake is #24. The Towers beat on him, too, but Hogan cheats and pulls Bossman out over the top rope to eliminate him. What a role model. One thing does bother me: If Dibiase was unhappy enough with his number to trade, that would indicate he got a low number to start with. But Bossman ended up with 22 and Akeem got 23, so why would Dibiase have been unhappy with either of those? (2012 Scott sez:  Because he’s a rich white guy who would be unhappy with anything less than #30, of course.  That’s the great part about the character.)  Oh well, minor point. Terry Taylor (aka The Red You-Know-What) is #25. He’s not very effective. Barbarian is #26 as Taylor and Beefcake work over Akeem. We’re getting into the dregs of the draw. Akeem splashes Taylor and dances. All the girlies say he’s pretty fly for a white guy, you know. (2012 Scott sez:  Yeah, this was written in 1999, wanna fight about it?)  John Studd is #27 and man is Taylor taking a shitkicking. Hercules is #28. Geez, the crowd sure died off once Hogan and Savage left. This is like the lost puppy section of the SPCA in terms of star power. Rick Martel is #29, a few months before his heel turn. He goes after Akeem, but Studd pushes him away, like everyone else who tries to go after Akeem. Studd wants him for himself, you see. And of course, Ted Dibiase is #30 thanks to his investment. Okay, so the final tally: Dibiase, Akeem, Studd, Taylor, Beefcake, Hercules, Barbarian and Martel. Oops, there goes Taylor via Dibiase. What a sad group of finalists. Beefcake puts Hercules in a sleeper and Dibiase pushes both of them over at once. Barbie misses a BIG BOOT OF DOOM and Martel dropkicks him out. Final four: Martel, Dibiase, Akeem, Studd. Well, 50% don’t suck. Akeem casually dumps Martel off a bodypress attempt. Akeem and Dibiase double-team Studd. Well, actually, Akeem beats on Studd and Dibiase supervises. Oops, he got caught in between. Studd knocks out the stunned Akeem, leaving Studd and Dibiase. Studd dominates and tosses Dibiase to win the “first” Royal Rumble. First 2/3 was super-hot, but it died off once Hogan left. *** The Bottom Line: Hey, wow, nothing sucked here. Seriously, this was a surprisingly solid card (albeit completely forgettable) from top to bottom. Okay, discount the Super Posedown. Everyone seemed to be making an effort tonight for once. This was pretty much nearing the end of the Golden Age, too, so it’s something of an abomination. Recommended.

The Netcop Retro Rant for Royal Rumble 1989. – Live from Houston, Texas. – Your hosts are Jesse and Gorilla.– Opening match, 2/3 falls: Hacksaw Duggan & The Hart Foundation v. The Rougeau Brothers & Dino Bravo. Neidhart and Bravo do the feeling out process until a pier-six erupts and Bret gets decked by the heels to become face-in-peril. I think Dino Bravo does the most dramatic tag in the history of wrestling. Rougeaus get a quick fall on Hart with La Bombe Des Rougeaus. Hart gets the holy hell beat out of him as the Rougeaus and Bravo run through their entire offense on the poor guy. Jesse points out the inherent idiocy of chanting “USA” for the Canadian Hart. No wonder he got so bitter in 1997. Harts do the false tag bit. Bret takes more of a beating. This entire second fall is just non-stop Bret beatdown. Hot tag to Duggan and you’d think Steve Austin just came out from the pop. Anvil gets slingshotted (slingshotten? slungshot?) in onto Jacques for two, and Duggan drops an elbow for three to take the second fall. Now Duggan is Ricky Morton. Is it me, or does Jacques do an awful lot of moves that involve rubbing his crotch into someone’s face? I take a Dorito break. It should be noted that Cool Ranch Doritos and Rolo candy are the only food products (outside of various brands of iced tea) that I would ever agree to shill were I to become a celebrity. (2012 Scott sez:  I would like to update that list to include Rockstar energy drinks and Big Turk chocolate bars.  Really gets you through the workday.)  Hart gets the hot tag, and Duggan bops Bravo with the 2×4 to give Bret the pin. It had it’s moments. **1/2 – Ted Dibiase draws his number for the Rumble, and ends up seeking a trade with Slick. HTM, the Bushwhackers, Bad News Brown, Jake the Snake and the Rockers all draw as well, with varying degrees of happiness. Today, Shawn gets 20 minute interview blocks. Back then, he turns to Marty and says “Good luck”.  (2012 Scott sez:  But the WAY he said it made you think he’d be a star.  OK, I’m just saying that.  But I do really miss the drawing segments where people react to their luck of the draw.)  – WWF Women’s title match: Rockin’ Robin v. Judy Martin. For those who weren’t around back then, Rockin’ Robin (Robin Smith, sister of Jake Roberts) beat Sherri Martel to win the Women’s title and basically tank the division. Picture Sam Houston, except even skinnier. The push was a disaster, given the utterly dead crowd reaction to her. This match is pretty decent by the generally crappy standards of the time, with non-stop two counts, although myself and the crowd couldn’t give shit one about it. Robin hits a bodypress off the second rope after a head-fake for the pin. **3/4 – Slick responds to the accusations of tampering with the draw. These kinds of little, non-drawn-out, character building segments are lacking today, especially in WCW. – Super Posedown. Today, this is the very definition of something that goes on Nitro or RAW rather than a PPV. In this case, it’s out there to build to the Rude-Warrior match at Wrestlemania V. Rude poses. The crowd boos. Warrior poses. The crowd cheers. Rude poses again. The crowd boos. Warrior poses (with Jesse actually analyzing the posing). The crowd cheers. Rude poses. The crowd boos. Warrior poses. The crowd cheers. Geez, why didn’t Rude just attack him during the first pose? Rude goes through a pose medley. The crowd boos. Warrior goes through a pose medley and (duh) Rude attacks him. Bit of a waste of 15 minutes when it could have been done on Superstars. I mean, really, who DIDN’T see that coming? I know I bitch about the WCW Sledgehammer of Plot a lot, but this is really a shining example of what I mean by it. Even if it was the WWF.  (2012 Scott sez:  Weird that I gave this more play-by-play treatment than most of the matches on this show.)  – Crown match: King Haku v. Harley Race. The story: Race was King, but got put through a table by the Orange Goblin and basically had his career ended. This was a one-shot comeback match to “legitimize” Haku’s claim to the crown. Haku controls with “martial arts” (which roughly translated means “chops while screaming”) but Race wins a headbutt battle (he’s got a loaded head, you know) and hits a piledriver for two. Race with more 70s offense and goes for a piledriver on the floor, but Haku backdrops out of it. They fight for a bit and then Race hits the piledriver for real. Pretty weak one, though. Crowd is gone, not really caring about either guy. More kneedrops and neckbreakers from Race, but Haku fights back with “martial arts” and a headbutt off the top, which misses. Race tries the same, and misses. Double knockout, and Race is up first. He comes off the ropes and eats Haku’s SWEET thrust kick finisher for the pin to retain the crown. Pretty good job of carrying the un-carryable Haku by Race, actually. ***  (2012 Scott sez:  I wouldn’t actually call Haku “un-carryable”.  I’ve seen people get a good match out of him given the right circumstances.)  – More pre-Rumble soundbites from the participants. Big John Studd gives a horrible interview. Savage sounds pretty whacked out. The Powers of Pain breathe heavily a lot. – Five minute intermission. – We’re back with last-minute words from Dibiase, who is now MUCH happier. But there’s no shenanigans, no sir. – The Heenan Family adds their thoughts. Andre the Giant notes that he’ll toss the Brainbusters out if he has to. Then, in a spectacular moment, Arn Anderson whispers something in Tully Blanchard’s ear, behind Heenan’s back. Now who else would actually have the forethought to add overtones of scheming against his own stable-mates without actually having to say so?  (2012 Scott sez:  Arn Anderson was the master of “shades of grey” years before Russo ever came to power.)  – The Orangle Goblin spouts hot air. – The Royal Rumble: We start with a classic moment: Ax draws #1, Smash draws #2. Then, to reinforce the idea of the Rumble, they give a quick look and then go to town on each other. The Demos demonstrate why they never fought each other, because their segment is pretty lousy. Andre the Giant gets #3. The Demos immediately drop their hostilities and go after Andre. Andre can handle himself, because he’s the world’s largest athlete and all. Perfect is #4. Andre casually tosses Smash. Ax turns on Perfect, who ends up doing a Bret-esque turnbuckle charge bump. Ronnie Garvin is #5. Joy. (2012 Scott sez:  The Rumble is actually the kind of match where Garvin would excel, because he can come in, do his high-impact stuff, and then leave.)  Ax, Hennig and Garvin all go after Andre. He fights them off. Hennig does the OVERSELL~! of an Andre punch, which is a situation where it works. (2012 Scott sez:  Fuck off, it always works.)  Valentine is #6. Guess who he goes right after. Poor Andre. Buh-bye, Garvin. Jake is #7, and since he was feuding with Andre, that’s who he goes after. Things settle down a bit as everyone finds a partner and dances. Valentine works in a Flair flop off an Andre headbutt. Ron Bass is #8. Andre tosses Jake. It should be noted that despite the inherent tastelessness of the Ric Flair heart attack angle, the WWF did the same thing (albeit in a more cartoonish way) with the “Andre fears snakes” angle in 1989. (2012 Scott sez:  I think the “Bad News Brown fears snakes” angle was much more tasteless for the racist aspect.)  Shawn Michaels is #9, years before that meant anything. Ax gets dumped Perfectly. Michaels and Hennig start fighting and go into a series of overblown somersault sells and intricate ways to go over the top rope without getting eliminated. Show-offs. Bushwhacker Butch is #10, and Jake follows quickly with Damien, chasing Andre over the top and out of the match prematurely in cheap fashion. Honky Tonk Man is #11. We’re in kind of a lull here. We now have three of the most melodramatic sellers in history in the ring at the same time. The crowd is really getting into the elimination attempts, which just underlines the brilliance of the Rumble concept: It’s a battle royale for people with limited attention span, so you can concentrate on one or two battles at a time, with fresh guys in every few minutes. You know what’s weird? Today we remember feuds from years ago and they’re incorporated into angles all the time, but Santana (#12) was fighting Valentine here and no mention is made of their long-running feud in 1985. (2012 Scott sez:  Now we’ve swung back the other way, with guys feuding one month and then teaming up the next, with only CM Punk even remembering to acknowledge it.)  Honky gets tossed via a double-team. Bad News Brown is #13 (how fitting) and does nothing of note. Marty Jannetty gets #14 and the Rockers reunite to double-dropkick Bass out. Savage is #15 to a big pop. Arn Anderson is #16 as Valentine gets tossed by Macho. Arn and Shawn pair off. Savage joins in…on Arn’s side. They toss Michaels. Tully Blanchard is #17. There’s some pretty damn good workers in there right now…Bad News, Savage, Jannetty, Anderson, Blanchard, Santana, Hennig…I guess Butch is the exception that proves the rule. The Brainbusters double-team Jannetty mercilessly. Hogan is #18. Open mouth, insert dick. Hennig is the first victim of Goblin-mania. Santana gets tossed off-camera. Luke is #19. Butch gets tossed by Bad News. Wow, look, Hulk’s selling for Arn. Koko B.Ware is #20. Yeah, that’ll turn the tide. You’d think Arn would learn NOT TO GO TO THE TOP ROPE after 15 years of getting slammed off it. Especially in a battle royale. Hulk dumps Luke. Warlord is #21 as Hogan dumps the Brainbusters at the same time. (2012 Scott sez:  More dream matches we never got:  Brainbusters v. Megapowers.)  Bastard. Warlord in, Warlord out. Savage and Bad News are fighting on the ropes and Hogan dumps both of them. Savage freaks out. Hey, Hogan, keep that in mind in three years when the same shit would happen to you and YOU threw a temper tantrum. Hogan and Savage make up, only to have a violent breakup a month later. Bossman (#22) breaks up the Megapower love-in. Hogan and Bossman are all alone and Bossman takes over on Hulk. Gorilla: “He’s been out there for half an hour!” Jesse: “You idiot, he’s only been there for five minutes or so…”. Akeem is #23, so the Twin Towers assualt poor Hogan. Hogan’s got his working boots on tonight. The Towers continue the beatdown and unceremoniously eliminate Hogan, to the shock of the crowd. Hogan throws a tantrum and beats up Bossman. Brutus Beefcake is #24. The Towers beat on him, too, but Hogan cheats and pulls Bossman out over the top rope to eliminate him. What a role model. One thing does bother me: If Dibiase was unhappy enough with his number to trade, that would indicate he got a low number to start with. But Bossman ended up with 22 and Akeem got 23, so why would Dibiase have been unhappy with either of those? (2012 Scott sez:  Because he’s a rich white guy who would be unhappy with anything less than #30, of course.  That’s the great part about the character.)  Oh well, minor point. Terry Taylor (aka The Red You-Know-What) is #25. He’s not very effective. Barbarian is #26 as Taylor and Beefcake work over Akeem. We’re getting into the dregs of the draw. Akeem splashes Taylor and dances. All the girlies say he’s pretty fly for a white guy, you know. (2012 Scott sez:  Yeah, this was written in 1999, wanna fight about it?)  John Studd is #27 and man is Taylor taking a shitkicking. Hercules is #28. Geez, the crowd sure died off once Hogan and Savage left. This is like the lost puppy section of the SPCA in terms of star power. Rick Martel is #29, a few months before his heel turn. He goes after Akeem, but Studd pushes him away, like everyone else who tries to go after Akeem. Studd wants him for himself, you see. And of course, Ted Dibiase is #30 thanks to his investment. Okay, so the final tally: Dibiase, Akeem, Studd, Taylor, Beefcake, Hercules, Barbarian and Martel. Oops, there goes Taylor via Dibiase. What a sad group of finalists. Beefcake puts Hercules in a sleeper and Dibiase pushes both of them over at once. Barbie misses a BIG BOOT OF DOOM and Martel dropkicks him out. Final four: Martel, Dibiase, Akeem, Studd. Well, 50% don’t suck. Akeem casually dumps Martel off a bodypress attempt. Akeem and Dibiase double-team Studd. Well, actually, Akeem beats on Studd and Dibiase supervises. Oops, he got caught in between. Studd knocks out the stunned Akeem, leaving Studd and Dibiase. Studd dominates and tosses Dibiase to win the “first” Royal Rumble. First 2/3 was super-hot, but it died off once Hogan left. *** The Bottom Line: Hey, wow, nothing sucked here. Seriously, this was a surprisingly solid card (albeit completely forgettable) from top to bottom. Okay, discount the Super Posedown. Everyone seemed to be making an effort tonight for once. This was pretty much nearing the end of the Golden Age, too, so it’s something of an abomination. Recommended.