Royal Rumble Reviews

[IANdrewDiceClay]

THE ROYAL RUMBLE 95:

This Rumble came during a time when the Sky had been cut off, and it was back to watching Round the Twist and Roseanne in German until my Dad got the card chipped. If I were to watch any WWF that month, it would have looked like this:

Which I did many a night.

 

Shawn Michaels entered in a nice pair of zebra skin pants and matching hat as Pamela Anderson looked on giving the usual “fucking gay wrestling” look most celebrities do. Davey Boy Smith arrived at number 2 and by this point he started soaking his hair in water. That is the curly haired persons sign to cut it off and like Rick Rude before him, it wasn’t long before he did just that. Davey and Michaels were pretty much fucked in my eyes. Even when playing with my wrestling figures 1 and 2 was the numbers I gave to shitehawks like El Matador and Typhoon. Nobody is lasting until the end. This Rumble was one of those occasions where I remember vividly how I reacted to certain points at the time, which is interesting. I was with a mate, my brother and my Dad and we couldn’t believe how quick they were coming out. Usually the Rumble’s were at least given a bit of time between entrants even if there was a bit of cheating going on. I didn’t know this before hand, so as soon as Vince said “this is the fastest and most furious Royal Rumble in history” the countdown started. Which was a slight disappointment when Eli Blu ran out.

When you build up the years Royal Rumble by telling the viewer how exciting the new concept of the Royal Rumble is, Don Harris isn’t the person I’d have picked to showcase it. Eli Blu is just a twat. One of the reasons why you should know your role in wrestling. A massive twat who sandbags the Bulldog, doesn’t sell for Michaels and boots Duke Drose as soon as he hit’s the ring. No fucker is getting over if Eli has his way. Speaking of outshining the stars, Jimmy Del Ray basically throws it down to Vince. He enters the ring and its like “Vince, you want to run with Shawn or me? You make the choice”. You can almost hear Vince’s voice cracking on commentary wondering whether to call an audible. You could have seen Vince tearing his quad on the ring apron years earlier than it did, if he went through with my theory that Del Ray was his vision of the Showstopper. Del Ray even has him over the top rope at one stage, but Shawn probably would have taken a strop backstage so McMahon stuck with the original plan. Ever the pro, JDR is eliminated by Davey Boy 85 seconds after he arrives. As the Del Ray show is going on, The Barbarian working under the name which I am not even attempting to spell turns up and does all the “Samoans have thick head spots”. Jimmy D’s tag partner Tom Prichard isn’t far behind him and fairs slightly better than his partner, which isn’t saying much. At this stage its like a swarm of bees. The talent depth is so shit, you can totally see why they don’t want to expose these scrubs for more than 30 seconds not including entrances.

You would have seen a Shawn Michaels win coming a mile away if you watched it today, everyone at one stage has him over their heads. McMahon (ever the hyperbole machine) suggests Duke Drose could match Shawn Michaels in a game of Royal Rumble wits. Fucking eh? Doink is next out of the traps. Pop of the night so far. They loved a bit of Doink in this building. Obviously Eli Blu steals his heat. Kwang had to be about 15 seconds after the Doink arrival. Its like when you get bored in your aforementioned wrestling figures Rumble and you just shove a load in because you don’t think Jerry Sags deserves any offence. The Rumble definitely picked up with the arrival of Rick Martel. Martel hadn’t been seen since early 94. He wasn’t a regular, so this was quite a surprise, from what I remember. I always had the thought that Martel thought Tito Santana was going to be in it, to continue his annual brawl they did at each Rumble. Martel was wearing purple kneepads and pink shorts. Like he had a load of outfits and couldn’t decide so just went with a mesh of styles. Like KISS in the Rise To It Video, where Gene Simmons has his Love Gun boots on and his Dynasty shoulder pads. It was to much for those of us who notice the little things. Martel was never going to get re-signed with this attitude. Anyway I was just happy to see someone I knew, since hardly any of these bastards were there before my Sky got cut off. McMahon on commentary screams “Kwang is going to eliminate Michaels”. Even Vince wasn't to enthusiastic about saying that. In fact if Kwang did eliminate the winner of the 95 Rumble and go on to win it himself, it may have been the only thing more of a disappointment than the time Savio Vega replaced Shawn Michaels at No Way Out 98. But at least you could have seen the reasons in him replacing him in that match with a win under his belt here.

 

Owen Hart was the 11th entrant in the Rumble, but didn’t last long, as Bret Hart jumped him from behind and fed him to the awaiting Davey Boy Smith. If that would have happened to Randy Savage, they’d have probably let him back into the ring for a second go. The best thing about the Owen elimination was that the cameras missed it, so when Timothy Well is announced as the next entrant there is a loud cheer. Anyone watching this must have thought “Fuck, he’s WELL over”. Another great TW spot was him being whipped into the turnbuckle and trying to do the Flair corner bump. Maybe he wasn’t used to the WWF ring, but this poor twat bounces off the top rope gets tangled and falls with a thud. Michaels had already done that spot earlier in the night, so either the road agents were off form or Tim Well wasn’t watching the monitor. Either way, a memorable Rumble appearance all in all. He lasted 23 seconds, got a giant pop which wasn’t for him, fucked up a Flair Flip and got thrown out. After T.Well caused a mini-spurt in terms of eliminations. Duke Drose was next up. He got thrown out and fell on Earl Hebner on the way down, which was hilarious. Earl looked like he was having a aneurism on the floor. Rick Martel was next out. He was chucked out by The Barbarian in a little “Characters from 91” moment. You could almost hear Martel saying “I have a Hasbro, which is more than you have” and Barbarian replying with “well I’m planning on getting a Bend ‘Em on the market by March, because I'm still under contract” before throwing the Model back to Outlaw promotions in Montreal. Prichard, Doink, Eli Blu bit the dust. Luke Bushwhacker entered and was thrown straight back out.

 

This was the halfway point, where Michaels and Bulldog had another one on one. What was funny, which I never noticed, was that Jacob Blu came out to interrupt this, much like his twin did earlier. That was pretty cool. Not knowing there was two of them at the time, we were all going “what’s this cunt doing back out?” Unlike his brother, he last a few seconds and actually sold for HBK. He’s still terrible. It wasn’t half as easy to get rid of King Kong Bundy, though. Bundy looks massive in this. Bundy just stalks his opponents. He’s a proper great big man. Unlike modern day fatties, he didn’t look like he was hitting the mat any time soon. He begins dominating the Bulldog when the funniest Rumble moment of the year takes place as UKFF Hall of Famer Mo dashes to the ring and gets back dropped out, coming deadly close to breaking Warlords record. Mable follows Mo’s lead and he’s well pissed off. Mable and Bundy have a heated little stare down to be fair. The fans were quite into it considering Mabel was dead on his arse at this point. He eliminates King Kong Bundy, which considering Bundy was being built for an Undertaker match, was far to easy. Bushwhacker Butch came out as this was going on. Rinse and repeat. He lasted as long as Luke.

Lex Luger darts down the aisle and dumps Mabel out on his own. The commentators and fans are stunned. Luger looks the definite favourite at the moment. The seeds are planted for the Allied Powers as Luger and Bulldog work as a team for a lot of this. Luger went to punch Davey, but stopped as he realised, which Lawler picked up on. Smith had a twinkle in his eye which read “if I don’t get sent down for breaking that lads back in that pub a while back, Lex might be the new Dynamite. We could even get matching jackets”. Bulldog especially took exception to our next entrant Mantaur giving The Total Package a kicking. Mantaur was a proper “who the fuck is this” moment when he came out. Aldo Montoya was then used as bait for his real life pal Shawn Michaels. The theme of blokes wearing yellow continued with Henry O Godwinn slapping the shit out of anything that moved. Every heel seemed to have a beard in this. And they all looked like WWF’s developmental territory was based in Emmerdale. Another familiar face showed up in Billy Gunn. Fast as fuck he was. He ran towards the ring as if he’d just seen his wife reading that Pinky Simmons thread in UKFF Gold. Some athlete Billy is. Not worthy enough to eliminate Mantaur, but an athlete nonetheless. Bart Gunn was the following entrant and that’s just lazy if you ask me. “Fuck it, just send Bart out after him” was the message here. They really couldn’t be arsed to separate them.

Bret Hart was back to stop Bob Backlund entering the Royal Rumble and going on one of those goose-stepping mad bastard runs he went on two years previous. Again, Steven Dunn followed this. The other Dunn bloke came out after Bret eliminated Owen. Conspiracy theorists among us would probably put the two together and say “was Well Dunn working with Bret all along to provide a distraction for Bret Hart?” I didn’t think about it to much, because Dick Murdoch of all people came out. Fucking Dick Murdoch?!!! Fed on a diet of Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan, seeing Dick Murdoch in 95 was a bit of a shocker. He looked like someone who they’d send out on Bullseye for the 301 charity round. Business picked up when Adam Bomb ran down and beat the shit out of Bret’s mate Steven Dunn. Headshinker Fatu was the penultimate man to pop out of the entrance way, and he did a funny spot with Murdoch where they head butted each other and only Dick sold it.

 

And NUMBER 30 is … Crush. Vince said what I thought. “Crush is going to win this thing. Crush is going to WrestleMania”. I always thought it was Crush’s destiny to win the Rumble. 1993 was his year. If it wasn’t for Doink and his mental arm, Crush would have won the Rumble and went on to defeat Bret Hart, and if he fancied his chances Hulk Hogan afterwards. He immediately threw out the number one condenters to the tag team titles, the Smoking Gunns, so he did validate my hopes. The camera went to Pamela Anderson again. She waved and pointed towards the ring, in a “get the camera off me, please” motion. The future members of Kronic go at it in one of those “if they only knew” moments. Allied Powers vs. Kronic might be a dream match only I have. Imagine the outfits? Crush’s experience showed by eliminating his future pal. Definite momentum being gained by Crush here. Fatu is next to be thrown out by the man from Kona Hawaii.

After Murdoch eliminates himself with an aeroplane spin (which I’m not even attempting to describe) we are down to the FINAL FIVE!!!~ Everyones favourite Crush, Henry Godwinn, Lex Luger and his new pal Davey Boy and HBK. They do the brawl where each person picks a man, as they always do. Henry O is (as everyone who was watching could see) was there just for a pop when one of them got thrown out. Crush looks knackered, even though he’s been in there about three minutes. Luger stupidly goes for a ten count punch in the corner, which is dumb. Shawn just pushes him out. People can say what they want about Luger, but they didn’t half position him as a proper Dodo egg during his WWF run. It’s a formality at this point anyway. Crush is just going to throw them both out. Crush is fresh, even though his hair is soaking wet and his face paint is washing off. Up for the Gorilla Press he goes … oh … Michaels slipped out of it. And Bulldog eliminates him! Well fuck me, I do believe in miracles. Vince and myself react with the same level of shock and surprise as Martin Tyler did when Aguero scored in the last minute against QPR.

Its down to Bulldog and Michaels and the place is going batty. People say this Rumble is one of the worst, but the final sequence is a belter. Bulldog throws him about. He does the high knee to the face, the bouncy crotch move Michaels always did. Bulldog finishes off with a lariat sending Michaels over the top rope. I remember we all thought he’d won. They even played his music. So it was a bit of a shock when Michaels came back in and was declared the winner.

The fans weren’t best pleased, expect two blokes in snooker waistcoats high-fiving in the front row. Looking at the replay, only Shawn Michaels could have done this. Not just athletically, but his facial expressions and movements and he so desperately tried to hold onto the rope were bang on. It also gave me the “can Ian get out of bed” thing I do on a morning sometimes. I’ll put a leg on the floor and in my head have Vince going “can he do it, one foot is touching the floor. It has to be two feet”. You’ll all be doing it after reading this. The show ended with Michaels posing infront of an indifferent Pamela Anderson.

 

This Rumble was far better than I remembered. Short and sweat as well. No pissing about.

DOES IT HAVE SHIT ON THE MARKET? Yes.

[Dr.PeterVenkman]

'Got a giant pop that wasn't for him' made me piss myself

 

Quality review for the first Rumble I watched live, forgot how few credible winners there were though

[WWFChilli]

I had to stop at this bit, I got well tickled up at this.

 

Its like when you get bored in your aforementioned wrestling figures Rumble and you just shove a load in because you don’t think Jerry Sags deserves any offence.

[bAzTNM#1]

Not joking when I say Dick Murdoch hit the best drop-kick I've ever seen a man do on Henry Godwinn in that match. Check it out.

[air_raid]

Bret Hart's mate Steven Dunn. Brilliant.

 

Having watched the 95 Rumble recently though, ending aside it's a chore for me. I'm pissed off Ian got it rather than one of the better ones, but at least his talent made the review worth reading even if the match isn't worth watching.

 

Luck of the draw I guess. Brother, you should have bribed Slickster so we could have swapped.

 

Coach mentions that Kane has been in every Rumble since 99 and it occurs to me that he might have missed last year’s because of that pointless John Cena match. Was that true?

 

Sadly yes.

[wandshogun09]

Another familiar face showed up in Billy Gunn. Fast as fuck he was. He ran towards the ring as if he'd just seen his wife reading that Pinky Simmons thread in UKFF Gold. Some athlete Billy is. Not worthy enough to eliminate Mantaur, but an athlete nonetheless.

 

Rick Martel was next out. He was chucked out by The Barbarian in a little "Characters from 91" moment. You could almost hear Martel saying "I have a Hasbro, which is more than you have" and Barbarian replying with "well I'm planning on getting a Bend 'Em on the market by March, because I'm still under contract" before throwing the Model back to Outlaw promotions in Montreal.

 

Outstanding.

 

Like Raid said, Ian has pretty much polished a turd there. I actually quite enjoyed the match to be fair but the amount of no-hopers in there hurt it. HBK and Bulldog were great though.

 

I must've damn near worn my RR '95 tape out on the Pammy bits back then. I swore I could see nipple through that dress.

[NEWM]

First class Ian. For all the times I've watched that Rumble (which is loads for some reason, shite as it is), I've never noticed Well Dunn both entering during the Bret beatings. And yeah, Henry Godwin's shirt was lots yellower than usual. He got lazy on those yellow shirts when he turned face.

[ShortOrderCook]

ROYAL RUMBLE 2001

 

 

 

I said 1997 wasn't up to much as far as the action goes, well 2001 is a different story as it's almost non-stop. Generally, watching Rumbles back i can do something else at the same time and flitter in and out of it. I realized afterward though that i didn't pull away from the 2001 effort at all and it flew by.

 

The big angle leading into the event was, like in many instances before, whether Kane and Undertaker were incahoots and were going to team up together and dominate the Rumble match before taking on each other for the win. Austin was on his journey back to the WWF title and had a few weeks before the event been screwed out of taking the title from Kurt Angle on Raw by a super-human recovery and return from Triple H. This was perhaps, one of Austins last big chances to prove he's still the man. While The Rock, the previous champion was also in there and wanting his title back.

 

 

It kicks off with The Hardy Boys for the most part, eliminating whoever comes in and then tussling with each other until, as Drew Carey makes his entry into the ring, they slip off the top turnbuckle together and are gone. Drews lapping up the cheers and the moment being the solo man in the Rumble for a very brief moment as what has been dubbed 'The Hardcore Rumble' is really about to begin as Kane comes in at #6. Kanes performance here is a famous one, perhaps his finest hour. And frankly, i forgot just how much this really was his Rumble and his efforts should rightly be commended as it's a cracking performance for such a big man, he's integral to the rest of this match and really holds his own and owns this thing. I've thought there's been many, many points throughout Kanes existence and evolution that he could have been well and truly made, raised up that extra level and being of the stature/having the aura that The Undertaker has gone on to have, only for things to fizzle out or his character to take a nonsensical twist killing his momentum. This would be one of those examples for me, following his showing in this Rumble, that momentum could have been capitalized on to make him a serious star. The fans were fully prepared to embrace him i believe. He did get pushed post-Rumble, no doubt, but he really should have been a level above competing for the Hardcore belt at WrestleMania. Post WrestleMania and Austins heel turn, he could have been a prime candidate to oppose Austin on his own. Anyway, back to the Rumble...

 

 

After Drew Carreys comedy bit and eliminating himself and swiftly hitting the dusty trail as quick as he can, we get some more laughs and HonkyTonk Man arrives for a little shake, rattle and roll as a surprise entrant. Kane makes swift work of the 'Tonk and then the ring begins to fill up with a bunch of the guys who were involved in the 24/7 Hardcore stuff, most of them bringing their own toys along and there's a big segment of the match devoted to Hardcore shenanigans with everyone lamping each other with weapons. Kane lets the ring fill up with about 7 or so other guys who like doing the trashcan smashing stuff before getting thoroughly pissed off, deciding he's bored with this shit and it has no place in a Rumble and smacks the shit out of all of them and dumps them all out in quick succession. Looks like it doesn't matter if Kane has made a plan with Undertaker or not, he doesn't need him, he's dominating. Having disposed of the jobber division, he's all alone again, but now, here comes The Rock. Here we go, time to get serious, the big boys are getting involved now. Rock proves to be an adequate challenge to Kane and the ring starts to fill up. Basically all jabronis again though and nobody who's a real threat to winning the thing or having any real story of their own, Bradshaw, Albert, Venis, Hardcore Holly, Crash are there to make up the numbers for what's to come with the next two entrants. First of all being surprise entrant 3 of 4, a returning angry Big Show, on a mission to reignite his feud with The Rock and gain revenge for the miscarriage of justice that occurred the year previous when they were the final two. Big Show comes in and cleans serious house, lays everyone out with BIG FAT chokeslams, only doesn't actually eliminate anybody before Rock gets to him first and embarrasses the big man once again, slapping and clotheslineing him straight over the top rope and straight out of the Rumble almost as soon as he's arrived. Show isn't happy and takes Rock outside and chokeslams him straight through the announce table. Rock is out of the picture. For now.

 

 

Getting really fun now, all the big angles and stories are coming together nicely, coming to a head. Show being eliminated and then taking out Rock leads nicely into the the next sequence of events. As this has happened, for the first time in the match everyone's clubbed together and decided Kane needs to go, he's clearly a massive threat to the whole deal. Everybody's trying to push him over the top rope when the countdown hits zero aaand...

 

 

 

 

 

'Keep Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'...' It's The Undertaker. Everyone had forgotten about the Deadman and forgotten about the potential teaming up from the Brothers of Destruction. Taker arrives just in time to save Kane from elimination, but will he? Yes. Yes he will, Undertaker tears shit up, Kane gathers his bearings back, they have a moments look and then proceed to throw every single bastard out and are left alone. J.R, who's making great calls all over the place here, reminds us that the Rumble started with two brothers fighting, with The Hardys, being every man for himself and questions whether Kane and Taker are going to go at it. We don't have time to find out as before they can, here comes the next entrant. Walking likes he's just made fresh apple crumble in his kegs, it's Scotty 2 Hotty. You can see where this is going. The Brothers Dead and Red wait patiently for Scotty to get to the ring and then proceed to slap him about for fun, dumping him just in time for the next 10 second countdown.

 

 

Looks like Kane and Undertaker are going to dominate this match together afterall. It's going to take a serious badass to stop these two from doing so. Wait, here comes the next entrant...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN. An awesome moment i'd forgotten all about. Probably because what's teased doesn't quite get realized but, the tease itself is excellent and a great almost payoff to the angle. Austin is marching to the ring with serious purpose. But before he can take on the 7 footers he's cut off by his arch nemesis, out for revenge from earlier in the night (Austin seeking his own vengeance costing him the title against Angle) Triple H unleashes a viscous assault on Austin, busting him WIDE OPEN. This provides a good sympathy case for Stone Cold, already on his journey fighting back from what should have been career ending surgery and being run over, he's just been put at a serious disadvantage and may not even make it into the match. As this happens, The Rock has arisen and is back in there having it out with Kane and Undertaker. Shortly later the score is evened slightly as 'The One' Billy Gunn hits the ring. But then moreso as entering at #29, his music hits and everyone, everywhere lets out a collective WTF as...

 

 

 

 

 

it's only fucking MENG!

 

 

As King rightly says, if there's one man that can take on Kane and Undertaker on his own it's this man. #30 arrives and as is already common knowledge, it's Badman Rikishi. As Kish walks to the ring Austin is stirring up the aisleway, Riskishi is the man who ran this guy over for Triple H (or was it The Rock) he looks at Austin like he's thinking of trying to finish him off again but upon seeing Big 'Kish, Austins fire is reignited and he unloads with rights to Rikishi and enters the match. Austin is in. He dumps Meng out. Rikishi manages to eliminate Undertaker but shortly after gets chucked out himself by his Somaon Brother The Rock.

 

Down to the final four and once we're there, someone realizes Billy Gunn is there for some reason and Austin makes it right and gets rid. So it's the final 3, we're approaching the big finish and all 3 men are down. Kanes been in there forever and is pretty knackered from throwing 10 blokes over the top rope. Rock has been there a fair while too and has been slammed through a table for good measure. Austins face is covered red, he's lost a whole lot of blood. They're all in pretty bad shape. Rock and Austin are slumped in opposing corners. In a tremendous series of moments, somewhat reminiscent of the Hogan-Warrior first confrontation of Rumble '91, the two biggest stars of this boom period are about to go at it. Their eyes lock and slowly they both rise to their feet and slowly approach each other. It's a great visual. Austin seems to provide many great visuals when his face is covered in blood, i think he wore the crimson mask better than anyone. The crowd become unglued and in a cracking precursor to what's to come at WrestleMania X7, Austin and Rock go at it for the first time in a long time.

 

 

Kane gets back to his feet and enters the mix too, after they all briefly tussle Rock chucks Kane out but he goes through the ropes rather than over. Austin and Rock take turns trying to eliminate each other but as Rock is attempting to drop Stone Cold, Kane reappears and tries to eliminate them both in one but Austin holds on and only Rock goes. Kane is still there, he's in the final two. Good effort. But not quite good enough, after Austin resorts to a lowblow, Kane grabs a steel chair from outside to finish this thing, a decision he'll regret as Austin ends up with the chair, wrapping it round Kanes skull a bunch of times having him teetering toward the ropes. Stone Cold makes use of a mighty clothesline to send The Big Red Machine all the way over and bag his place at The Astrodome challenging for the WWF title at WrestleMania.

 

 

A quality, quality Rumble. I remember enjoying it at the time but forgot quite how fun it was. Tremendous action, a few good big stories being told pacing the match out nicely, some good and genuine surprises and a great standout showing that really could and should have cemented a new permanent headline star.

[Arch Stanton]

It also gave me the

[ShortOrderCook]

I'm pissed off Ian got it rather than one of the better ones

 

Nah, I think that worked out for the best. I've never actually seen it, but I imagine I enjoyed that write-up more than I would actually watching it. Iun was probably the best candidate to do that and make it such an enjoyable read. I do enjoy his style of always giving you some form of nostalgia in taking you back to your childhood and referencing wrestling figures. I'm so pleased he included 'did it have shit on the market?' too. Also, his other Rumble to review is one of my favourites.

 

His and NEWMs review had me cracking up. I love that Vince and Truth picture. Excellent use there. NEWM always seems to express my own feelings in his posts and that was no different. Vividly took me back to the event, which I have a particular fondness for, because i actually went to it. On my own too, which didn't take the shine off it. I was supposed to be going with then girlfriend but we seperated shortly before. It was a Rumble and it was at MSG, I'd always wanted to do both and simply decided as soon as I knew it was happening "I'm going. That's all there is to it." and did just that. And it was a fantastic experience. Most of NEWMs post I echo, but I particularly loved The Undertaker and HBK angle and the finish was just absolutely mind-blowing. I was positively buzzing for hours after the event, having fallen completely deep in love with wrestling all over again. Fuck the girlfriend.

 

The man sitting next to me, who'd clearly only come along to bring his son, blatantly was having the most boring night of his life and blatantly thought I was the biggest loser in the land, having obviously come on my own and by Rumble time, I was a kid again, just getting right into it all and also being the only person in my area to jump up and cheer when Umaga arrived.

[gadge]

The Honky Tonk Man appearance in 2001 is one of my favourite comedy moments in wrestling. To YouTube I go..

[Up Chuck]

2001 is set in stone as one of my favourites. I've still got it on video recorded off Channel 4 somewhere, but I remember being devastated because my dad had unplugged our NTL Cable box before he went to bed, which for some reason used to make our terrestrial channels go fuzzy. You could still see and hear what was going on, but it was like watching it through a snowstorm. I still watched it about a hundred times like that. It's quality. The undercard has some great stuff, and as SOC quite rightly noted, everything in the Rumble flowed together beautifully and everyone was on top form. Drew Carey, Scotty's terrified face, even Meng showing up and throwing those awesome afro-swinging headbutts is one of my favourite Rumble moments, despite getting piss-all crowd reaction.

 

And I'd never thought about it before, but SOC, you're bang on about Kane. That was an MVP performance that definitely warranted something better at Wrestlemania than chucking Raven and Big Show around for the Hardcore belt. It was a weird time. Austin being back kind of pushed everyone down the card - think about Judgement Day that year, we ended up with the star of the Rumble and the world title challenger feuding for the Intercontinental title. The place was so top-heavy, it's amazing that the Invasion ended up feeling so small-time in places.

[fye]

The Honky Tonk Man appearance in 2001 is one of my favourite comedy moments in wrestling. To YouTube I go..

 

Its here

[PunkStep]

Haku should've had that Rumble sewn up.

[air_raid]

Overall a good review, the Rumble delivered a lot of action in 2001. I remember like it was yesterday watching it on C4, ten of us crammed into one room at uni having the "predictions championship." All of us had Triple H to beat Angle, and the room was split 50/50 on Rock/Austin for the Rumble itself. We all assumed it was a straight shoot-out between which megaface would have the privilege of resting the belt from Trips at the big one. Some of us thought the Rock deserved revenge from the previous year, the rest (including myself) believed the only logical conclusion to the Austin comeback was a glorious title win in his home state for 'Mania, and Steve Austin not being in the WWF title match at 'Mania was unthinkable. None of us gave Angle much hope of getting by Triple H, and we also didn't entertain the thought of the title changing hands at No Way Out.

 

My prevailing memory however, after Haku coming down (and the smarks among us going "isn't he still WcW Hardcore Champion??") was when the Big Show's music hit we all went "What??? Holy shit!!" - and then C4 cut to ad break before Show came out the curtain. Oooooh you teases. I'd also forgotten that bit with Scotty, we felt so sorry for him.

 

Incidentally I'm with you on the position of Kane but I think Show was also treated strangely in the first few months of 2001 - his run-in during the Angle/Rock match at No Way Out seems really incongruous given that he also ended up in the "just for laughs" match on the grandest stage of them all.

 

In a tremendous series of moments, somewhat reminiscent of the Hogan-Warrior first confrontation of Rumble '91,

 

Minor slip-up - that was '90.

 

The crowd become unglued and in a cracking precursor to what's to come at WrestleMania X7, Austin and Rock go at it for the first time in a long time.

 

You're still pissed from last night. They tore lumps out of each other in the six-way Cell match at Armageddon the month before.