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[1996-01-21-WWF-Royal Rumble] Royal Rumble


Loss

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  • 3 weeks later...

I *think* '96 was the first year that entrance music accompanied ring entrances.

 

This is the last few minutes of the Rumble, starting with the entrance of #25. Austin gives Michaels this amazing clothesline and then does the Shawn pose. There is no heat for much of this unless Michaels is going at it with Owen, Davey Boy or Jannetty, and there is a huge pop for the finish. Pretty obvious why they saw Michaels as the guy of the future when you see the way the crowd reacted to him compared to pretty much everyone else.

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  • 1 month later...

Austin also points with his fingers in a way that suggests his flipping off everyone in the near future.

 

It's a pretty dull rumble ending until the last moments. I liked Shawn v Marty. Kane and Davey Boy have excellent finishes, and I love how they realize Shawn would not be believable eliminating Nash unless he pearl harbor's him. Good finish.

 

Loss mentions the crowd response. I was just thinking how tired I was of Shawn's poor beat up underdog near eliminations. But even I was excited by the end. There might be something to this Michaels kid. Think he'll go far?

 

I know I am predisposed because I like Nash, but the self-indulgent hi-five bit at the end was kind of cool. Whereas the striptease sequence was not cool.

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The WWF has always prided itself on its top notch production values. There were two eliminations (one involving a huge name in Owen Hart) missed with 10 men remaining. They didn't even show a replay of the Hart elimination, where Michaels could have been eliminated instead.

 

Michaels winning was a major moment for me as a kid. I loved Michaels with the Rockers, went sour on him during the split, then started loving him again after the Sid incident almost a year before. The race was on to WM 12 and the wrestling fans in the class were debating the impending Michaels/Hart match. Rewatching this I am surprised by the lack of heat. Truth be told looking at who is in the final 10 (which included an Issac Yankem and Fatu I didn't remember being around in 96) there isn't a lot of star power. Diesel and Shawn are the only two that one could see (or want to see) headline WM 12.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 1 year later...

A Rumble match where there are only 2 guys who can feasibly win definitely led to a tepid crowd. The pop for the finish was nuts though. This is my first time watching any WWF from this period, as I quit watching wrestling for a few years. I get why Michaels the performer is over, but the male stripper gimmick being so over doesn't really make any sense.

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  • 1 month later...

This Rumble had more random guys than the 93 version. Here we had The Headhunters, Dory Funk, Omori and Doug Gilbert to fill out the ranks. Triple H had the big run as far as lasting a long time but didn't really eliminate anyways. I though Savio Vega was great taking some king sized bumps and big moves from everyone. Droese might be the worst 30th entrant for the Rumbles. The camera work on the eliminations was terrible as they would have too many guys in the ring and miss guys being thrown out. Monsoon would have been very confused. Shawn Michaels was so annoying in this. He eliminates both Vader and Yokozuna with ease! Shawn runs around and is hitting everyone with punches. He press slams 1-2-3 Kid (I know) over the top rope. Michaels was looking way too dominating when he shouldn't be like that.

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  • 3 months later...

Just in the JIP version here Shawn flying over the top rope and holding on got real old. He was like a human pinball. The crowd was as dead as I've ever heard in the latter stages of the Rumble. Bad camerawork missing eliminations. Undercarders with terrible gimmicks that nobody gave a shit about. To round it off the final 4 was over in seconds with absolutely no drama. Dreadful.

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  • 8 months later...

A long stretch early in the Rumble sees no viable babyfaces in the ring and so the crowd turns Vader face because he's kicking everyone's ass.

Owen and Shawn ignore each other despite coming in back to back on the heels of the concussion angle. They even team up to beat on Barry Horowitz.

All the special attractions lasted 3 mins or less except Dory jr. who they wanted to use as a talent broker for All Japan guys.

Ahmed and Razor should have been entered, if only to help the roster depth.

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  • 6 months later...

Pretty tepid action when Michaels isn't involved--he's really the only guy in this thing who's over, though Owen and Davey Boy get over by proxy working against him. And the requisite Shawn-Marty face-off gets a nice reaction. This is marred by some horrible gimmicks in the latter stages and even worse camerawork, which is incredibly jarring considering that that's supposed to be a major WWF strength. This is definitely a strong showcase for Michaels as the top guy.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I actually thought this was an underated Rumble watching all the ones from 88-02 last year, this would be top 5-6 which is surprising since the finish is pretty much a foregone conclusion. These clips highlighted the big portions of the match I liked besides Vader's destruction and we get good snippets of Owen and Davey still being in the upper mix.

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  • GSR changed the title to [1996-01-21-WWF-Royal Rumble] Royal Rumble
  • 10 months later...

This was a good rumble, for the first half of the match. There was tons of great stuff. Everything involving Lawler, Razor chasing the 1-2-3 Kid. Vader potatoing everyone and going face to face with Gorilla Monsoon. All that ruled, then the match fell into a noticeable lull  after that and never got good again until the finish which was great. Michaels having to super kick Diesel before he could realize what’s happening was a good finish. It just needed a better second half. ***3/4 

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