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[1992-01-19-WWF-Royal Rumble] Roddy Piper vs The Mountie


Loss

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  • 3 weeks later...

As a match this pretty much nothing but the post match celebration is legitmately a great feel good moment. Piper seems genuinely happy to have won his first title in the wwf and the crowd response as the announcement is made is one of my favorite wwf moments. It comes across as a real nice thank you to Piper for his work in that era.

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Interesting that they showed footage of the Mountie beating Bret to win the IC title. I don't think I've seen that before, and they didn't show it in the Update on Superstars. I can never keep the story straight with Bret negotiating with WCW and there being rumors of him showing up at the Clash with the IC title, because there are so many versions of the story. I've heard that it both did and did not play into the decision to take the belt off of him.

 

Agreed that the match isn't much, but yes, the post-match celebration is a memorable feel-good moment.

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  • 4 weeks later...

You know what's sad? It seemed like the biggest thing in the world, the idea someone would win the IC and WWF belts in the same night.

 

If they did that today it wouldn't mean anything at all.

Makes me even more happy that I'm watching 1992 WWF from this wonderful 1992 Yearbook DVD Set and that I'm not watching current WWE.

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  • 11 months later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 5 months later...

Finkel's announcements of new champions always sound great. Agreed that match wasn't much but a cool moment to see Piper win in the IC Title. I like how they were putting over him having the chance to win both titles in one night by winning the Rumble.

Fink's announcement probably is the highlight here. Looked like the ref did a shoddy job calling the finish but still a fun moment.

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  • 4 months later...

Rare footage of the Mountie's title victory, which I believe only appeared on the Coliseum Video version of the Royal Rumble and on the Anthology. Piper's pre-match promo is one of my favorites of his, one of his few outwardly comedic promos that's actually funny.

 

Nothing match, but Piper's victory celebration (and Fink's announcement, of course) is a legitimate chill scene.

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  • 1 year later...
  • 6 months later...

The match itself was a squash, almost like 1989 Piper versus the Fabulous Jacques Rougeau would have been on Superstars or Challenge. if Jacques had more than ten seconds of sustained offense at any point in the match, I must have missed it. As everyone else has said, this was about the moment: the leadup to it, the match itself, and the posrtmatch. Piper seems legitimately happier to get the IC belt than anyone I've ever seen, and the crowd is just as happy for him. Meanwhile, Jacques is ignominiously sent back to midcard hell, which he never really left in the first place.

 

I saw the footage of the Mountie's title win, and I noticed that the ring announcer (who was the regular Boston Garden ring announcer; they never identified him by name, but it wasn't Mel Phillips or Finkel) never announced Jacques as the new IC champion. Was that just an oversight, or were they afraid of fan backlash? You'd think that Piper's appearance would have taken care of that, but maybe not.

 

Is there anyone more useless in the WWF right now than Jimmy Hart? Even Jamison serves more of a purpose. As for Jacques, he's a rare case of being able to perform a character in the ring a thousand times better than he can on the mic. Either one of my dead grandmothers sounds more like a Mountie than he does. He'd have been better off not even doing promos.

 

Something tells me that the commentary for this was redone in the studio, because Gino and Bobby don't sound live at all here. I think I remember reading something about there being too much crowd noise for the commentary to be heard well during the live pay-per-view, so maybe Vince wanted it re-recorded for Coliseum Video. At any rate, they pay almost no attention to the match whatsoever; Heenan's more concerned with finding out Flair's number for the Rumble and complaining about being stuck with Gino all weekend, while Gino happily guzzles him at every turn.

 

My favorite line comes after Bobby reasserts his First Amendment right to free speech, to which Gino replies, "When you're with me, you don't have any rights!" As much as I liked the line, it symbolizes the deterioration of their act. I liked them a lot better when Heenan would say the most outrageous things in the world and Gino would simply say, "Give me a break, Brain!" When Gino started fighting back in the late eighties, they started going downhill, and now Gino's outright bullying him most of the time. The only reason I can still listen to them is because I know they were best friends outside the ring. If they weren't, they'd be even harder to listen to than JR and Heyman.

 

I thought that the WWF was just retconning when they said that Piper was the first man to have a chance to win both the World and IC titles in the same night, but then I realized that most of the other guys who had a chance to end a given night with two belts already had one to begin with, such as when the IC champion challenged the World champion. Piper really was the first man who could have gone from no belts to two in the same night.

 

This was truly Piper's last big pay-per-view moment in the WWF; he'd be a special attraction against Lawler and Dustin, among others, but he'd never be a major player again after he dropped the IC title to Bret at Mania VIII. Thanks for a ton of memories, Hot Rod!

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  • 1 year later...

Always a great moment when Piper wins and the crowd takes a second to realize whats happened and then does a "holy shit he did it pop". The match was exactly what it needed to be and this felt like a great WWF nod to someone that had helped the promotion reach incredible heights with Piper still having a little bit left in the tank to give some compelling performances. **1/2

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  • 6 months later...
  • GSR changed the title to [1992-01-19-WWF-Royal Rumble] Roddy Piper vs The Mountie
  • 1 year later...

Either to cover up Piper's weakness as a worker or to save his energy for his appearance in the Rumble match, this only goes a few minutes, but I had a massive smile etched across my face whilst watching this. Piper comes across as a complete star toying with Mountie. Mountie does the 'skin-the-cat' spot years before Shawn Michaels perfected it. Piper very rarely got a clean win on PPV and this being his first ever title win, created a feel good moment that the crowd ate up. 

★★½

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