[1994-01-22-WWF-Royal Rumble] Royal Rumble

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[El-P]

Very boring rumble with bad timing and tons of filling up spots with midcarders without issues. Kwang and Sparky Thurman Plugg debuts, thrilling. The bright spots were Diesel running wild and getting a reaction, which pretty much saved his career in WWF, Jannetty throwing himself into Michaels for a few seconds, a cool exemple of long term continuity, and the final spot, which was really unexpected at the time. DiBiase on color was terribly bland, yet another role post wrestling he was not good at.

[Ricky Jackson]

Yeah, a below average Rumble with a memorable ending. For a bit of useless trivia, after 1991 this was the only Rumble match Bret Hart participated in until 1997.

[flyonthewall2983]

He was in the '88 one, too.

[Ricky Jackson]

I know. He was also in the 90 Rumble. What I meant was in between 91 and 97 he only participated in the 94 Rumble.

[jdw]

What a strange Rumble career he had:

 

1988: Royal Rumble

1989: Hart Foundation & Jim Duggan vs Rougeaus & Dino Bravo

1990: Royal Rumble

1991: Royal Rumble

1992: IC Title: Roddy Piper (sub) over The Mountie to win the title

1993: WWF Title: Bret Hart vs Razor Ramon

1994: Royal Rumble + WWF Tag Title: Quebecers vs Bret & Owen Hart

1995: WWF Title: Diesel vs Bret Hart

1996: WWF Title: Bret Hart vs Undertaker

1997: Royal Rumble

 

Which doesn't do justice to it:

 

1992: IC Title: Roddy Piper over The Mountie to win the title

 

He was suppose to job the title to Mountie here if I recall correctly. Instead they did the quickie at the House show since Bret was having contract issues (possible jump to WCW talked about at the time), then the quickie sub of Piper at the Rumble winning the title. In the end it all worked out well: Piper-Bret at Mania was a good, smart match.

 

1994: Royal Rumble + WWF Tag Title: Quebecers vs Bret & Owen Hart

 

The "tie" between Lex and Bret, along with Owen's heel turn.

 

1997: Royal Rumble

 

Final Four set up with the creative finish.

 

John

[flyonthewall2983]

I remember feeling, even at the time, that Savage was just wasted here.

[Marty]

It's been a while since I've seen this, but the last time I watched it, the thing that stood out for me was how cycled down everyone looked, especially Diesel. Also, agreed with El-P about DiBiase's commentary sucking.

[flyonthewall2983]

Looking back, it's terrible. But, I always thought he had the voice for it. It would have been interesting to see him try it without the guise of being "The Million Dollar Man", and just be a straight play-by-play guy.

[Loss]

We join in just before Tenryu is eliminated and we have our final four. I remember Shawn putting on a great performance in this match, and he looks good for the short period of time reflected here. This finish never bothered me too much since it set WM up just fine. Bret getting the much bigger reaction I always thought was revisionist history at its finest, but re-watching this, it's pretty apparent that's the case.

[Dooley]

Very boring rumble with bad timing and tons of filling up spots with midcarders without issues. Kwang and Sparky Thurman Plugg debuts, thrilling. The bright spots were Diesel running wild and getting a reaction, which pretty much saved his career in WWF, Jannetty throwing himself into Michaels for a few seconds, a cool exemple of long term continuity, and the final spot, which was really unexpected at the time. DiBiase on color was terribly bland, yet another role post wrestling he was not good at.

Curious on why you say that. Seemed the consensus at the time was the office always had plans for Diesel because he was a massive guy in an era of stringent drug testing. Either way, a great coming out party for Diesel and the advent of the "monster cleans house" aspect of the Rumble that has been repeated ad nauseum since.

 

I liked Owen's run early in the match, he got a great heel reaction and played off it well. Agreed with Savage being wasted. Liked the no-show entry, teasing it was Bret, before Bret came out a few spots later limping and having the crowd eating out of his hand.

 

The finish was creative at the time and set up Mania well. I liked Finkel going to announce it before stopping mid-way through and going over to ask "are you sure?"

[El-P]

Very boring rumble with bad timing and tons of filling up spots with midcarders without issues. Kwang and Sparky Thurman Plugg debuts, thrilling. The bright spots were Diesel running wild and getting a reaction, which pretty much saved his career in WWF, Jannetty throwing himself into Michaels for a few seconds, a cool exemple of long term continuity, and the final spot, which was really unexpected at the time. DiBiase on color was terribly bland, yet another role post wrestling he was not good at.

Curious on why you say that. Seemed the consensus at the time was the office always had plans for Diesel because he was a massive guy in an era of stringent drug testing.

 

I don't remember where, but I think I heard about this was the last stuff they would try with Diesel, who didn't get over on his own before, and since he got a big reaction there, they decided they would do something with him.

[Kevin Ridge]

I think there has been worse Rumbles than this though there was a lack of star power in the event. Diesel was definitely the highlight of this when he tore through everyone before getting ganged up on. I thought Bigelow also had a good performance lasting a decent amount of time after already having a match earlier and being involved in the casket match. Michaels/Jannetty squaring off was a great little segment in event.

[Exposer]

I've seen only a handful of Rumble matches from the 90s and this is one of them. It was pretty forgettable. The only things worth of note were Tenryu and the finish. There is a much larger Bret reaction. That was pretty obvious and not surprising.

[soup23]

Tenryu showed some good struggle on his elimination. I wonder what the rationale was for Fatu to be in this spot was. Michaels elimination seemed wasted and unimportant to how big his role was throughout the match. I can't recall how Owen got eliminated but would be interested in knowing. The finish looked ok and was neat but I had forgotten how restrictive they had to be on the replay angles. Fink announcing the winner and then doing a double take almost caused me to spit out my coke. Overall I thought this did a pretty decent job keeping both Luger and Bret strong going into Wrestlemania.

[flyonthewall2983]

Diesel threw Owen out early in the match.

[Kevin Ridge]

Owen's performance was too short after his turn earlier in the night. Felt like they could have got a bit more out of him but I understand they probably didn't want him anywhere in the ring later when Bret entered so as to keep them a part.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

Couldn't they have recorded a close-up, tight shot of the finish earlier (tight enough to not show empty arena) that showed both feet hitting at the same time? I suppose who knows how many takes they might have to do before nailing it, but it would have been worth a shot.

[flyonthewall2983]

The thing about that is Bret landed on his butt, and Luger on his feet, which made me think if they did a photo-finish they would have given it to Bret.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

No. I mean record the finish earlier, but do a very close up tight shot so nobody would know the arena is empty and it was recorded earlier.

[Laney]

I think this is one of the weaker Rumbles, but certainly not the worst. The only memorable thing about this Rumble is the unique co-winner finish. Overall, it's pretty dull for the most part, but it's fun to see Tenryu in the Rumble.

[flyonthewall2983]

The only memorable thing about this Rumble is the unique co-winner finish.

And Nash destroying everybody for awhile. That was the highlight of the night, watching it. Must have been the first time I knowingly cheered for a heel.

[Zenjo]

If there's one thing that American sports fans love, it's a draw.

[PeteF3]

This was an incredibly oddly booked Rumble. Diesel's steamroller run works, but there were a lot of guys who rather randomly were thrown out in a minute or less, like Double J and Owen, even when it didn't make sense. Contrast with '91, which had a ton of mid-card types like Valentine, Martel, Santana, and Hercules lasting forever. The result is that for the first full half of this match, there's never more than about 4 guys in the ring. Then you had two outsiders, Greg Valentine (?!), four guys who wrestled earlier in the night, at least two guys debuting, a rash of substitutions, and random guys who were barely getting booked at this point like Virgil, Backlund, and no-show Bastion Booger. Just piles of evidence slapping fans in the face with what a shoddy roster the WWF had at this point when compared to years past. Anyway, the booking of Luger and Bret is pretty great--I admit to getting totally taken in by the fake-out no-show by Booger, only for Bret to appear later on. Luger went through a similar tease after getting jumped in the locker room by Tenryu & Kabuki. Nice to see Tenryu actually getting something to do here, as opposed to '93 when he walked in and did practically nothing besides exchange a few chops with DiBiase and get tossed by the Undertaker. Fatu gets one of the final 4 slots, in yet more weirdness. Cheap-ass finish and the endless tease of the winner announcement which had me seething with rage when I was 12. Finkle making an announcement and then stopping to talk to Tunney again was the height of ridiculously artificial drama. Even my mother was practically shouting at Tunney, "Just let them back in and re-start it!!!" Sadly, that bit of logic hadn't entered into the booking team's mind yet, so we get a ripoff finish that had me confused and not in a "Boy, I wonder where this is going!" way. This show ages pretty surprisingly well, but at the time between this and the Undertaker stuff I had NEVER felt more ripped off by a PPV.

 

Weird random music dub at the end over the old WrestleMania guitar theme, and that sucks. At least use the WMX/Linda McMahon music.

[flyonthewall2983]

WWE Network version has the old WM music back in at the end.