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  • 4 weeks later...

Excellent match. One of the better WWF tags. There were some really clever spots in this. I love the slingshot/sunset flip combo finish, and Shawn's counter to the belt clothesline. There are a few things that I noticed during the match that were minor flaws, but I forgot what they were as the match progressed, which makes them pretty meaningless. Give them credit for thinking outside the box and coming up with something creative that tore the house down.

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This really was a show case match for the Rockers and they looked great. The dives to the outside , their double team spots, their energy in general. I thought the Orient Express were real good in their stooging. Now the heat segment was rather pedestrian with the nerve holds and such. Now the end stretch was great with the cross up finish spots. You can hear someone yelling Paul toward the finish. The crowd ate this up with a spoon.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey, it's a Rockers tag in January that's a WWF MOTYC, maybe the winner. Where have we heard this story before? Except the OX are a lot more capable than the Powers of Pain. I remember being absolutely blown away by the stereo move sequence at around the halfway point, especially the first time I saw a Tiger Feint. The only time this comes close to dragging is the OX's heat segment on Shawn, but that also went a lot longer than I recalled as I remember this being a very heel-in-peril match and it was more even than I gave it credit for. January's greatness continues.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Tanaka throws a sweet flying forearm smash. Rockers double team timing is excellent. Express really play to the crowd more than I remembered. Michaels took a big bump off the turnbuckle to the floor. Nice little finish playing off the Express double teaming. Have always enjoyed this match and this time around I thought it was excellent. Better than anything WWF did in 1990. Express could have done more in WWF though I expect there weren't the proper face teams for them to go up against outside the Rockers.

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  • 2 years later...

I don't know who came up with this match, but Vince should have had him fired. Didn't he know that WWF tag matches are only supposed to have a handful of recognizable spots, with the rest of the time filled by restholds and managerial interference? Didn't he know that no WWF superstar is supposed to work this hard to entertain a crowd in the curtain jerker, even on pay-per-view? Didn't he know that most of the spots in this match are too complex for WWF superstars to execute, that they belong in Atlanta or Japan where wrasslers actually have to wrassle for a living?

 

In all seriousness, this might just be the best match in terms of in-ring action that I've ever seen from the WWF. The sheer number of fresh spots these guys did alone would qualify them for that distinction, but more important than that, we got a five-star performance from an unexpected source. Everyone who's seen the Rockers knows that they had a match like this in them somewhere, but what about the OX? Neither version ever looked this good before or since, and that also goes for Tanaka and Diamond's days as Badd Company in the AWA. It's like these guys got together beforehand and mutually agreed to show the waiting world everything they could do, and they certainly did that.

 

I can't even point to one spot that thrilled me more than any of the others, because almost everything each team did was not only well done, but unexpected, especially from the OX, who up to this time had been the stereotypical three-nerveholds-and-a-pinch-of-salt Japanese heel team regardless of whether Tanaka was teaming with Diamond or Akio Sato. The OX does use a nervehold briefly to slow things down, and we get an interference spot from Fuji, but these are well-placed and advance the story of the match rather than becoming the story

 

Gino and Piper were probably blown away by what they were seeing just like the audience was, and they managed to keep up as well as could be expected on commentary. Piper comes through as well as he usually does on the big matches, delving into strategy and the effects of each move as it's being done, while Gino actually gets to call moves instead of just shilling or bantering and does it solidly. I don't like that he's shouting at the top of his lungs so much; he only used to do that for the really big moments back in his heyday, but I guess Vince wanted him to join the goofball brigade that the WWF announcing crew's starting to become now that Jesse's been gone for a while. I even started liking Monsoon/Heenan less around this time because instead of setting up the Brain and reacting afterward, Gino started to shout him down and ignore him, which effectively killed that team's edge and made Heenan into just another annoying heel color man that's stopping the play-by-play man from calling the match.

 

At any rate, this is my Match of the Year so far as January starts to wind down. and I don't think any other WWF tags will top it for a good long time. As deep as the tag division was at one time in the eighties, matches like this simply didn't happen then, which is a shame because it's teams like the Bulldogs and the Harts that got a reputation for putting on matches like this when they never really did. I just hope that fans who say things like that see this match, because then they'll realize what a WWF tag team classic really is.

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  • 9 months later...
  • 1 year later...

Jan. of 1991 has to be one of the best month's in wrestling history as far as MOTYC/Classic matches go. It's just incredible. Another MOTYC candidate here in the first month of my 1991YB journey. I guess I'm more in line with garretta and PeteF3 on this match, that is I seem to be a little bit higher than some of the others who saw at is really good (but, maybe not GREAT). A lot has been said, but it just doesn't get much better than this in a WWF Tag setting. I absolutely LOVED the creativity and freshness of this match (especially thinking of the finish). At this point, this is in my top two for the month, and it's going to be hard to choose.

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  • 5 months later...

This match was absolutely shocking for me. I loved it, but one thing kept going through my head. Did they plan all of this? Did they let anyone KNOW they planned any of it? Did Vince chew their ass afterwards for all of that...wrestling?!? that was going on? All told, great tag match and I wish there were more of these in the WWF.

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  • GSR changed the title to [1991-01-19-WWF-Royal Rumble] The Rockers vs Orient Express
  • 4 months later...

The Rockers vs Orient Express - Royal Rumble 1991

I believe this is the most famous Rockers match because it happens on a PPV and it is actually given a serious amount of time. PPVs were much easier to get a hold of then a random MSG card so this has gone down in lore as THE ROCKERS match. I respectfully disagree, but I do think this is a wicked fun match and it was great that they were given this much time on a PPV especially to open. The crowd was right there with them. What this match does so well is make the Rockers look like world-beaters. The OX definitely were working this in the vein of the Midnight Express, not quite as good, but they were very selfless. Many of their spots to gain control were double teams. Why? Because they simply as good as the Rockers so they have to cheat gain the upper hand. However, the Rockers are so good they outfox them and it backfires on the OX. There are two good examples of the OX using the apron member to interfere, but then on the resulting criss cross the OX ends up running into each other in very entertaining fashion. Another example is at the outset of the match, they jumpstart the match by pushing Marty Jannetty off the top rope while he is posing for his entrance. He ends up dropkicking Tanaka and superkicking Paul Diamond. Then they do the stereo dives to the outside that wipe out both of the OX that is such an iconic spot. Another great sequence sees Michaels overcome both OX members with a moonsault and then was punctuated with stereo dives from each corner to the floor. Here is where I am going to deviate from those who truly love this match. Note what am I loving about the match: the spots. I thought the connective tissue was pretty boring. Lots of chinlocks and the such that did not lead anywhere. To me this is one of the first spotfests. I love a good spotfest and this is a damn good spotfest. To me this match was not about getting over the story as much as it was to get to the next spot. Now I think they did this better than most spotfests because the babyfaces were the ones doing the awesome highspots and the heels were being thwarted at every pass. So I will say for a spotfest they kept true to babyface/heel dynamics which makes this better than the average 21st century spotfest. Spotfest does not have to be a dirty word. If I was booking, I'd almost always have a big, dumb spotfest open my show that required almost no thinking. They are fun. They use the old Brainbuster heel transition spot of the assisted hotshot on the top rope. Tanaka gets an AMAZING LEGSWEEP! Oh shit I marked out for that. There is a long nerve hold at some point. Another great spot is Shawn does a Flair Flip as he is on the apron Tanaka hits a superkick to send him back in the ring. The transition to the hot tag is another great sequence as OX looks to clothesline Shawn with their ribbon belt but Shawn dives on it to make them collide. Hot tag to Marty! Goddamn he reminds me so much of Ricky Martel the way he is fired. Marty Jannetty is a lot sloppier than I remember in rewatching these matches. The hot tag is full of piss and vinegar. The actual finish is great as the OX goes for another catapult, but Shawn doubles over Tanaka with a punch so that when Marty is catapulted he sunset flips Tanaka for the win. It is a great spotfest that sees the Rockers overcoming one after another OX double team and allows them to show off a ton of really cool, innovative offense. ****

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  • 1 year later...

Yeah, this still rules. It maybe took a little to get rolling and they probably overreached a bit on a couple of the double teams, but they're minor complaints. Structure is a little different as they sort of tease a couple FIP spells without going all in on them, which makes it it looks like it might end up being mostly heel in peril and that's not the best scenario even if it'd still work, but then the Express take over with the awesome double hot shot on Michaels and we get our proper heat segment. They work Shawn's throat which is always going to score some bonus points. Fuji jabs him in the throat with the cane and I love Tanaka's little karate thrusts right under the chin, which are almost as good as his Kabuki style leaping forearm. Man I love that move. He's also able to make a nerve hold somewhat decent because he'd slyly choke Michaels at the same time. A treasure of a wrestler, Pat Tanaka. Awesome spot where Michaels takes his upside down corner bump, ends up on the apron and Takana comes sprinting across to thrust kick him back into the ring. I also love the spot leading to the hot tag with Michaels jumping into the belt that causes the Orients to bump heads. They actually do a few really fun bits around the heels running into each other, one early on where Jannetty leapfrogs over both of them and they collide, then one later where they stop short of bumping heads again, take a bow because they've avoided making the same mistake twice, and as they're doing that Michaels runs over and gives them a double noggin-knocker. First few minutes were interesting because they work pretty clean and equal, and we even got Jannetty and Kato doing the Ric Flair headscissors into bridge into backslide spot. Midway in they kind of work a reset that leads to stereo dives and you can tell that they worked hard to come up with ideas for cool double teams and the like. Not all of them were perfectly smooth, but it's easy to appreciate the effort. Finish is pretty great as well. Ten years ago I'd have pointed to this as the best Rockers match ever, and even if I'd probably lean Rockers/Powers of Pain now it'll always be a personal favourite. The Rockers were great.
 

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  • 1 month later...

This is even better than I remembered. Going nearly 20 miniutes, this is essentially a showcase for the Rockers as a lot of this match feels like an extended shine segment. The Orient Express control the match in small bursts, but there isn't a traditionally long hot-tag segment that they build up to. There's plenty of innovative tag sequences, but this isn't a spotfest.  I can see this being a strong WWF MOTYC. 

★★★★¼

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  • 1 year later...

I watch the Rumble every year but somehow I missed this one until I recently saw it and hot damn if it doesn't live up to all the hype. 

They go almost 20 minutes and I could have watched them battle for another 10.This tag battle is the perfect match in the perfect place on the card. An already eager pay-per-view crowd is whipped into a frenzy by this highly entertaining tag match. It’s also worth noting how atypical this match was for WWF, especially in this era. A match this long, worked at this pace, with this many big moves and high spots just didn’t happen in this company. 

Check out my full review of this match, part of my 365 Wrestling project.

 

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