THE 1996 PROJECT - Royal Rumble special!
So this week we finally get to our first PPV (or as they call them in this particular company now PLEs – HATE IT.) in Royal Rumble 1996 and it’s where we’re going to do an occasional series in which we dive in relatively deep featuring thoughts from people that were there in this case Jake Roberts, Bruce Pritchard and more (so expect some debunking… and possibly me debunking their version of events.)
The regular schedule resumes next week but we do have an appetiser in some AAA madness (and not in a good way) in Psicosis vs Ultraman 2000 (yes – a wrestler based on the famous Japanese Tokusatsu/Manga character!) from the 18th January.
We start off hot with Ultraman doing a tope through the middle rope onto Psicosis and that’s where everything begins to go south as it looks like he injured his hand doing the dive then when Psicosis does his little pivot dive during his entrance he nearly injures HIMSELF, Ultraman then attempts another dive with the cape on over the top rope and doesn’t quite get all of it. The dread kicks in as a superplex is prepared by Ultraman but thankfully that goes OK.
Keep in mind that we’ve got nowhere close to how crazy this match gets…
We then get a corkscrew moonsault onto Psicosis for the first fall. Yes – that quickly. I’ll say it now – the first two falls in this match mean NOTHING in the long run and the second fall kicks off with Psicosis nearly killing himself doing a missed running dropkick to Ultraman!
In fact this match becomes for Psicosis the ‘how many times can I nearly hurt myself doing crazy selling bumps?’ show… and then he stumbles on doing a flying clothesline followed by a few rollup sequences that give Psicosis the second fall.
So far this has a contender of being one of the worst matches for the entire project not just January 1996.
Psicosis’ second then grabs Ultraman as the 3rd fall begins and starts the double team until miscommunication leads to a dropkick off the apron then Ultraman’s second does a tope senton over the top rope to the floor – so begins the fuckery.
We then get ladder spots – including Psicosis recreating the HBK splash from Wrestlemania X to an extent – more a leg drop – loads of brawling on the outside and tables (with a botched corkscrew moonsault attempt as the table moved nearly killing Psicosis before he hits a splash through it).
Konnan and Rey then come down with chairs knocking out Tirantes and the heels with Rey doing a dive to the outside, we then get a botched piledriver by Ultraman as the smaller table has a leg break just as he’s about to hit it then a powerbomb where the table doesn’t break and the thud Psicosis’ head makes is quite cringe. It doesn’t help that a dive he does off the top rope soon after nearly ends with his head hitting the guardrail!
Ultraman then with the assistance of his second hitting a cane shot while Psicosis is on the top rope hits what I think is a brainbuster onto two chairs and mercifully it gets the 3.
(What a mess this was – take something that’s supposed to be more technical and high flying in Lucha, put in the worst elements of ECW (obviously Konnan’s influence there) and you get this – first off the amount of botches in this is amazing particularly the ones that nearly injure Psicosis badly right from the get go, then you have the table sequence in the final (and only notable) fall that just doesn’t work and the fact this should have been one fall rather than traditional 2 out of 3 makes this sadly so far the worst match we have seen so far. It’s weird to see that this was recommended back in the day – unless it was in the ‘so bad it’s good’ sense which even then I find VERY questionable. Psicosis then nearly kills himself AFTER by trying to dive onto Ultraman with a chair just to drive the point home and Ultraman’s theme is THE IMPERIAL MARCH?!)
So after that… surely Royal Rumble 1996 can’t be worse? Please?
Before we get to that – USWA the day before has a great match between PG-13 and Tracy Smothers/Jesse James Armstrong for the USWA tag titles that contains a good beatdown angle…
WCW Saturday Night meanwhile had a good Eddie Guerrero/Chris Benoit match and the start of Bischoff showing people that defected losing to WCW stars with Vader getting beat by Hogan just before he shows up at the Rumble.
Hogan still carries on his bitching about not getting a title shot at the Clash to Savage too… pathetic.
Jim Belushi randomly shows up as they carry on the slow push for Mongo in one of the most bizarre moments we have watched.
The Sting/Luger deal continues as they lost a tag team title shot to Harlem Heat after Lex backdropped Stevie Ray over the top rope and got them DQ’d and finally Savage and Flair do a decent talk segment to hype up the title match on Nitro.
Now at long last… we get ready to Royal Rumble!
We begin our night in Fresno with the first Free For All concluding in a win by Due The Dumpster Droese via DQ against HHH (in his Blueblood gimmick) to be number 30 in the Rumble meaning HHH starts at number 1.
Next is Ahmed Johnson vs Double J Je double f Ja double r e double t haha in a match that was set up from JJ attacking Johnson at the last PPV in Double J’s return after quitting (the first time) following In Your House 2.
As openers go it’s very clear Double J’s doing quite the carry job and there’s a wild moment where Ahmed attempts a 450(?!) and misses but in the end it ends in a pretty meh DQ via guitar shot to the head to Johnson by Double J.
(Bit pointless and these days this would have been on the Kick Off/Zero Hour rather than wasting time on the PPV. Does it set up revenge? Nope – not long until Jeff jumps ship to WCW!)
Bodydonnas vs Smoking Gunns follows for the tag titles and like way back in week one this is a fairly good tag match for WWF in 1996 plus with the added element of the very underrated Chris Candido who sells his ass off for the Gunns throughout plus in all fairness Tom Pritchard is a good partner for him (and I’m glad Pritchard got away from his shitty abuser that was his former partner…), Smoking Gunns manage to retain the belts.
We then get a repeat of the Billionaire Ted ‘skit’ for no reason from the last Raw and a video package for Goldust vs Razor.
We get one of the best matches on the card tbh in Razor vs Goldust and the debut of Marlena as the ‘director’!
Despite Scott Hall’s… issues shall we say with the angle he doesn’t let it get in the way of the match and seeing the full package of Golddust coming to fruition is grand too - we also get the return of the 123 Kid (technically it is after a month off due to injury since the last taping because they showed him with Sid on Superstars the day before and since then Sid also is out due to injury as mentioned last week!) who hits a spin kick (which doesn’t QUITE land) to give Golddust the cheap win and the title!
The Royal Rumble then begins – notable highlights include The King, Bob Backlund and HHH getting slop all over them by Henry Godwinn, the return of Jake The Snake Roberts (after he was thinking about retiring as 96 began – see the aftermath section for more!) Jerry Lawler hiding underneath the ring, Dory Funk Jr, Razor Ramon chasing after the 123 Kid as he enters the match, Doug Gilbert, the seeds of the Yokozuna face turn beginning when him and Vader face off, The Headhunters confronting Vader, HBK’s pop then eliminating Vader and Yokozuna, Vader’s confrontation with Gorilla Monsoon after he gets eliminated, Diesel starting the seeds of his heel turn and of course HBK being the first 2 time winner since the title shot prize was added in 1993.
Bret Hart vs Undertaker is our main event and is for the WWF championship – we begin with Diesel and Undertaker fighting continuing their feud that began at the last PPV of 1995 and follow with a damn good match between the Dead Man and The Excellence of Execution with some great work by Bret on attacking the legs so he can hit the Sharpshooter – in a very heelish manner to boot including a moment where he removes a turnbuckle pad too.
The DQ finish – while slightly annoying – makes sense since Diesel has had an issue with both men over the past few months and leads us nicely on the road for all three men to Wrestlemania XII plus Diesel giving the middle finger is shocking by 96 WWF standards.
Overall the show was a strong latter half from the IC title match onwards having to carry a fine tag match and a terrible opener.
Now we get to the behind the scenes talk courtesy of Between The Sheets, The Snake Pit and Something To Wrestle With podcasts!
The decision to go with HBK as the Rumble winner was made as soon as he was fully cleared from the Syracuse incident (STWW), Golddust and Razor won best match poll in the Wrestling Observer, JJ Dillon was behind Dory and Omori being in the Rumble while Pritchard takes credit for Headhunters and Doug Gilbert showing up. this was Mabel’s last show until 1998 – more than likely a combination causing injuries and creative had nothing according to Bruce.
From Jake Roberts’ perspective – he had sired 3 more kids and fighting his addiction issues when he got the call to do the Rumble but there was also jealously from a number of people of the pop Jake would get at the Rumble – in fact the top three pops of the night were all him!
Considering Jake had planned to retire at the end of 1995 in order to try and beat the demons it was a big surprise to get the phone call after all… from Bruce Pritchard which Jake saw as a bit of a slap in the face – saw it as they really didn’t give a fuck but if you beg they might bring you in. Talks also began for Jake working in the office as Jake thought he wasn’t at the right weight for wrestling at the time. Vince when he finally met with Jake told him ‘his brilliance was worth it’ and all the baggage was accepted.
The office talks quickly began to break down however – from little one-offs when someone got injured to full-time touring which turned out to be the big mistake leading to relapses.
And with that – we are done with Royal Rumble 1996. Next time – Raw, Nitro, Clash, Toyota vs Hotta and more…