Royal Rumble 1992

New Foundation vs. Orient Express (w/Mr. Fuji)
PUFFY PANTS! PUFFY PANTS! In case you're wondering, the New Foundation is Owen Hart and Jim Neidhart wearing big, colorful, puffy pants in a vain attempt to recreate the Hart Foundation. The crowd really reacts to them, though, like they do with everything during the event. This incarnation of the Orient Express is made up of Pat Tanaka and Kato (not Kaelin), two Americans billed as being Japanese, and basically two Superstars jobbers paired up. This is quite the good opener, with Owen showing off the high-flying stuff, and Neidhart owning the Orients with power moves. The Orients do get in quite a bit of offense, with actual decent psychology and lots of cheating, though I could see why they were jobbers during their WWE tenure. Owen does the Ricky Morton thing and gets pounded for a good amount of time, then tags to Anvil, and it's quickly over. Rocket Launcher, 1-2-3. Fairly hot opener that got the crowd into things. ***1/4

IC Title: Mountie(c) vs. Roddy Piper
MARKOUT CITY! WOOOOOO!! It was just cool seeing Mountie with the IC title. The Mountie was the first ever wrestler that I marked out for, when I was seven. It was mainly because of the shockstick. Piper cuts a fucking hilarious promo before the match, making several "non-straightÓ insinuations towards Mountie and Jimmy Hart. Piper controls with some cheap eye pokes and punches, among other things. The announcers (Heenan and Monsoon) have a classic back-and-forth, when Heenan claimed that he once wrestled with a 113-degree fever (the story was that Mountie won the IC belt a few days before the Rumble when Bret Hart tried to defend the title with a 104-degree fever). Just an example of some of the classic commentary during the event. This has the best commentary ever in a PPV. Mountie controls for a bit. Jimmy Hart jumps on the apron to distract Piper, and gets clobbered accidentally by Mountie. Sleeper, and Piper is announced as the new IC champion to a truly INSANE face pop. It was just an awesome moment to see him finally win the title (even if it is from the Mountie), and the crowd agrees with me. Afterwards, Piper snags the shockstick, and shocks Mountie, to a great pop. Match was dull and all over the place, but what a moment. **

Bushwhackers (w/Jamison) vs. Beverly Brothers (w/The Genius)
Jamison, if you don't know, is pretty much the stereotypical nerd, in terms of persona and appearance. The Genius reads a poem, and I got a chuckle out of it. Genius is one underrated character. Match goes absolutely nowhere, and takes forever to get there. Seriously, there's about 14 hours of stalling before the match starts, and nothing notable happens throughout the whole thing. The Beverly duo do the Team Angle double team (where Benjamin leapfrogs over Haas onto an opponent laid out on the top rope), which is the second time that was done tonight (the Orients do it in the first match). Nice to see Haas and Benjamin use the classics. In the most interesting spot of the match (only by attrition, BTW), The Genius marches up to Jamison and slaps him right in the face. I got a good laugh out of that. Heenan is on top of his game during this abortion of a match, firing off hilarious one-liners about Jamison and the ÔWhackers. The Beverly Brothers win with The Crown (I WILL RULE YOU!) to put me out of my misery. After the match, the Zealanders take out the Bevs with the Battering Ram (Dumbest. Double Team Finisher. Ever.), and Jamison kicks the Genius in the shin, then in the back. I feel sorry for ol' Lanny for having to sell it. Jamison then steals Genius' mortarboard (Heenan: "He'll probably turn it upside-down and make underwear out of itÓ) and does the Bushwhacker dance. The hilarious commentary totally saves this from being a DUD or lower. 1Ú4*

Tag Team Titles: Legion of Doom(c) vs. Natural Disasters (w/Jimmy Hart)
Quite a few tag matches tonight, eh? A bunch of nothing happens, pretty much. Not as bad as that last match was, but boring as hell nonetheless. OLD (actually, I shouldn't call them that now, because it was in 1997 that they started to really show their age) gets in some moves (barely remember them, and I just watched it last night. Shows what a classic this match was, eh?), and the Golga & Shockmaster tandem control by stepping on them and bearhugging them to death. Good thing it was Earthquake stepping on Hawk, because I was afraid that Typhoon would trip on him. I'll give them credit, because they did work on Hawk's back for a good portion of the match, showing psychology. Animal is tagged, and he makes the big comeback, until the workrate marathon makes its way to the outside, and Tugboat slips into the ring to beat the count. The Disasters parade around with the belts, thinking that they won them. Animal and Hawk chair them to reclaim the belts. Nothing special. *

Royal Rumble match
Just looking at the field of combatants that year, I can safely say that there were more credible potential winners in this Rumble than any other one. Hogan, Flair, Savage, Sid, Piper (he won the IC belt earlier, and the announcers were hyping the fact that no one ever had the chance to win both the IC belt and the WWE title in one night), Jake Roberts (he was feuding with Savage, big time, and title match between the two at Wrestlemania would have drew fairly big), Undertaker, Skinner (just seeing if you were paying attention). Any one of them would have been a credible winner. I'll break this rant up into smaller paragraphs for easy reading, brah. Jack "On the TakeÓ (as Heenan calls him) Tunney comes out to a round of boos. Bulldog and Ted DiBiase start off. DiBiase is quickly ousted, which is bad because it was TED FREAKIN' DIBIASE, but good in terms of the story being build up for Bulldog, which is to build him up as an early threat. Flair is, of course, #3, and Heenan blows a gasket, and Monsoon revels in it. Bulldog pretty much kills Flair, and Flair cheats to take advantage. Nasty Boy Saggs comes out (in case you cared, Nasty Boy Knobbs was replaced due to a dislocated shoulder), and is taken out in short order via dropkick off the apron. Haku is next, and also eliminated before the next dude came out, who is Shawn Michaels, fresh off of destroying Marty Jannetty in the Barber Shop. Shawn teases elimination several times. El Matador is next (I'm so glad they put Tito's Matador costume in LoWII) and goes after Flair, following one of the night's trends (the other being a generous amount of low blows). Barbarian and Texas Tornado come out respectively. Flair and Michaels have a contest to see which one of them could oversell Kerry's discus punch in the most ludicrous fashion, with Flair doing the Flair flop, and Michaels doing a 360. I say it's a tie. I'll have to confer with the other judges first.

Repo Man (WOOOOOO) is next, slowly rounding the ring, before sneaking into it, which is great Rumble psychology if there's a bunch of people in there. It wouldn't be smart if there was one person in there, though it would be good for a laugh. Greg Valentine is #11, starting a chop-fest with Flair. Nikolai Volkoff comes out to no reaction whatsoever and is quickly dumped by Repo Man. Big Bossman comes out and hits anything that moves, literally. He goes after everyone, including the faces. To start a rapid-fire series of eliminations, Repo rids us of Valentine, and Bossman takes out Repo (BOOOOOOO). Flair then removes Bulldog and Tornado. Michaels and Santana remove each other, thus setting up their match at Wrestlemania VIII. THEMIGHTYHERCULES is #14 and, if you can't guess who he goes after, you have no business reading this :). Flair is saved by future WCW main-eventer The Barbarian, then Flair (being a moron) turns on him. Barbarian kicks his ass until he is taken out by Herc, then Bossman takes Herc out, leaving Bossman with Flair. Bossman misses *whatever* and eliminates himself. FLAIR WINS! FLAIR WINS! OK, not yet. Piper is next, coming out to a massive ovation. Heenan spazzes some more, and Flair begs. Piper kills Flair, then Jake Roberts comes out and sits in the corner, ala Raven, then attacks Piper. Jake then turns on Flair, and preps for the DDT, when Piper saves him, prompting Heenan to thank Piper incessantly. Flair gets the Figure Four and grabs the ropes (cheating bastard). Piper breaks it up, prompting Heenan to take everything good he said about Piper back. Great commentary. Hacksaw is next, and goes after Flair, yadda, yadda. IRS is #18, walking slowly to the ring, another smart move. Conserve energy, baby! Nothing really noteworthy happens at this moment. Jimmy Snuka comes out next to no heat, surprisingly.

Undertaker is next at #20 and promptly takes out the other Phenom, Jimmy Snuka, then goes after Flair, as per usual. Macho Man is next, but Jake (looking paranoid every time the buzzer went off since he came in) bails, and Macho is attacked by Undertaker, and Jake is more than willing to come back in. Macho comes back and pounds the shit out of Jake, eliminating him after a kneelift. Macho jumps over the top rope after him, but is not officially eliminated (as the rules back then state, you have to be propelled by someone else to be eliminated). UT no-sells a blatant low blow (Heenan: "He just tried to lift The UndertakerÓ). Berzerker arrives next in another Wrestlecrap moment. In a funny spot, UT and Piper simultaneously choke out Flair. Virgil is next, and Piper takes him on. Iron Sheik, er, I mean, Col. Moustafa, is #24. Rick Martel (the previous Rumble longevity record holder) then comes out as Savage takes out Col. Sheik. The Hulkster is #26, brother, and eliminates Undertaker and Berzerker in short order, man. Virgil and Hacksaw take each other out, dude. Did you know Virgil has a beast of a willie, brah? OK, enough with the Hogan talk, man. Skinner (the mysterious Second Doink at Wrestlemania IX, from what I heard) is #27, and does nothing. Sgt. Slaughter comes after, but isn't much of a factor anymore. Skinner The Alligator Man goes back to the showers. Thank God. He needed one. Sid is #29 with a nice pop, and kicks a few asses. Warlord is last. Slaughter takes his trademark shoulder-to-the-post bump, and goes bye-bye. Piper uses sweet psychology by yanking IRS out by his tie. Sid and Hogan take out Warlord, then Sid removes Martel and Piper. c This leaves Sid, Savage, Hulk, and Flair. What an awesome field for the final four. Flair knees Sid, who is carrying Savage, causing Sid to drop Macho on the outside. Flair and Hogan go at it, and Sid just calmly shoves Hogan out. Never saw that one coming from a mile the first time watching it. Hulk bitches about it and grabs Sid's arm. Sure, teach the kids to train, say their prayers, eat their vegetables, drink their milk, and take their vitamins, but don't go ahead and teach them about piss-poor sportsmanship. Crowd doesn't approve of this. Sid is then dumped by Flair, and Flair win the title. WOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Flair quickly leaves so that Hogan and Sid can have a shoving contest, and the crowd BOOS HULK, as they see Sid's side of things, and rightfully so. Flair then cuts an AWESOME promo in the back to cap off one of the best single performances I've seen in my life. Flair + greatest commentary ever in a PPV + great field of combatants = best Rumble ever. *****

Verdict: Outside of the opening tag match and Piper's IC title win, the undercard was junk, but the Rumble is TOTALLY worth your while. Thumbs way the fuck up.

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