WWF Royal Rumble 1996

WWF Royal Rumble 1996
Fresno, CA
Selland Arena
January 21

It took me forever to watch through all of the 1996 Royal Rumble. I’ve never been a huge fan of this event and it’s such a boring slog. As terrible as 1995 is, there’s a lot of fun and wacky bad shit to laugh at – so many random debuts, weird pushes, and other more interesting stuff. 1996 has always been so boring and flat to me, way more middle of the road. It already starts here at the Royal Rumble, which feels so different from 1995 already. I last watched through a good number of 1996 events back around 2009 or so, and enjoyed them more than I remembered. I’m really curious to see how I feel about these shows now, but man, not a great start with this Rumble.

I don’t have many standout memories of this Rumble. After the terrible 1995 version, my expectations were really low leading up to it. I HATED the Shawn Michaels push and it was getting worse as 1995 wore on. I, like so many, bought into Owen Hart ending Michaels’ career back in November, and thought he truly was risking his life by coming back to wrestle in the Rumble. Even though I didn’t like the guy, I still feared for his safety in the ring, not knowing I was being worked. I truly believed Vader would be winning the Royal Rumble, destroying Shawn Michaels, and go on to dominate 1996, but watching through all of this now, it’s sooooo fucking obvious that they would be pushing Michaels to the moon. All the ‘boyhood dream’ crap was already being brought up and would reach nauseating levels in no time. There was some ambiguity surrounding Diesel and his new bad attitude and he seemed like another possible Rumble winner, but he was mainly there to put over his buddy Shawn. And most of us had no idea that he was already telling the company that he’d be leaving in a couple months.

One new, semi-exciting development at the start of 1996 was the Free For All before PPVs, featuring a special bonus match. To a huge dark match nerd like me, this was incredible! I’d always been fascinated by these warm up matches, so this was a big deal to finally get to see this kind of stuff. The first Free For All featured a special attraction, a match to determine number 1 and 30, which was a cool concept. Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Duke the Dumpster Droese were drawn “at random” for this special match, because of course Helmsley had to always fight a stinky commoner.

Free for All) Duke Drose defeated Hunter Hearst Helmsley via reverse decision at 6:26; Helmsley originally won the match after hitting Drose with a foreign object but WWF President Gorilla Monsoon came out and showed a clip of the finish to referee Tim White, who then changed his ruling

The Dumpster had been in for well over a year and had done fuck all up to this point. This match with Helmsley lead to one of his only real feuds, before he was jobbed out for the rest of the year. This match wasn’t any good, just a punch and kick brawl with Helmsley desperately trying to win, but at least the Dumpster was featured on a PPV. Vince McMahon and Mr. Perfect were on commentary for the show and McMahon was “ha ha haaaaaa’ing” about the possibility of Helmsley being number one. After being unable to put the friggin’ Dumpster away, Hunter pulls some cheap looking foreign object out of his boot and clocks him for the pin. I fucking LAUGHED MY ASS OFF as Gorilla Monsoon marched down to the ring to overturn the decision. We always laughed about Gorilla’s good guy pandering ways. So funny.

1) Ahmed Johnson defeated Jeff Jarrett via disqualification at 6:37 after a guitar shot

What a weird match! This was part of the very short-lived Jeff Jarrett return. I think he only lasted for about two months before heading to the USWA for most of the year. Maybe he had a couple TV matches after this, but I remember him disappearing almost immediately. The actual Royal Rumble match was so devoid of star power that it really should have included both Jarrett and Ahmed, not that there were many other good choices for a singles match on the show either, mind you. This feud was so damn hilarious, but did no favors for either guy and really made zero sense. There’s nothing much to it, but the fans are hot for Ahmed Johnson and you could already see he was a superstar in the making. Ahmed just absorbs everything Double J throws at him, and finally Jarrett gives up and just destroys him with a guitar shot off the top rope for the crappy DQ. Ahmed’s sell was fantastic, and I loved how quickly he was back up and smashing the guitar. But this feud goes unsettled and forgotten.

2) WWF Tag Team Champions the Smoking Gunns defeated Skip & Zip (w/ Sunny) at 11:14 following a botched double team move by the challengers

After doing next to nothing for most of 1995, the Smoking Gunns would soon dominate the tag team title scene for most of 96, along with the Bore-adonnas. The tag division is one of worst parts of the year, cycling between these two crappy teams and the Godwinns for most of it. Skip and Zip just flat out suck and I still can’t get into their matches. Sunny is of course looking scorching at ringside, but wow, it’s tough to see her in the same light, knowing all of the horror stories and rumors about her behind-the-scenes behavior and addictions. But wow, in 1996, she was untouchable. Watching Sunny was the highlight of this snoozefest. The crowd in Fresno is dead most of the night and sitting quietly through these boring matches. Like who the fuck would even care about Skip and Zip?! At least there was some minor entertainment in Skip and Rad Radford as a team. And add Radford to the list of wrestlers who came and went in 95. The Gunns retain, but would be stripped of the titles after Billy gets hurt a couple weeks after this. Who the hell did the Bodydonnas even beat to get this title shot in the first place?!

3) Goldust (w/ Marlena) pinned WWF IC Champion Razor Ramon at 14:15 to win the title after the 1-2-3 Kid came off the top with a spin kick to the champion’s head (Marlena’s surprise debut)

Of all the ridiculous gimmick characters to come and go in 1995, it’s Goldust that surprisingly outlasts the majority of them. There were so many other wrestlers being positioned for this IC mid-card heel spot that this just as easily could have been Dean Douglas, Waylon Mercy, or hell, even Jean Pierre Lafitte in this Goldust spot. But due to various circumstances, none of them lasted, and instead we’re “treated” to a year filled with terrible and boring Goldust matches. Dustin Rhodes is a tremendous wrestler, definitely one of the all-time greats, but his first year as Goldust is damn near unwatchable, an absolute slog. They were doubling down on the “ambiguous” elements of his character, and surprisingly debut the mysterious Marlena as his “director” here at the Rumble. The homosexual overtones were being played for heat, like him reaching between Razor Ramon’s legs and shimmying up behind him during this match. It’s all terrible. You could just hear the glee in Vince’s voice on commentary in putting over these theatrics, but it just lead to a bad match. This drags on forever until the 123 Kid comes racing in and connects with a spin kick to Ramon’s head while the ref is distracted and Goldust wins the IC title. The feud with Razor was supposed to continue, but Razor’s soon suspended or gone or whatever and things drastically shift for Goldust.

4) Shawn Michaels won the 30-man Royal Rumble match by last eliminating Diesel at 58:49; after the bout, Diesel returned to the ring and appeared to hold hard feelings over the loss until the two men high-fived; due to pre-match stipulations, Michaels earned a world title shot for WrestleMania XII

After the half hour sprint in 1995, the WWF returns to 90 second intervals for the 1996 Royal Rumble, which I was more than happy with at the time. What I wasn’t happy with was the crappy field of wrestlers in this Rumble. Man, it’s just brutal – Doug Gilbert? Dory Funk? The Squat Team? Omori? And a whole field of low card geeks like Barry Horowitz, the Dumpster, Isaac Yankem, Bob Backlund, etc. We also get the returns of Jake the Snake Roberts and Tatanka, newcomer the Ringmaster and of course the huge debut of Vader. It’s crazy how completely different the roster was from even mid 95. Even after this Rumble, wrestlers like Hakushi, Mabel, and Kama would be gone. So much roster turnover!

The first half of the Rumble sees hardly any eliminations, with so many of these guys doing a good showings, which I’ve always been a fan of, but in this case it drags. Once we get some of the big heavyweights halfway through, they start to clear the ring of the random losers. One of the biggest disappointments is the debut of Vader. I so expected him to mow through the Rumble, but he kind of slowly wanders into the ring and mostly stands around picking his shots. He makes some eliminations here and there, along with fellow superbeast Yokozuna, but of course the unstoppable and invincible Shawn Michaels eliminates Vader and Yoko soon after hitting the ring. Fuck right off. The Shawn Michaels invincibility really kicks off here and it’s just awful all year long. This whole Rumble is nothing but stroking Michaels, which is another reason it’s never been my favorite. The ring fills up again during the 20s, but the ring is so devoid of star power, with geeks like Kama and Isaac Yankem making it to the final four. And so much for Duke Droese drawing number 30, it lead to fuck all and the Dumpster’s dumped shortly after entering. It makes no sense that Vader wasn’t in there in the end cleaning house. The structure of this Rumble is just so bad. It all boils down to Shawn Michaels and Diesel and Diesel jobs to the superkick in a moment that seems so quick now.

This Rumble certainly has a lot of stories and wacky characters, but the flow sucks, the crowd is mostly dead and the eliminations are weirdly paced. It’s entertaining and kind of fun to watch, but it sure drags at points and it’s painful to see complete unknown losers like the Squat Team being featured. Hell, even Aldo F’N Montoya shows up toward the end for a laugh. Vader’s debut isn’t as great as it should be, but fuck, I laughed at Gorilla Monsoon getting into the ring to confront Vader and get him out of there after he was eliminated. It’s the closest Gorilla actually got to being in a Rumble! Same with Razor Ramon who runs in to get even with the Kid. Ramon was never in a Rumble match, so this is as close as we would ever get. The return of Jake the Snake is cool, but it doesn’t lead to much, but at least gets a nice pop from the crowd. But in the end it was all about Shawn fucking Michaels. The ending is so completely stupid as Michaels is doing his striptease mid-ring, like full on taking down his tights, when Diesel comes in to confront him, but then just high-fives him and puts him over. Blech.

5) The Undertaker (w/ Paul Bearer) defeated WWF World Champion Bret Hart via disqualification at 28:28 when Diesel pulled the referee out of the ring following the challenger’s tombstone

And here’s something else we hated so much at the time – the Royal Rumble doesn’t main event show. Man did this ever make me mad! As a staunch traditionalist, this detail just irritated the piss out of me. There was so much time left on the show and Bret Hart and the Undertaker wrestle a slow, near 30 minute match. I really wanted to like this match, as it has been given a bad rap over the years, but it’s very hard to enjoy. I get what they were going for – a hard fought, grueling battle – but the pace is so slow. Undertaker had such a crappy 1995 so it was great to see him rewarded with a meaningful title shot. The story was that the Hitman could not find a way to beat the Undertaker. If it was the same match, with 10 minutes less time, the drama and intensity would have been much better. And the match isn’t helped by the dead Fresno crowd, who were quiet all night, and just done after the Rumble. In the past, I’d rarely watch past the Rumble itself, but really tried to get into this main event. Ultimately it’s a tough match to enjoy. The ending features the disgruntled Diesel ruin the Undertaker’s potential victory by pulling the ref out of the ring. This side of Diesel was great, and I really like how they built his feud with the Undertaker going back to the last In Your House, but the mystique was just ruined by him giddily celebrating with Shawn Michaels at the end of the Rumble.