01/21/1996
Selland Arena, Fresno, California, United States
(reviewed 02/04/2018)
The first match here airs on the first-ever airing of Free For All along with interviews with Vader, Jake “the Snake” Roberts, Shawn Michaels, and Hunter Hearst Helmsley.
Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs Duke Droese
First match in this project that I’d actually seen before, being that this is included in Triple H’s 2008 DVD that a younger, dumber version of myself actually bought. Weep for the me that used to be. The winner of this match gets the #30 spot in the Rumble while the loser enters first. Real basic punch/kick affair until Droese accidentally crashes shoulder-first into the ring post and Hunter keys in on his arm. Droese makes a limp comeback but catches referee Tim White with an elbow inadvertently, allowing Hunter to crack him with a chain wrapped around his fist while the ref’s not looking and win the match. Interim WWF President Gorilla Monsoon storms out and demands that Tim White review the footage with an instant replay on the tron above the entranceway and when White sees the infarction he reverses his decision and awards Droese the victory and the #30 spot in the Rumble.
PPV itself kicks off with another clip of Sunny in the bathtub preaching viewer discretion as well as a hype package based around what a champion is defined by. Picked up a VHS of this show early in my fandom and it was some of the only wrestling footage I owned for a long time and I’m not proud of how much of this intro I could quote word for word.
Jeff Jarrett vs Ahmed Johnson
Ahmed dominates this early with his power game and it’s fairly dull stuff until he hits a nutty no hands plancha and follows it up with a senton bomb back in the ring. Jarrett avoids the latter and goes after Ahmed’s leg that came down weird on the missed move, applying the figure four. When Ahmed escapes it, Jarrett simply retrieves his guitar and gets the DQ from a flying guitar shot.
Incensed, Ahmed chases Jarrett back into the locker room once he regains his bearings. Afterward the Smoking Gunns cut a pre-taped promo. Bart’s real soft-spoken and doesn’t relate much but Billy apparently got told once that he vaguely looks like if Patrick Swayze had a stroke so he thinks it actually makes his charismatic and it always sucks to see. Todd Pettengill chats with Diesel backstage and the big guy calls himself a ninth grader.
The Smoking Gunns (Bart Gunn & Billy Gunn) (c) vs The Body Donnas (Skip & Zip)
WWF World Tag Team Championship
Gunns have this one pretty well in hand but Sunny, managing the challengers, runs distraction and throws a wrench into the works repeatedly. This ain’t much but it’s textbook tag stuff that’s fairly foolproof even with a pair of lugheads like the Gunns thanks to mechanics like Dr. Tom and Candido, so it’s no waste of time. The champs use their size well with the finish, which sees the Body Donnas attempt a double suplex on Bart, leading to Billy tackling Skip and allowing Bart to bring Zip down and smother him with a small package.
Razor Ramon (c) vs Goldust
WWF Intercontinental Championship
This match features the debut of Marlena as Goldust’s valet, which always fucked with me when I was younger since it was my cousin’s (basically my aunt due to the age difference) name and it’s not exactly the most common name around. Vince notes that her fancy cigar isn’t lit and says “you can bet that Goldust is likely to light things up here tonight” in a nice bit of proto-Mauro insufferability. This one’s all about getting Goldust’s gimmick over as he throws Razor off his game at every turn. It’s fun stuff since these guys are good mechanically and are good at getting their characters across but it’s not terribly interesting. Whenever it looks like Razor’s going to take control Goldust cowers behind Marlena and uses it to reset the situation. Marlena feigns twisting her ankle to distract the referee when it looks like Razor might have this in the bag, which allows the 1-2-3 Kid to run out and hit Razor with a spinning heel kick off the top to give Goldust the cheap victory.
Before the Rumble we get the standard clip show of various people going “I’m gonna win! No, for real, I’m gonna win!”
Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs Henry O. Godwinn vs Bob Backlund vs Jerry Lawler vs Bob Holly vs King Mabel vs Jake Roberts vs Dory Funk Jr vs Yokozuna vs The 1-2-3 Kid vs Takao Omori vs Savio Vega vs Vader vs Doug Gilbert vs Squat Teamer #1 vs Squat Teamer #2 vs Owen Hart vs Shawn Michaels vs Hakushi vs Tatanka vs Aldo Montoya vs Diesel vs Kama vs The Ringmaster vs Barry Horowitz vs Fatu vs Isaac Yankem, D.D.S. vs Marty Jannetty vs The British Bulldog vs Duke Droese
Royal Rumble Match
The usual. There’s a lot of filler in this one, even from people I like a lot. You get fun highlights like Lawler’s reaction to Jake’s snake, Dory and Backlund being crazy old men together, Razor running in to get his revenge on the Kid, etc etc. By the time he comes in the match turns into the Shawn Michaels show, with him hilariously eliminating Vader and Yokozuna at the same time, being the one to retrieve Lawler from under the ring and toss him out, tons of dramatic near-eliminations, things like that. If it wasn’t already the most obvious thing with the whole build to this PPV, the telegraphing of his win here would be gag-inducing. Guys like Holly and Kama make it weirdly far into this thing but no one does much of interest with their time. Vince says something like “Yokozuna attacked from behind by Yokozuna” twice in the space of thirty seconds, adding to his NCAA fumble from a few weeks ago. Ringmaster floors Shawn with a clothesline and then does Shawn’s pose in front of him, proving yet again that Austin is the greatest of all time. The final four comes down to Shawn, Diesel, Bulldog, and Kama. Shawn sends Bulldog packing with a fun sequence before very nearly getting tossed himself by Kama, but he skins the cat again in a repeat of last year while Diesel throws Kama out. Shawn scurries over and hits a superkick on his best friend as he turns around to topple the giant and win the match. Super quick finish stretch here that does feel pretty exciting even if you could see it coming from a mile away.
Afterward Diesel lays out Bulldog as he’s crawling to the back and when Dok Hendrix tries to get a word the big guy says the only reason he’s still alive is that he’s allowing it. Diesel stomps back toward the ring and it looks like he might be going after the winner, but he can’t stay mad at his coke buddy and they high five instead. Diesel then runs afoul of the Undertaker as he makes his entrance for the main event, with the two of them brawling briefly after an exchange of words.
Bret Hart (c) vs The Undertaker
WWF World Heavyweight Championship
A real slow main event, which feels even worse coming after the middling Rumble. The Dead Man starts with some good throat work but later transitions instead to a face claw for a while which is a weird move to sell for and doesn’t actually result in any real drama. There’s lots of good wrestling here between the striking, the highflying, Bret’s legwork, and Taker’s selling of it, but it’s all dispersed between long stretches of dead air and the crowd isn’t biting on much of it. There’s no escalation until the last two minutes or so of this 30 minute match and just when it looks like things are picking up when Taker connects with the Tombstone, Diesel yanks the ref out of the ring for the DQ and flips off the giant.
Brock Hates Wrestling 