Lurker > Lopen

Godfather? Okay I'm listening.

Papa Shango? You take that back!
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Royal Rumble 1996

I'm pretty sure I've seen this Rumble standalone, but I don't remember it at all. Or maybe I saw 1995 and I didn't remember it at all. I know I saw one of the two 90s Rumbles Michaels won at some point. First Rumble with music for the mid-match entrances whoo.

This Rumble kinda reminded me of 1989. Lots of sideshows strewn throughout the thing. You've got the hog farmer's slop, Damien evacuating the ring, an eliminated Vader throwing everyone out and then it not counting, Jerry Lawler hiding under the ring (this could've been cool but it was unceremoniously resolved), Razor chasing 123 Kid around. Just a lot of gimmicks. Unfortunately unlike in 1989 I found all these gimmicks to be annoying and they broke up the action rather than adding to the experience. Oh and the damn replays they were spamming all over the place like they were so proud of their new toy, oftentimes distracting from what was actually going on. I like how the announcers were claiming Owen Hart was not eliminated because the damn instant replay made them miss it.

Now that being said, the action in ring was better than 89. In large part due to Vader and Yokozuna who were the MVPs of the Rumble to me. I got much entertainment out of those two wrecking shop. They also had the only sideshow I actually enjoyed which was the thing with the Squat Team dude getting eliminated, then both of em coming back, and Vader and Yoko just eliminating both again. Shame they were only in the first half or so, but Yoko was getting tired.

Pretty meh Rumble for me-- which is a big improvement over 1995 to be sure. It was watchable but I was much closer to putting 1989 over this one than putting this one over 1994.

As for the Undercard (or overcard in case of Bret v Taker) it was kinda whatever. Taker vs Bret was almost identical to Diesel vs Bret, right down to the bs finish (all these PPV main events with DQs), but worse. And who thought that stupid mask Taker had was a good idea anyway.

Royal Rumble Ranking:
1992 > 1990 > 1994 > 1996 > 1989 > 1988 > 1993 > 1991 > 1995

Oh and Kama the Supreme Fighting Machine coming out to Too Much's theme music I couldn't help but laugh. Also wtf Dory Funk I thought that guy retired in like, the 80s.
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Yeah I remember that Skinner and Bret match being a thing actually. I believe I saw a match between the two on one of those weird package videos they used to make. Bloopers Bleeps and Bodyslams or something.

Still a jobber in my head-- never took him seriously!
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Listen man I can't remember these guys names I just assumed that was one of those guys in pink that Harvey Whippleman was managing.

But really Barbarian that isn't Barbarian is worth being angry about anyway.
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But yeah, like, even if you run with the assumption there have to be jobbers cause the roster is shallow, could these jobbers have been any more bland?

Give me Skinner, The "HUSS" Berserker, and Damien Demento over Timothy Well, Sione, and Eli Blu any day.
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Jakyl25 posted...

It's so quick BECAUSE it's so thin on talent

Would you want a full hour of those jobbers? Their logic was "at least there will always be something happening"

Well I see the logic THEY were likely using, but I feel if you've got HBK and Bulldog in there the whole time and there's some drama allowed to be built, and the guys have time to actually thin out the jobbers more often, the match could've been much better.

Also you could've actually had Owen and Backlund in the match instead of Bret wrecking them-- every bit of talent helps. If the match is longer you can scrap some undercard matches and put IRS, Undertaker, Bob Holly, 1–2–3 Kid, Tatanka and Bam Bam Bigelow in the match, too. The roster was thin but it wasn't THIS thin.
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Yeah, I mean, on a stat sheet it looks cool I guess and if you were a big HBK (or Bulldog to a lesser extent) fan in the moment I could see remembering it fondly, but it's just dreadful to watch.
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Royal Rumble 1995

This was another Rumble I'd never seen. "This will be the most intense rumble ever as every entry will only have 60 seconds." This was an automatic red flag for me, as I kinda don't even like the 90 second spacing, but I was keeping an open mind. Shawn Michaels and British Bulldog start, so you know, promising start!

Then uh... Duke the Dumpster Droese, Eli Blu, Sione, Jimmy Del Ray, Tom Prichard... what? What is this? Save_us.Damien_Demento. This match was everything I hated about the late-mid part of the 1993 Rumble, but it was for the entire Rumble. Like it just actively sucked my enjoyment out of the match for these losers to keep coming out. A four way between Luger, Crush, HBK, and Bulldog for a title shot would've been much much better than this and frankly more prestigious to win.

That wasn't really the only thing wrong with this by any means, though. The 60 second entries were just too fast. There was no time to breathe. Like mid match Bret comes out to attack Owen Hart and Backlund as revenge for them interfering in his match earlier, and someone would come out before the beatdown even finished. And the damn ring kept filling with like 10 guys cause it's hard to eliminate people that quickly. Then you have two moments in the match where it turns into a women's elimination tag match with people getting eliminated every 5 seconds because they realize "oh the ring is too full."

The first two are the last two, as Bulldog and Shawn somehow got through this gauntlet of jobbers + Lex Luger and Crush. Bulldog tosses HBK out, HBK hangs from the ropes, gets a foot on the floor, they play Bulldog's music, he celebrates, and but then HBK gets back in and tosses Bulldog out. So even the end part of this sucks-- mostly cause of the music (I'm not sure this entire PPV had a clean finish), really feel Bulldog got screwed over by the sound guys there. HBK wins from #1, and while it looks good on a stat sheet, this could not be less impressive in practice.

I hated everything about this match. Except Bret Hart coming out to beat up Owen Hart and Bob Backlund for ruining his title match earlier. That was pretty cool.

====

The undercard was kinda trash aside from Diesel vs Bret Hart for the title, which was actually pretty good till the finish, a no contest after like 10 guys interfere attacking both sides. I think Diesel may have been a bit underrated, particularly his selling-- dude takes much more convincing beatings from smaller guys than any big man I've ever seen. Between this and Macho Man's beating at Rumble 94-- I'm definitely gonna watch his Survivor Series match and Better Enemies match with Hart and Michaels after I finish this.

And IRS vs Undertaker what why is this a thing. Though it did give us this:

http://i.imgur.com/Z2Dlk6U.jpg

Look at the size of that damn urn. It's so ridiculous I love it.

Royal Rumble Ranking:
1992 > 1990 > 1994 > 1989 > 1988 > 1993 > 1991 > 1995
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If you pick a Rumble it'll autoplay through all of em in order yeah
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I honestly can't remember any great Kevin Nash matches, and I say this as a fan of Kevin Nash overall.

Like my favorite one I've seen might very well be his match with Bret Hart on well, the next Rumble, not to get too far ahead of ourselves, and to my knowledge Bret isn't a guy who's ever been too chummy with him.

And given the finish to that one is the total nonsense that it is, that's kinda saying something. It doesn't ruin the match or anything but it kinda keeps it from being a really great match I think-- guess the finish is not really his fault by any means though.

It's certainly possible they exist and I haven't seen them, however!
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Well I buy that Owen could be envious enough that he could interpret what happened as Bret being some sorta glory hound, but as an outside observer no he wasn't really justified Bret was mostly just unable to tag. But I mean, that's kinda why it works-- it was both believable that he would think it was justified but also not actually justified, which is kinda important.

I actually really thought that part was good-- would've mentioned as much in the write-up but I'd been rambling too long about the Rumble to talk much about the undercard.
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Royal Rumble 1994

This is a Rumble I'm sure almost everyone remembers over pretty much every other Rumble, at least second hand, if for no other reason than the finish. Luger and Hart spilling out and hitting the floor at the exact same time was so controversial and interesting at the time, and I feel like this is a finish you can't actually do ever again with the way wrestling is now. Like it's just not treated enough like a sport anymore. These old Rumbles really had that feel to it-- how often do the announcers say to each other "how long has X been in!?" with such enthusiasm these days? Never. And I miss it. And that kinda mindset, treating it like a legitimate sporting event where stamina matters and all that, I think that was very necessary for this ending to work.

The funny thing is I didn't even remember Luger being injured from a "backstage assault" or whatever. Like yeah, Bret got crippled, remember that clearly, but Luger was kind of a footnote. Kinda felt that way this time too, but I acknowledged it existed. Oh, and the fakeout where no one comes out for 25, and they're like "oh that must be Bret's number :(" only for Bret to actually limp out at 27 was excellent too-- the best thing Bastion Booger ever contributed to wrestling, for sure.

Anyway, finish aside, there are two moments that stick with me on this one, the first being that I actually really liked the opening to this one. I'm always a fan of the tag team uniting and kicking ass so the Steiners being 1 and 3 got me started hyped. Really unfortunate that Kwang misted Rick Steiner and their dominance stops before it can even get started, but it was an exciting start for me.

Second, of course, and my actual favorite part of the rumble, is Diesel kicking all kinds of ass, emptying the ring and just gauntlet styling through jobbers. This is made even better when after plowing through like 10 guys, Randy Savage comes out to go 1v1... and sure, Diesel may be 7 feet tall, but you just get that feeling as Macho removes his coat and hat and tassels and s***, that it is on-- and sure enough, the guy just beats the ever living hell out of Diesel for 2 minutes. Savage is just not taking any of Diesel's crap. Jarrett is the next number, tries to interfere, Savage tosses him out and continues to destroy Diesel. It's so good. I wish these two like, had a feud. I feel like the matches would actually be great. I know that's weird to say, Kevin Nash having a great match, but this was just so fun to watch for the 5 minutes or so it lasted.

Now that being said, aside from those moments mentioned, I didn't much care for this. Great beginning, great end, but like, all the guys I pulled for early (Steiners, Diesel, Savage) were all out before the match was half over. Just kind of a bunch of whatever in the middle. Not 1993 tier, as there were actual stars in there, but it just wasn't very hype. I think Savage and Diesel were too good and I was just drained after that until crippled Bret came out. Like the people's enthusiasm for chanting "WHOOP THERE IT IS!" for Mabel was the most entertaining thing other than what I mentioned which should say it all.

Probably Undertaker having the most ridiculously overbooked match ever with Yoko didn't help energy levels either. What was that. What are these undercards in general jeez.

Royal Rumble Ranking:
1992 > 1990 > 1994 > 1989 > 1988 > 1993 > 1991

Still a solid Rumble for sure with all things considered, but only good enough for 3rd best so far.
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Good lord what a finisher.

I'm not sure I'd ever seen the Beverly Bros actually win a match with it. Probably because they rarely won.
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Oh yeah totally forgot to mention that in 1992.

I loved how Taker just relentlessly tries to get Savage back in the ring for no real reason after he eliminates himself. I feel like he's just a pro who noticed Savage technically eliminated himself but wasn't due to be tossed yet, and wanted to get him back in the ring ASAP so people don't mistakenly think he's out.
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Oh and, random thing that amused me about this show that I forgot to mention

I watch the Beverly Brothers match, and am like "god these guys look so generic that Beverly looks just like Mike Enos from WCW"

Turns out it IS Mike Enos.

I don't know how to feel about this. Are all generic wrestlers Mike Enos?
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Royal Rumble 1993

I've been pretty vocal about hating this in the past, putting in the discussion of worst Rumble ever.

Well, on a rewatch, it turns out, I was wrong. Now don't get me wrong, this thing is still pretty bad. And you need only look at the order of guys coming out and the elimination list to get the gist of why.

In numbers 17-26, you've got the following entries: Damien Demento, Irwin R Schyster, Tatanka, Jerry Sags, Typhoon, Fatu, Earthquake, Carlos Colon, Tito Santana, Rick Martel. Now I like Martel, and I even said "Earthquake feels like a bigger deal than I remembered" but keep in mind that those thoughts were from 2-3 years ago when the guys were more relevant, and that even when they were more relevant they couldn't exactly carry a match like this alone.

Now that would be bad enough, but to lead into this string of jobbers, you have Undertaker clearing out the ring, then subsequently being eliminated by a guy who wasn't even in the match, the ridiculous Giant Gonzales (and the beatdown dragged). So you were basically seeing a bunch of jobbers brawl for like 20-25 minutes, with none of those jobbers having eliminated any stars to be here. It's really really hard to care, and it's towards the end, so it's the thing you're remembering most coming off watching it. Eventually you've got Savage vs Yoko to finish which is at least okay, but the wind is out of the sails.

Also the finish is ridiculous and makes Savage look like a total dumbass-- he knocks Yokozuna down, hits the Flying Elbow Drop, tries to PIN him, Yokozuna kicks out with such force it throws Macho right out of the ring.

But, in spite of this, there are things it does well. The first half an hour or so of this Rumble is actually pretty good. 1993 wasn't a total void of talent-- just most all the names worth caring about were in the first half. (or the undercard. double booking could've helped this Rumble a lot). There were also some cool moments after Giant Gonzales and Taker ruined everything. Like Earthquake has a faceoff with Yokozuna that's pretty fun, Savage vs Yoko is fairly exciting till the end, and a returning Bob Backlund, who drew #1, is unconscious outside during the ring clearing so he gets to continue his ironman run after the ring is wiped out. And at least the winner was fresh.

The undercard was actually pretty good. Bret vs Razor was fun (though internally I always remembered this as an IC title match-- Bret definitely shouldn't have had the WHC just yet) and Michaels vs Jannetty was actually really good. Probably my favorite match of their feud. (which, is going on 1 years and counting as of now, as we get the Barber Shop highlight package for the second Rumble in a row. I bet they've had a fraction of the matches of Sasha and Charlotte in spite of this.). Even the opening throwaway tag of the Steiners/Beverly Brothers was decent.

Bad Rumble, decent show.

Royal Rumble Ranking:
1992 > 1990 > 1989 > 1988 > 1993 > 1991

(You'll also note I moved 1989 up one. I feel like internally that's the one I'm comparing with when thinking "is this good or bad" rather than 1988, so that should probably be the neutral one. It's kinda splitting hairs either way though.)
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Oh man, you serious

That would've been the perfect winner for 1990. Would've made 1991 (slightly) better too cause at least the finish would've been slightly different than 1990. Sucks, man.
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Oh right Big Boss Man and Akeem were consecutive that's actually kinda awesome now that I think about it. Still makes Dibiase a bit of a drama queen cringing about 22 or 23 which are pretty decent numbers but what can you do.

And I'm watching all of these on the WWE Network, which I would've suspected was the one with the overdub but Sid getting chants seems like something that I remember happening so I don't know-- I watched it like a week ago so I can't remember clearly and I may just be jumbling the last time I watched it. I do remember 1990 and 1991 having HUGE Hogan chants which if you're introducing the idea that we might be dubbing chants, would make some sense. Like 1991 in particular was like "why are you guys going so nuts about this we just saw this last year"

Anyway chants or no chants, I'll tell you what did bug me though-- this version had some Colosseum Video exclusive promo where Flair was like, talking about how he drew #3 before the match. Now personally I feel like knowing his number in advance kinda cheapens the banter between Monsoon and Heenan before Flair comes out, and Heenan subsequently flipping out, and it should've been left out since it wasn't even a great promo anyway.

End promo was good though.
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It's funny cause I like him more now than I did then

Even as a little Lopen I was pretty much always pulling for his opponent in the feuds. Mr. Perfect, Ultimate Warrior, Macho Man. Not so much the fatties like Yoko and Earthquake I guess but still.

Now granted I'm still rooting for those guys today but that's only because they are great-- back then Hogan always wins definitely was a thing. Between rooting against Hogan and rooting for Shredder I definitely was a weird kid at times.
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I actually do appreciate knowing the actual specifics behind what happened there eddv thanks.
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The Utility Man posted...

Lopen posted...

BUT Hogan is a sore loser and a dick, so he tries to pull Sid out from the outside as Sid taunts him

I don't know why this made me laugh. I've been watching Wrestling since the first Wrestlemania, I know exactly what Hogan is like, and I knew exactly how this Rumble played out, but for some reason it caught me off guard.

Yeah it kinda blows the mind that this is not only the case, but is CONSISTENTLY the case. Every one of these Rumbles aside from 1991, where he was never in any real peril, he's been a dick. In 1989 and 1992 he's a sore loser and tries to eliminate the guy who eliminated him. In 1989 and 1990 he "inadvertently" eliminates his allies Savage and Warrior as they're fighting guys when they'd saved him when he was fighting guys. In 1990 Ventura points this out and is completely right at that as he eliminates Warrior and it's like... it kinda really makes you appreciate Hogan more.

Hell you can see it just how his moveset involves eye rakes and back rakes. So much subtlety to Hogan, man-- they don't make em like that anymore.
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That's probably it for tonight

Random humorous Rumble factoid that's way better than the crap WWE throws at you about numbers and pounds in the ring and whatever else.

In the rumbles I've rewatched so far, Ted Dibiase drew these numbers

1989 - 30
1990 - 1
1992 - 2
1993 - 4

Now if you consider in 1989 Dibiase cringed at his number and bought a better number from Slick, you gotta figure he's got the worst luck in Rumble history.

Although looking at who was in 1989, I'm not actually sure whose number Slick traded. I think Akeem at #23 is the only guy who Slick managed in it? Was Dibiase just greedy for that extra edge? I'm way overthinking this I'm sure.
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Royal Rumble 1992:

A while ago, I said something like "Bobby Heenan is a great color commentator." Now, you probably didn't actually need any convincing on this. Well, if you haven't seen this Royal Rumble, you would be wrong. Stop reading immediately before I spoil this, and go watch it first, and see peak Bobby the Brain Heenan in all his glory.

Now that out of the way... I remembered this being great, and well, turns out, it is great. It's one part Flair, one part Heenan's commentary, and one part all the chaos of the WWF working against the two. Storyline coming in is that Flair is making the claim that he's "the real world champion," and well, somehow the title was vacated between Hogan and Undertaker I think? I honestly don't even remember. Point is the Rumble is for the title, and as such the stakes are higher than ever.

Well, sucks for Flair (and Heenan, who REALLY wants flair to win the match) cause he draws #3. So basically the recurring theme of the whole match is Heenan freaking out about how this "isn't fair to Flair" and Flair being in peril damn near the whole match as Monsoon is like "give it up he's doomed no one numbers 1-5 is ever here at the end!!"

There are two truly great moments this contributes to. The first being mid rumble, just after Hercules comes out... somehow pretty much everyone ends up tossing each other out. You're left with Big Boss Man and Flair. Boss Man then rushes at Flair, dives, and eliminates himself, leaving Flair alone. Flair walks to the center of the ring, does the Flair Flop and collapses in exhaustion, alone. Then who comes out next to have Flair all alone but ROWDY RODDY PIPER and Flair is like "oh god why"

It's an amazing moment and placed perfectly in the middle of the match. The second of course, is the finish, where it goes down to Sid, Hogan, Savage, and Flair. Sid tosses Hogan and Savage out while they're messing with Flair, leaving him alone with an exhausted Flair. BUT Hogan is a sore loser and a dick, so he tries to pull Sid out from the outside as Sid taunts him-- Flair is no fool, capitalizes on Hogan and Sid being more interested in each other, and dumps Sid out from behind to win the match. Then Hogan and Sid are STILL squabbling with each other even after Flair has won the match-- only a little after that does Hogan realize "hey wait that Flair guy hoodwinked us..." and then they both rage at Flair who is already outta there and gloating with Heenan and Mr Perfect backstage.

God what a match. So great. All these cartoon characters are fighting each other while Flair just picks his spots and hangs on for dear life the whole time.

Now... the undercard on this show was awful aside from the opening tag (Owen + Anvil vs Orient Express-- not a great match mind but not awful)-- particularly the cringeworthy and frankly kinda offensive Bushwhackers (with JAMISON) vs Beverly Brothers match which may be in contention for worst match I've ever seen on a PPV. Worse than Jenna vs Sharmell for sure. It did have some clips of the infamous Barber Shop scene with Michaels and Jannetty which I guess was fairly recent cause it was the explanation for why Jannetty wasn't here so that was a cool piece of history. But who cares. Fantastic Rumble heals all wounds.

Rumble Rankings:
1992 > 1990 > 1988 > 1989 > 1991
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Okay now we've got all the APWT backlog here so it may actually be a bit slower for new rankz.

Still have a few I've watched but haven't written up yet, though, so it won't be utterly plodding any time soon.

Anyway... after watching these first 4 and finding 3/4 being bad, I can only determine that I watched these to make me hate myself more again so I could effectively do scathing leader reviews. My childhood!!
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Royal Rumble 1991:

A while ago, I said something like "Monsoon is a great announcer but he needs the right color guy to play off of." This wasn't a knock on Monsoon-- I like Monsoon a lot. But yeah, if you want a good example of a show where Monsoon doesn't have a good guy to play off of. Piper and Monsoon is death at the announce position. Like good lord. This damaged the entire show immensely for me.

The actual Rumble, beyond the announcing and the zzz winner, was also kinda garbage. It was a nice cycle of long periods of nothing going on, teasing something cool, then taking it away before it could develop into anything fun. Some examples to illustrate what I'm talking about.

Bret Hart draws #1. At just about the exact time where I'm like "hey cool, Bret is gonna make a run and go deep" Undertaker shows up and unceremoniously dumps him out of the ring immediately, when he was like the only guy in the match who had anything going for em at this point.
Taker is dominating, steps up to Hawk and Animal, who are then like "nope f*** off" and just wreck him and throw him out. At this point, I'm like "oh man I hope LoD start owning this match--" nope one of em is immediately tossed out.
Rick Martel has a nice ironman run going, but is tossed out just before the final four.

And what the hell happened to the roster between 1990 and 1991? Like just pure number of names here it's not even close. 1990 had a bunch of stars, 1991 had some stars, but a bunch of jobbers. The amusing part is that the finish between 1990 and 1991 are extremely similar, but really drives home this point even further. Both are Hogan vs two nasty heels and overcoming both. 1990? Two legends Mr Perfect and Rick Rude face off vs Hogan. 1991? Earthquake and.... Nasty Boy Knobbs. Oh.

Undercard? Yeah a bunch of garbage beyond the mentioned opening Rockers/Orient Express tag, but that's commonplace by now-- not sure Warrior vs Slaughter is worst title match ever but it's gotta be in the running. Would take any Khali match over it for sure, just out of the entertainment of Khali being Khali.

Rumble ranking:

1990 > 1988 > 1989 > 1991

I didn't expect that at all, particularly after 1990 was so good. But yeah, new worst rumble right here. For all I said about 1989 being a bunch of storylines with a match backdrop-- at least it had the storylines. This was just bad wrestling and a bunch of teases for 60 minutes with a predictable end I saw better done last year.
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Royal Rumble 1990:

This Rumble I saw as a kid, but was way better than I remembered. Like, I'm not even sure the action was all that great but man like, this roster just felt stacked. First 11 numbers you have Randy Savage, Roddy Piper, Ted Dibiase, Bret Hart, Dusty Rhodes, Andre the Giant, Even the less legendary guys in the lot like Marty Janetty were guys I at least had some fondness for. This just felt like a big deal, much moreso than the previous two, and it was all about winning the match. You very rarely had any moments where there weren't big names in there.

Ted Dibiase meanwhile completely redeems himself from the year before, coming off as a total badass and staying in there forever from the #1 spot in this sea of legends. Dude doesn't need to pay to make things easier-- he's just smart and chooses to do so.

I think I sorta just grouped it with 1991 cause I was pretty disappointed with the ending on both-- I was never a very big Hogan fan (Hogan being a dick and opportunistically eliminating Warrior here probably didn't help with that!) so they kinda just blur together in my head. I'll get back to 1991 next write-up, but suffice to say they're not very alike at all.

Random thought: I appreciate Hercules and Earthquake a lot more in these things than I used to. I mean, they're no good in the ring or anything but man they have legit presence without being overly ridiculous like The Warlord. Which is impressive because I think Hercules was about as jobbery as The Warlord? Maybe not.

The undercard was completely unmemorable, but I quite enjoyed this Rumble.

Rumble Ranking:

1990 > 1988 > 1989
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Royal Rumble 1989

Here's another Rumble I've never seen. This rumble felt more like a bunch of angles strewn together in the form of a match with a lot of pointless filler in the middle. Like you've got the Mega Powers squabbling. You've got Ted Dibiase getting an awful number and then buying a better one. You've got Andre the Giant being afraid of snakes. Just a lot of silliness.

Oh and then Big John Studd who got no talk at all during the show randomly wins over the scheming dude who bought his number because he is more strong and big. Huh? I feel like if Ted Dibiase just wins I probably rank this over 1988 cause the drama over the numbers was fun. But 1988 wins for wasting less of my time.

Only thing of note I remember from the undercard (watched these a few days ago) was a terrible longwinded segment with Dino Bravo trying to lift weight... oh weight that was 1988. Well that was terrible no matter the year. Random gimmick thing with Warrior/Rude posedown was better. Oh also Rockin Robin vs Leatherwoman A continues to give support to the idea that woman's wrestling was at its worst these days. Both these shows and rumbles were not very good.

Rumble Ranking:
1988 > 1989

1988 still on top!
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Royal Rumble 1988

First time I'd actually watched this one. As you'd kinda expect from a Rumble that had Hacksaw Jim Duggan winning it, this was more of a midcard sideshow than anything. It only had 20 guys and very little starpower, and it seems more correct to rank it with mini Royal Rumbles on Raw, Smackdown, and Impact, than the actual PPV stuff. This practically felt more like a drawn out battle royal as very few eliminations took place with less than like 10 guys in the ring. I dunno if this actually did much for Duggan as his U! S! A! and yelling were pretty over here already-- kinda felt more like Hart Foundation got more out of it. Already know this isn't the worst Rumble because being short helps and what few stars were actually in it did last.

I probably won't always talk about undercards but the undercard was kinda more interesting. Jumping Bomb Angels vs Glamour Girls was pretty weird in a lot of ways. First of all you had joshi on WWF which was kinda neat, and like, seeing em do weird ass suplexes and stuff in the 80s was weird too-- especially considering how awful the Glamour Girls were-- hairmare city. Like anyone who thinks WWF/E women's wrestling was at its worst in the late 90s or early-mid 00s has seen these women. I mean this is Kelly Kelly tier wrestling, and while Kelly Kelly is not my cup of tea for looks, she's not offputting like these leathery burnouts were. Guess it's possible that their opponents made em look bad too.

Meanwhile Vince McMahon can't even be bothered to know the names of Noriyo Tateno and Itsuki Yamazaki, instead saying "we'll just call em 'Pink Angel' and 'Blue Angel'!" when Jesse Ventura asks for their names. This gets corrected in fall 2, but yeah. Good ol borderline racist WWF. But at least the women who could actually wrestle won! (why the hell are there women's tag belts in WWF)

Rumble Ranking (despite talking about the shows once in a while this is just the Rumbles)

1988

First and only time it'll be ranked #1? We'll see.
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Yeah so I decided I wanted to maximize this one month of the WWE Network I got this month for the Rumble, and watch all the Royal Rumbles.

Well long story short I didn't get through nearly as many of em as I thought I would before the current Rumble this Sunday, but thinking I still wanna watch through em all, so we'll see how far I can get. If you like talking about Royal Rumbles or just listening to people talk about Royal Rumbles, then read on, and comment on. If you don't? Read on anyway. Wrestling is a dying craft, man, I need all the readership I can muster. And it'll hype you for Sunday. I know it will.

I'll be doing em in order with an interlude for 2017 on Sunday. Alright let's do this.
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No problem!
This is a cute and pop genocide of love!

I can probably manage em all either way so no pressure, but I would definitely welcome help!

Only reason I'm doing it is I think a mod without a pic pack is practically unplayable (the game is already low enough on flair/color with pictures) and no one else wants to crop/edit pictures and put in a reasonable amount of effort to make em look decent. And if she takes one I really wanted to do no harm in having two pics too.
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No problem!
This is a cute and pop genocide of love!

Cool got one in topic and PM

Thanks
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No problem!
This is a cute and pop genocide of love!

Could you PM me or post the spreadsheet link? In the past, you know, year, I've closed the tab at some point.

I think I'm going to get back to work pictures shortly (I assume no one else has done any and if they have they've been documented)
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No problem!
This is a cute and pop genocide of love!

Bad Influence
Eric Young
Randy Orton
Paige
Kurt Angle
Charlotte
Sheamus
Mr. Anderson and Roman Reigns

BONUS(2) - Who is turning heel tonight? Sasha Banks (watch as she's ALREADY heel)
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No problem!
This is a cute and pop genocide of love!

I did PM you my choice. Not sure if you didn't see it or not. Feel free to use it as a bonus question or something!
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No problem!
This is a cute and pop genocide of love!

Oh I got second place huh.

Am I supposed to PM choice or just post it.
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No problem!
This is a cute and pop genocide of love!

CW Title (2) - Austin Aries (c)
Rusev
Chris Jericho

Main Show:
#1 Contender - AJ Styles
Kurt Angle
No DQ - John Cena
Women's Title (2) - Nikki Bella
Tag Titles (2) - Bad Influence (c)
The Miz and Gunner
US Title (2) Cage Match - Samoa Joe (c)
IC Title (2) - Eric Young (c)
HW Title (2) - Bobby Roode
Extreme Rules - Brock Lesnar
WWE Title (2) - Roman Reigns
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No problem!
This is a cute and pop genocide of love!

What the hell.that was not what I was expecting when I read the topic.

That's a seriously screwed up state of affairs you've got going on there. My sincere condolences.
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No problem!
This is a cute and pop genocide of love!