Saturday, January 19th, 1991
Miami Arena
Miami, Florida
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Off The Grid, Volume 18:
The show starts off with the American flag and them playing the national anthem. I would like to see what the girl eating a pretzel is up to now.
Vince then gives us one of his classic pay-per-view intros and reads off all of the entrants in the Royal Rumble. We go to Gorilla Monsoon and Roddy Piper to kick off the actual show.
Orient Express vs. Rockers
At this point in time, the Rockers were the best team in the WWF. We start things off right away and the Rockers get the best of the Express. The Rockers hit stereo dives through the ropes and the crowd is loving it. The Rockers are able to dominate the early portion of the match until Tanaka is able to hit a flying forearm. Michaels fights back with a double noggin knocker and puts Tanaka in the sleeper. Kato is able to hit Michaels off the second rope behind the referee's back. Things break down a little bit and Michaels is able to hit a moonsault, a rarity for the time. The Rockers clear the ring and then go flying off the top rope to the floor. They go to work on Michaels and he does the flip in the corner from the Irish whip. Shawn makes the hot tag and Marty has the fans in the palm of his hand. Michaels joins in on the cheating and trips up Kato for a 2 count. They hit a double superkick and then go for a Rocket Launcher, but Tanaka knocks Shawn off the top and to the floor. They hit a slingshot into a Tanaka chop. They go for it again, but this time Michaels comes in and Marty goes into a sunset flip and the Rockers pick up the victory. This match rules and the live crowd agreed with me.
Match Rating: ****1/4
Randy Savage is backstage with Sean Mooney and he says that he is the #1 contender no matter who wins the WWF Championship. Mooney asks if he has that commitment from Ultimate Warrior and he says he will after Sherri baits him tonight. They go to Sherri with Mean Gene and she invites Ultimate Warrior out. Sherri tries to seduce Warrior and gets down on her knees. This all leads to Warrior screaming "Nooooooo" in her face. Savage is backstage and is furious. He runs out through the arena to the stage and goes nuts like only he can.
Barbarian vs. Big Boss Man
Barbarian goes up top early on, but Boss Man catches him with a fist to the midsection and then clotheslines him over the top rope. Barbarian is able to turn the tide and slams Boss Man into the ring post. Heenan even gets in a cheap shot behind the ref's back. Boss Man is able to break out of the bear hug and hits an enzuigiri. Boss Man hits a stun gun, but only gets a 2 count. Both men collide and are down. Barbarian is up first and hits a nice top rope clothesline, but Boss Man gets his foot on the bottom rope. Barbarian goes for a clothesline, but Boss Man catches him and hits the Boss Man Slam. During the pinfall, Barbarian sort of, kind of gets his fingertip on the rope. Barbarian goes up top again and hits a crossbody, but Boss Man rolls through and picks up the victory. This was a really impressive big man match, especially for 1991. We weren't used to watching guys like that work that hard in the ring. Even if the finish was a little sloppy, it all worked for me.
Match Rating: ***1/2
Sgt. Slaughter and General Adnan talk a lot about the "Ultimate Puke". Warrior says that the only people who would follow Slaughter are the demented.
WWF Championship Match
Sgt. Slaughter vs. Ultimate Warrior
Warrior runs in, clears the ring and rips Slaughter's flag. Warrior then uses the flag as a weapon, which for whatever reason is not a disqualification. Warrior shoves the flag in Slaughter's mouth and slams his face into the ring post. Warrior throws Slaughter all over the ring and then over the top rope. Out comes Sherri to ringside. She grabs the leg of Warrior and Warrior chases her down the aisle. Savage is there to blindside Warrior and then hits him with one of the lights. Meanwhile, Slaughter keeps breaking the ref's count. Warrior begins to crawl to the ring and Slaughter tosses him back in. Slaughter hits a backbreaker and mimics spitting on him. Warrior ducks a clothesline attempt and they hit a double clothesline. Slaughter slaps on a bear hug and a weak looking one at that. He then moves to the Camel Clutch, but Warrior's legs are under the ropes. Warrior starts shaking the ropes and makes his comeback. He hits the leaping spear and out comes Sherri again. She distracts Warrior again, but this time he throws her in the ring. He puts her up for the press slam and he throws her to the floor onto Savage. Slaughter hits him in the back with a knee and then Savage drills Warrior with the scepter in the head. Slaughter pulls him off the ropes and is your new WWF Champion. As a kid, when I heard that this happened, my jaw hit the floor. They take a long time to make the official announcement. Warrior runs to the back and Fink finally declares Slaughter your new champion. This match actually was a lot better than it had any right to be. I'm not sure why they went so heavy on the interference, as it made Slaughter look pretty weak, but they gave a good effort overall. Plus Savage and Sherri were marvelous in their roles, but that's no surprise.
Match Rating: **3/4
We get a great WrestleMania VII ad and we promise it's at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Koko B. Ware vs. Mountie
This was the pay-per-view debut for Mountie and it's when he was playing the character a little bit more seriously. Koko gets in some offense to start, but Mountie slows him down with a back body drop to the floor. Jimmy Hart yelling at Frankie is good fun. I like both of these guys, particularly Rougeau, but I'm not sure why this isn't more of a sprint than a house show style match. Mountie goes for a piledriver, but Koko counters with the back body drop. Mountie gest up and kicks Koko in the kidney. Koko hits a swinging neckbreaker. Koko goes up top and his a missile dropkick and a crossbody for a 2 count. Mountie out of nowhere hits a chokeslam and gets the victory. Goofy Mountie is more fun and they made this way more competitive than it should have been.
Match Rating: *1/2
Sean Mooney is back on Savage duty and we get lots of yelling. They scurry as soon as they hear someone knocking on the door.
Sgt. Slaughter is with Mean Gene and that's an order. Gorilla and Piper then crap all over him.
They then show some fans sending wishes to all of the troops.
Now it's time for some Royal Rumble interviews featuring Jake Roberts, Earthquake, Greg Valentine, Texas Tornado, Legion Of Doom, Undertaker (still with Brother Love), Jim Duggan, Rick Martel, British Bulldog, Mr. Perfect and Tugboat.
Ted DiBiase and Virgil are back with Mooney and they play up their storyline with Virgil giving him some looks.
Dusty & Dustin Rhodes vs. Ted DiBiase & Virgil
This one always felt weird to me since Dusty was gone right after this. Once things settle down, Dustin hits a clothesline and a dropkick on Virgil, which leads to DiBiase giving him a little talk outside the ring. Dustin this time clotheslines Virgil out of the ring and again DiBiase is there to tell him what to do. DiBiase tags in and goes to work on 21 year old Dustin. Dustin is able to slam DiBiase's face to the mat and this leads to back and forth elbows from the father/son combo. In comes Dusty and he hits a series of elbows and puts in the sleeper hold. Virgil wisely breaks it up and Dustin gets tagged in again. He hits a dropkick and Virgil breaks up the pin attempt. Dustin injures his knee and Virgil capitalizes. DiBiase is able to slam his knee into the ring post behind the referee's back. Virgil accidentally hits DiBiase and DiBiase starts unloading on him. He dumps him out of the ring and Dusty gets the hot tag. He misses DiBiase in the corner with an elbow and gets rolled up for the victory. They took that a different direction than you would have expected and it worked for the Virgil storyline. The match was actually better than I remember. After the match DiBiase gets on the mic and orders Virgil to get the Million Dollar Championship and put it around his waist. Virgil instead brings it in and drops it at his feet. Virgil gets down to his knees and picks it up, but he hits him in the face with it and gets a huge pop. This was fantastic storytelling and one of the unsung stories of this era.
Match Rating: **3/4
Hulk Hogan now gets his chance to talk about the troops and the Royal Rumble. If you had any doubt that he was going to win, here was one last obvious decision here. Mean Gene says that Sgt. Slaughter claims he's getting a live update that Slaughter is defacing the American flag. Hogan then loses his thought in one of the more famous bloopers.
Royal Rumble
Talk about having lousy luck, Bret Hart is #1. Dino Bravo is #2, which is a little underwhelming. Bret almost eliminates Bravo immediately, but Bravo is able to push up on the apron. At #3, it is Greg Valentine and he goes right after Bravo. Jimmy Hart starts yelling at Valentine and this allows Bravo to attack him from behind. Valentine is able to dump Bravo out pretty unceremoniously. Valentine then pushes Jimmy off the apron. Bret hits an inverted atomic drop on Valentine and tries to eliminate Valentine. Paul Roma is #4 and he sort of teams up with Valentine to get rid of Bret. Texas Tornado is in at #5 and evens the score. #6 is Rick Martel and he goes right after Bret. Roma goes after Martel, but then when Bret was trying to eliminate Martel, Roma comes and save him. Then Roma tries to eliminate Martel. Make sense? At #7 it is Saba Simba, who gets an "ugh" reaction from the crowd. I didn't realize Atlas was only 36 here. He is the first competitor so far to not get a match at WrestleMania VII. Tornado puts the claw on Roma in the corner as Butch comes in at #8. Butch marches around the ring for a bit and then Simba picks up Martel, Martel hangs on and out goes Simba. There's just so much action that Gorilla forgot that Simba just got eliminated. #9 is Jake Roberts and I'll give you one guess who he goes after. Jake destroys Martel and signals for the DDT. Martel tries to escape and in the chase, Valentine grabs Roberts and goes to work. We're 1/3rd of the way through the event now that Hercules is in there. He goes in and saves Roma from Butch. We've got 8 competitors still in there, so it's basically your standard battle royal at this point. Tito Santana comes in at 11 and Roma is eliminated when he misses a crossbody on Jake. Tito goes right to Martel, which is fun. We get Undertaker in at 12 and we finally have a top contender. The biggest problem with this Rumble is that there are just too many upper mid-card guys and not enough top guys. Taker comes in and quickly throws Bret out. Why is Butch still in there? Lucky #13 is Jimmy Snuka. I have mentioned it in previous Rumble reviews, but having the music for the guys really helps make the match a lot more special. British Bulldog comes running down at #14, but we still have too many guys in there. Gorilla calls Brother Love a fat piece of garbage. I would say that up to this point, Martel has been the MVP of this match. I'm still not 100% sure why they didn't give him an Intercontinental run. At the halfway point, it's Smash. We are less than a year away from Repo Man. Jake gets eliminated kind of out of nowhere. In comes Hawk at #16 and this starts a big brawl. There are about 10 guys still in the ring, which is just too many for this. This is one of the more predictable Rumble matches and they should have dressed it up a little bit better. Out comes Shane Douglas for his first cup of coffee in WWF. Both Snuka and Tornado get thrown out and they barely even show it. The production of this match improves so much over the years. #18 comes and no one shows. This of course is Randy Savage and it leads to some boos. At 19, Animal joins Hawk in the match. They team up and eliminate the top contender in there in the Undertaker. That gets a nice pop from the crowd, who has very much died down during this match. At the 2/3rd mark, Crush makes his Royal Rumble debut. He and Smash go right after Bulldog. Out comes Jim Duggan and he really wakes up the crowd. Say what you will about Duggan, but the crowd always loved him. We get another one of the top guys, as Earthquake is in now. Sadly, this is really his last big moment as a singles star in WWF. He dumps out Animal as he charges at him. #23 is the Intercontinental Champion, Mr. Perfect. Duggan goes after him and we get the famous Hennig bump in the turnbuckle. Duggan charges at him and out goes Duggan. They should have had Duggan in a lot earlier. #24 is here and it's the guy everyone knows is going to win, Hulk Hogan. Hogan quickly dumps out Smash and then goes after Earthquake. It's time for Haku at 25. As a result of the undercard being so strong, we missed out on no Ultimate Warrior, Sgt. Slaughter, Dusty Rhodes, Ted DiBiase, Big Boss Man and Barbarian in the Rumble, which any combination of those guys would have made this match a lot better. #26 is Jim Neidhart. Quake just dumps Tito out with authority. 27 is Luke, Royal Rumble legend. He becomes a legend right here, where Quake dumps him right out and he keeps marching on to the back. Homage just released a shirt of this. Somehow there are still 17 minutes left in this show. The biggest storyline here is that Martel is still in the match, which was not common at this time. A much slimmer Brian Knobbs is in the match. I never understood why Sags wasn't in the match and instead fought Sam Houston in a dark match before the show. Warlord is in at 29 and goes after future WrestleMania opponent, British Bulldog. Hogan eliminates Crush, who takes a pretty painful looking fall. Hogan gets Warlord out with a clothesline, which is kind of surprising. The last competitor is Tugboat and he runs right into Earthquake. They talk about Savage as being the missing entrant and speculate that Warrior ran him out of the building. When you add Savage to the list that I gave earlier, there was a much better Rumble match in here somewhere. Tugboat and Hogan start fighting and Tugboat almost eliminates Hogan. He of course doesn't want to be sure that he did, so he walks away and then Hogan eliminates him. Perfect gets eliminated and Heenan chucks his towel into the crowd. It goes right to this group of people, but this random guy runs over and then walks away disappointingly. Martel goes up top, but Bulldog crotches him and eliminates him. Martel broke the record for the longest time ever. I forgot why Knobbs is in there, because he's Hogan's BFF. Quake and Knobbs get rid of Bulldog and we are down to 3. They beat Hogan down and Earthquake hits the big splash. Hogan of course no sells it and hits a double clothesline. A big boot sends out Knobbs and then hits one on Earthquake. He's still on his feet. Quake battles back and hits a big elbow drop. He hits his trademark powerslam and then tries to pin him. Hogan kicks out of the non-pin and Hulks up again. Hogan clotheslines him from behind and Hogan becomes the first two time winner. This was a pretty bland match overall. I mean the Rumble is always pretty fun, but there isn't much to take away from this one.
Match Rating: **1/4
This show for me is all about the undercard. The tag team match was fantastic and really the rest of it was very good for this era of WWF with the exception of the Mountie match. The Rumble itself wasn't anything special, especially for this non-Hogan fan. It's hard to give it a major recommendation, but it is an enjoyable show overall.
Overall Rating: 77%
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