WWF Royal Rumble 1991 

 

January 19, 1991 

 

We’re in Miami, Florida, at the Miami Arena. Hosts are the awful combo of Gorilla Monsoon and Roddy Piper. I’m well aware this is not the first major show of 1991, but I feel that the year just begins with the Royal Rumble, and it helps ease me into a new 12 months of pro-wrestling. If they could run it on New Year’s Day, that would be helpful for my spreadsheet.  

 

This show did pretty well with 440,000 buys, which is MORE than the Wrestlemania it’s leading into. Is that the only time that’s ever happened? Also, the next show to do more buys than this is Wrestlemania 14. Yes, it’ll take 7 more years before they hit this kind of financial high again. It feels like this show is the end of the Hulkamania Era. Although he continues to be involved in the WWF until the middle of 1993.  

 

This is also a weird show because they play the national anthem, and no one sings it? Could they not afford a vocalist? Were times that hard at Titan Towers? The extremely patriotic crowd chant “USA”. You could be forgiven for thinking Vince was right to run the Iraqi War angle. You would, of course, be wrong.  

 

Orient Express vs. Rockers 

With Bret Hart on his way into singles after ‘Mania, the Rockers have their eye on being the top dogs of the tag division. Something that should have happened in 1990 with that phantom title change with the broken rope. They start out with stuff like topes, and you could transplant Rockers matches from 1991 into modern wrestling and it would fly. It does slow down as the Rockers use arm holds. They do some good stuff with the Orients colliding and then Shawn setting the same spot up, and they learn from it only for Michaels to bash their heads together. 

 

The crowd get a “we will, we will rock you” chant going, which is neat for the time. A lot of the stuff they do is way too cutesy for my liking. The kind of thing I would bag on modern workers for as being too choreographed. Likewise, I think Shawn’s bumping and selling in this is not very good. It’s too overblown like Perfect. There’s a lot of stuff creeping into this match that I dislike about modern wrestling.  

 

For the time, it does feel quite advanced but there’s just something about Shawn that’s off-putting. A generation of guys grew up watching Michaels and immitating him. For better and for worse. I will give them points for innovation. There’s a spot where the Orients try and clothesline with a length of rope, Shawn ducks it and then dives onto it causing the Orients to collide.  

 

Kato (Paul Diamond) is fairly sloppy in his execution too, which hurts. They go for the Rocket Launcher and Michaels takes a bump to the floor. That looked cool. Shawn going high risk and failing is often his best work. Unfortunately, he no sells the bump and comes back for more fancy-dancy bullshit at the finish. Good effort here but not to my tastes. They clipped through 20 minutes in good fashion though, so we’ll give it ***½. Beginning of the end for wrestling as we know it though. 

 

Video Control gives us Randy Savage who tells us he’ll be #1 contender if Slaughter wins. We then cut to Sensational Queen Sherri who wants to demand Warrior defend against Savage next, if he wins. Woyah turns up and Sherri flirts with him. The implication is that she’ll fuck him if he gives Savage a title shot. Woyah seems offended and I have strong suspicions he swings the other way and the whole “queerin’ don’t make the world work” was a cover for his closet case homosexuality.  

Also, and apologies for the poor quality of the screen grab, this. Basically, he says no. And with that, his title reign is over. You don’t fuck with Randy Savage, brother.  

 

Barbarian vs. Big Bossman 

Ray Traylor was a work horse for a big man, but Barbarian isn’t going to be a good match. Giving this 15:00 on PPV is a bad idea. The whole concept is Bossman vs. Heenan anyway. Which leads to Bossman vs. Perfect at Mania in a match that’s a fill in for what was supposed to happen. There is effort here, but they eventually resort to a bearhug.  

 

It’s long and boring and they do the ‘arm lift’ bit in it. How can you pass out in the bearhug? Has that ever happened in human history? Bossman does continue to work hard around the rest holds and he is over. They both hit their finishers and have the ropes save, which is interesting for 1991. They get the positioning wrong on Barbarian’s ‘save’. They do the ‘roll through the top rope move’ finish and it just about works. Cut out the middle of this match with all the bearhugs and it would be decent. They had some very strong, innovative ideas. **¼ 

 

God, I hope every screenshot on this review has someone gurning in it. Adnan rants in Arabic while Sarge sticks his chin out and nods his head. Sarge wants to be the leader of the new generation. Sarge is 41 years old at this point but looks much older. He looked in his forties when he was 30. Elsewhere, Woyah retorts with the usual nonsense. 

 

WWF Championship 

Ultimate Warrior (c) vs. Sgt Slaughter 

Gorilla defends normal Arabian people, and Piper starts ranting about the USA. He can’t seem to connect American freedoms with the Gulf War but there was a logic gap in the politics, so I can’t blame him. Warrior destroys the Iraq flag to rapturous applause. Yanks, eh? This is not unlike those Nazi rallies of the 1930s. Done in the name of entertainment (and propaganda) designed to make a bullshit war (for oil) be about “freedoms”. You’re already free, bitches. Make America Great Again? It’s already great, what the fuck is your problem?  

 

Let’s quickly dip into the Gulf War, because it’s more interesting than the match. Basically; Iraq invaded Kuwait and the USA, buddies with Kuwait, came to the rescue. The USA literally started the bombing campaign the week before this show. Kuwait, far from innocent, had been slant drilling into Iraq. Already an extremely rich oil state, Kuwait were Mr Burns to Iraq’s high school. No wonder someone shot him.  

 

The war only lasted about a month as Iraq had no real weaponry (only old naff Soviet stuff like SCUD missiles) and the USA steamrollered them. It was the first war to take place on CNN though, which had people gripped to the coverage. Vince McMahon and his Republican cronies falsely believed that war would be good for business. They were expecting this long, drawn out campaign and sending stuff out there “for the troops”. By the time Mania rolled around the conflict had already ended.  

 

The US didn’t suffer here like it did in Vietnam or Korea. There were 148 US casualties. 113 from enemy fire and 35 from friendly fire. The Americans themselves killed a quarter of their own dead. Iraq was promptly crippled by economic sanctions after the war, which included medical supplies. There was also widespread pollution from Iraq burning the Kuwait oil wells on their way out of the country. The war cost the USA $61 billion.  

 

Back in Miami, Warrior spends most of the match beating the crap out of Sarge. You can’t have a heel title win without this prolonged shine. It’s a rule. In order to spice up proceedings both Sherri and Savage interfere. Savage’s manic assault is beautifully out of control. Springing out of the darkness and clobbering Warrior with a lamp.  

 

This becomes the second successive match to go to the dreaded bearhug. Sarge comes across as a dumbass for thinking he’s won with the camel clutch, with Warrior halfway outside the ring. Warrior’s comeback should end a normal match but in comes Sherri again. Warrior, like an idiot, drags her into the ring. Savage clocks Hellwig with his royal sceptre and that’ll do it. He’s dead.  

 

And just like that Warrior’s WWF title run was over. He would never win it, or any other major title, ever again. In retrospect, that seems crazy but here we are. The match isn’t good but at least it has the Savage stuff. The crowd chant “Hogan”, showing exactly how popular Warrior was in the big scheme of things.  

It’s a nice moment for Sgt Slaughter, who was one of the WWF’s workhorses in the mid 80s. Performing at a very high level and deserving of the belt. It’s bizarre he ended up winning it in 1991 when he was washed as a worker but here we are. Warrior owed Savage for how this came off. Without Savage tattooing him with the sceptre, he would have looked like a chump. 

 

Koko B Ware vs. Mountie 

This was clipped off the VHS tape release. Presumably because they thought it disrupted the flow of the show. That’s me politely saying it sucks. ACAB does include the Mountie. You can see people in the crowd heading to the concourse to get a drink or take a piss or something. The piss break match is REAL. Only this is 9 minutes long, so it could even be a shit break match.  

 

Anyway…this is TERRIBLE. You can see them looking out for each other and their ring positioning. There’s zero chemistry. The bumps are horrible. Mountie wins. No one cares. Let’s move on. 

 

Video Control gives us Sean Mooney chatting to Randy Savage. Macho says he’s the WWF champion. He’s always been the WWF champion. Warrior then threatens to break into his locker room, so he runs off. Elsewhere, free to wallow in his own crapulence, Sarge rants about being the champion. I wonder how long that belt was purple? We head to Roddy Piper on comms, who RANTS in jingoistic fashion about Iraq. Lord Alfred Hayes announces the upcoming WWF UK tour. The first ever post-Mania lucrative European tour. I’ll see if I can dig some UK shows out but they’re generally quite bad. 

 

If only commentators could get this relaxed nowadays. Look how fucking chilled out Piper is.  

 

Dusty & Dustin Rhodes vs. Ted DiBiase & Virgil 

Dusty is on his way back to WCW to take over the pencil. You can tell he’s on his way out because he’s not even wearing the polka dots. He only hung around this long to give his son this match. Both Dustin and Virgil are terrible so there’s heavy emphasis on Ted to carry this thing. It’s quite funny that Dusty is wrestling Virgil, a boot licking modern day slave, named after Dusty as a rib.  

 

For a big fella, Dustin has always been better at selling than going on offence. His best work in this is when he’s got a bum wheel. Virgil miscues on Ted so DiBiase kicks his ass. DiBiase, left all alone (and a heel), still wins because Dusty is leaving and Vince isn’t happy about it. Dusty’s next match will be in the Tokyo Dome in 12 months time. And after that, it’s WCW in August 1994! His move to WCW comes with the agreement that he won’t be signed as a wrestler. Back in the WWF, DiBiase calls out Virgil’s failings thus setting up their Wrestlemania match. Hey, it was great on paper, but Virgil just sucked in the ring, so it never worked out. It felt like a hot angle here though. 

 

Video Control gets us Hulk Hogan for a rambling promo about the USA, and he fucks his promo up. I’ve never seen him do that. I think he just forgot the name Saddam Hussein. He’s told Sgt Slaughter has defaced Old Glory and he’s beside himself. Now we’re onto the actual Rumble match and that’s on WWE’s YouTube channel, so we’re switching to that.  

 

Royal Rumble Match 

#1 is Bret Hart. Something the WWF tend to do is put a guy out at #1 who they intend to push. So, they can see them in with a bunch of different guys. They work the ‘every man for himself’ gimmick a little stronger here with Bravo and Valentine fighting, although they’re both heels. The match would also become a test of which guy you should turn face. Case in point; Hammer turned face in 1991. The ring gets crowded far too early here.  

 

Let’s stop for a moment because we need to talk about Saba Simba. Tony Atlas had been a mainstay of the WWF in the mid 80s. I never thought he was any good in the ring, but he was one of their big stars. Around 1988, Atlas stopped being a pro-wrestler because he was broke, and homeless. Yes, the Saba Simba gimmick is extremely, openly, racist but without it and without Atlas taking that gig, he might have died living on a park bench in 1990. Instead, he’s alive and well today. Free to spend his hard-earned cash on having women with large feet step on him. I believe the fetish is called “trampling”. Rick Martel eliminates him here. 

 

As with Bret, there’s always a guy in this match who lasts a long time. Martel is he. Entering at #6, he’ll be around for a while. His performance is a little bit like Ric Flair’s in 1992, only nowhere near as good. He even has his feud with Jake Roberts erupt when the Snake enters at #9. Eliminations are few and far between. The ring is too crowded and Martel-Roberts aside, there’s no real scraps going on. Roma eliminates himself because he sucks so much.  

 

When the Undertaker comes in at #12, there are still eight guys in the ring. Taker doesn’t have the same impact as he did in years to follow. The gimmick isn’t quite there. We still have Brother Love. If it was a proper Undertaker he’d throw out a bunch of these jobbers but instead it’s just Bret and then he goes back into the mix. Oh, and Bushwhacker Butch, but who cares? This section of the match continues to be extremely boring with an overcrowded ring. I don’t even like the Undertaker, and I would have had him chuck half these guys out of here. 

 

Martel eliminates Jake to further their program. Unfortunately, that’s headed for a blindfold match at Wrestlemania. I would have had Jake drill him with a DDT first but hey, gotta save the big spots for the big show huh? Shane Douglas arriving makes me do a double take. He’ll be back in WCW next year, having flopped here. There’s only room for one peppy young blond guy in this town. #18 is nobody at all. Apparently, it was supposed to be Randy Savage, but he legged it to get away from Warrior. We get our first Rumble Lore. If you don’t enter the match when your number is called, you’re not allowed in it afterwards. There’s also a suggestion you can leave the ring, but you get a ten count on the floor. 

 

LOD team up to dump Taker and I like that they had it play out like that. It keeps Taker strong. He only had three eliminations though, which is weird. He’ll be champ before the year is out. The ring continues to be stuffed with wrestlers and there’s nothing happening. The whole match has been like this. It’s almost unwatchable. Earthquake comes in #22 and you would think he’d clear out some of the debris. He’s feuding with Hogan, keep him strong. Instead, he goes toe to toe with Animal and luckily dodges him on the ropes. Then it’s back to the status quo. 

 

Mr Perfect comes in and starts taking stupid bumps. Honestly, what was he thinking? When he just wrestles, like a normal person, he’s really good. Gorilla claims Martel has done 40 minutes+. #24 is Hulk Hogan. Surely, the Hulkster is going to clear the ring out a bit. Nope, he rope hugs with Quake instead. Whoever put this match together had no idea what they were doing. We don’t even finish strong as the last 5-6 guys are all lame as heck.  

 

This is the match where Bushwhacker Luke lasts about 5 seconds. In one side of the ring, straight out of the other. There are still a bunch of people in here, even though the new guys coming in suck. It’s vital Demolition Crush, Shane Douglas and Brian Knobbs get screen time though. #30 is Tugboat and the crowd BOO HIM MERCILESSLY. This was before it was for an official title shot and the crowd are already shitting on it.  

 

Anyway, there are nine guys left in there. It would be ten, but Douglas finally got dumped. There’s ten minutes left in the match! Tugboat goes after Hogan and the crowd cheer him throwing Hogan over the top, which is funny and Hogan immediately throws him out like he’s NOTHING. Hogan and Davey are the last surviving babyfaces. Young David continuining on in the shadow of a larger man. He must have had nightmares about it.  

 

FINAL FOUR: Hogan, Bulldog, Earthquake and Brian Knobbs. Martel just missing out after going up top for an attempted missile dropkick, like a moron. The heels throw Davey out and Hogan naturally survives the impending 2 on 1 to end his Quake feud. Hogan wins his second Rumble. While this didn’t guarantee him a title shot at Mania, he got it anyway, so it might as well have been the stipulation.  

 

This is one of the most boring ring-filled Rumbles of all time. It’s also lacking in star power towards the conclusion. It’s literally Hogan or nothing. Match is maybe *. It’s really bad. Strangely enough, they would go from this to 1992, which is arguably the best one.  

Man, imagine throwing this sign up in 2025? Security would have taken it away.  

 

The 411: 

When this happened, Meltzer said he felt it was the WWF’s best PPV to date. I don’t think that comment has aged well. You could arguably say that Rockers-Orient Express is a vision of the future, and I’ve underrated it. And you could be right but also, fuck you. The rest of the show though…is undeniably bad.