WWF UK Rampage ‘91 (4.24.91) review 

 

April 24, 1991 

 

We’re in London at the Docklands Arena. This show is the start of the WWF running a European tour right after Wrestlemania. This was shown on Sky Movies+ with commentary from Vince McMahon and Roddy Piper. I didn’t get Sky until 1995, but my neighbour had it and I vaguely remember watching this either the day it happened or the day after. Ring announcer is pedo MEL PHILLIPS. Oh, fucking hell. Why?  

 

Warlord vs. Jim Neidhart 

A fantastic gaff as they announce Anvil, play his music and Warlord comes out. I love it when WWF has horrible production. It cheers me up, no end. What doesn’t cheer me up is starting with Anvil vs. Warlord. Which would be fine if it was 2-3 minutes long. They give them THIRTEEN MINUTES. In what world do you give this shit 13 minutes? Predictably, after they run out of stuff after two minutes, it’s TERRIBLE. Eventually the crowd collectively nod off. Loads of rest holds. It’s horribly boring. Anvil eventually wins with a roll up long after the entire crowd, and me, had zoned out. Everyone is just thrilled it’s over. -* 

 

Ted DiBiase vs. Kerry von Erich 

“He’s got a Cadillac body and a Volkswagen brain” – DiBiase of his opponent here. Watching Kerry being resigned to being a midcard nobody after years of territory superstardom in Dallas is a little sad. Not as sad as what’ll happen to him next. Less than two years after this he’ll be dead. Ted DiBiase and Sensational Sherri put in some work, bumping around for Kerry’s halfhearted efforts. DiBiase is still a solid worker, and Sherri makes everything better. DiBiase casually blocks the Discus Punch. That how you know Kerry is going nowhere. 

Sherri remains highly active in the match, and Earl Hebner has to kick her out of the ring at one point. Speaking of out of the ring, Kerry goes after Sherri on the floor and gets counted out. Man, that’s a long way to go for a count out. They did 14:00. * 

 

Haku vs. Greg Valentine 

Haku is basically finished with the company and is about to spend three years in Japan. Hammer is nearing the end of his run too and looks tired. He’ll be off to WCW to tag with Terry Taylor. It’s been a bit sad watching Valentine go from his mid 80s peak to the shadow of that here. Nobody cares about this at all. The UK public never got to see Valentine in his prime so he’s just this fat, sweaty blonde guy and Haku was never a star Internationally. The match is sluggish. Lots of rest holds. Greg wins with a sunset flip after repeatedly failing to get the Figure Four. His ‘Hammer’ sound effect on his music sounds exactly like the Adult Swim one, and I keep expecting Rick & Morty to start. DUD 

 

Orient Express vs. Rockers 

These teams put on a 3.5 star match at the Rumble. It was a little dancey for my tastes, but the show needs something to happen. I’ll take this. If you’re not familiar with the history, you would never guess which member of the Orient Express would get repackaged and which would get unceremoniously released later in the year. The Rockers emerge with Andre the Giant as an equalizer in tow to offset Mr Fuji. They flew Andre over for this? Fuck’s sake. I hope they gave him a nice paid holiday in France while they were about it.  

 

They go into the double teams early and make a spectacular mess of it. The crowd’s “awwww” reaction is palpable. Luckily, they get it together in short order, and the match settles into a pleasing pace. Then Shawn gets picked off for heat, and the last thing this show needs is formula tags. The crowd, desperate to latch onto anything, still buy into it. Fuji whacks Marty with the cane. Hey, Andre, do your job you big bozo! He punches Fuji out, and Kato gets picked off for the pin. This wasn’t very good at all with mistakes at the start and way too much heat. *½ 

 

Video Control takes us to Mean Gene for some interviews, and Hulk Hogans spins some bullshit about having tea with the Queen. The Queen wouldn’t have known who he was. She was a Big Daddy mark. Andre gets interviewed and says it’s nice to be around friends. He actually wrestled on this tour in both Glasgow and Belfast. Among the final matches of his WWF career. He’s also closing in on death, which is very sad. He’ll be in the ground before Kerry von Erich.  

 

Jimmy Snuka vs. Barbarian 

THEY GIVE THIS 16 MINUTES? 16 MINUTES? GET FUCKED. DUD. Incidentally I did watch the whole of this, but nothing was worth talking about. Apart from Roddy Piper suggesting that Snuka was “punchy” and the house lights malfunctioning. Snuka wins with a sunset flip. 

 

Berzerker vs. British Bulldog 

Davey, who’s just gone into his braids look, gets a huge pop.  

Seeing as the WWF product had just started getting over in the UK, Davey was a legitimate hero to many fans. They announce him as being from Leeds here, despite it usually being Manchester and he’s actually from Golborne, which is near Wigan. Which is near Manchester. For those outside of the UK British Bulldogs was a game we used to play in the playground. You’d line up on one side of the playing field, and one guy would be the catcher in the middle. If he tackled you, you would join him. And that would continue until there was only one survivor. We got told we had to play the tag version after ‘incidents and injuries’. I can still see poor Melanie Thomas getting whacked in the side of the head by a Bulldoggers knee.  

 

Meanwhile the match is pretty dull, but Davey gets popped HARD for literally everything. I may be in the minority, but I quite like John Nord. He’s large and mobile, but he does a lot of stupid shit like JYD style headbutts. As with everything else, this gets way too much time. 16 minutes again here and most of it is resting. Nord likes the hold where you grab the guys head and twist it slightly. He does that for about 12 minutes. HUSS, HUSS, HUSS! Nord cuts off all of Davey’s comebacks. It’s ridiculous. It’s staggering how boring this show is. Davey eventually gets the running powerslam and Bulldog wins to a huge reaction. Can’t help but feel they missed a trick by not having Davey in a good match. Oh well. * 

 

Jake Roberts vs. Earthquake 

Jake, normally a promo superstar, cuts a cryptic promo about cold showers. Quake is fresh from fending off Koji Kitao in shoots. The match is nothing to write home about, aside from Jake slipping off the ropes so badly that Vince has to make excuses for him. Jake hides Damian under the ring and occasionally one of them goes and looks at it. Yep, still a snake in a bag. “This could be a long contest” says Roddy. Well, every single match has been 10:00+ so yeah, could be. Quake works the leg for most of the match, which Jake sells like a champ. We have a very screwy finish where Quake goes to squish Damian, and Jake pulls the snake out for the DQ. Dreadful! ½* 

 

Davey gets an interview and promises Mr Perfect he’s going to become the “world continental champion” on May 2. Good god, he was dumb as a bag of rocks.  

 

WWF Championship 

Hulk Hogan (c) vs. Sgt Slaughter 

A note on the Brits; every single heel has been pelted with rubbish on their way to the ring. The Pukester, a global icon at the time, predictably gets a good reaction. I think Davey’s pop was bigger though. Sarge has his bumping boots on, eager to remain Hogan’s highly paid dance partner for the summer. They’d keep the story going until the “Match Made in Hell” at Summerslam. Long after the Iraqi War was done and dusted. 

 

Hogan’s performance here is a little lethargic but he is coming off the Japan dates and the tour schedule at this point was aggressive and suddenly more of it was televised. Credit to Hogan here though, the match is pretty good. The opening shine gets the crowd geed up, and then Sarge’s heat segment works. Hogan even bleeds a little, although I think it’s from scar tissue rather than a fresh bladejob.  

 

Sarge gets the Camel Clutch but, predictably, Hogan powers out of it. The beating continues for a while, but a knee off the ropes wakes Hogan up. Hulk up. Big boot. REF BUMP? BOOO! The timekeeper hilariously rings the bell, unaware that American wrestling is a bit different to World of Sport. They bumble around using a plastic chair and Adnan throws powder. Hogan ducks it; Sarge gets a face full of cocaine. You would think that would wake him up, but Hogan hits the legdrop to retain, and that gets a massive pop. This was very solid, but the ref bump and crappy plastic chair antics sucked. **¼  

 

And STILL the world flag shagging champion…

 

The 411: 

The tradition of the WWF touring the UK after Wrestlemania and putting on these dirt awful shows would continue for many years. UK shows always felt second rate. They always felt like house shows. This was particularly bad. Everything is so slow paced. Only Valentine vs. Haku didn’t get 11 minutes, and most of the matches went around 15-16 minutes. Nobody did anything useful with their time. Lots of rest holds. A very boring and tiring experience. It’s not like the product was hot enough to justify it either, although the UK crowds were always very responsive.  

 

One final interesting note for this show is the dark match was a trios match featuring local talent. You may know a few of them; “Highlander” Drew McDonald, Chic Cullen, Tony St. Clair, future WCW and WWF wrestler Dave Taylor and one Steve Regal. He’ll also be in a dark match when they run the Albert Hall in October. It’s strange to me that Regal, with all his mannerisms, didn’t attract a WWF offer. Regal also worked the WCW tour at the end of the year and would end up signing for them in 1993.  

 

Dave Taylor took a slightly longer route, staying in Europe until he was brought in to WCW to make up the numbers in World War III 1995. They figured he could tag with Regal as the “Blue Bloods” as they’d just lost the other guy (one Paul Leveque).