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WWF Royal Rumble 1990
Things that have changed since the last Rumble: Hogan is champion again. Randy Savage is now the Macho King. Dusty Rhodes debuted. Tony Schiavone debuted. Roddy Piper and Jimmy Snuka have returned. Mr. Perfect has adopted the look and persona he would be known for. Earthquake debuted. Strike Force broke up and Rick Martel is now a model. So excited that Tony is calling the show.
The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers vs The Bushwhackers
The Rougeaus being billed from Memphis was always great. Mountie looks like such a scum bag with his beard. As excited as I am for Tony, I'm the opposite for a Bushwhackers match. A lot of ass biting in here. Even to the ref. Jesse rightly says that should be an immediate disqualification. God damn, I never noticed how bad the gig marks were on the Bushwhackers. As bad as Dusty's are now. I didn't really watch the match. I mostly just listened. The Bushwhackers won with the Battering Ram to the back. Danny Davis is back to being a ref. Wasn't he banned from ever being a ref?
TO THE MEAN GENE. He talks with Ted and Virgil. Ted drew number one. He's not happy about it.
The Genius vs Brutus Beefcake
Not the strongest undercard. Lanny's poetry never really sounds like poetry to me. More like just a guy talking and occasionally rhyming or something. I think it is pretty ridiculous that Brutus Beefcake would be grossed out over a guy prancing around. As purposely flamboyant and "gay" Genius is, Beefcake still comes off FAR more homoerotic pretty much his entire career. I don't think Lanny was a particularly good wrestler, but he did play his role hilariously. Audible "faggot" chant. I'm surprised that didn't get edited out. Genius is light in the loafers and is a bad guy for it, but Beefcake's name is BEEFCAKE, he's from San Francisco, he wears a lot of pink and purple and sometimes make up, he adds frilly tassels to all of his gear, cuts large sections of his tights to expose his ass cheeks or inner thighs, and has a life long bromance with Hogan, yet no one thinks perhaps he is the gay one? Naturally, there was a ref bump in this. Genius goes out to the sleeper, but the ref is out. Beefcake starts the hair cutting. Mr. Perfect ran down to aid his friend. The ref calls for a double DQ. Brutus was left down and out after chair shots to the ribs.
TO THE MOONEY. Sean catches up with the Hennan Family. Rude is even more jacked up and shredded than last year's event. Sean stirs the shit and they all argue.
Greg Valentine vs Ronnie Garvin Submission Match
Garvin goes right in with some fucking stiff chops. He also tried a pin in the first minute of the match. Valentine comes back with his own. These guys are knocking the shit out of each other already. Valentine is solidly in control. These dudes are not playing. Garvin does a jumping headbutt that knocks both guys down. Valentine gets out of a piledriver and then they trade pinfalls. Hammer adjusts the Heartbreaker and attempts a figure four. Garvin again attempts a pinfall. Figure four. Garvin no sells that shit because he is wearing his Hammer Jammer. Valentine breaks the hold after Garvin makes some faces and spits at him. Garvin AGAIN tries a pinfall. Hammer locks on a Canadian backbreaker, but lets it go. Garvin does a series of headbutts and locks on a deathlock like move. Weirdly, there was a corner camera man, shooting NWA/WCW style. I guess that makes sense since this match is definitely something that fits in better on a 1984 NWA show than a 1990 WWF show. They continue to knock the shit out of each other on the floor. Valentine again reverses a piledriver, this time on the floor. Garvin gets himself caught in a tree of Keanu. Both men collide and they are down. Jimmy Hart removes the Hammer Jammer. Figure four. Garvin reverses it. AGAIN Garvin tries a small package. It's been like 8 times this guy has tried to win with a pin in a submission match. Valentine is thrown from the top. The Heartbreaker is removed. Greg Valentine does a school boy. He's tied up in the ropes. Jimmy is tossed in the ring. Valentine gets hit with the Heartbreaker. Garvin locks on the Scorpion Deathlock (or reverse figure four, as Tony called it, which is pretty silly considering he had been calling Sting matches for 3 years and Bret was doing the Sharpshooter by this point I believe). Valentine gives up! This is one of the stiffer matches from the entire Hulkamania era. They really knocked the shit out of each other. So out of place. It was a gritty, stiff wrestling match in a brightly lit cartoon world.
TO THE MEAN GENE. Mr. Perfect is asked about interfering in the Genius/Beefcake match. Basically, he says he's tired of Brutus date raping guys, and he couldn't stand to watch his friend go through that. He drew number 30.
TO THE BROTHER LOVE. Brother Love is one character I always hated. His segments always seemed like such a time filler. Queen Sherri is his first guest. His second guest is Sweet Sapphire. Sherri and Brother Love bully Sapphire. Savage runs out. Dusty is (kind of) right behind him. Savage drills Dusty before he can even get in the ring. Sapphire tries to pull Savage off, only for Brother Love pulls her hair. He gets in the ring and shit talks Dusty after Savage is taken away. He gets slammed, held for a Sapphire slap, and thrown out of the ring. Dusty and Sapphire then celebrate by dancing.
TO THE MOONEY. TOUGH GUY! Duggan talks about his upcoming match with the Boss Man. Duggan's eyes are as bad as Saturn's and HBK's. He's coming after the Bossman, Tough Guy!
Big Boss Man vs Jim Duggan
Sadly, this release had Boss Man's Attitude Era music. He had to have lost 50 pounds since the previous year. Dude lost a TON of weight in a pretty short amount of time, even though he was still huge. I would guess it was from coke. Not even a minute into the match, they're out on the floor. Duggan gets rammed into the ring post. Boss Man misses a splash against the post/steps. DOOGAN starts working the shoulder. Enziguri from the Boss Man! A few punches later and he's bringing the full power of his crushing balls on Duggan's head. Tony wants to know why Boss Man has to bring his night stick with him, to which Jesse immediately asks the same thing of Duggan and his board. Boss Man could have an inspection at any time and needs to be ready. Slick chokes Duggan with a tie. Hasbro didn't care about that kind of stuff as much as Matell. Duggan makes a come back, but is cut off by a knee to the gut. Boss Man works general big man rest holds for a bit. Duggan keeps coming back. Duggan lariatoos Boss Man to the floor. Boss Man misses a splash from the ropes. They collide into each other and both go down again. Boss Man uses the night stick and is disqualified for it. Duggan comes back with the 2x4 and gets rid of Slick and Boss Man with it.
TO THE BACK. Jimmy Hart, Earthquake, and Dino Bravo cut their Rumble promos. Demolition are next. Bad News is going to take out all those beer belly sharecroppers. Dusty! Randy Savage is gonna get his goose tonight! The Rockers are gonna rock...and roll. Hercules is ready to Rumble Royal. The Model wears old lady sunglasses. Chico is coming out a winner. ARRIBA! Snuka talks about fishing with sharks. Akeem is the baddest and best. Warrior rambles about 28 normal men before mentioning Hulk Hogan has a different aura that is closest to that of his own. WWE should still be doing this kind of promos, but I don't think they have enough guys who can talk or have any kind of character to make those interesting.
TO THE BACK. Second set of promos. Macho King does a coke rant. Fuji is unintelligible as the PoP breath loudly. Jake is awesome. The Hart Foundation is ready to go the distance this year. Honky is gonna lay down some mean tunes. Dude's guitar was never even in tune. Hogan is aggressive with his inhales.
Royal Rumble
Ted DiBiase drew number 1. Kobo B. Ware drew number 2. Koko is jumped as he got in the ring. Black dudes have hard heads. I figured Ted knew that. Koko is eliminated. Marty is next in. He eliminates himself by Ted ducking a cross body. Jake is out and this place has come unglued! Ted has attacked all 3 men as they were entering the ring. He clearly has a game plan. He slams Jake on the floor and locks on the Million Dollar Dream, only to be rammed into the ring post. He escaped the DDT. The Macho King flies out like a dude who has consumed nothing but cocaine for 3 days. It's RODDY PIPER! Having seen so much of old, flabby, ultra slow Piper recently, it is so weird seeing him with abs and energy. The Warlord is out, hoping to have a longer time than last year. And he's already done it. New record! Next in is Bret Hart. He goes right after Ted. The next man in is Bad News Brown. He naturally goes right after Bret. Stampede EXPLODES! Jake is eliminated while attempting a DDT. DUSTY RHODES! Huge pop for Dusty. He's throwing 'bows all over Savage. He then eliminates Savage with a huge back drop. Oh shit, DAT'S MY BIG HOMIE ANDRE! He promptly eliminates Warlord with one arm. Bobby and Fuji get into it on the floor. The Red Rooster is in. Dusty goes right after him. Piper eliminates Bad News. Bad News pulls Piper over the top and they brawl to the back. Here comes Ax. The Rooster has flown the coop. Andre is tied up and being double teamed by Dusty and Ax. HakOOOO. In comes Smash to knock some teeth down some stinkin' throats. We're at the half way point. Akeem comes in. 8 men are in the ring. Akeem goes after The Giant instead of Dusty. Out goes Bret. Demolition eliminate Andre. Jimmy SnOOKA. He headbutts Akeem out. Dino Bravo is next out. He could win if Jesse spots him. Earthquake comes in and eliminates Dusty. He then eliminates Ax. Anvil comes in and goes after Quake. Earthquake is eliminated by 6 men teaming up to do it. It's THE ULLLLLLLTIMATE WARRRRIOOORRR *SNARL*. He eliminates Bravo. Here comes The Model. Haku eliminates Smash. Chico Santana comes in and goes to town on Martel. Honky Tonk Man. The disappointment was palpable. Anvil is gone. Warrior finally eliminates Ted DiBiase, who set a record by lasting 44:47. It's HULK HOGAN! He eliminates SnOOka. Then HakOO. Warrior eliminates Chico. HBK comes down. Out goes HTM and HBK. And then Martel. Hogan and Warrior stare down! Neither men budge on shoulder blocks. They do a criss cross spot ending in a double clothesline. The Barbarian comes down and has both guys at his mercy. Rick Rude is 28th in. He came in bit early. Hulk accidentally eliminates Warrior by knocking into Rude and Barb, who had Warrior on the ropes. Warrior jumped back in the ring, knocked Rude down, then ran to the back. Hercules is the penultimate entrant. Mr. Perfect is our final entrant, having drawn the perfect number. Herc tosses out Barb. Rude eliminates Herc. Rude is eliminated when he was Irish whipped as Perfect was climbing back in the ring, having been knocked on the apron by Rude. Perfect makes the mistake of hitting his finish, which everyone knows just makes Hulk get his second wind. Hulk Hogan is the winner of the 1990 Royal Rumble!
DQ Count: 2 out of 5 matches.
It was nice to get some Tony Schiavone in my comfort food. WORLDS COLLIDING! He and Jesse had great chemistry that continued in WCW. But Jesse really had great chemistry with everyone. Vince should pay him as much as he wants to replace King. The submission match was weird in that A. It was totally an NWA match in the middle of cartoon world and B. They went for more pinfalls than they normally would in regular match. They were super stiff and really knocked the hell out of each other the whole match.
Storylines coming out of the Rumble:
Ted vs Jake/Ted being the smartest guy on the roster, a Hogan/Warrior show down, Dusty vs Macho, Demolition vs Haku/Andre, Bad News Brown vs Roddy Piper, Beefcake vs Perfect. I don't really see the point of of Hogan winning the Rumble, since he was already the man and champion. I think it would have made more sense for Warrior to win. If I had to guess, this was probably something Hogan demanded since he was going to put Warrior over at WM. We now have the blue cloud backstage area, which I miss so much. 20 out of the 41 people on this show were still on WCW cards in 1998, either as wrestlers or managers.