I recently rewatched Battle Royal at Albert Hall from 1991. Was this a PPV in the UK?

First, it’s good to see Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan on commentary. It’s been a little while since I’ve seen these two at this point.

I see a lot of Legion of Doom shoulder pads in the crowd.


The first match is the Nasty Boys w/ Jimmy Hart vs. The Rockers.

The Rockers seemed to open for a lot of big events in 1991.

There’s a LOT of stalling to begin. The Rockers are mostly in control until the Nasties low-bridge Michaels and he goes spilling out onto the floor. The Nasties take control for quite a while after that, with Michaels playing the face in peril. Jimmy Hart gets on the apron and distracts the ref, then tosses his megaphone to Knobbs, who uses it to club Marty (who’s in the process of pinning Sags) on the back of the head, allowing Sags to instead pin Marty for the win. It seems like the Rockers had more than their fair share of losses, for a team that was so over.

This was a fun match, mostly because of the Rockers. The match was over 17 minutes, which is longer than you’d really like to see the Nasty Boys go, which is probably why there were some slow dull stretches. Anyway, the Rockers were probably my favorite tag team to watch. So exciting and also such good teamwork. There was a lot of playing to the crowd in this match, and there was a cute spot where the Rockers had an arm stretcher (or whatever you call that move) on one of the Nasties, and kept making illegal switches behind the refs back (who was getting distracted by the other Nasty) and the ref would ask the crowd if the tag was legal and of course they responded in the affirmative. Also, the crowd was really into this, which helped.


Next we get Gene Okerlund interviewing Roc Flair. This is when Flair first joined the WWF and was going around with his NWA World Championship belt claiming to be the “real world champion”. This must have been one of his first WWF matches.


Next match is Tito Santana vs. Ric Flair.

This should be a good one.

This is shortly before Tito became el Matador. This was a good, solid match. Basically what you’d expect in a Flair-Tito match. I thought Tito looked really good here. Probably not the best match either guy has ever had, but certainly good, and the crowd was hot for it, which helped a lot. After just over 16 minutes, Flair reverses Tito’s rollup and grabs a LOT of Tito’s tight (exposing a full moon over Tecula!) for the win. We are 2 for 2 so far.


Next match is the Big Boss Man vs. Earthquake, w. Jimmy Hart.

Sorry, but not a very good match, overall. Kinda boring. Bossman looked pretty good, though, but this match was slow with not a lot of good spots (except a Boss Man enziguri) and, at nearly 16 minutes, was way too long for these two guys. I don’t know whose idea that was. Flair-Santana going 16 minutes is totally fine, but Earthquake-Boss Man going 16 minutes? Uh, no.

Anyway, after Earthquake accidentally knocks Hart off the apron, the Mountie comes out, helps up his manager, then trips up Boss Man, allowing Earthquake to get the elbow drop for the win. Mountie and Earthquake had been feuding, that that feud was done at this point.

The heels have won all 3 matches so far!


Next match is the Mountie, w. Jimmy Hart, vs. Kerry Von Erich.

Not a very good match. Pretty boring. The Mountie wins when he blocks a monkey flip attempt and puts his feet on the ropes for leverage during the pin. The ref announces him the winner, and he goes onto the floor to have garbage thrown on him, then he goes back in the ring as it appears that the ref is asking him if he has his foot on the ropes. The announcers say the ref is restarting the match but after about 20 seconds Mountie just up and leaves, so I’m not really sure what happened or who the official winner was, but I think it was the Mountie, since I didn’t hear a bell ring for a countout after he left. The best part of this match is hearing Monsoon and Heenan bicker. The crowd also started a jailbird chant, as the Mountie had lost that match against the Boss Man at one of the PPV’s where the loser had to spend a night in jail.


Next match is The Undertaker w/ Paul Bearer vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan.

I am NOT optimistic about this one. Duggan is just about my least favorite wrestler. I find him insufferable. Also, while Undertaker had very good presence, his in ring work wasn’t that great at this point.

Anyway, the moron Duggan comes out with an American flag, and actually gets a good response. Also, about halfway through the match, he starts a USA chant, which actually has some success.

We get a long (well, over 6 minutes but it seemed longer) boring match with a lot of choking. In the end, moron Duggan gets DQ’d by hitting Undertaker with a 2x4 within plain sight of the ref. Give me a break.


We get a bunch of wrestler interviews with Gene Okerlund, some of which (like Roddy Piper and Legion of Doom) are rather amusing.


Next match is for the WWF Tag Team Titles: The Legion of Doom vs. Power & Glory.

This was a decent match. LOD win it in a little over 9 minutes when Roma comes off the top rope but Animal catches then powerslams him for the win. Animal was face in peril for a good chunk of the match. Overall pretty good. There was one botched spot I noticed where Animal was supposed to throw Hercules over the top rope but one of them messed something up so Hercules fell on the mat and just slid out under the bottom rope. That looked so weird.


Next match is The British Bulldog vs. The Barbarian.

The “hometown” boy gets his match!

This was a decent match. It ends with a Davey Boy win when Barbarian misses a corner charge and Bulldog scoops him up for the power slam, in a little over 10 minutes. Obviously, a huge pop for this one as the local guy gets the win, but then the crowd has been into everything in this show!


Finally, we get the Battle Royal, with 20 guys. Lord Alfred Hayes joins Gorilla and Bobby on commentary for this one.

As with any battle royal, it starts off slowly and you don’t know where to look. It gets more interesting as we get down to about 8 guys. Duggan gets cleanly eliminated by Earthquake, but because he’s a dick, he goes and gets his 2x4, gets back in the ring, and hits Earthquake with it a few times, knocking him out. Have I mentioned that I can’t stand Jim Duggan? There’s a cute spot where Piper knocks Knobbs over the top rope onto the apron, and Knobbs is standing there, losing his balance, not trying to fall off, and Piper pushes him off with one finger. Then waves bye-bye to him. Piper also got to eliminate Flair (much to Heenan’s consternation) who was his big rival at the time. The crowd loved that. The Undertaker also followed Duggan’s example and eliminated the guy (Piper) who had eliminated him rather than just leaving. But then, Undertaker is a heel at this point, so I would expect that of him.

The final 4 are: Typhoon, Mountie (both Jimmy Hart guys), Big Boss Man, and local boy Davey Boy Smith! Boss Man gets eliminated, then some heel miscommunication leads to Typhoon knocking the Mountie out (imagine that!) then Davey Boy eliminated Typhoon by ducking a Typhoon charge in a very sloppy looking finish that made Typhoon look pretty dumb.

The winner is the British Bulldog, Davey Boy Smith! Of course, this was to be expected, but it was still cool to see. As he lay there, exhausted, Earthquake and Typhoon come in and start beating on him. Davey Boy eventually rolls out of the ring just before the earthquake flop (or whatever it’s called) but is still laying on the floor and the heels come out to beat on him some more. Isn’t anybody going to come help him? Well, who should come to the rescue but…Andre the Giant! It was really cool to see him make the save, though also a bit sad to see him with a walking stick (though he did manage to use that as a weapon). So, a happy ending for all except the Jimmy Hart Foundation.

I thought the battle royal, and the extracurricular activity afterwards, enjoyable, though the final elimination, of Typhoon, didn’t look very convincing, so that hurt things a bit.


Overall, I thought this was a solid event. There were a couple of bad matches, but most of the matches were enjoyable, though certainly no 5 star matches here.