I recently watched Royal Rumble 1995 from the USF Sun Dome in Tampa, Florida. Funny, I thought USF was in Miami. Anyway…

Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler on commentary with Todd Pettengill doing the interviews. Pamela Anderson is our celebrity of note. She will be in attendance and will also escort the Rumble winner to the ring for his Wrestlemania match.
I think this is the first Royal Rumble being shown live in the UK. It must have started at about 1AM there, so kudos to any Brits who stayed up to watch this live!


Opening match is for the WWF Intercontinental Title. Razor Ramon (champ) Vs Double J Jeff Jarrett w/ The Roadie
During the match, Razor Ramon is knocked out of the ring and appears to tweak his knee. Unseen by the ref, the Roadie then clips him from behind, further injuring the knee, and Razor is unable to beat the count and get back into the ring. He is thus counted out. Jarrett (that’s Double J to you) wins by countout after about 12 minutes but doesn’t get the title. However, the Roadie hands him a mic, and as Ramon is heading back to the locker room, Jarrett starts trash talking him and calling him a coward for not coming back and finishing the match. This goads Ramon into coming, or rather limping, back into the ring, and he tells the ref to restart the match. After about an additional six and a half minutes of wrestling, Razor set up for the Razor’s Edge, but then his knee collapsed and Jarrett capitalized with an inside cradle for the pinfall win.
I thought this was a great match, with very good storytelling and psychology, and Razor did a great job of selling the knee injury. I thought Jarrett winning the title was a huge upset, and the crowd fell into a stunned silence.


Pettengill interviews both Diesel and Bret (separately) and they are both too tense to say much to him. Good job of selling the importance of this.


Next match is The Undertaker (w/Paul Bearer) vs. Irwin R. Schyster (w/Ted Dibiase)

Ugh. Undertaker gets the win with a chokeslam (not a Tombstone!) after about 12 minutes. This was a mediocre match.


Next match is for the WWF Championship: Diesel (champ) vs. Bret Hart

This is a rare face vs. face match, though Bret has been acting a bit heelish in promos lately and frankly, acts very heeling in this match.
Bret Hart has new music, and frankly, his old music (which goes back to the Hart Foundation days) was much, much better. I have no idea why they felt the need to give him new music. I have noticed that, since Jimmy Hart left the company, the entrance music has gone downhill sharply and in most cases, the newer wrestlers aren’t even getting proper music, but rather just sound effects, like a truck’s horn, or an animal’s bellow.
Diesel also gets new entrance music. It’s okay, I guess. It sounds like it came from a honky tonk hole-in-the-wall bar, frankly.
On to the match, I thought that this was a great match. Excellent psychology and storytelling. Bret got the figure four on Diesel (after working the knee throughout most of the match) on Diesel a bunch of times, but could never get the submission. No doubt because that’s not his finisher.
Anyway, the ref seemed to think this was a no DQ match. There could have been a DQ about a half dozen time, such as whe Bret ties Diesel’s legs together with his wrist wraps,, when Bret hit Diesel’s leg with a chair, when Shawn Michaels came in and interfered, and when Owen Hart came in and interfered. We also get the dreaded ref bump, though it didn’t really play much of a role. After 27 plus minutes, the ref is finally forced to stop the match when no less than 4 wrestlers come in and interfere and there’s no way he can restore order at that point. The match is declared a draw. Great match with a stupid ending – just like WCW!
While I loved the match, I absolutely hated the finish. It makes no sense to have the ref ignore all of those other cases of outside interference and refuse to DQ either guy even when it warranted it, in a heroic effort to give us a clean finish, then have a double DQ finish after all. What a waste.


For the Vacant WWF Tag Team Championships: Bob “Spark Plugg” Holly and 1-2-3 Kid vs. Bam Bam Bigelow and Tatanka (w/Ted Dibiase)

When Shawn Michaels effectively broke up the championship tag team of himself and Diesel by throwing his belt in the garbage, the Tag Team title became vacant and they held an 8 team tournament to determine the new champs. The Smoking Gunns (who were my pre-tournament favorites to win the thing) had to pull out at almost literally the last minute due to a kayfabe rodeo injury to one of the Gunns, and they were replaced I the tournament by the makeshift team of the 1-2-3 Kid and Bob Holly. I really like this replacement team, actually, though I’d rather have had them face the Heavenly Bodies (who I think are by far the best in-ring heel WWF tag team ad this point) in the finals rather than Bam Bam and Tatanka, but oh well. Also, the winner is supposed to face the Smoking Gunns (now fully healthy) in a title match on Monday Night Raw the night after this PPV.
They list the combined weight of Kid and holly as 344 lbs. I’m pretty sure that’s a typo.
The crowd was quiet for much of this match, I think maybe because they’re still recovering from the previous match.
In the end, Kid is laying prostrate on the mat, so Bigelow (who is the legal man) goes to the top rope for a finishing moonsault. However, Tatanka for some reason decides to do an elbow drop on Kid, and he bumps into Bigelow, who winds up falling and knockling himself out. This allows Kid to roll over and lay his arm on Bigelow for the pin and the upset win. Personally, I thought that Tatanka looked like a moron for trying to finish off Kid when he (Tatanka) wasn’t the legal man, and he also looked like a klutz for bumping into Tatanka. However, the announcers made no mention of this, making it sound like it was Bigelow’s fault – and for that matter, none of the online reviews of this I looked at called Tatanka to task for his stupidity and clumsiness. Anyway, DiBiase and Tatanka leave without Bigelow. Bigelow eventually revives to find people mocking him, and Lawrence Taylor, who is sitting in the front row, is laughing at him. Bigelow has words with LT and then pushes him down and walks away. Hey, we’ve got our Wrestlemania XI main event all set. Sigh.
Anyway, aside from that, I thought this was a very good match. Kid, Bigelow, and Holly all looked good and Tatanka was good enough. This was a big surprise not only because of the size difference but also because we knew the winner would face the Smoking Gunns on Raw the next night, so you’d expect the heel team to win here to face them.


Next we get to the actual Rumble match. For the first time, we’ve only got one minute breaks between the entrants.
Shawn Michaels draws #1 (no way he’ll win!) and British Bulldog draws #2, so those two guys start the match. At one point, Bulldog picks up Michaels and holds him over his head. Rather than simply throw him out of the ring, he throws him right down on the mat, which makes him look rather stupid. Duke “the Dumpster” Droese also had Michaels up on his shoulder and didn’t throw him out, so he looked pretty dumb too.
Owen was attacked by Bret as he tried to enter the ring, and the beating continued until the next entrant was called. Owen apparently did get in, but got eliminated so quickly that the camera never even showed him in the ring! However, a few minutes later they did show on a replay Davey Boy Smith eliminating Owen.
Luger got a surprisingly good pop when he entered.
Not a lot of hot rivalries at this rumble. Certainly nothing like when Flair and Piper were going at it that one year.
Bret also attached Bob Backlund when he tried to enter the ring. They’re selling here that Bret has basically snapped. Could a heel turn be coming?
The Smoking Gunns looked like morons trying to eliminate each other (when there were about 8 other guys in the ring they could have gone after instead of going after each other) and both got eliminated together by one guy.
Shawn had a lot of near eliminations here!
At the end, we’re left with Shawn Michaels and Davey Boy Smith! It was kinda cool seeing the two guys who started the rumble also finish it, though I wouldn’t want that every year.
We get another controversial finish as Michaels is apparently eliminated, and they play Davey Boy’s music, and he stands on the turnbuckles to celebrate – then Michaels comes from behind and knocks him out! It turns out that Michaels wasn’t eliminated, as only one of his feet hit the floor. However, it made WWF look kind of dumb for playing his music prematurely without a signal from the ref, and it also seemed very unfair to Davey Boy. Anyway, they showed a really nice replay and you can see that Michaels hangs on for dear life and indeed only one foot ever hits the ground. Good call by the refs, but bad call by whoever started Bulldog’s music.

Pamela Anderson now enters the ring, as she will escort the Royal Rumble winner to Wrestlemania. I’ll be she’s glad that Mantour didn’t win!!! Still, she does not look thrilled to be here. I would say she’s just picking up the paycheck and getting out of Dodge.


All in all, I felt the only real stinker here was the Undertaker/IRS match. All the other singles & doubles matches I thought were excellent. The rumble itself was okay. It wasn’t great, as having only one minute between entrants was probably a mistake (I think this was the only year they did this, so I guess somebody else agreed with me) but on the other hand, the shorter rumble match did allow the other matches to go longer, so that may be why most of them were so good. They also didn’t have people doing double duty with regular matches as well as the Rumble match, like they did last year. Overall, I thought that this was a pretty good rumble, as 3 of the 4 non-rumble matches were excellent.

I think you mean Krusher Kruschev! 


Here are Alex Wright's comments on the match.....


(Wright goes into shadow, at one point, due to leaning out of camera range and the back lighting overwhelming the camera...this happened multiple times, in the interview)


Basically, Wright was 19 and a rookie and his father taught him to follow the lead of the veteran.  Roma was ticked off at the office and basically took it out on the match.  Wright didn't try to fix the situation because of his training; but, was told afterwards that if some starts taking advantage of him to fight back and force them to work with him.  Steve Wright was a shooter and I have to think he taught Alex enough to defend himself; so, if he had chosen to fight Roma, then Roma would have not pulled the crap that he did. 

How in the world is kidnapping Jimmy Hart supposed to hinder his guy, in a match? I mean, sure, he can't pass them the baby powder or ether-soaked rag; but, Hogan didn't use that stuff.

Renegade was Richard Wilson, a local Georgia wrestler, who trained at Killer Kowalski's school and worked for George Scott and John Ringley's NAWA, in North Carolina. He did a Tarzan gimmick (Rio, Lord of the Jungle) for Kowalski's IWF and worked for Tenryu's WAR promotion, in Japan. he had a tryout match with the WWF, before being signed by WCW, for the Renegade gimmick, because he looked vaguely like Hellwig. I believe there were legal threats from Warrior, if they didn't make it clear that Wilson was not him, because they were heavily implying it, at first. He got a mild push and the tv title, but mostly became a Jobber to the Stars. He was actually used as a stunt double for Warrior, in the WWF.

WCW released him and he went through severe financial problems and depression and then shot himself, in an argument with his girlfriend, in 1999. He died of his wounds.

It definitely wasn't his fault for the way he was used; but, does demonstrate how lower echelon wrestlers were treated, by WCW and the WWE, compared to the territorial days (and promoters treated wrestlers like property, then).

Found out about this earlier today

In the late 80's there was a show called "Pro Wrestling This Week" that was basically a highlight show of various promotions from across the globe (kind of like ESPN's Sportscenter)

Firstly, I couldn’t watch this live as I had school the day after, but in the pre-internet age, it was great to be able to watch it the day afterwards, without worrying about inadvertently coming across spoilers (back then, only a UK hotline would have given you the results).

It was disheartening to see Ramon lose the Intercontinental Championship, but what a good match. Also, Ramon never wrestled in a Rumble (I’m not counting Fake Razor in 1997), which is disappointing. Personally, I’d have had both men do double duty that night. That would have given the Rumble some star power.

Double J could have boasted to Pettengil, saying something like, “Double J beat the so-called Bad Guy and became the Intercontinental Champion! Well, ‘ol Double J is gonna win the Royal Rumble. And I don’t care if its the Hitman or Big Daddy Fool, Double J is gonna become the WWF Champion at WrestleMania. Bank on it!”

And Razor could have said, “Yo, chico, the Bad Guy had a tough break earlier tonight. But I am ready for the Royal Rumble. I don’t care who I have to go through. I will go through friends like Lex Luger. I will go through foes like Shawn Michaels. I will go through 28 guys to get to Jeff Jarrett. I don’t care. I may have lost the Intercontinental Championship, but I am going for the top prize, chico. Bet on it.”

Undertaker vs. IRS was what it was. There was no point to the feud. Again, the Rumble would have had more star power if both men had been in it.

In WCW, at one of their PPVs (possibly Spring Stampede 2000), the event was announced as having “relaxed the DQ rules” to give referees some leeway. Rare logic from WCW. Something could have happened like that for Bret/Diesel. Still, a good match and I don’t suppose Bret could have done the job.

The WWF Tag Team tournament was the usual predictable formula of not allowing anyhing other than babyface vs heels, but I did like where it led, and I’d say the tag team match here was possibly the match of the night. Like you, I did not expect the babyfaces to win.

Regarding LT, be honest, we’re all pining for and wishing for an LT/Bigelow WM XI action figure set, right?

The Rumble did lack star power. I did read that the 60-second interval between participants was due to concerns over a lack of star power. It was decent enough. I often had fun imagining unlikely victories, e.g. if Dick Murdoch had won this, we’d have had WWF Champion Diesel vs. Dick Murdoch as the main event of WM XI. How peculiar.

The ending was fun, but what if Shawn had accidentally touched the floor with both feet? How would the WWF have explained that?

Incidentally, Jim Neidhart was due to participate in the Rumble, but he was gone by the time of the event, so was replaced by Rick Martel.

Here’s some interesting stats for the event:

* Shawn Michaels eliminated the most men, 9 in total
* Davey Boy Smith and Shawn Michaels lasted the longest, 38:41 in total
* Owen Hart lasted the shortest, 3 seconds in total
* This is the only Rumble that Dick Murdoch, Jimmy Del Ray, King Kong Bundy, Mantaur, Steven Dunn, Timothy Well, and Tom Prichard competed in.

I did like the idea of an “unsanctioned PPV”, but, my goodness, so much to criticise here. 

There has to be some logic in even the most frivolous and quirky stuff. Police Academy is silly (and fun), but needs to have some sort of logic, often with the parameters being defined early on. Wrestling should be no different.

In no logical reality or fictional reality does it make sense for Hogan to win a strap match by dragging SOMEBODY ELSE around the ring. Logically, no referee would allow it. I can’t think of a comparison, but, hell, if Superman defeats Doomsday during a fight, by unleashing some magic on Darkseid, which causes Darkseid to fall down, it’d be silly if Superman flew away and said, “Well, I didn’t technically beat Doomsday, but Darkseid interfered and I put him down.”

WCW, eh? And we can’t even blame this on Russo. 

As for Renegade, Hogan, what were you thinking?! At a time when I got my news from the likes of the PWI family of mags, whenever Hogan mentioned his “ultimate surprise”, well I expected Warrior to show up. Who didn’t, especially as some magazines had hinted at Warrior talking with WCW in 1993 and 1994 (I have no idea if that actually occurred)? 

In what universe was Renegade fooling anyone? God rest his soul, but it was a poor imitation. Warrior had his fans, and love him or hate him, he had charisma and those intangible qualities. You do not copy that. EVER. Yes, comicbook publishers do it all of the time, but it doesn’t mean others should. WCW fans who had NEVER watched WWF would not have cared for Renegade, and those of us watching both promotions would have seen through that. We did! 

It was never gonna work. How tone deaf was Hogan? Or maybe ego overrides everything; after all, as discussed countless times, Hogan still maintains he wrestled in front of 80,000 fans at Wembley Stadium, so I guess his entire existence is a work.

It’s a shame how Renegade’s life ended. I’m *not* blaming Hogan for that, but he should never have been brought in. You know, I feel the Powers of Pain and Demolition carved out their own niche, and good luck to them. They did it. But no-one was gonna successfully imitate Warrior.

So, a lousy PPV on some levels (I guess some bouts were good), and Vader deserved better.