While it wasn't great by any means, the 1996 Royal Rumble was a massive upgrade from the 1995 disaster. This Pay-Per-View included a significant Title change, two other Championship contests, and a better Rumble match. The winner was expected, yet appreciated for the win, and the result of the WWF Championship match led way to a WrestleMania main event people really wanted to see. The main problem I have with this event was that the World Title match came after the Rumble match. Since it is called the Royal Rumble, I feel it should be the last match. I strongly dislike the event ending in anything other than the actual Rumble match.
Pre-Show Match for #30 Spot - Hunter Hearst-Helmsley vs. Duke "The Dumpster" Droese
1996 was still reeling from the horrible gimmicks that appeared the previous year. Before becoming the Game, Triple H had a Greenwich Blue Blood gimmick and those H's stood for Hunter Hearst-Helmsely. He took on the WWF's neighborhood garbage man in a match to determine who would get the most coveted spot in the Royal Rumble, #30! However, another stipulation was added in which the loser would enter at #1. Unfortunately for Hunter, he lost the match.
Ahmed Johnson vs. Jeff Jarrett
This match did absolutely nothing for either individual. Jarrett's character was just returning from an embarrassing brief hiatus when the world found out his Roadie was the real singer of Jarrett's song "With My Baby Tonight." Ahmed Johnson was a few months into his run with the company. He impressed with his power at the Survivor Series and was ready to move up the ranks. Johnson won the match by disqualification when Jarrett nailed him with his guitar. As I've mentioned in earlier blogs, I strongly dislike these kind of endings at major events. Nothing came from this match, as both men moved in different directions. Jarrett left the company for WCW while Johnson would win the Intercontinental Championship in the months to come.
Tag Team Titles - Smoking Gunns vs. Body Donnas
This was the beginning of an interesting love triangle for three tag team's affections for Sunny. Sunny was the manager for her real life husband Chris Candido, who portrayed Skip. Together, they were fitness gurus known as the Body Donnas. They recruited Tom Prichard to be Skip's tag team partner Zip. They entered a feud with Tag Team Champions at the time, the Smoking Gunns. In the next six months, the Titles would go from to the Body Donnas, then to the Godwinns, then back to the Smoking Gunns. The most interesting part is that each Title change came with Sunny's defection to the winning team. Nothing of note happened in this match and the Gunns retained their Title for the time being.
Intercontinental Title - Razor Ramon vs. Goldust
Throughout late 1995, the sexually ambiguous Goldust was infatuated with Razor Ramon. Goldust and his companion Marlena continued to play mind games with the Bad Guy, finally earning a shot at Intercontinental gold. Beyond how Scott Hall's Razor Ramon character felt, it was clear Hall was not comfortable with this one bit. The story telling was fantastic, though! It looked as if Razor might retain his Title, but then the 1-2-3 Kid, who had recently turned on his good buddy Razor, interfered and attacked. Due to this, Goldust got the pin and became the new Intercontinental Champion.
Royal Rumble Match
Based on his loss to the Dumpster earlier in the night, everyone knew Hunter Hearst-Helmsley would be number one in the Royal Rumble match. Unfortunately for him, number two was Henry Godwinn, who was responsible for covering Hunter with mud in their Arkansas Hogpen Match a month earlier. Bob Backlund, Jerry "The King" Lawler, Bob Holly, Mabel, and the returning Jake "The Snake" Roberts followed next. Soon these men were joined by the likes of the legendary Dory Funk Jr., 1-2-3 Kid, Savio Vega, and the large tandem, the Squat Team. Jim Cornette had all of his men involved in this Rumble but things took a turn when his behemoths Yokozuna and Vader weren't getting along. Things got even worse when their argument caused their elimination at the hands of Shawn Michaels. Vader was angry so he went back inside the ring to beat up the Heart Break Kid until officials were able to pull him off. Soon the likes of Hakushi, Tatanka, Aldo Montoya, Kama, and Steve Austin as the Ringmaster entered the fray. Shawn Michaels won his second Royal Rumble match by last eliminating a familiar face, Diesel! He would go on to WrestleMania to face the winner of the next match.
WWF Championship - Bret "Hit Man" Hart vs. Undertaker
The Undertaker started to improve tremendously in the ring now that he didn't have to deal with the monster of the week. Thanks to his injury at the hands of Mabel, it was a wake up call for the office and now the Dead Man got to tangle with great wrestlers, such as WWF Champion Bret Hart. Generally, most Bret Hart matches were good and this one was no different. Unfortunately, another good match was ruined by the finish. The Undertaker won the match by disqualification when Diesel attacked him. As a result, Bret retained his Title. During Diesel's Title match with Bret the following month, the Undertaker got his revenge by dragging Big Daddy Cool under the ring into the abyss. We were now set to see Shawn Michaels challenge Bret Hart for the WWF Title at WrestleMania in their world famous Iron Man Match.
This Royal Rumble PPV was significantly better than its 1995 counterpart, but it still wasn't that great. Despite bringing back the two-minute intervals, which I was extremely happy about, this event still didn't live up to the hype. There were two matches that ended in disqualification and the Rumble match consisted of a very lackluster amount of star power. The match between Bret and Undertaker was good until the end and the Razor/Goldust match was great story telling, but overall the event didn't quite deliver. Again, my main complaint was that the Rumble match didn't close the show!
If you have any further thoughts on this topic, let me know in comments. Heck, let us all know on The WAR Report podcast, every Tuesday at 7PM EST, brought to you by tagmeadate.com, the first and only dating site for wrestling fans. Go to askthewarreport@gmail.com or #askthewarreport. For TagMeADate members, our Android and Apple apps are vastly approaching so stay tuned!
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While it wasn't great by any means, the 1996 Royal Rumble was a massive upgrade from the 1995 disaster. This Pay-Per-View included a significant Title change, two other Championship contests, and a better Rumble match. The winner was expected, yet appreciated for the win, and the result of the WWF Championship match led way to a WrestleMania main event people really wanted to see. The main problem I have with this event was that the World Title match came after the Rumble match. Since it is called the Royal Rumble, I feel it should be the last match. I strongly dislike the event ending in anything other than the actual Rumble match.
1996 was still reeling from the horrible gimmicks that appeared the previous year. Before becoming the Game, Triple H had a Greenwich Blue Blood gimmick and those H's stood for Hunter Hearst-Helmsely. He took on the WWF's neighborhood garbage man in a match to determine who would get the most coveted spot in the Royal Rumble, #30! However, another stipulation was added in which the loser would enter at #1. Unfortunately for Hunter, he lost the match.
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