WWE Royal Rumble '92

WWE Royal Rumble ‘92
January 19, 1992
Knickerbocker Arena
Albany, New York

So after all of the mess involving the Undertaker and Hulk Hogan over the WWE Championship, we entered 1992 with no champion. The title would be put up in the 30 man Royal Rumble match here. Some interesting things also took place. Once every so often, Vince would take the titles off guys at house shows. Usually it is because of contract disputes and then it becomes a necessity to get the belt off of guys. Bret Hart lost the IC Title in such a manner to the Mountie in Springfield, MA not long before the Rumble. I’ve heard conflicting reasons. I’ve heard it was due to his contract being re-negotiated, but in his book he didn’t indicate that was the case. Whatever the case was, this opened up the door for Rowdy Roddy Piper to go after what would be his first and only singles title in the WWE. The show as usual however, would center around one match, and more importantly one man.

Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby “The Brain” Heenan

New Foundation (Owen Hart and Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart) vs. Orient Express (Tanaka and Kato) w/ Mr. Fuji

I remember being so pumped when Owen Hart showed up in WWE. Keep in mind I didn’t know at the time that he was the Blue Blazer back in 1988-1989, but I saw him during his very brief stint in WCW in 1991, and also picked up several copies of Pro Wrestling Illustrated during this time period and read about him. The New Foundation instantly became my new favorite tag team and I thought that they were on their way to the same type of success the old Hart Foundation had. I would be wrong, as Neidhart would leave the company shortly after this event leaving Owen to wrestle in singles competition until the WWE teamed him up with Koko B. Ware later in 1992. This match was very good, and for the 2nd year in a row, the Orient Express is in a match that absolutely needs to be seen to be appreciated. This isn’t near as good as the classic with the Rockers in 1991, but it’s still a great match. The foundation wins with their rocket launcher double team maneuver and like I said, at the time, I thought they were destined for tag team greatness. ***1/2

WWE IC Championship
Mountie (champion) w/ “Mouth of the South” Jimmy Hart vs. Rowdy Roddy Piper
What we have here is a foregone conclusion. The plan all along seemed to be that Piper was going to ultimately put Bret over at WrestleMania, so Piper winning here was a formality. The match was nothing, but man what a mark out moment for Piper. He wins with the sleeper hold, and the crowd goes absolutely crazy. This, and WrestleMania III are my two favorite Piper moments as a baby face. You can tell it means a lot to Piper too, and it’s yet another shining example of why titles don’t make the man, but the man makes the titles. Piper wasn’t any more over because he won the IC title here. But the IC Title was put over because of the way Piper put it over. It’s a lesson that I wish the WWE would learn today, as the titles get de-valued by the minute nowadays. **

Bushwhackers w/ Jameson vs. Beverly Brothers (Beau and Blake) w/ Genius
We go from a great opener, to a classic moment, to this. This is absolute garbage, even for a Bushwhackers match. And some genius (no pun) decided to give this 10 minutes. Just a putrid match. Beverly’s win to no one’s surprise. DUD

WWE Tag Team Championship
Legion of Doom (Hawk and Animal) (champions) vs. Natural Disasters (Earthquake and Typhoon) w/ Jimmy Hart
Apparently Hawk was beginning to succumb to his personal demons at this time and was spiraling out of control. Vince desperately wanted to get the belts off of LOD. I thought at the time that the Disasters would come away with the title. I was shocked to find out the next day in school from a friend who watched the show that in fact LOD still had the titles, albeit in defeat. Disasters win by a cheap count out. Match was about as good as you could ask for from LOD at this point in their careers against a team like Natural Disasters. ¾*

Main Event
WWE Championship – Royal Rumble

This is what I’m talking about! Most people have this rated as the best Rumble of all time. I wouldn’t argue with anyone that thought that way. The title here is the prize after the Hogan-Undertaker debacle from Tuesday in Texas. The British Bulldog and Ted Dibiase start things off, and Bulldog eliminates Dibase right away. Dibiase does a REALLY good job selling how pissed off he is too knowing that he blew a big chance at winning the gold. #3 is Ric Flair and Bobby Heenan goes into meltdown mode screaming “NO… DAMMIT!” Gorilla Monsoon then proceeds to dig at him with comments like “No one has ever drawn numbers 1-5 and been there at the end!” Heenan replies “What?!” Gorilla repeats himself and Heenan screams “AH SHUT UP!” This match is Gorilla and Heenan’s masterpiece as a commentating duo and the match itself isn’t too shabby either as Flair carries this sucker like the great performer he is. Everyone that enters pretty much goes right after Flair which indicates that Flair is probably lasting a long time. Another funny Gorilla-Heenan moment is when Barbarian comes out. Gorilla says “Barbarian doesn’t like Flair.” Heenan classically replies “Barbarian doesn’t like anyone… when I managed him he barely liked me!” One by one everyone gets eliminated leaving Flair and Bossman. Flair eliminates Bossman and Heenan starts yelling in celebration… leaving Gorilla to tell Heenan that it’s not over. In fact they were only half way through, and #15 is Rowdy Roddy Piper and the place comes unglued. Evil Jake Roberts comes out next and lets Flair and Piper go at it until he sees the opportunity to attack Piper from behind, but he also goes after Flair too which makes it even cooler. One of the stipulations going into the match was that because Hogan and Undertaker were the two former world champions and the reason for this match; Undertaker and Hulk Hogan would get #’s 20-30. Undertaker didn’t fare too well in that deal, as he got #20, the worst possible number he could have gotten. Randy Savage is next and Jake slides out of the ring and hides. Savage coming in like a Wildman and looking feverishly for Jake was a great way to tell the story of hatred. Finally Hogan comes out at #26 and as Jim Ross would say if he was commentating “Business is about to pick up.” He immediately dumps out the Undertaker. They really made Undertaker into Hogan’s bitch after Survivor Series. To this day I wondered why Undertaker had such a limited role in this Rumble considering he was one of the main reasons the title was up for grabs here. Nonetheless I digress. The match continues until finally it boils down to the final four. Sid, Hogan, Flair, and Savage. Sid gets rid of Savage and Hogan has Flair dead to rights, but Sid sneaks up from behind and dumps Hogan. Sid is pretty pleased with himself and starts talking trash to Hogan. Hogan grabs Sid’s arm and Flair is able to dump Sid over for the historic win. Flair goes over 1 hour in the match and wins the WWE Title. Sid and Hogan almost come to blows but officials break it up. Sid was the one getting the cheers here, and like Survivor Series, the first cracks of Hulkamania were starting to show as people began to get tired of the super hero stuff and were clamoring for something new. As for Flair, he, Heenan, and Perfect celebrate, and Flair gives one of the best victory promos of all time with Mean Gene Okerlund, and puts over the WWE title as “The only real World Championship.” There it is again… the title makes the man, not the other way around. Remember that WWE the next time you decide to hotshot a title onto Miz or Jack Swagger. Those guys don’t benefit any more from getting a title. Anyway, personally speaking, this was one of the best matches of the 90’s, and one of the best Rumble’s ever. *****

Final Analysis: There’s only one reason to watch this show, and that one reason delivered. Ric Flair gave one of the best individual Royal Rumble performances ever and proved that he was still the man. Shortly after this, Flair and Hulk Hogan would get announced as the Main Event of WrestleMania VIII, and the dream match of the 80’s was going to happen… but it didn’t. Instead Hogan decided that he was going to “retire” and the show was re-booked into a double main event with Hogan taking on Sid Justice, and Flair defending the title against Randy Savage. Undertaker would turn baby face after this and turn on Jake Roberts. 1992 was one of my favorite years for wrestling as I was fully engrained into all things pro-wrestling at this point, but business was rapidly declining. The golden age was long since over and pro wrestling in general seemed directionless. This was a true bright spot though.