WWE Royal Rumble 1989 (1989)

A Disappointing Continuation

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

I guess one could look at the second Royal Rumble as Big John Studd's last hurrah, and a fitting finale to a rather unfulfilled career. He enters the 30 Man Battle Royal rather late, but, once he's in the ring, everyone else(..especially Akeem & Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase)knows it. I had never realized just how massive and imposing he really is because I hearken back to his times opposite André the Giant in the *squared circle*, and everyone looks small compared to him. But, anyone can see, if you are watching it on home video, that Studd was having the time of his life, pounding away at Akeem throughout most of his time in the ring. If anyone attempted to attack him, they were tossed aside with ease.The major running story-line at the time was the crack in the foundation of The Mega Powers, WWF World Heavyweight champion Randy 'Macho Man' Savage and former champion Hulk Hogan, mainly due to beautiful manager Elizabeth. Savage, no matter how successful during his one-year tenure as champion, was always under Hogan's shadow, and if you add jealousy into the equation(..at the previous Thanksgiving wrestling card, Survivor Series, Hogan hoists Liz in the air after their victory and Savage doesn't exactly like it)eventually the foundation will capsize. In the Royal Rumble, Savage was in a continuing battle with a foe at the time, Bad News Brown(a rough Harlem streetfighter, always carrying a scowl, never getting along with anyone)when Hogan eliminates both of them. Savage confronts Hogan after his accidental exit and this is a definite sign that the relationship, once quite strong, has deteriorated. Liz is able to separate the two and they end in a handshake, but later(..in the Saturday Night Main Event card where The Twin Towers, Big Boss Man & Akeem, wrestle the Mega Powers)the situation between the two would end quite ugly, thanks to Hogan's leaving Savage to fend for himself against the Twin Towers while taking to an injured Liz(Savage would accidentally fall on her)to medical assistance.The opening of the card features a six-man tag match consisting of three falls(..whoever wins two out of three times is the victor)between Hacksaw Jim Duggan & The Hart Foundation against "Canada's Strongest Man" Dino Bravo & The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers. Pretty entertaining, although, at times, sloppily performed. Duggan is quite a fan favorite at this time, although his style is not necessarily graceful(..Bret was a fine compliment to the team, his *excellence of execution* adding quality to the proceedings). The Rougeau Bros(..never given a chance to hoist the tag titles in the air)have an abundance of talent and work extraordinarily well as a team while Bravo uses his brute strength to extend punishment to whoever the victim might be. Bret is pinned after the Rougeaus apply their fabulous finishing maneuver, and mostly dominate the opening of the bout pummeling Hart who finally breaks free to tag Duggan. Duggan pins one of the Rougeaus, then uses his 2X4 across the back of another Rougeau to win the match. This kind of cheating raises the ire of commentator Jesse the Body Ventura. The "pose off" between 'Ravishing" Rick Rude and Intercontinental Champion The Ultimate Warrior, is little more than filler, providing the audience with a new feud which would lead to an exchange of the IC belt between the two at both Wrestlemania V & Summerslam '89. The Women's Championship is a joke and shows the viewer that this division will never work despite Vince McMahon's continual efforts. 'Sensational' Sherry('Scary' Sherry, she'd later be labeled, making her presence felt when joining Randy Savage's side later after he turns heel)makes an appearance disrupting the women's bout before it begins.The Battle Royal itself consists of a lot of WWF wrestlers of that time(..some like Shawn Michaels & 'Mr. Perfect' Curt Henning were just pups at this point in their careers). Many tag teams represented the event, providing numbers to the 30 because no one expects the Bushwackers to win it. The Powers of Pain, Strike Force(Tito Santana & Rick Martel), The Brain Busters(Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard), The Rockers(Marty Jannety and Shawn Michaels), & Demolition(Ax & Smash who would draw numbers 1&2 tearing into each other at the beginning). André the Giant was easily the one favored, at first, to win the Battle Royal, and, despite multiple attacks by an army of wrestlers, was pummeling everyone in his path and tossing them around. André the Giant definitely used his size and girth to dominate those who dared challenge him. Fortunate for those in the ring, Jake Roberts(..who had been tossed over the ropes by André)had his secret weapon, his pet snake Damian, with André the Giant eliminating himself and running for his life in absolute fear. Until Macho Man and Hogan arrived, it loses steam with the exit of André. A running feud at the time was between The Mega Powers & The Twin Towers, and the crowd would shockingly witness Hogan being thrown out of the Royal Rumble by the gargantuan duo. The final act would have Big John Studd, Ted Dibiase and Akeem going at it, with a surprising win going for the more unlikely candidate..Big John Studd, who was not amongst any hot story-lines during this point in 1989. It was a great thrill to see a very satisfied Big John Studd win the Royal Rumble in such a memorable fashion, disposing of Akeem(..once One Man Gang, and quite the behemoth)and Dibiase, barely breaking a sweat. A sense of funny irony was that Dibiase had purchased the final draw to enter the event, and was not at all successful in his desire to win The Royal Rumble. This victory is not as recognized as many others mainly because of the Mega Powers soap opera, but I was proud for Studd, a man who would walk tall celebrating quite a substantial victory, a shining exit to a rather disappointing career.

The Hart Foundation and 'Hacksaw' Jim Duggan v The Fabulous Rougeaus and Dino Bravo - 2-3 falls match: Most of the match is focused on Bret Hart as he is beaten up throughout most of it, eventually losing the first pin to a Dino Bravo side suplex followed by the 'Bombe de Rougeau' (1-0). From there, Bravo and Rougeaus do a lot of quick tags to wear Bret down. Bret gets the tag to 'Hacksaw' and he slingshots both Niedhart and Bret into the ring and drops the elbow on top of Raymond for the second pin-fall (1-1). Everything concludes when 'Hacksaw' hits Dino with his 2-by-4 from the apron to secure the 3rd pin-fall (2-1) to win the bout. A nice start and the crowd were into it but not as amazing as when I first remembered it and there were quite a few inverted atomic drops. 6/10 Super Posedown: Basically the audience have to vote as to who can do the best posing between Ultimate Warrior and 'Ravashing' Rick Rude. An interesting confidence trick carried wonderfully by Bobby Heenan who plays his role as Rude's manager expertly, appealing in vain to the crowd. This sparks a big feud when Rude, sick of the positive fan reactions to Warrior's poses, hits him in the back with his arm expander.'Rockin' Robin v Judy Martin for the women's title: Jake Robert's sister 'Rockin' Robin and one half of 'The Glamour Girls' Judy Martin were sloppy in places, the match went on a few minutes longer than it should and commentary suffered as 'Sensational' Sherri had not hit her stride as a confident heel yet. It wasn't a complete disaster as it had that realistic feel to it. Everything ends when Judy gets caught by a flying bodypress. This is the last we will see Judy Martin in the WWF and the women's titles on PPV until 1995. We will see 'Rockin' Robin's final appearance at Wrestlemania V when she butchers the singing of 'America the Beautiful'. 4/10 Harley Race v Haku: This was only shown on the Anthology DVD and it's a pretty good match. Race goes to the ring and pushesHaku off his throne before the bell. Played quite stiff, both not holding back on each other and Race does some nice bumping throughout. Race even hits a piledriver on the outside at one point. It ends when both miss the flying head-butt move on each other but Haku hits a sick reverse thrust kick for the pin. Race retires and heads to WCW after this to become a manager. 7/10Royal Rumble 1989: Hulk Hogan gives an interview (only shown on Anthology DVD). When Okerlund asks Hogan what about if the last two men are Savage and himself, Hogan says; "I guess if it came down to me and the Machoman, he's gonna find out that The Hulkster has never been beaten. I've got the largest arms in the world and, yes Machoman, I'm still called the champ by all my Hulkamaniacs'. So, in essence, Hogan has given away his main heel motivation for being the champion's partner but because Hogan is too over as a face it is 'Machoman' Randy Savage who has no choice but to turn heel. We'll see how the above statement fits in with the events that unfurl...1 and 2 were Ax and Smash of Demolition and I'm impressed that they go all out on each other for the first 2 minutes. Andre enters at number three and the focus is on him for the first 15-20 mins of the match and he eliminates himself after Jake throws his snake into the ring. As time ticks on, tag teams come in virtually one after another at the start. There are more tag teams in this Rumble than any other Rumble (including 'Megapowers') with 8. Hulk Hogan eliminates nine people (including faces) and one of them was poor Warlord who lasted the shortest time on record for ages until Santino Marella beat it by nano-seconds. Mr Perfect lasted the longest at almost half an hour before also getting eliminated by Hogan. It's nice continuity to see Tito Santana and Greg Valentine fight each other and Shawn Michaels makes a memorable performance.About three fifths in, Hulk Hogan accidentally dumps his Megapowers partner 'Machoman' Randy Savage over the top rope with 'Bad News' Brown. Savage got really irate and kicked up a fuss while Hogan dismissed it. However, Hogan's attitude changes when he gets cleanly dumped over by Bossman and Akeem. Hogan from the outside eliminated Bossman even going to the trouble of brawling with him all the way to the back. While watching this as a kid even I couldn't help siding with the heels thinking Hogan was a sore loser which is a topic that rears it's ugly head three years later. The last three men in the ring were Akeem, Ted Dibiase (who bought number 30 from Slick and Twin Towers) and 'Big' John Studd. Studd eliminated Akeem and then threw Dibiase over the top to win. I think Studd was heading for a big push in the WWF feuding with Andre the Giant (continuing from Wrestlemania 1) but it never transpired because Studd fell ill and retired. It would be his last competitive match on PPV as he would be guest referee at Wrestlemania V. Some people criticise the first four Rumbles for not having a world title shot on the line at Wrestlemania but Rumbles have become more predictable as a result. It's nice to see middle and higher mid-carders get their chance in the sun too. 6/10 Overall, the undercard was decent and the Rumble was really good (especially the first half) though things seemed to run out of steam after Hogan and Bossman got eliminated. The Rumble would amplify tensions within The Megapowers and set the road to Wrestlemania.

*SPOILERS*Rumbles started getting really good in '90, but this one wasn't bad.The opening six-man match was very good. Listen closely after the second fall and you'll hear Jim Duggan say "Get off my (expletive)" to the ref. Remember, this was back in the day. Wrestlers never cussed. It was nice to see two major feuds settled in one match.Why was King Haku vs. Harley Race edited from the tape? In fact, the commentators never even mention this match. I know nothing about this apparent feud, and if either of them was a face in this match.The Rumble: Ax and Smash, the most dominant tag team in WWF history, did simply poorly here. Smash barely lasted till number 4, and Ax didn't do much better. And they never cross paths with the Powers of Pain. Usually, this was a great opportunity for all rivals to fight. Mr. Perfect and the Brain Busters did the best here before a fresh Hulk Hogan disposed of them. The Warlord proved his mediocrity by stepping in and right back out courtesy of a Hogan clothesline. The Barbarian fared surprisingly well, by eliminating Brutus Beefcake AND Hercules, two men who have defeated him several times. I liked seeing Butch eliminate the Honky Tonk Man.Hulk Hogan kind of shocked me by getting easily eliminated by the Towers, then just reaching in and pulling Bossman out. Did he even lose any popularity at all? This wasn't the best Rumble match, not even close; but it was much better than some of them, too. It was somewhere in the middle.It was also an interesting decision to put the previous year's winner, Duggan, and its iron man, Bret Hart, in an undercard match, but hey, it was actually a better match than the Rumble.

A great wrestling event. This was start off to a ppv that would be aired every january as the first ppv of the year. 30 Men One Ring, One Winner. The Winner going to wrestlemania to face whoever the champion is. This one Featured: Hulk Hogan, Smash, Ax, Andre the Giant, Bad News Brown, Akeem, Million Dollar Man, Ronny Garvin, The Boss Man, Tito Santana, Rick Martel, The Bushwackers, Koko B. Ware, Honky Tonk Man and more. Great event, the first of a series to come, rent it.