(THE FIRST) Royal Rumble

Royal Rumble 1988
Copps Coliseum (Hamilton Ontario Canada)
Original Airdate: January 24, 1988

Annnnnnnd after an even more lengthy absence than usual, we're back. I'll skip the explanation for the layoff this time and just jump right into it.

First off, technically this event was broadcast on the USA network and should be disqualified from the blog. However, as any WWF fan knows, it became a pay per view the next year and has been ever since. It's also my personal favorite PPV of every year and an intense fan favorite all across the board.

Let's take a step back and explain the concept of the Royal Rumble for a second. As I talked about in the Survivor Series entry, this was a period where the company was striving for different ways to present their roster of wrestlers. For the Royal Rumble (supposedly conceived by WWE Hall Of Famer and close Vince Mcmahon confidant Pat Patterson) was a battle royal with a bit of a twist.

Hold on...let's back it up even a step FURTHER for any novices reading. A battle royal is a match featuring a large number of wrestlers (usually around 20 or so). They all start in the ring at once. There are no pinfalls. The only way to get eliminated is to go over the top rope and touch the floor. There is a chaotic element to battle royals that I (and I think lots of other fans) have always found appealing. The funny is though, up until the conception of the Royal Rumble, it seems like battle royals were mostly used as a way to get anyone who wasn't used in live events a match.

In the Royal Rumble, however, only 2 of the 20 men (which was changed to 30 the very next year)started out in the ring. Every two minutes a supposedly random new wrestler came out. It was an instant hit.

It's sort of interesting to explore why this concept worked so well. For me, I think the pace is one of the Rumble's biggest draws. In a regular battle royal, you start out with a huge number of guys, and they throw fake punches at each other until its their turn to get thrown out. I've actually read plenty of wrestlers say a battle royal is a tremendously easy, low stress match to work because it doesn't require a ton of advance planning or (for lack of a better word)choreography. What the Royal Rumble adds (and what I believe is a big part of its' appeal) is the element of spontaneity. It was cool right from the get go to guess who was going to come out and join the fray next, and it remains cool to this day. It's also fun to see the ring have anywhere from 2 to 12 guys in it depending on the moment. In short, it's such a fast, quickly evolving match, that it's pretty much impossible to get bored with.

Like most shows from this time period, however, the first Royal Rumble was still just a prototype of what it would eventually become. For starters, there was nothing at stake. Several years later, the winner of the Rumble would begin to earn the right to challenge the WWF champion at Wrestlemania. I'm not sure who gets credit for this idea, but it was genius. It took an already popular event and added a whole new level of intrigue.

Here, however, it was just another match. In fact, it didn't even happen last on the card. It was the last undercard match before the barnburning main event of the Young Stallions vs The Islanders in a 2 out of 3 falls match. I think I trashed the Young Stallions a bit in a previous blog, but in case I didn't, let me do it again. The Young Stallions sucked. Plain and simple. I try to write this blog in a mostly academic fashion, but I hated The Young Stallions on such a base level, that it is easier for me just to be blunt in this case.

It's probably not shocking that the card is a little weak though, since Pay Per View was burgeoning at this point, and the company probably thought it would be silly to give away instead of sell the really good stuff. Besides the Rumble though, there is a gem of a match to lead off the show between Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat (who was by now nearing the end of his first WWF run) and a relative newcomer named "Ravishing" Rick Rude. Rude was a native of Minnesota with a lean, muscular frame and one of the better gimmicks of the late 80's. He essentially portrayed an egotistical ladies man who made a big show before every match of taking off his robe and posing "for all the ladies". He was also quietly one of the absolute best workers of this era. Unfortunately, he has since become one of many wrestlers to die far far too young. Here he is shown at his best though, doing a solid 15 minutes with a game Steamboat, until a stupid, overly complicated finish almost ruins what came before it. Still a solid match though.

So much like the first Wrestlemania, this event is extremely historically significant to WWF in a historical context. In terms of the actual quality of the matches thought? There is still a lot to be desired. But it's coming.

Card:
Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat def. "Ravishing" Rick Rude by disqualification
The Jumping Bomb Angels (Noriyo Tateno and Itsuki Yamazaki) def. The Glamour Girls (Judy Martin and Leilani Kai) (with Jimmy Hart) in a two out of three falls match for the WWF women's Tag Team Championship
"Hacksaw" Jim Duggan won the Royal Rumble match (other participants: Bret "The Hitman" Hart, Tito Santana, "The Natural" Butch Reed, Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, "King" Harley Race, "Jumpin" Jim Brunzell, Sam Houston, "Dangerous" Danny Davis, Boris Zhukov, Don Muraco, Nikolai Volkoff, "The Outlaw" Ron Bass, B. Brian Blair, Hillbilly Jim, Dino Bravo, The Ultimate Warrior, The One Man Gang and The Junkyard Dog)
The Islanders (Haku and Tama) defeated The Young Stallions (Paul Roma and Jim Powers) in a two out of three falls match

Next up: Wrestlemania 4 and the beginning of my in depth look at the now legendary yearlong buildup to the Hulk Hogan vs Macho Man match at Wrestlemania 5.