Brian Hoops, PW Torch.com Nostalgia Specialist

PW Torch.com Nostalgia Review
WWF Royal Rumble 1993
By: Brian Hoops, PW Torch.com Nostalgia Specialist

This week’s look back at wrestling nostalgia takes us back 15 years to the 1993 WWF Royal Rumble. The 1993 Royal Rumble was the 6th Royal Rumble event, however it was the 1st Rumble to have the stipulation that the winner of the Rumble be given a title shot against the WWF World Heavyweight Champion at Wrestlemania. The Royal Rumble 1993 was held on January 24, 1993 at the Arco Arena in Sacremento, California. The event drew an estimated 16,000 fans to the building for the double main event of the Royal Rumble and the WWF World Champion, Bret Hart defending against Razor Ramon.

Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Hennan are the announce team.

1. In the opening match, the Steiner Brothers defeated the Beverly Brothers in 10:34. The Steiner Brothers, Rick and Scott, were forced out of their WCW contracts in 1992 by WCW Executive Vice-President Bill Watts in a cost cutting move. The WWF quickly signed WCW’s most popular tag team and pushed the Steiners as a very good tag team without mentioning any of their WCW accomplishments. The Beverly Brothers; Wayne Bloom and Mike Enos, had enjoyed some WWF success and previously worked together in the AWA as the Destruction Crew; winning the AWA World Tag Team Titles on one occasion. The Steiner Brothers took early control of the match, however the Beverlys used good tag team combination wrestling to control most of the action. As is typical for the Steiner Brothers tag team matches, Scott was worked over while Rick waited to receive the hot tag from Scott. After Rick made the hot tag, Scott made the tag back in and pinned Blake after a Frankensteiner. It was a good match, that was essentially a squash to make the Steiners look good to a PPV audience.

2. Shawn Michaels pinned Marty Jannetty in 14:20 to retain the WWF Intercontinental Title. Prior to the match, Sensational Sherri Martel was interviewed and she would come down to ringside by herself as she was playing a neutral role in this match between champion Shawn Michaels and babyface challenger Marty Jannetty. Michaels and Jannetty were previous tag team partners in the Midnight Rockers in the AWA and the Rockers in the WWF, until Michaels turned on Jannetty in 1992 to cement his heel turn. Sheri was playing the same role as she had at the 1992 SummerSlam when Michaels wrestled Rick Martel. Jannetty had tried to hit Michaels with a mirror, only to have Michaels pull Sheri in front of the mirror to tease dissention between Michaels and Sheri leading up to the match. Shawn controlled the majority of the match, with the idea of the match to build to Jannetty making the huge babyface comeback against the heel Michaels. Finish came when Sheri accidently hit Jannetty with her shoe and Michaels gave him the superkick for the pinfall. Jannetty followed Michaels to the back where they continued to brawl. It was a good match with a solid story line.

3. Bam Bam Bigelow defeated the Big Bossman in 10:10 after a diving headbutt. There wasn’t much story to this match and the match didn’t do anything for me. Bigelow was beginning of a mild push was Bossman was viewed as glorified enhancement talent at this point. This match was mostly a transition match from the IC title match to the World Title match that was next.

4. Bret Hart defeated Razor Ramon in 17:52 to retain the WWF World Heavyweight Title. At the time, Ramon was billed as being undefeated in the WWF. Ramon (Scott Hall) came over from the WCW in September of 1992 and was given a strong push as a heel. Hall had always had the look, the size and the charisma, but could never break through in his first WCW stint. He was a former AWA World Tag Team Champion at this point in his career; however those matches were carried by his partner, Curt Hennig as he was very green in his AWA days. Hart was enjoying his first championship run as world champion. He defeated Ric Flair in October of 1992 and would hold onto the belt until he was defeated at Wrestlemania 9 in April of 1993. Hart brought a lot of respectability to the belt and raised the bar as far as match quality from the world champion. At about 10 minutes into the match, Hart first teased the sharpshooter, but Ramon escaped by grabbing the referee and leveraged himself out. Ramon then started to go for his big moves, like the superplex off the middle rope, but Hart escaped. From there, the match picked up as they traded moves and teased their big spots. Ramon went for the Razor’s Edge, but Hart reversed it to a backslide for a near fall. Hart finally locked in the sharpshooter for the submission victory in a very strong match. Hart retained the title and celebrated in the ring, adding more significance to the championship match and the belt.

Before the Royal Rumble main event, Bobby Heenan introduced the debuting Lex Luger as the Narcissist. It was a short-lived gimmick that went nowhere for Luger. He challenged Mr. Perfect.

5. Main event of the evening is next, the Royal Rumble. Ric Flair, last year’s Rumble champion is the first participant in the ring. This would be Flair’s last WWF PPV appearance until after the WWE buyout of the WCW as Flair was headed to the WCW after losing a famous loser leaves town match to Mr. Perfect on Monday Night Raw. Mr. Perfect entered the Rumble at number 10 and eliminated Flair. Bob Backlund, who entered at number 2, appeared to be the ring general for the majority of the match. The Undertaker entered at number 15 and was eliminated by a debuting Giant Gonzalez. Gonzalez, who wrestled for WCW as El Gigante, would work a program with the Undertaker through SummerSlam. Yokozuna entered at number 27 and cleaned house. Randy Savage entered at number 30, the last entrant in the Royal Rumble. The final two participants were Yokozuna and Savage. Finish came when Savage hit the top rope elbow and Savage instinctively went for a pinfall, however pinfalls did not count in this match. Yokozuna kicked out of the pinfall, and in the process, threw Savage over the top rope, and Yokozuna won the Royal Rumble. This was a create finish to the Rumble and Savage and Yokozuna pulled it off well. This was a very strong main event that established Yokozuna as a major force in the WWF.

Summary: This was a good PPV with three strong matches; the IC Title Match, the World Title Match and the Royal Rumble. It is well worth your time to watch it if you have a copy.

Thanks for reading. As always, your comments, questions and feedback is welcomed. Feel free to contact me at bhoops@iw.net.

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