Fun fact: I actually bought the DVD release for this show. I don’t know why, but I’d imagine it might have something to do with wanting to have all the Royal Rumbles on DVD since I also had the Royal Rumble set from 2007 or 08, I believe. Never went beyond that, I’m afraid.
Anyway, on with the show, I suppose…
Well, it’s the 2009 edition of the Royal Rumble and… well, I barely remember a bloody thing about this one, so we might as well get it over with.
Jumping ahead to 2008 and… well… this show is a total blank to me.
So we’re reaching the point with these Rumble shows where I barely remember anything on them. It’s this weird nebulous period where it’s neither particularly good nor was it notably awful. Mind you, this was after a year with a rather serious incident taking place that threatened to curtail the entire wrestling industry, so naturally, you blank out on the stuff that came afterwards… but, um, yeah… let’s give this another look and see if there’s anything worth remembering.
Live from Madison Square Garden in New York City… which means that we’re not going to have a hugely elaborate set because MSG is unique enough in its set-up that trying to turn this into a typical WWF set would be pretty darn stupid.
Anyway, we’ve got a packed show of sorts. HHH defends the WWF Title against Cactus Jack in a no-holds-barred match, Hardys and Dudleyz are in a tables match, two Intercontinental Co-Champions will enter and only one Champ will emerge… and let’s toss Bob Holly in there for good measure… and then there’s… yeah, we’ll get to that.
It’s 1991. There’s a war in the Gulf. And we’re headlining our annual Royal Rumble PPV extravaganza with the reigning WWF Champion The ULTIMATE WARRIOR defending his title against former American hero turned Iraqi sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter… and we also have the Royal Rumble.
It’s about that time again. The build towards the Royal Rumble, which kicks off the “road to Wrestlemania” or whatever the marketing bollocks happens to be this year. And every year, I do a few musings on past Rumble events and as I’m looking at my checklist, I come to discover that there isn’t much left to look at.
So we might as well clear out the remaining Royal Rumbles this year and with my big attempt to watch this year’s Rumble, I’d figure it’d be a good time to get it done and hopefully remind myself of the days when the Royal Rumble was a great event and not just some soulless thing to kick off some road or something.
Sorry for the week-long delay, but sometimes when you’re doing a ten-hour WWE PPV that is a sloth to sit through, you need a couple days to digest this whole thing. I tried watching this live, tapped out, eventually gave up and didn’t pick things up until a couple days later.
Fun fact: This is the first WWE PPV that I’ve attempted to watch in its entirety since perhaps Extreme Rules? Hell In A Cell? I don’t even remember now. There was that Super Slowdown show from Australia, but I think that was on tape delay or something. In any event, this was the first show that I laid my back on the couch to watch… the perfect position to be in when a show puts you to sleep. But did it do that?
Let’s find out…
We end this year’s run of Royal Rambles with the 2005 PPV. And with that, all that’s left is anything I didn’t cover after 200 something. So this is it… the final Royal Ramble for the year not counting this year’s edition, which will probably come about on Sunday
For most fans, 2002 is the year where WWF began to lose its allure, so to speak. The Monday Night Wars are over, the Invasion was a bust, and suddenly, people were longing for an alternative. At this point in time, however, it’s the Royal Rumble season featuring the return of Triple H, after being on the shelf for months due to a quad tear. And this would be the year that he would go from HHH to McSon-In-Law and be the focus of some truly horrendous television.
But I’m jumping ahead here. Let’s get on with the show.
Rolling into the 2000s with the 2001 Royal Rumble, perhaps one of the better Rumble shows that I’ve seen live. Let’s see if it still holds up.
dtm666 