Category: WWE PPV Musings

WWF King Of The Ring 1996 was the event where Austin 3:16 was born. The End.

Okay, maybe not.

I suppose, if nothing else, that’s the main talking point of this PPV and perhaps the only memorable thing about this show. And as much as WWE and Steve Austin will have you believe, this one promo didn’t set the world on fire from the get-go… especially when WCW was in the midsts of starting their own wildfire thanks to two former WWF’ers messing things up, as it were. But the promo planted the seeds to a future superstar in the making. But there are other noteworthy moments on hand here… so let’s check them out together.

Continue reading “WWF King Of The Ring 1996”

For most old-school fans of professional wrestling or “sports-entertainment” as some would prefer to call it, the 1995 edition of the WWF King Of The Ring event ranks up there as one of the worst wrestling cards ever conceived. Held in the wrestling hotbed of Philidelphia, Pensylvania, which was home to an underground cult promotion that was making the waves, King Of The Ring 1995 was pretty much a showcase of everything that was wrong with the WWF at the time… and pretty much an example of a company ignoring all the warning signs thrown at them and staying the course when it would’ve been wiser (and smarter) to jettison the load and try something else…

Perhaps that was a poor choice of words…

Since I got the WWE Network back in February, I’ve been mostly fond of catching some of the older PPVs and shows. I’ve seen a bunch of Clashes, a bunch of good PPVs… and then this comes along. Well, it was only a matter of time, wasn’t it? And since I’m sorta blowing through these KOTR events for the sake of this challenge, I might as well get it out of the way. And let me tell you something (brutha)… considering a lot of the other 1995 WWF stuff I’ve witnessed thus far, I am not looking forward to this one bit.

Continue reading “WWF King Of The Ring 1995”

Apparently, the inaugural King Of The Ring PPV event in 1993 was such a resounding success that they decided to have another one and make it something of an annual thing. This would last until 2002 for those keeping count, when Brock Lesnar won and killed the event. Longtime voyeurs of Wrestlecrap will know this show for being the one with football great Art Donovan doing commentary and such a bang up job he does, as well… although poor guy should do a little more prep work. After all, shouldn’t he already know how much these guys weigh?

Sigh… how sad is it that all three members of the announce team are now deceased?

Oh, well. On with the show, I guess.

Continue reading “WWF King Of The Ring 1994”

So, in a vain attempt to try and beef up some content, I’ve been spending whatever time I could doing little write-ups on. For this week, we’ll do the first seven King Of The Ring Pay-Per-View events from 1993 to 1999. Though there have been other King Of The Ring tournaments prior to ’93, this is the first to be on PPV and for a time within WWF/E canon, all those other tourneys never existed.

Also, I’ve never seen those tournaments, so I can’t really say much.

So, we begin with the quarterfinal matches of the tournament and for the sake of brevity, I’ll keep these short and sweet. I suppose I could dwell deep into the mechanics of each match like a proper review would, but then there’s a reason why I call these wrestling musings and not reviews.

Continue reading “WWF King Of The Ring 1993”

Pulled this one out of the archives and had a chance to watch this one via very old VHS recording transferred to DVD-R. Consider this a bonus of sorts; seeing as I’m posting the first In Your House musings, we might as well toss in the final In Your House-branded WWF PPV, which just so happens to be the very first Backlash event.

Context: this PPV follows Wrestlemania XV, which saw Steve Austin usurp the Rock to win his third WWF Championship. The next night on RAW, Austin gives Vince back the Big Eagle because he wants his Smoking Skull belt back… except now the Rock has said belt. And so we have the rematch where Austin holds the “proper” title while Rock has the trophy belt. Also on the card is a Boiler Room Brawl between Mankind and FUCKING BIG SHOW, who debuted in WWF back in February and has already pulled off a dozen turns in his short time with the company. Brilliant.

Continue reading “WWF Backlash 1999”

This isn’t off the Network, but I had it on my back-up drive, so…

1996 was the year WCW struck gold with the nWo gimmick that would dominate the rest of their existence for better or worse. 1996 was also a pretty miserable year for the WWF, as nobody seemed to give a shit about HBK and his boyhood dream story.

Continue reading “WWF Summerslam 1996”

Summerslam is hitting the network, so I guess to coincide with the challenge here on the blog, we might as well hit a couple of these up as they play.

This is one of the more “interesting” shows in that it features two big matches. In one main event, reigning WWF Champion Bret “Hitman” Hart defending his title against his young brother and newly crowned King Of The Ring winner Owen Hart. In the other main event, both Ted Dibiase and Paul Bearer have Undertakers and the two fight it out to see who’s the genuine article… except it should be plain as day who’s the real deal given that the other one is played by some other due.

Should be fun, I guess… then again, maybe not.

Continue reading “WWF Summerslam 1994”

NOTE: I figured since it’s August and Summerslam is the big PPV, I might as well toss in a couple Summerslam musings along the way. Consider these “bonus” additions, for lack of a better term.

Summerslam 2011 should have been a sign that things weren’t going to be rosy.

Get this; you have a super hot commodity whose contract is known to be expiring and fresh off an intense promo that should have been the catalyst of a new era of relevancy for a promotion that has been lacking it for years. He main events a PPV event in front of his hometown homies, beats the franchise player, and then rides off into the sunset with WWE championship in tow. What should have followed was a massive push of this new main event who has been attracting outside press and would hopefully lead to a new star being made and less of a load on a top guy who has been getting stale and boring.

But as most know by now, that wasn’t the case. The hot commodity known as CM Punk was subsequently curtailed due to petty egos and moronic creative teams and instead of ushering a new era of relevancy in WWE, he’s currently bringing attention to his eventual debut fight in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

There are many things to point to and many people to blame as to why this run didn’t pan out the way it should have… well, aside from the fact that it’s WWE and they have a tendency to screw up the surest things. But, for me, the wheels were off the wagon at this show… and this is the first time I’m watching this show, so here we go.

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Aw, shit. It’s that show, ain’t it?

Continue reading “ECW December To Dismember 2006… Aw, poop.”

The final PPV event before Summerslam is… well, let’s see;

Continue reading “WWE Battleground 2015”