Royal Rumble

With the arrival of the WWE's content on Netflix, I decided that I would go back and watch my favourite yearly event - the Royal Rumble, all the way through from the first televised on in 1988. It is very much not yet what the event would become.

In what would be far from the only incidence of tactical booking, the first Royal Rumble event took place on the 24th of January 1988 in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. On the same night, Jim Crockett Promotions aired the Bunkhouse Stampede PPV. Overall, this feels much more like a filmed house show, rather than a true event and there are some aspects of it that are so staggeringly boring I'm surprised the Canadian's didn't riot.

The show does open well though, with a match between Ravishing Rick Rude and Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat. This is a pretty good stuff until the messy ending, which saw Rude get disqualified but not realise and believe that he had won for a considerable amount of time after the bell. Again, it's the sort of match that works well on a house show, but only with a feud that's planned to continue.

Then we have Dino Bravo lifting weights ahead of attempting the Bench Press World record. This goes on for hours, as they gradually add the weights on. Despite his Canadian status, the crowd hate Bravo and ignore his pleas for silence. He eventually does "break the record" but only with Ventura's help. In my dark moments, I fear that I might be asleep and dreaming of a life where this was over, but will eventually have to wake up to forty more interminable minutes of it.

The Jumping Bomb Angels (Noriyo Tateno and Itsuki Tamazaki) beat The Glamour Girls (Judy Martin and Leilani Kai) for the WWF Womens tag team Championships in a two out of three falls match. This was a little sloppy, but the Jumping Bomb Angels are doing some stuff that even the most athletically gifted male performers in the WWF weren't doing at the time. It says something about the standing of the match though that Vince McMahon hasn't bothered to learn the individual names of the Angels, despite putting his title on them.

Hogan and Andre sign the contract for their rematch after WrestleMania 3. This also takes a long time and Ted DiBiase is left to fill time repeating his questions as either Hogan or Andre, or both, miss their cues.

Then there's the Rumble itself. They don't have the presentation quite right yet. The countdown is inconsistent, and the buzzer is missing. They do cut to picture in picture to show the entrant through, which is nice. The actual match is a mixed bag of older guys and a couple of people on the rise, like Bret Hart, Jake Roberts and The Ultimate Warrior - it's the One Man Gang that distinguishes himself as the one to beat though, which eventually Jim Duggan does.

There's still half and hour to go on the show though? There's another match and it's again two our of three falls, this time between The Islanders (Haku and Tama) and The Young Stallions (Paul Roma and Jim Powers). This was slow and dull and there's an injury to Paul Roma that see's the Islanders run out a dominant 2 - 0 victory.

The show is still not over though, as then, with a rapidly emptying stadium around them, Vince and Jessie recap the show. It's looks terrible and I can see why they didn't continue to do this NFL style wrap up for long.

I mean, it's nice for a completist point of view - but this is very much not what the event would be in just a few years' time and it's hard to recommend this particular show.

This is the original Royal Rumble with a new wrestler coming in every 2 minutes. The WWF aired that show from ontario at the very same time that the old NWA was putting on Bunkhouse Stampede, that was January the 24th of 1988. The Rumble match for its time was refreshing and the opening bout with Rick Rude vs Ricky Steamboat was decent. However few wrestling fans will now be able to enjoy that kind of entertainment, but is today's fast-food wrestling really better? Please let me know.

First of all, this Royal Rumble was actually free to view on Cable on USA Network, before the WWF events went to PPV. Also this Rumble along with Royal Rumble 1989 were the only Rumbles in which the WWF and Vince McMahon didn't sell out to a wrestler like Hulk Hogan and basically make the event a no brainer. Hulk Hogan was Vince McMahon main kiss ass and big money drawer, but McMahon often "fixed" matches to launch that Hulkamania fever /garbage in which many idiotic fans would fall for (except me) before it was dashed by the Steroids Fiasco in 1991 but that's a long story.

The event itself was wonderful, great matches, and a showcase of the talent which would emerge to be legendary and house hould names in WWF: Bret "Hitman" Hart, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan , Jake "The Snake", The "Magnificent" Morocco and Honky Tonk Man to name a few.

First Rumble to be won by the "Hacksaw" and one of the best. Not even released on video, but several copies exist, if anyone's interested.

The then "WWF" started a gem event in 1988 when they came up with the "Royal Rumble" event the headline and attraction is a battle royal type, with the only difference is that with 20 grapplers they draw an ordered number, in which they enter the ring then ever 2 minutes another contestant enters! And when a wrestler is thrown over the top rope they are out of the match and the last man standing is the winner! It was wild ring action it was hard to watch as many wrestlers duked it out at the same moment! And the bad guys would help the bad guys fight against the good guys! The key to a victory was to draw a late number! Anyway this first one from Canada(and oddly enough televised on the "USA" cable network before the rumbles would later become annual "PPV" events) was well remembered and fun as mister "Hi Oh!" "Hacksaw Jim Duggan would be the winner as he was clever and a brute and he outsmarted the One Man Gang to become the first ever Rumble winner!

The 88 Royal Rumble had it teases as it featured bad guy Dino Bravo trying to break the world bench press record(you make the call I believe he got a little help from ex wrestler and bad guy commentator Jesse Ventura). And the program featured a contract signing for a world title rematch between Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant.

Other undercard matches were pretty good as the opening grudge match was full of action between Ricky the Dragon Steamboat and the now late Rick Rude, which ended in a DQ victory for the Dragon. And two tag matches that involved winner take two out of three falls, the last match(which was oddly after the main attraction of the Royal Rumble battle) a tag match that featured the Islanders winning against the injured duo of the Young Stallions. And very memorable and exciting high flying fun was the second match that being a women's world tag team championship match between The Glamour Girls and The Jumping Bomb Angels. As the Japanese duo angels(who were attractive and could do some athletic moves) would become world tag team champs, really this match was a wild card treat. Overall well done "WWF" event the classic first one which started the yearly tradition of "The Royal Rumble".

The World Wrestling Federation (WWF) is at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in front of a crowd of 18,000 on January 24, 1988.

Match 1: Ricky Steamboat defeated Rick Rude by disqualification - Singles match (17:39) - Starts out pretty good then drags a bit in the middle then gets exciting towards the end leading to a sucky DQ finish. These two would go on to have plenty of better and more memorable battles over the years to follow especially in WCW. 5/10

Wrestler Dino Bravo attempts to break the world bench press record of 705 lbs set in 1985. He does it but with the obvious help of spotter Jesse "The Body" Ventura. Not sure if Bravo actually thought he won this or if it was all planned for heal heat, but it's incredibly boring. It does showcase how good of a heel Ventura was. Bravo would go on to get involved in organized crime and would be murdered by gunshot in his home in 1993, a murder which still to this day is unsolved.

Match 2: The Jumping Bomb Angels (Noriyo Tateno & Itsuki Yamazaki) defeated The Glamour Girls (Judy Martin & Leilani Kai) (c) (with Jimmy Hart) (2-1) - Two-out-of-three falls match for the WWF Women's Tag Team Championship (15:00) - A good fast paced match. There's a lot of great offense here especially from the Angels. The pop from the crowd when they win the match is awesome. Sadly, the Women's Tag Titles wouldn't last but another year, not making a return till 2019. 6/10

Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant sign a contract for the duos rematch at WrestleMania IV. The storyline is that heel Andre is working for "Million Dollar Man" Ted Dibiase who is trying to buy the WWF World Heavyweight Championship. So, if Andre wins the title, he'll deliver it to him. A good segment mostly because of the legends involved. Andre still looked intimidating despite the fact his mobility was pretty much gone at this point.

Match 3: Jim Duggan won by last eliminating One Man Gang - 20-man Royal Rumble match (33:00) - The first Royal Rumble event is surprisingly not bad; it starts with a young Bret Hart and Toto Santana. The over guys have to be Jake "The Snake" Roberts who the fans cheer for to perform his DDT move with no luck. Junkyard Dog, and "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan so it makes perfect since why the later won as at the time he was practically a mid -card Hulk Hogan. The event itself would get better in following years. 5/10

Match 4: The Islanders (Haku & Tama) defeated The Young Stallions (Paul Roma & Jim Powers) (2-0) - Two-out-of-three falls match (14:00) - An ok tag match it feels like it goes on forever, Roma however sells the crap out of a fake leg injury that leads to the two's downfall. 5/10

Overall, this is primarily just a low to mid-card showcase from start to finish with the Hogan and Andre contract signing thrown in as a cherry on top. McMahon and Ventura are solid on commentary, this wasn't even a PPV just a national event held on USA Network to try and screw over NWA/Jim Crockett Promotions Bunkhouse Stampede 1988 event. It was an idea in its infancy that would go on to be an acclaimed event. 4/10.