[1998-01-18-WWF-Royal Rumble] Royal Rumble

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[soup23]

What a foregone conclusion the winner of this match was. Vader is #30 and the ring is full of midcarders. I honestly can't see who you could even make the case for in this match besides Austin. Maybe Dude Love as Mankind but that is a huge stretch. The Nation still has full core in. Goldust gets some revenge on earlier throwing out Vader. Goldust is wearing a different outfit too. Austin has a good many eliminations and the ring is cleaning out quickly. Chainz makes a brian Knobbs 1991 type run making it to the final 6. Our final four is Dude, Austin, Farooqq, and The Rock. Dude and Austin go at it and Farooqq eliminates Dude after an attack from Austin. Rock eliminates Farooqq continuing that dissension. Ausitn and The Rock are left and we get a quick two minute finishing sequence climaxing in a stunner and The Rock being thrown over. Tyson is shown in the press box cheering Austin on. This match helped make The Rock due to his endurance run and gave Austin another benchmark. Besides those two things and all 3 faces of Foley being in the match, this Rumble is forgettable overall.

[Migs]

Not much interesting happening here other than the elevation of Rocky, which had begun in earnest with the Austin match the month before. And it's not hard to see why - pretty much everyone else other than Mick was just riff raff.

[Loss]

Amazing that they turned around with this crew. Just makes what Austin accomplished even more impressive. They did a great job elevating Rock, putting him in moments like this even before he was ready and as he was climbing the ladder. Good stuff. Austin wins the Rumble. Mike Tyson looks on and applauds. He wrote in his book that he was really high at this show.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

This match is all about Austin, and it doesn’t really get going until he enters. That is a great moment, with the whole ring stopping when his music hits, and Austin sneaking in behind them all. Match begins with Foley and Funk braining each other with chair shots, which just looks stupid in retrospect. The three faces of Foley all being entered is a neat angle. This seems pretty poorly booked, with the ring filling up and then a bunch of guys being eliminated at the end in quick succession. Once we get to the final four it gets pretty good though. And who decided 8-Ball should go half an hour in there?

[bradhindsight]

Not seen in the footage here is an awesome brawl around the ringside area between Stone Cold and The Rock - really foreshadowing the next couple of years in the WWF. The limited crew meant a lot of guys went long (I think Bradshaw went 40+ too) but to their credit, they wove a lot of the current storylines into the actual Rumble match (Owen/Jarrett, Rock/Shamrock, Vader/Goldust). The Rock was the MVP of the match IMO although had quite the logic gap at the end when it was the final three. Why not help your Nation partner eliminate Austin and then surprisingly dump him? In the pantheon of Rumbles this one is below the median - Rich from Voices of Wrestling and I did a podcast on just the Rumble match as part of their Rewind series this past year. I went 2/2.5 out of 5 (and was the higher by far).

[cactus]

I'm not a fan of Rumble matches being built around one guy, but this was pretty decent considering. A lot of storylines are pushed because of this match and The Rock is clearly being groomed for a run at the top. Seeing Funk and Foley start this match with dueling chairshots was cool. Ahmed's run in this match was just sad. He was slow and it's clear his heart wasn't in it, which is tragic when you consider he was hot shit just a mere year and half before this. This loses a few points because of how predictable it is and the lack of star power. There's been worse Rumbles, but there's been better too.

[PeteF3]

Pretty much a pure formality, but credit Russo (or one of the other members of creative reigning him in) for not trying to overthink things and SWERVE us all. All they really needed to get out of this was Austin winning, and that's what they did. The only other storyline we see put over is the Nation being in disarray--they have four Nation members at the end but none of them work together and they're often fighting each other, and this climaxes with Rock sneaking up to dump Faarooq. Huge crowd pop for the big Austin-Rock showdown, a sign of things to come and also a sign of just how far Rock had come in the past few months.

[TonyPulis'Cap]

Amazing that they turned around with this crew. Just makes what Austin accomplished even more impressive. They did a great job elevating Rock, putting him in moments like this even before he was ready and as he was climbing the ladder. Good stuff. Austin wins the Rumble. Mike Tyson looks on and applauds. He wrote in his book that he was really high at this show.

 

This is definitely true - there are some very underwhelming characters in the Rumble, and it would take a good couple of years to refresh the midcard to where it was very strong in 2000.

 

Having the ending to the Rumble be a forgone conclusion does not necessarily mean that the match itself will be a bad one, but the 1998 version is, in the main, very uninspiring, with little to no memorable bits of action or eliminations. Austin’s popularity is immense of course, and the whole match is spent waiting for him to make his arrival, and was reflected in the TV leading up to the event where he was made out to be the marked man by everyone. Overall though there are just so many lower midcarders in the match, and too many bodies in the match for anything interesting to take place. This is also entering the 98/99 era of a lot of WWF wrestlers having very punch kick offence, where a few more exciting spots might have spiced up the match.

Some other random observations while going through:

 

- The appearance of the three different Foley characters is one of the few things that is relatively exciting, and does play off the second half of 1997 with the introduction of Cactus Jack and Dude Love…but as someone who does like a little logic in their wrasslin’, it all sort of relies on the fact that he knew he was going to get knocked out twice for it all to work, but maybe I should not think too much there…

 

- Riding on a relative wave of overness, Vader at 30 is a really good spot and the crowd reacts very well for him, but after throwing the Honky Tonk Man immediately, he then does little off note, before being tossed by Goldust, at a time when you still have the likes of Chainz in the ring.

 

- JR kept talking about the strength of numbers for the Nation with five members. Them ganging up, like we would see by the Nexus under CM Punk to eliminate people would have been a good story, but then they spend all of it fighting each other. Going in, there was dissension between The Rock and Faarooq which is paid off, but on TV there didn’t seem to be any other infighting, so while it is of course ‘every man for himself’ it was a bit strange to see Kama and D’Lo randomly fighting, or the amount of times D’Lo would go after The Rock.

 

- Similar to Vader, Shamrock is one of the few coming in with some credibility as a potential outside bet to win, but while he is eliminated by The Rock to continue their feud and it is a result of a low blow (which the camera misses and they have to replay) his elimination feels very underwhelming.

 

- Ditto Owen Hart, who is still receiving a fair pop but who doesn’t get a long run at all. Having a final six of say Austin, The Rock – the MVP of the match – Vader, Shamrock, Owen and Foley would have been a lot more interesting than no hopers like Chainz and Headbanger Thrasher.

 

- Terry Funk was awesome in this match, lasting far longer than I remembered and being one of the few wrestlers to create some drama through a number of potential teases of being eliminated.

[TravJ1979]

This picks up just as they got the call to start dumping people in mass. Vader in at #30 and for everything they built up with him in the opener, they shit it all away immediately here. This definitely was not a surprise that Austin won/was winning. He and Rock being final two just solidified that Rock was being pushed to the moon and with "The Rock" character being fine-tuned and polished at WM14, it was only up from here. The fact that Tyson says he was high at this show explains why he said "Cold Stone" during the interview with Cole. Maybe he meant to say HE was "cold stoned."

 

RATING: Cold Stone says I just won the rumble.

[Exposer]

Ok Rumble. Better than 97. In the pre-match it shows Shane & Tyson hanging out. Funny. The biggest issue with this one is Austin is the obvious winner & there's no one else who one could even pretend might win it. It hurts the match a lot because of it. Funk is awesome in this. He's there for the entire first half & directing traffic really well. He does his goofy selling & has some fun interactions. He & Cactus being the first two in is great. They have chair wars & Funk swings his chainsaw at chairs Foley throws in the ring. They smash each other's skulls in willingly in a crazy spot. Funk chopping The Rock to the crowd's pleasure a little later on is fun too. Owen is booked here as the second baby face behind Austin. He gets atttacked by Jarrett in the aisle & comes back later to eliminate him to a thunderous pop. Owen is really over at this point. HHH cost him the match by breaking his crutch over his back a few minutes later. I didn't like The Nation casually beating each other up. They should have worked together in this, but they never did. Faarooq immediately going after The Rock is fine, because that's consistent with the story they're telling. #22 is never revealed. We never know who it was supposed to be so this is essentally a 29 man Rumble. Austin comes out to a big pop at #24. He gets a few eliminations before getting taken to the floor (between the ropes) & tossed into the steps by Rock. Foley coming out to each of his alter egos is great. It's probably the thing people most remember about this Rumble. Mark Henry botches his elimination which is funny. Chainz manages to make it to the final 5 or 6 & takes a big bump into the steps. It's down to Rock, Austin, Faarooq, & Dude Love. Dude Love gets eliminated. To further The Nation implosion storyline, Rock doesn't help Faarooq try to eliminate Austin & instead tossed him out from behind. The final Austin-Rock confrontation has tons of heat & is a great precursor to their legendary rivalry. These two already have great chemistry. Austin dumps Rock over the ropes, but Rock hangs on. That is a great tease. Austin hits the stunner & throws Rock over to a thunderous pop. JR"s call of the finish is outstanding. I'm really excited to see Austin's journey to the Title. Tyson praises Austin in the post-match. He's a big Austin fan. Austin seems like an asshole for trying to fight Tyson. Tyson wanted to be friends. It's consistent with Austin's character to not like him though. Just an observation. Anyways, a decent Rumble with a great finish. Austin is the biggest star in wrestling at this point.

[Makai Club #1]

While short of much depth and star power, this turned out to be a fun and pretty memorable Rumble. Terry Funk delivers a very underrated Rumble performance with his evasive ways of staying in the match, plus a strong opening stretch with Foley and Rock who have great showings of their own. The later story of Stone Cold attacks everyone was interesting and made Austin look like the biggest star of the match (he was). Exciting Rumble. Such a blast. ***1/2