Live from the Alamodome is beautiful San Antonio, Texas, its time for the Royal Rumble Nineteen Ninety Seven! Vince, Good Ol JR, and The King on English commentary, Arturo Rivera, Hugo Savinovich, and Carlos Cabrera on Spanish, and Jaques Sr. and Raymond Rougeau.
First up is an Intercontinental Championship match between the blueblood Hunter Hearst Helmsley and the bizarre one, Goldust. Marlena enters with Goldust who is a babyface now. He turned babyface basically by yelling "Hell no!" when King asked him if he was the f-slur. Wrestling is enlightened. Apparently, Hunter had kidnapped Marlena. Hunter is accompanied to the ring tonight by his bodyguard/butler Curtis Hughes. Goldust jumps Helmsley on the outside before the bell rings. Hunter reverses some mounted punches into an inverted atomic drop. A pedigree is reversed into a slingshot. Goldust cheats a lot in this match, and all of it directly in front of the referee. It gets so bad even JR is calling it out. Goldust slams Hunter with the steel ring steps. He cackles. Most of this match is on the floor as Goldust drops the steel steps on Hunter's legs. It becomes clear Goldust is working the knee in the midst of all this cheating. Todd interviews Collin Raye during the match. Raye sings Little Rock except he switches Little Rock out for San Antonio. Cheap pop. Hunter tries to use a chair but the ref, clearly biased, won't allow it. This is the line the ref won't cross. Hughes passes the IC belt to Hunter who kisses Marlena before hitting Goldust with the Pedigree for three.
There's a Bret Hart pretape. Bret says he's a marked man but there's nothing that can stop him. There's also a Mankind pretape. He says he doesn't see the rumble as a ticket to the main event, he sees it as an excuse to hurt people. People he doesn't like.
The Nation enters. The Nation is totally awesome. By Any Means Necessary. This Ahmed Johnson/Faarooq match opens with a brawl, featuring Ahmed running wild. Clarence hands a belt to Faarooq. Ahmed reverses, grabs the belt, and whacks Faarooq with it. No DQ. What is happening tonight. Faarooq takes some time to jawjack with the audience and pays for it, allowing Johnson to fire out of the holds Faarooq was putting him through after the opening. Faarooq tries to go up top but his flying nothing gets countered into a super powerslam. Johnson gets hit with Faarooq's awesome spinebuster. Faarooq again neglects to pin and instead trashtalks the crowd. Johnson makes it back to his feet and hits his terrible spinebuster. The Nation then runs in and Ahmed clears house. Your winner by disqualification, Ahmed Johnson. Ahmed powerbombs a Nation member through the French announce table.
There's a Terry Funk promo which is almost entirely inaudible, followed by an interview with the Nation where Faarooq says the Nation must always watch his back and that Ahmed better watch his own back. He calls Johnson an uncle tom.
Jim Cornette is conspicuous by his absence tonight, after being injured by the Undertaker at Superstars. This makes Vader the biggest free agent in the WWF. The Undertaker has new ring gear, at least newer than we last saw him in 1996, but still wrestles the same kind of match. Vader takes Taker off his feet, Taker gets back up. Taker drops a jumping leg to a bent over Vader followed by a regular leg drop. Vader, on the other hand, is working Taker's nuts. During the match, again, Todd interviews some geek in the crowd. This time its a girl from Minnesota who saved all her babysitting money to come and see Shawn Michaels. The Undertaker sits up out of a powerbomb but both men sprawl anyway. The get back up and Undertaker chokeslams Vader as Paul Bearer, Undertaker's ex? manager, walks down the aisle. Taker hits Bearer, rolls him into the ring, then turns his attention to Vader. Off the distraction, Vader hits the Vaderbomb for three and leaves with Paul Bearer. Taker chokeslams the official and destroys the ringside area.
Stone Cold Steve Austin cuts a pretape and so does the British Bulldog. This is his famous "I'm bizarre" promo.
The fourth match is some luchadores. Some slow, old, boring luchadors. This is allegedly an exhibition of all the great athletes in AAA. This match is plodding, with no psychology let alone lucha psychology, and takes forever to go anywhere. There are like three spots in the entire thing and none of the guys show any character whatsoever. There are only two masks in the match too which kind of weakens the lucha appeal. Watching WCW in '96 and then watching this in '97 shows just why WWF was losing the war. Vince can't keep track of which luchador is who, which, to be honest, is a pretty hard thing to do. Perro Aguayo gets the pin over Heavy Metal with the double foot stomp.
Fink runs down the rules for the Royal Rumble match. Number one is Crush from the Nation, number two is Ahmed Johnson! What a combination! They brawl savagely. Number three is Razor Ramon! Of course, Scott Hall is in the nWo right now, but hey! Razor Ramon! He gets immediately eliminated. Ahmed eliminates himself when he gets the chance to go after other Nation members. Number four is Phineas I. Godwinn. Number five, glass breaks, its Austin, bah god. There hasn't been a countdown clock yet. PIG eliminates Crush, gets stunnered and eliminated. The countdown clock finally starts. Its Bart Gunn at number six! He gets dumped out immediately! Austin does push ups and checks his imaginary watch, waiting for number seven to come down. Seven is Jake the Snake Roberts. Austin eliminates him just as number eight, Davey Boy Smith, comes out. Number nine is Pierroth, from AAA. Number ten is the Sultan with the Iron Sheik. Number eleven is Mil Mascaras, the man of a thousand masks. Number twelve is Hunter Hearst Helmsley, the Intercontinental Champion. Bulldog eliminates the Sultan. Number thirteen is Owen Hart, his slammy in tow. He "accidentally" eliminates Bulldog. Number fourteen is Goldust, fifteen is Cibernetico, and sixteen is Marc Mero with Sable. Cibernetico and Pierroth get eliminated and Mil Mascaras, getting a little carried away, eliminates himself in order to plancha onto them. Hunter is eliminated by Goldust. Number seventeen is the Latin Lover! Owen skins the cat and eliminates Goldust. Faarooq is number eighteen, who eliminates Latin Lover. Ahmed Johnson runs in wielding lumber and chases Faarooq out over the top rope and into the back. Austin eliminates Owen and Mero, leaving him alone in the ring again. Number nineteen is Savio Vega. Austin eliminates him, alone again. Number twenty is the poor man's Jeff Jarrett, Double J Jesse James. He gets unceremoniously eliminated. Number twenty is BRET HART. Austin looks terrified, but he also looks ready for a fight. Number twenty two is King. "It takes a King," he says. He is eliminated. "To know a king." Number twenty three is Fake Diesel, twenty four is Terry Funk, twenty five is some geek called Rocky Maivia, number twenty six is Mankind, twenty seven is Flash Funk, twenty eight is The Man Called Vader, twenty nine is Henry O. Godwinn, slopless, and number thirty is the Undertaker, also slopless. He chokeslams Austin and Vader. Vader eliminates Flash Funk, Mankind eliminates Rocky with the mandible claw. Mankind eliminates Terry Funk, Undertaker eliminates Mankind. Mankind and Terry Funk keep brawling on the floor. Bret eliminates Austin but the refs are too busy pulling Mankind and Funk apart to notice. Taker, Vader, and Bret are eliminated, Austin wins! Bret demands the match be restarted.
A Shawn Michaels/Sycho Sid video package plays. Sid made things personal with Shawn by attacking his mentor, Jose Lothario. Its about more than the belt now, its about the power of friendship.
The Heart Break Kid has the flu tonight.
The title match tonight is Shawn Michaels vs Sycho Sid. They brawl to the floor. The same super powerslam spot from the Johnson match again! Shawn does his corner bump. Sid wrestles a simple big man match with Shawn doing all the work. Shawn's parents are in the crowd. Michaels powers up and does his move. He tunes up the band but Sid counters Sweet Chin Music. He hits a powerbomb on the floor on Shawn but Shawn recovers relatively quickly. A powerbomb in the ring this time, bumps the ref. Sid gets a visual pin but by the time a second ref runs out, its only a two count. Sid then bumps the second re! Shawn brains sid with a ringside camera. He gets a visual pin, but by the time the ref wakes up, he only gets a two count. Shawn tunes up the band one more time and connects for three.
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