This Week In WWE Vintage Collection History: Four Matches...Ninety Seven Wrestlers...
By Aaron Wood Jan 29, 2012 - 2:08 PM
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COLLECTION #192 Okerlund
opened up this week's show talking about how sijnce it's inception in
1988, the Royal Rumble has provided some of the most memorable
moments in WWE history. But why show us those? Be it a Rumble or
any other type of Battle Royal, it is a test of endurance,
athleticism or suvival by any means necessary. And so we'd be
looking at other Battle Royals from back in the day, the main event
being for the IC Title.
But
first, why not start out with another title match? In this case,
Chavo Guerrero's Crusierweight Title as he defended it against the
rest of the vanilla midgets in a Over The Top Rope
Challenge Battle Royal on the Smackdown episode that aired
on March 31st 2005, the very final show beore Wrestlemania 21.
After
the break, we went to WCW World War 3 event in 1996, the winner of
whcih would be the new No.1 Contender to Hulk Hogan's WCW World
Title, as we saw a few guys coming out before it ended with the nWo
contingent.
Our
next Battle Royal was of the 20-man variety and took us to the
Superstars episode that aired on February 25th 1995, airing only a
few weeks after the Royal Rumble which Shawn won thanks to only one
foot touching the floor. Indeed, this match was taped only 2 days
after the Rumble. The two who ended the Rumble, Michaels &
British Bulldog, would be entered into this, but would they once
again be the last men standing?
We
went back to the studio for Gene to set up our main event, mentioning
that when HHH beat Kane in a Title unification match, the
Intercontinental Title was put on the back burner. Or at least it
was until Co-GM Stone Cold Steve Austin decided to bring it back. He
invited former IC champions to take part in a Battle Royal at
Judgement Day 2003 for the title. However, he made one exception,
letting the non-previous IC winner Booker T into the match too. So
would one of the other 8 men in the match add another IC notch to
their bed posts, or would the one guy who hadn't won the belt yet get
to lose his IC cherry?
Gene
noted he mentioned before the quality of surviving by any means
necessary, and Christian did just that. And despite it's
controversial finish, the IC title was now back after 7 months on the
shelf. As for Booker, he would get his revenge later in the year,
beating Christian for the title on a random episode of RAW. Okerlund
signed off by noting that next week, we'd be looking back at WCW's
marquee February event, Superbrawl.
Epilogue I'm
not doing to go through what happened with every single person
involved in these matches. I don't have the time, and even if I did,
I'm not that much of a mental. So I will just concentrate on the
main players involved.
Naturally,
the CW Title was nowhere to be seen 3 days laters at Mania. On the
following week's Smackdown, London defended the title against Billy
Kidman in an infamously bloody match, retaining the title. Chavo
would once again challenge for the title in the following couple of
months until an episode of Smackdown in which the debuting Mexicool
interrupted the match, doing so again the following week. Nunzio
then stepped up to challenge, and while London would retain the title
at the Great American Bash PPV, he would lose to Nunzio on an episode
of Velocity not long after, thanks to the debuting Big Vito, as he
formed the FBI with Nunzio.
After
this, London went on a short losing streak, the heelish gimmick being
he would beg the fans to protest his loss. One of these matches
would actually include a loss to Frankie Kazarian in one of his few
matches in WWE. However, not long into that, he remained a babyface
anyway and formed a team with Brian Kendrick.
As
for Chavo, his challengership came to an end because he was drafted
over to RAW in int he Draft Lottery at the end of June. Once there,
he took on the persona "Kerwin White", pretending to be a
Caucasian guy who spent a lot of time at the golf club, a gimmick
with ever-so-slightly racist overtones. It was a gimmick notable
however for being the start of the man who is now Dolph Ziggler, who
paired with Chavo as Guerrero's "caddy".
The
Giant, who hadn't been in the nWo for that long, would end up growing
a pair and requesting that he get his title shot against nWo chief
Hulk Hogan. Giant promptly found himself booted from the group.
He'd get the title shot, at the year-opening Souled Out event, but
lost thanks to the usual nWo interference. He then lined up with the
likes of Luger & Sting to face the nWo on WCW's behalf.
Indeed,
in the following month's Superbrawl, Giant and Luger would win the
WCW Tag Titles from Hall & Nash, only for nWo member and WCW
company President Bischoff to over turn this and return the titles
back. Luger would win a Title Shot against Hogan, although he blew
that. He would get revenge however when he would beat Hogan on an
edition of Nitro for the WCW Title, the first time in a year where a
non-nWo person had won the belt.
Despite
winning his Battle Royal, the reward for British Bulldog lay
somewhere between Bugger and All. His next move would actually be to
start teaming with Lex Luger, under the name The Allied Powers.
However, this didn't go very far outside of beating the Blu Twins at
Wrestlemania and a loss to Owen Hart & Yokozuna in a Tag Title
match at an In Your House event. Not long after this, the team broke
up, with British Bulldog turning heel and attacking Diesel.
Shawn
Michaels faced Diesel at Wrestlemania, albeit losing in the main
event. This build included HBK hiring Sid as his new man-whore, only
for Sid to turn on him the night after Mania. HBK headed home for
some time thanks to a disagreement about his direction.
Bret's
Wrestlemania match would be a rematch of his "I Quit" match
against Bob Backlund wherein Bret had lost his WWE Title to Bob (only
for Bob to lose it a couple of days later to Diesel at a house show)
which he would win. After this, his feud with Jerry lawler
restarted, with matches at the first In Your House PPV and the "Kiss
My Foot" match at King Of The Ring, leading onto the match with
Lawler's dentist "Issac Yankem" at Summerslam.
After
stealing the IC title win from Booker, Christian would appear on RAW
the next night on Jericho's Highlight reel, debuting the short haired
and long trunks look that he's familiar for today, As noted by Gene,
Booker won the title a month of so later on an edition of RAW.
However, at a house show a month after that, Booker was injured,
forcing Christian to win the title there and then. With Booker out,
Christian moved onto the angle with Jericho, Lita & Trish.
Booker
would return from the injury in October, being named to Team Austin
for that year's Survivor Series. As a result of that, he entered
into a short feud with Mark Henry, the man who eliminated him in that
match. He would soon begin a tag team with Goldust, however, winning
the Tag Titles from Ric Flair & Batista in February the following
year.
Anyway,
enough Battle Royal talk, it's The Royal Rumble tonight, and I'll be
on hand for the beginning of the road to Wrestlemania!
