WWF King of the Ring ‘97

1. Ahmed Johnson vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsly – 2
2. Mankind vs. Jerry Lawler – 3
3. Crush vs. Goldust – 4
4. Legion of Doom and Sid vs. British Bulldog, Owen Hart, and Jim Neidhart – 6
5. Mankind vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsly – 7
6. Steve Austin vs. Shawn Michaels – Last Man Standing Match – 5
7. Undertaker vs. Faarooq – 4

Ahmed and HHH, both tremendous physical specimens in their own right, had a well-paced match that fell apart largely to Ahmed’s inexperience and subsequent sloppiness. Mankind and Lawler was an improvement, although still just passably adequate, as they had no chemistry together whatsoever. Crush and Goldust was the oddest pairing on the show; even if the match lacked story and significance, it still was perfectly okay, and an amusing surprise. The six-man tag was pretty good, mostly due to Owen Hart’s contributions, and to a lesser extent, those of Neidhart’s. Sid wasn’t in it much, thankfully, and was even the imbecile who got pinned.

Mankind and HHH tried hard to make their match, the finals of the King of the Ring tournament, a memorable one – its arguable how successful they were, but it was the most enjoyable match of the show to watch. Mankind took some hellacious bumps, the pace was pretty good, and it bares some historical significance in that it was a springboard for Hunter’s eventual superstardom. I’d recommend procuring a copy of it for your personal collection. Austin and Michaels are generally hardworking guys, but their match here was too bogged down in bullshit story to be satisfying. I wanted hard to like the main event, and tried to rally behind Faarooq; but all he did was punch, punch, and punch some more – killing the crowd, and wasting his only opportunity at headlining a WWF pay-per-view.