Thursday, August 19, 2010

WWF Royal Rumble 1990

The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers vs. The Bushwhackers - 4

Completely disgusting New Zelanders vs. the stuck-up eastern Canadians. A lot of stalling in this match by both the Rougeaus and the Bushwhackers -- took about five minutes for anything to really happen. Luke bit the butt of the referee, who totally no-sold it, which was slightly annoying. Loved the heel antics of the Rougeaus - choking with the tag rope, distracting the ref while the other interfered... good stuff. I can't believe how much the people of Orlando are behind the crazy Sheephearders. The hot tags on the 'Whackers' part got insane pops. Maybe they just hate the Rougeus a lot.

Lanny Poffo vs. Brutus Beefcake - 3

The match started with a lot of odd prancing... hopefully this doesn't set the tone for the rest of the match -- if so, God help us. Poffo's selling on the atomic drop was great -- he was hunched over worse than any member of a nursing home I've ever seen. The real story here is the selling by both guys, mainly Poffo in the match, and Beefcake after the run-in and chair/leg attack. Easily could've been a TV match, but the art of selling was on display here.

Ronnie Garvin vs. Greg Valentine - 7

I offer you a simple formula: stiffness + psych + emotion + good selling = great wrestling match. Granted, the first component isn't always essential, but it was awesome here. I loved both guys' selling, but especially Garvin's. The blank look on his face while selling conveys a message of pure exhaustion, but you can also see the wheels turning in both guys' heads as if saying, "What can I do to make this guy quit?" I loved how Garvin continued to sell his leg throughout the match, also liked how they brought in the element of the knee brace to stop the other man from working over the legs. Great match, great heat, great stiffness!

The Big Bossman vs. Jim Duggan - 3

I prefer Midsouth Duggan to WWF Duggan, but wherever he is, I still consider myself a fan of his. Fun bumping outside the ring, especially Bossman falling out of the ropes to the floor in one, fluid motion. As a kid, I used to love it when Duggan would get hit on the turnbuckle, then start whooping and no selling it. This crowd is just insane, I swear. Every time Bossman would miss a move, everyone would collectively go nuts and were solidly behind Duggan. Fun bumping!

Royal Rumble Match 5

The real standout here was DiBiase -- he controlled the audience so much during the chaos -- he would bump around and look exhausted, making people think that he'd surely be easy to throw over the top rope. Not to be outdone, DiBiase would keep himself in, teasing elimination, but then barely getting his hand on the apron to support himself while he dangled helplessly. Good pacing in the match -- eliminations were happening at a decent rate. Hogan and Warrior's face-off was really special to the fans -- once they realized these two were alone in the ring, the complete atmosphere changed. Fun rumble. I really enjoyed the eliminations in this one.

3 comments:

Jason Mann said...

I really like the Garvin-Valentine feud, but one thing about this match has always bugged me: the repeated pin attempts. One or two early on made sense to establish you can't win by pinfall in a submission, but they go for them to the point where it makes them seem like idiots for not understanding the rules.

Bushwackers-Rougeaus was surprisingly fun. Pretty good show overall.

Geo said...

Those pins got kind of annoying after a while, haha... makes me wonder if they legit kept forgetting!

Jessie said...

I see old colleague adam reviewed this as well....in the early days