A Detailed Review of the 1992 WWF Royal Rumble Match, Part 1 of 4

What was the greatest Royal Rumble match of all time? This year's version was fantastic - there were surprise entrants from the past (former champions Kevin "Diesel" Nash and Booker T), an incredible individual performance (John Morrison, accomplishing feats I'd never seen attempted before in this format), a surprise victor (relative newcomer Alberto del Rio) and even an amusing screw-up (Alex Riley falling off the apron and eliminating himself well before his scripted exit, prompting widespread confusion from the announcing table). Nevertheless, it's my humble opinion that the 1992 Royal Rumble , won by the greatest sports entertainer of my lifetime , has never been topped.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Royal Rumble… well, I'm not entirely sure why you clicked on this article to begin with. Anyway, the Royal Rumble is both an annual pay-per-view event hosted by World Wrestling Entertainment (hereafter referred to as "WWE"), and also the name of the signature event at that pay-per-view: a non-traditional match featuring dozens of wrestlers. In 1992, thirty wrestlers participated, and they came to the ring in two-minute intervals, so at no point were all thirty wrestlers (or even the majority of those involved) in the ring simultaneously. The match is fought using "battle royal" rules, wherein a participant can only be eliminated by being propelled over the top rope. You can't pin anyone, you can't force them to submit… the only way you can win is by being the last man in the ring.

The 1992 Royal Rumble pay-per-view as a whole was somewhat underwhelming. The individual matches included forgettable figures (like the Beverly Brothers) and cartoonish oafs (like their opponents, the Bushwhackers). And the outcomes of the matches were rather easy to predict based on the popularity of the wrestlers at that time. The Mountie had no chance against Rowdy Roddy Piper in their Intercontinental Championship match, and The New Foundation (Owen Hart and Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart) of course went over the painfully stereotypical Orient Express. The only match which might hold some nostalgia-related interest for the typical wrestling fan was the WWF Tag Team Championship match. This bout between the Natural Disasters (who combined to form more than 800 pounds of hideously ugly manliness) and tag team legends The Legion of Doom ended rather anticlimactically with a disqualification count-out. So this review is not of the entire pay-per-view - just the Royal Rumble match itself.

But first, a bit of back story. In the two months leading up to this event, the WWF Title had changed hands twice between Hulk Hogan and the Undertaker, and the feud had devolved to the point where outside interference (from Ric Flair and the Undertaker's manager Paul Bearer) and foreign objects (steel chairs, urns, ashes from the urn) had determined the outcome of the most recent championship match. The WWF President, Jack Tunney, was even knocked out for a brief time during that one, waking up just in time to watch Hulk Hogan blinding the Undertaker by throwing cremated human remains in his face. As a result, President Tunney declared the title to be vacant, and the winner of the Royal Rumble would be the new WWF Champion. No, this logic didn't make any more sense back when I was 12 years old, but we wrestling fans are renowned for our willingness to suspend disbelief.

The event took place in January 1992 at the Knickerbocker Arena in New York. Contrary to what the name might imply, this is not the home of the NBA's New York Knicks - they later alleviated the confusion by changing the name to the Pepsi Arena, and it's now known as the Times Union Center. Regardless of the name, it has been the site of some of the most memorable moments in WWE history. Flair, Edge, and Kurt Angle all won their first WWE championships there, and it's the same place where Stone Cold Steve Austin gave a "beer bath" to Vince McMahon and The Rock. You can follow along with this description on YouTube - as the event lasted more than an hour, it's chopped up into a number of smaller videos, but the first segment begins here.

We begin with Howard Finkel in the ring announcing the initial two participants. Our commentators are Gorilla Monsoon on play-by-play, and the incomparable Bobby "The Brain" Heenan doing color. The greatest thing about the Royal Rumble is the anticipation leading up to each new entrant. The order is random, and there's a countdown before each new person is eligible to get in the ring - you can see the crowd on its feet each time the counter gets to five seconds, as any wrestler could wildly shift the balance of power in the ring at any given time. The first wrestler to enter the ring is the British Bulldog, Davey Boy Smith, whom Heenan once described as having a "million dollar body, ten-cent mind, and Whoopi Goldberg's hairdo." Smith was probably best known as a former Tag Team Champion, but he'd spent the past couple of years as a singles competitor, and had actually won the most recent prior battle royal in the WWE, a 20-man affair held in the United Kingdom.

Smith was an absolute monster - this was the peak of the steroid era, and the physiques on display in this Royal Rumble are only matched by a very, very small number of the most powerful professional wrestlers working today. Even some of the jobbers are as ripped as John Cena. It's insane. Of course, the British Bulldog is no longer with us, and many have attributed his early death to his dual addictions to steroids and painkillers, so there's a good reason why we shouldn't have an entire roster with the bodies of the Incredible Hulk. Interestingly, Smith is one of the only competitors I can think of to draw cheers from a crowd even though he comes to the ring draped in the Union Jack. Throughout the history of professional wrestling, one of the cheapest and easiest ways to declare yourself a heel (wrestling parlance for "bad guy") is to declare your allegiance to another country. Smith is flaunting his status as a foreigner and getting cheers for it! Monsoon spends Smith's entrance going over his accomplishments until Heenan hisses at him to "Shut up! Shut up! Who's number two?"

The second competitor is Ted DiBiase. DiBiase is accompanied to the ring by Sensational Sherri, who passed away a few years after Davey Boy Smith from a drug overdose. It's certainly ominous that two of the first three personalities involved with the Royal Rumble match are now deceased; thankfully, this pattern does not continue. Sherri didn't stay with DiBiase for too long - this was sort of an interstitial period between her better known gigs, managing Randy Savage, then Shawn Michaels. As for DiBiase, he was the owner of one of the greatest gimmicks in wrestling history, the "Million Dollar Man." The idea was that DiBiase's character was incredibly rich, with his catchphrase "Everybody has a price." He bribed other wrestlers, had a black bodyguard/servant, and hosted amazing skits with fans wherein he offered them money to perform humiliating acts. The greatest of these was his "basketball" segment, when he offered a small black child $500 if he could dribble a basketball 15 times. You want to see how to deliver a perfect promo to get an entire stadium to hate you? Watch this clip.

DiBiase's gimmick was so great that the WWE has ripped itself off repeatedly (with varying levels of success), from Tiger Ali Singh to JBL to Ted's own son. I know that I sometimes lose sight of the fact that the Million Dollar Man was more than just a gimmick - he was a profoundly accomplished wrestler as well. DiBiase once briefly held the record for the longest stay in a Royal Rumble match, lasting more than 45 minutes in 1990. It was actually rather bad luck for him to come in at #2, as he was the very first entrant in 1990, then #4 in 2003… it's like the WWF was perpetually punishing him for buying the #30 (the final and most desirable) slot in the 1989 Royal Rumble.

Sherri was never the most physically attractive of valets, but she did have her… well, certain assets which she liked to emphasize. Her ensemble to accompany DiBiase to the ring played right into that; she was wearing a weird black ensemble with white highlights, including a headdress which was composed of more material than the actual front of her dress. Combined with DiBiase's iconic entrance music - you can tell when a wrestler has the "it" factor when he gets to sing his own theme* - the crowd was hyped up before the two men ever faced off in the ring. DiBiase and the British Bulldog are exchanging right hands as the bell rings, and… wow, they were working a pretty quick pace right off the bat, with DiBiase quickly taking the advantage and hitting a fairly stiff-looking clothesline followed by a few suplexes.

* = except for pre-2011 heel turn R. Truth

Sorry, I should try to explain these terms as I write them. In the wrestling industry, "stiff" means to hit someone hard, or to lock in a wrestling hold or submission maneuver in a way that actually causes pain. It's something you saw much more of in this era than in the current WWE, in part because that organization no longer permits blood during televised showings. You've no doubt heard many times that professional wrestling is "fake," but that's not entirely accurate. A better word would be "choreographed" (although that's problematic as well - while match endings and certain important spots are planned beforehand, a lot of what goes on during any normal match is essentially improv). There are certain levels of working stiff, too. Terry Funk comes to mind as a guy who doesn't really fake anything. You'll notice that his punches aren't as dramatic as most wrestlers'. That's because when you watch him punch his opponent in the head during a match, he's actually punching the other guy. Other times guys stiff their opponents on accident because they're not technically sound in the ring. (I'll let you Google "Ahmed Johnson" on your own time.)

My point, which may have been lost in all this, is that Ted DiBiase and the British Bulldog aren't trying to intentionally injure each other, but they're engaging in good, classic, solid wrestling. DiBiase's clothesline really would have knocked a man off his feet. At any rate, after the third suplex, DiBiase perfunctorily tosses the British Bulldog over the top rope and turns his back to gloat to the crowd. Unbeknownst to him, Davey Boy had performed a maneuver known as "skinning the cat," where he hooked onto the top rope as he was being thrown over. To the delight of the crowd, the Bulldog waits for DiBiase to turn around, then clotheslines him over the top rope for our first elimination of the evening.

I've mentioned that this is my favorite Royal Rumble match, but it's not necessarily because of the in-ring action. Sure, there was an incredible array of talent involved in the match, highlighted by three of the five greatest performers of my lifetime (Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels, and the Undertaker), plus some Roddy Piper, Randy Savage, and Hulk Hogan for historical significance. But really, I loved this match because of the commentary. Today's commentary teams have grown much more adept at calling the action, but they don't necessarily advance the story as well as the voices I grew up with. Bobby Heenan was undoubtedly the best color commentator ever, and this Royal Rumble might have been his single finest match. According to the storyline at the time, he had a huge personal investment in this match; for months, he had been acting as Ric Flair's "financial advisor." Of course, Heenan also lived to antagonize his partner in the booth, Gorilla Monsoon, and the payoff begins with their exchange when Ric Flair is announced as the third entrant in the Royal Rumble:

HEENAN: NO!
MONSOON: Oh yes!
HEENAN: DAMMIT!
MONSOON: It's Ric Flair! Oh, you can kiss it goodbye, Brain! Never before in the history of the Royal Rumble has anyone who has drawn numbers 1-5 been there at the end!

It's a simple set-up, executed flawlessly: they introduced narrative greed to this Royal Rumble match. We know that Heenan is going to be pulling for Ric Flair, and that Flair has effectively no chance of winning, and that Monsoon is going to take a bit of pleasure in needling the Brain for a change.

Flair trots to the ring in one of his infamous custom robes, accompanied by Curt Hennig, who went by another of the great gimmicks in wrestling history, "Mr. Perfect." Hennig's promotional videos from that era are unintentionally hilarious, but he backed up the moniker in the ring. Hennig was unable to compete in the Rumble that year due to injury, so he was stuck acting as Flair's "executive consultant." Of course, I also have to note that Hennig has since passed away as well (due to a drug overdose), meaning that three of the five performers we've seen so far are now deceased.

Flair enters the ring and… well, to paraphrase insufferable present-day announcer Michael Cole, immediately starts performing vintage Flair moves. He fakes a handshake to the British Bulldog, then commences his first strut of the evening. Flair quickly takes advantage with a poke to the eyes, but then Smith turns the tables on him with a massive gorilla press slam, pressing him four or five times before dumping him unceremoniously to the mat. It's interesting to watch this now, knowing that Flair was scheduled to be in the ring for a full hour. But it's not like he hid out there - Flair took signature moves from half the roster that night. The gorilla press slam was simply a harbinger of some pretty intense pain to come.

Meanwhile, Brain and Gorilla are still selling from the press box.

BRAIN: I'm going to have to apologize to the people. I don't think I can really be objective.
GORILLA: When have you ever been objective?!?

Flair recovers from Bulldog's attack with his second eye poke of the night, but is soon reduced to begging for mercy on his knees (another staple of Flair matches for decades). Bulldog body-slams Flair over the top rope, but Flair lands on the apron and rolls back in as the horn sounded announcing our fourth entrant: Jerry Sags, of the heel tag team "The Nasty Boys." I won't admit to understanding the appeal of the Nasty Boys - they had terrible bodies (they didn't look so much like athletes as… well… random fat guys), and their set of moves wasn't exactly innovative or exciting to watch. Sags' signature move was called the Pit Stop, which involved holding up his arm while his partner rubbed an opponent's face in his armpit. No, really.

Sags is managed by "The Mouth of the South," Jimmy Hart, a tiny wisp of a man who was nearly as talented a musician (he was a member of The Gentrys) as he was a manager. Hart wrote a number of professional wrestling's most iconic theme songs, including Shawn Michael's "Sexy Boy" and themes for the Honky Tonk Man, the nWo Wolfpac, and Hulk Hogan. Of course, he was also responsible for the worst song in wrestling history*, Scotty Riggs' and Marcus Bagwell's theme when they wrestled as "American Males." Regardless, he was an amazing manager, capable of turning a fighter with no charisma whatsoever into the least popular person in the building simply by shrieking into a megaphone. This may not sound like much of a talent, but in professional wrestling, it was gold.

* = except for pre-2011 heel turn R. Truth

Amazingly, Davey Boy Smith wears braids with beads in them, and Ric Flair is sporting a bleached mullet, yet Sags probably has the worst haircut in the ring right now: a thick mohawk with a long rat-tail hanging from the back. As he and Flair are "heel" characters, they both team up on a now outnumbered Davey Boy Smith, until Smith explodes out of the corner with a double clothesline and tosses Sags over the top rope. Sags lands on the apron and flaunts his good fortune to the crowd, but of course this is a mistake. You'd think wrestlers would learn never to play to the crowd, because it never ends in their favor. Didn't Sags see what happened to Ted DiBiase? The Bulldog hustles over and delivers a dropkick to Sags' back, knocking him to the floor and out of the Rumble for good. As a quick note, that was an impressive dropkick from someone as enormous as Davey Boy Smith. It was perfect form, with his body parallel to the ground, and he had both feet higher than the level of the top rope. That's one of the great things about reviewing an older event like this - you gain a greater appreciation for the depth of the WWE roster at the time. Davey Boy Smith (like the Million Dollar Man and Mr. Perfect and later entrant Rowdy Roddy Piper) was tremendously over with the fans and immensely talented, but he never held the WWF Title. But if any of those men were in their athletic primes right now, I have no doubt they'd be at the very top of the main event ranks in one of the major promotions.

We're back to one-on-one competition between Bulldog and Flair, and Flair is begging again. Heenan takes this opportunity to introduce a catchphrase that would be well-worn by the end of the night. "This isn't fair to Flair!" The two wrestlers lock up in the corner, and Flair delivers one of his signature knife-edge chops (Whoooo!) before Bulldog reverses a whip into the corner and hits a power slam. The fans count down the final ten seconds with the timer, and the buzzer announces the summoning of our next victim, entrant #5 Haku.

Of the five entrants so far, Haku is the third (after Smith and Sags) to be best known as a tag team competitor. Haku was once a WWF Tag Team Champion with Andre the Giant (with Heenan as their manager), but Andre's failing health forced that to be a short reign. At the time of the Rumble, Haku was a tag team partner of the Barbarian - the two would team together on-and-off for years as a mid-card tag team threat in the WWE and Ted Turner's rival promotion World Championship Wrestling. Haku immediately attacks Smith, much to Heenan's delight. But after Smith is incapacitated, Haku goes after Flair. Haku's gimmick is known as the "monster heel" - he wasn't unbeatable, but he was often able to shrug off regular attacks as if they didn't hurt him at all. Flair throws a few punches at Haku in the corner, but Haku ignores them ("no-selling," as it's called in the industry), forcing Flair to backpedal and beg for his life for the third time. Heenan declares that this, too, is unfair to Flair, but Ric takes the low road, sliding under the bottom rope and walking around on the floor around the ring. This is, of course, the most intelligent strategic move one could make in a battle royal, since you effectively can't be eliminated while outside the ring.

Meanwhile, Haku lifts Smith up for a maneuver that has probably caused more grievous injuries to wrestlers than any other: the piledriver. This move has effectively been banned from the WWE because it's so dangerous, though the Undertaker and Kane are still permitted to perform the Tombstone Piledriver, a slightly safer variant. When those two men retire, I have to believe the move will be permanently jettisoned; after all, it nearly ended the career of Stone Cold Steve Austin, arguably the most important wrestler of the past 20 years. I always cringe a bit watching a piledriver, but Haku executes his with textbook precision - quite impressive considering the size of Davey Boy Smith. Flair attacks Haku from behind, leaping in the air and dropping a knee on Haku's forehead, leading to this exhortation from Heenan: "You're not going to hurt him doing that to his head. Take a breather!"

Bulldog recovers enough to go after Haku as the timer winds down. Haku and Bulldog experience our first noticeable botch of the evening: they mess up their timing a little bit near the ropes, as Haku jumps a split-second before Bulldog is ready to throw him over. They recover gracefully enough, and Bulldog eliminates Haku with a backdrop. Smith has now tossed out every opponent except for Flair before they've even logged two minutes in the Rumble. As Smith and Flair face off one-on-one again, Heenan reminds us that this isn't fair to Flair. Meanwhile, Shawn Michaels begins a slow jog to the ring.

While Steve Austin is probably the most important wrestler of the past two decades, I would argue that no one was consistently greater during this generation than Shawn Michaels. This Royal Rumble fell after Michaels' memorable split with long-time tag team partner Marty Jannetty, but just before he hit main event status with his feud with Bret Hart and reinvention of the ladder match. It's fascinating to see Michaels at such an important point in the development of his Heartbreak Kid character, even if his stay in the actual match is relatively short-lived. Of course, Michaels doesn't disappoint, fixing his hair during the jog to the ring, then charging in with more energy than every other competitor combined. Michaels goes straight for Flair, and after a brief exchange of knife-edge chops, Michaels takes command with a series of rapid-fire jabs followed by a huge backdrop, then punctuated with a crescent kick. Later in his career, of course, Michaels would add a bit of theatrics before that crescent kick, rechristening it "Sweet Chin Music" and using it as his finisher.

Smith and Michaels then face off, and Smith hits his second impressive gorilla press slam of the contest, then a pair of clotheslines. Smith connects with a third clothesline, sending Michaels spinning over the top rope, but Michaels is barely able to hang on, avoiding elimination. Smith eats a crescent kick from Michaels, then Flair and Michaels muck around for a bit before Michaels incapacitates the legend with a rake to the eyes. Smith leaps back into the fray, whipping Michaels into a corner for our second obvious blown spot of the evening - Michaels was supposed to use his momentum to flip up and balance his body on the top rope in the corner, but somehow missed. He recovered quickly, but it's amusing to see him have to jump up there on his own power (since it makes no sense from either a physical or tactical perspective). Smith hurries over to kick Michaels' wide-open midsection, causing the Heartbreak Kid to fall backwards crotch first onto the top rope. That's… that's got to be uncomfortable. Flair attacks during the confusion, knocking down Smith and tossing Michaels over the top rope as the timer counts down to zero. Michaels is again able to stave off elimination by skinning the cat, and our seventh competitor is announced.

Tito Santana runs down to the ring. Santana was a former WWF Tag Team Champion and Intercontinental (the second-most prestigious individual title) Champion, and wrestled on the main card of the first eight WrestleManias. However, his star had faded quite a bit by 1992, so he was no threat to win the Rumble. Worse, he was saddled with a painfully bad gimmick, wrestling as "El Matador." Santana was a bit of an anomaly among 1980s wrestling stars: he was intelligent, articulate, and always had an eye on his future after his wrestling days were through. Santana is now a schoolteacher, though he also makes the occasional promotional appearance on the independent circuit.

Santana goes right after Flair, but Shawn Michaels interjects with an attack on Santana. Heenan nails another giggle-worthy one-liner ("Shawn Michaels is making guacamole out of El Matador!"), then Flair sneaks up to hit a beautiful side suplex on Santana. Flair delivers his first low blow of the match, crumpling Smith on the mat. Then Santana hits his signature move on Flair. As always, Heenan calls Santana's flying forearm club the "Flying Jalapeno," which will never stop being funny. All four men are moving slowly as the timer counts down - for the first time, we'll have five men in the ring simultaneously.

[to be continued in Part 2]