That's Just Bad Part 1: Royally Screwed

A couple of months ago I decided to celebrate my 15^th year as a wrestling fan and reviewed 15 of the best shows I’ve ever seen. Well it’s time to look at the bad as I’m going to review 5 bad shows (I’m not sitting through any more) now I chose these shows from memory and by looking at the line up so they might end up better than I remembered. Now you may be thinking “Why do this?” well it’s simple: hardcore fan + internet =hate, or at least that’s what’s believed.

So the show I’m looking at today is King of the Ring 1995, 1995 was seen as one of the worst years for wrestling so let’s see if that’s true with this show. We open with Vince McMahon talking about Philadelphia, where this show is taking place. We get Stephanie Waind, who looks incredibly scary, telling us that we get a bonus qualifier as Razor Ramon was injured leading to.

Savio Vega vs. IRS: Man did Mike Rotundo get some mileage out of the IRS character. Oh on commentary we have Vince McMahon & Doc Hendrix aka Michael Hayes, always comes off as an odd team in my view. We start with Vega getting some near falls early, at this time I notice Hat guy and moustache guy from the ECW arena. This match is so important that we cut away to the other language commentators and miss something. Vega has a “SV” cut into the back of his hair, he walked around with that! IRS was going for an axe handle to Vega who was laying on the mat surprisingly he got a foot up, would of loved to see IRS hit that somehow as it made no sense. Vega hits a spinning wheel kick for the win. Basically this was all Vega, a squash really.

The PPV now begins, we get a brief intro by the commentary team and then we get Yokozuna w/Jim Cornette vs. Savio Vega w/Razor Ramon: Yoko beat Luger to qualify, Luger got counted out after he rescued the US flag because he just loves America so much. Savio cuts a promo in Spanish and then a typical hyper babyface promo. Yoko takes advantage straight away, does his elbow miss. Yoko was billed at 641 lbs here which apparently makes him the heaviest wrestler in WWE history as Doc says. Vega misses the wheel kick. We cut to a split screen of Owen Hart on the phone talking to fans, I’d prefer to watch that if I’m honest. We have the dreaded nerve hold by Yoko, Vega dances out or it looked like a dance he is Latino after all. Vega starts fighting back but Yoko cuts him off with a great looking throat thrust. Yoko misses a leg drop, I swear he missed more drops than he hit and I don’t blame guys for saying “No I don’t want him to land on me thank you”. Vega hits 4 clothesline and a wheel kick to knock Yoko down, Owen comes down and hits Razors ribs which results in nothing, way to sell a injury Razor. Vega throws Yoko into the steps and we get a countout win for Vega. Very slow but wasn’t too bad, this match was easy to get a pop from the crowd when Yoko missed his big moves. Backstage we get Jerry Lawler cutting a promo about his bad smelling feet, he’ll be facing Bret Hart in a Kiss my foot match later. A good promo from the King.

The Roadie w/Jeff Jarrett vs. Bob Holly: Why the Intercontinental champion Jeff Jarrett isn’t in this tournament I don’t know, he’s not even booked on the show. I’ll get this out of the way now I hate Bob Holly, quite the mullet on Bob. Bob gets a belly to belly to start as the Roadie runs into it. Lots of near falls to start, second time tonight we’ve started like this. Surprisingly fast paced from these 2. Oh Vladimir the super fan is also in the crowd. Roadie nails a powerbomb to get the advantage. Roadie is doing a lot of bad dancing here. Bob tries to get the crowd into things when fighting a chin lock, nothing happened. Double J is just insanely dressed, I like to think he wore that every day. A head scissors by Holly, didn’t expect that follows that with a nice drop kick. Fans aren’t really caring for this comeback. Bob jumps off into the foot of the Roadie, who was down, and Roadie gets the win even though it looked like a 2. Not a good match and that finish was awful made Holly look like a idiot. Tod Pettengill is backstage talking to Shawn Michaels hard to hear as the Million dollar man’s theme comes on, Todd looked incredible worried during this promo for some reason.

Kama w/Ted DiBiase vs. Shawn Michaels: 2 obvious Undertaker fan plants are in the crowd, overly gothic. Kama looking like Mr. T here with an overly big gold chain which was the urn melted down. We start with Shawn being quicker and getting some shots in. Doc puts over Shawn winning the Royal Rumble that year, did you know that’s the shortest rumble in history. Fans love Shawn here there so hot for this match, a nice change from the past 3. Kama gets a big sidekick and clotheslines him out to get the advantage, DiBiase gets some kicks in and Michaels is just rammed into the post back first. I can’t help but watch the 2 infamous ECW fans, they’re way too into the show it’s awesome. Joe Frazier is in the crowd, he looks confused. A lot of strikes by Kama but it suited his gimmick of the supreme fight machine. Kama places Shawn stomach first across the top turnbuckle and hits some punches which are sold great by Shawn. A Canadian backbreaker by Kama, that’s the first wrestling hold he’s used. Shawn gets a pin out of it and the fans gets up, we get the infamous Flair bump and Shawn lands outside looked great. 3 backbreakers in a row by Kama and a backbreaker hold which looks incredibly painful. Shawn finally comes back with a springboard forearm. We suddenly have a timer showing there’s 2:30 minutes left, the announcer they tells the crowd a wise move. Shawn hits a double axe handle, he’s getting the Cena treatment a little here with the women cheering for him and the men booing but only slightly. Kama rolls through a crossbody for a near fall, Shawn gets a crossbody and nearly gets 3 when the time runs out. Beautifully timed, a pretty good match that built very well. After the match you can see Shawn say “Bull S**t” and then hits a Sweet Chin music, why he couldn’t do that in the match I don’t know. The worst part about this, we only got 1 Shawn match on this show.

Undertaker w/Paul Bearer vs. Mabel w/Mo: Before this match we get a promo for Bob Backlund for President, he seemed out of his mind and uncomfortable at points. Taker’s entrance has to be the best ever, always looked amazing. We see the Taker fan plants again. Both men in purple that pleases me as it’s my favourite colour. We get a similar spot from earlier with Taker hitting repeated clothesline to knock him down. Taker then hits old school which at this time was called “What a move”. Mabel hits an awkward looking take down I think it was meant to be an Urinagi. Mable hits Taker as he’s trying to get in, looked awkward again and Taker is tied up by his foot in the ropes I don’t think that was planned. Mabel finally hits an ok move with a high belly to belly. A camel clutch by Mabel, Taker must have hated that fat guy sitting on him. Bearer is classic here really makes Mo look useless. Vince brings up Takers tattooed arms, he wasn’t even full sleeved here which looks odd to me. Mabel just sits on Taker for a pin, looked like he was just tired to be honest. Taker gets his boot up when Mabel runs in which is impressive as he was slumped down and still reached Mabels face. Mabel gets a piledriver, probably the only time he used it. Mabel misses an elbow drop, I think it’s a rule that big guys can’t hit elbows or be Irish whipped. The ref gets knocked down after Mabel reverses an Irish whip, see it’s a rule! Taker “chokeslams” Mable, Kama then attacks Taker. Mabel drops the leg and wins it. A shocking win in a pretty bad match, Taker was not the best worker here and Mabel never was. We get a recap of the Hall of Fame ceremony from the night before, this is so far away from the incredible ceremony we get the past few years. This was only the 2^nd true ceremony for the Hall of Fame, they had 1 in 1994 and the Hall opened with Andre being inducted by himself in 1993.

Savio Vega vs. Roadie: The 3^rd match for Vega in less than 1 and a half hours, he’s not selling it one bit. Jarrett cuts a promo for the Roadie, calls him Road Dog that may be where it started. Vega clothesline Roadie out who hits his face on the apron and then on the floor, I liked that spot. Roadie goes for a scoop slam but they crumble into a poor looking small package, that’s followed by a sloppy swinging neck breaker by Roadie. Roadie hits a flying headbutt, the fans wake up for the kick out for some reason. Savio begins to no sell and dance back, seriously those Latinos love to dance! Vega fires back up, the fans don’t though. Jeff trips Vega but Roadie bumps into Jeff and is school boyed for the win. Fans woke up for the finish but besides that this was pretty bad. We get a Spanish after match interview with Doc translating and making jokes, was this needed? We get a look at the crown, looks like you could get it from McDonalds.

Bret Hart vs. Jerry Lawler-Kiss my Foot match: We get a recap of the feud that started 2 years before when the King attacked Bret after he won the tournament. We get a promo from Bret, a very under rated talker in my book his talking was always seen as his weak point but I don’t think that’s the case. We get a promo from King going to the ring, another great one from him. Pyro for Bret, always came off as random to me he never played to it so it was an afterthought. Bret throwing punches early, they looked great Bret was a great puncher. Bret gets pulled into the step and we get “Burger King” chants, the first proper chant from the fans. King gets the piledriver early, he hits 2 more after some stalling. Bret kicks out, King’s piledriver must be the most ineffective finishing move ever he hardly ever wins with the thing. King takes his boot off, he has a overly done bad sock effect he had apparently not washed his feet, King hits Bret with the boot in front of the ref but then hides it for some reason. Lawler uses the boot again when Bret is hitting him, very Memphis style here. King hits his diving fist for a 2. Hakushi, remember him, suddenly run down but he hits King by mistake and run off. Fans are really up for this, we get the Bret series of moves you know the ones. Sharpshooter and the King quits, what was really nice is that the hard cam zoomed out to see the crowd get up for the finish. King kisses Bret’s foot by force and then is made to kiss his own, which was impressive. Probably the best match on this show not in terms of action, which wasn’t bad but the fans were so hot for this which helped since the crowd had sucked for most of the night so far. Bret had to be the MVP of 95 as he had some of the best matches with everyone that year.

Savio Vega vs. Mabel: Before we start we see the 2 previous Kings, the ones held on PPV. This is Savio’s 4^th match in less than 2 hours, something under sold by Vince on commentary. Vince brings up that Yoko was actually heavier than Mabel, why should Vega be worried then? This starts pretty much the exact same to the match with Yoko. We’ve seen the 2 rules of the big man in less than a minute. Vega dominating here which makes no sense for someone who is smaller and is meant to be more worn down. Mabel finally trips Vega into the steps to get the advantage.  A bear hug which looks like Mabel is sleepy and Vega is holding him up. Again no reaction to Vega fighting back, who booked this? Another bear hug on this is about 5 minutes of hugging. Oh now a chin lock by Mabel how exciting, Razor is getting the crowd into it a little thankfully he was there otherwise we’d get nothing. Fans chant “ECW” very loudly. Vega gets a school boy and then the wheel kick for a near fall, fans woke up to that. Vega kicks out a powerslam but then a splash ends it. A piss poor match and Mabel would go on to be known as one of the worst Kings ever. Looking back either man would of been a bad choice as Savio didn’t get over that night, the only other choice was Shawn to win but they wanted a killer heel for Diesel to face so they tried to make Mabel. After the match we get a long drawn out beat down by the heels and a drawn out coronation very boring although a fan hit Mabel in the face with trash, that was funny.

Diesel & Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Sid & Tatanka: We get a classic Sid promo, thankfully it was pre-recorded as this was a month or 2 after the infamous “We’re live pal”. It’s odd to think that Tatanka main evented a PPV, Bigelow did main event Mania that year which is even odder. Diesel is probably one of the most injury prone WWE champions ever, he’s coming into this with a bad elbow and later that year he hurt his back thanks to Mabel. Starts with the heels jumping the gun. Again very little fan interaction, a bad sign with your WWE champ in the ring. I will say a good addition to this is Kayfabe Commentaries Timeline of WWE 1995 by Kevin Nash, he adds a lot of details to his biggest year. Tatanka and Diesel start off, Sid gets a kick into the arm and the heat starts pretty much from the start with the heels working on the injured arm. Fans are chanting for Diesel, well some are at least. Diesel gets the tag after Sid misses a leg drop, nothing of note happened in between. Bigelow clears house and hits a top rope headbutt but DiBiase is distracting the ref. Sid chokeslams Bigelow off the 2^nd rope in a very good looking spot. Sid did nothing after, taunted Diesel to get him in and then tags out for Tatanka to go for the pin, what was the point of any of that? If I can say anything Bigelow is working his ass off, sadly no one else is. If Sid throws one more boot I’m about to boot my TV! We were meant to get the traditional face lock near tag spot however they messed up and we got an actual tag, Diesel did 30 seconds of work and went out again. They pretty much go straight back to the heat which tells me they messed up. Tatanka hits a nice jumping DDT on Bigelow. Bigelow finally gets the tag after getting an enzugiri, Diesel’s bad elbow is magically fine now. An awful looking Jack Knife but he pulls up Tatanka, Sid then leaves. An elbow drop by Diesel and that’s it. What a bad match, I understand the hate for Diesel now.

Overall: This crowd sucked! So much of the show was hurt by their lack of care not that they got an awful lot to cheer for anyways. A lot of it was just there and it wasn’t very good. Shawn and Bret worked extremely hard in their matches but besides that an extremely miss able show in my view. And if anyone asks why do I have this it came with King of the Ring 96 which was a pretty good show. At least this show tried to make a new star in Mabel shame he sucked and injured people.

Well cheers for reading if you did. Let me know what you thought of the show if you remember it or you could suggest a bad show for me to look at, I’m all for watching bad wrestling it makes me laugh.