This was the nature Boy's finest night in the WWE, surviving in the Royal Rumble match over an hour before winning the match and also the Undisputed WWE Championship. His words before and after the win, and the commentary of his friend and manager Bobby Heenan during the match made the night.
Well the story going into this rumble was that there had been evil shenanigans in a recent series of WWE Championship matches involving Hulk Hogan and the Undertaker. The Undertaker had half the WWE roster run out and interfere in the match where he defeated Hogan for the title at Survivor Series and Hogan himself had blatantly cheated to regain the title at the This Tuesday in Texas PPV a week or so later. So Jack Tunney had stripped Hogan of the title and put it up for grabs in the 30 man royal rumble match.
This memorable night began with some tag team action with the New Foundation: Owen hart and Jim Neidhart, a spin off of the original Hart Foundation with Bret Hart replaced by his younger brother, defeated The Orient Express. (I'd like to thank Kassa Naster for correcting me here as I originally had the New Foundation's opponent listed as The Rockers. Nice pick-up Kassa!) Good match. Owen really was very gifted.
Next up we get a recap of Bret Hart losing his Intercontinental Championship to the evil Canadian The Mountie. Bret had wrestled the Mountie despite being injured and was beaten after the Mountie cheated. The Mountie seemed proud of himself as he spoke to Sean Mooney backstage, but he had little to be proud of less than ten minutes later as Rody Piper absolutely destroyed him to win the title. Incredibly this was Piper's only singles title in the WWE. Not much of a match, but who cares? Next up the Beverly Brothers defeated the Bushwackers in a pretty long and slow match. The novelty for the Whackers had worn off by this stage and fans didn't really respond too well. This was followed by the Legion of Doom: Hawk and Animal losing to the Natural Disasters: Earthquake and Typhoon, by count out. But seeings as it was only a count out the LOD kept their tag team titles.
And finally we come to the big match of the night, the Royal Rumble. This was one of the more star studded Rumble matches ever with The British Bulldog, Ted DiBiase, Flair, Shawn Michaels, Tito Santana, Roddy Piper, Jake Roberts, Jimmy Snuka, Undertaker, Randy Savage, Col Mustafa (The Iron Shiek) Hulk Hogan, Sgt Slaughter and Sid Justice all participating. The Warlord set the record (since broken) for the shortest elimination in history, Sid Justice had the most eliminations with six, but Ric Flair not only became the first man to stay in a rumble match for an hour, he won the thing! The match ended with Sid eliminating Hogan as Hogan was trying to throw out DiBiase. Hogan then grabbed Sid's hand allowing Flair to throw him out. The crowd on the night was booing Hogan for acting like a sook, but it was later edited for the VHS release to fans booing Justice.
Jack Tunney then presented the WWE Championship to Flair backstage. Flair said "With a tear in my eye, this is the greatest moment of my life." THe truth of that statement is debatable, but it was certainly a great day for wrestling fans. They had seen an entertaining PPV with a tremendous Main Event and a new champion crowned.
The questions now were what was going to happen between Hogan and Sid after this ugly incident and who was Flair going to face at Wrestlemania?
Well the story going into this rumble was that there had been evil shenanigans in a recent series of WWE Championship matches involving Hulk Hogan and the Undertaker. The Undertaker had half the WWE roster run out and interfere in the match where he defeated Hogan for the title at Survivor Series and Hogan himself had blatantly cheated to regain the title at the This Tuesday in Texas PPV a week or so later. So Jack Tunney had stripped Hogan of the title and put it up for grabs in the 30 man royal rumble match.
This memorable night began with some tag team action with the New Foundation: Owen hart and Jim Neidhart, a spin off of the original Hart Foundation with Bret Hart replaced by his younger brother, defeated The Orient Express. (I'd like to thank Kassa Naster for correcting me here as I originally had the New Foundation's opponent listed as The Rockers. Nice pick-up Kassa!) Good match. Owen really was very gifted.
Next up we get a recap of Bret Hart losing his Intercontinental Championship to the evil Canadian The Mountie. Bret had wrestled the Mountie despite being injured and was beaten after the Mountie cheated. The Mountie seemed proud of himself as he spoke to Sean Mooney backstage, but he had little to be proud of less than ten minutes later as Rody Piper absolutely destroyed him to win the title. Incredibly this was Piper's only singles title in the WWE. Not much of a match, but who cares? Next up the Beverly Brothers defeated the Bushwackers in a pretty long and slow match. The novelty for the Whackers had worn off by this stage and fans didn't really respond too well. This was followed by the Legion of Doom: Hawk and Animal losing to the Natural Disasters: Earthquake and Typhoon, by count out. But seeings as it was only a count out the LOD kept their tag team titles.
And finally we come to the big match of the night, the Royal Rumble. This was one of the more star studded Rumble matches ever with The British Bulldog, Ted DiBiase, Flair, Shawn Michaels, Tito Santana, Roddy Piper, Jake Roberts, Jimmy Snuka, Undertaker, Randy Savage, Col Mustafa (The Iron Shiek) Hulk Hogan, Sgt Slaughter and Sid Justice all participating. The Warlord set the record (since broken) for the shortest elimination in history, Sid Justice had the most eliminations with six, but Ric Flair not only became the first man to stay in a rumble match for an hour, he won the thing! The match ended with Sid eliminating Hogan as Hogan was trying to throw out DiBiase. Hogan then grabbed Sid's hand allowing Flair to throw him out. The crowd on the night was booing Hogan for acting like a sook, but it was later edited for the VHS release to fans booing Justice.
Jack Tunney then presented the WWE Championship to Flair backstage. Flair said "With a tear in my eye, this is the greatest moment of my life." THe truth of that statement is debatable, but it was certainly a great day for wrestling fans. They had seen an entertaining PPV with a tremendous Main Event and a new champion crowned.
The questions now were what was going to happen between Hogan and Sid after this ugly incident and who was Flair going to face at Wrestlemania?