I should have taken it as a sign, a warning.
Now sure, I remember that the 1995 King of the Ring PPV was one of the worst shows I’d ever seen; after all, that’s the reason I dug it out of my closet o’ tapes to induct it on a site called WrestleCRAP.
But when I slid the tape out of its sleeve and saw what had happened to the actual cassette itself, well, like I said…I should have taken it as a sign.
As a rule, I keep my tapes in pristine condition. I won’t even put them in the attic for fear that the heat or moisture might somehow adversely affect the contents. Why I do this I do not know. I guess there’s some warped part of my brain that thinks someday I’m going to be jonesing to see that Stevie Ray-Scott Norton match from the October 26, 2000 edition of Thunder or something.
I say all of this so you will know, again, that I do not put my tapes in harm’s way. If something bad happens to one of them, well, it has to be an act from the Lord above.
And that, fellow Crappers, is why I state, once more, that I should have taken it as a sign.
For you see, despite being nuzzled into a container along with probably a hundred other wrestling tapes, this one, lone tape had somehow inexplicably gotten cracked. I checked the others all around it – none had suffered the slightest damage. The entire flip top dealy that protected the tape had completely snapped, with black plastic literally hanging from the rest of the case, and, upon my mere touch, fell to the floor.
A sign.
But I was undeterred. I repaired the cassette as best I could and popped it into my VCR, hands clasped in prayer. And sure enough, after some fiddling, the video began to play. Yes, despite what was no doubt God Almighty telling me not to go on, I did. I knew that this induction was long overdue, and I knew, no matter what horror waited inside, I had to persevere.
I had to persevere no matter what I was about to witness.
So when what appeared to be a carbon copy clone of Christy Hemme appeared in one of the pre-show ads, I just cocked my head to one side, like a confused, constipated poodle, and pushed on.
And when Mr. Bob Backlund appeared at a house party with all the WWF’s top stars of the day, like the Smokin’ Gunns and Man Mountain Rock, I just gritted my teeth.
Even when Mr. Bob screamed, and I am quoting, “Where are this boy’s pants?”, leading to a shot of a kid on the couch watching wrestling wearing nothing but his boxer shorts, I just repressed those memories of The Young and the Wrestling and trudged on.
And when I saw the WWF Blimp, which I had LOOOOOONG since forgotten ever existed, sure…I shuddered. I admit it. I’m just a man.
But I kept watching.
The appearance of the lethal announcing duo of Vince and DOK HENDRIX couldn’t stop me. Hell, even seeing that STEPHANIE WIAND was handling backstage interviews couldn’t stop the WrestleCrap Express.
This was King of the Ring 95.
And it was, unquestionably, WrestleCrap.
Now I’m sure you’re probably thinking, RD, we’ve all seen worse than this. It can’t be THAT bad.
I counter your blasphemous statement with the following brackets:
Mabel vs. Undertaker
Shawn Michaels vs. Kama
Sparky Plugg vs. The Roadie
Savio Vega vs. Yokozuna
Now seriously…I know that the WWF roster was pretty slim in 1995, but was this really the best tournament the company could give us?
That’s not to say that some people didn’t like this show.
For instance, if you have a boner for Savio Vega, then by golly, this was the show for you!
Not only did we get to see everyone’s favorite former Puerto Rican ninja take on IRS in the opener, we got to see him do an interview conducted by…TODD PETTENGILL. This just keeps getting better. Especially when, as Vega started speaking in Spanish, Todd looked at him as if he was speaking Martian or something.
The only thing that could possibly follow that up would be yet another Savio match, this time with him getting the better of Yokozuna, who by this point had ballooned to such mammoth proportions that I mistook him for the WWF blimp that was floating around outside.
(And don’t hate on me for that comment – Doc Hendrix proudly proclaimed during this match that Yoko had, in fact, surpassed the legendary Haystacks Calhoun as the fattest wrestler in WWF history. Yay Yoko!)
Sadly, the Savio-a-thon ended, and in its place we got…YEE HAW!
SPARKY PLUGG!
Now you newer Crappers might take a look at the guy to the right and think, “That dork looks familiar.” And the reason for that is because this guy is still a member of the active WWF roster: Hardcore Holly. No wonder the guy’s such a sour puss these days – if you had to parade around as a race car drivin’ wrestler with a feathered super mullet, you’d be an asshole too.
You’ll note that I asked above if this line up was really the best the WWF could come up with. And the answer is apparently YES, as they show highlights of the matches folks had to win to advance to the PPV tournament. The folks who didn’t make it to the big dance read like a WrestleCrap Who’s Who: Mantaur, Babyface Doink, Duke the Dumpster Droese, and Adam Bomb among others.
That’s a shame, really – King Mantaur has a nice ring to it.
Just as I was about to give up all hope, out comes the one man who could possibly save the show: Shawn Michaels.
Better still, he’s taking on Kama, which means that after easily dispatching of that scrub, we’ll get at least two more in his prime HBK bouts. So all is apparently not lost.
I would be remiss to not mention that the Undertaker’s Creatures of the Night are at ringside. These were two ghoulish fans who would sit ringside for matches featuring whomever Taker was feuding with at the time, and at this point that was Kama, who had stolen Taker’s urn, and melted it down into a necklace.
Impossible as it may be to believe, Casey and I were NOT booking WWF at this time.
And to prove that, even we wouldn’t have been stupid enough to book this thing to a TIME LIMIT DRAW, thus eliminating Michaels from the tourney and the rest of the show.
The final bout of the opening bracket was Undertaker versus Mabel, whom you might know as Viscera, the same Viscera cavorting about WWE rings these days as Sexual Chocolate ’05.
Seeing as Michaels was out of the tournament, this seemed to indicate that there was no possible way Taker wasn’t going all the way.
So naturally, THAT didn’t happen either, as Mabel did away with the Dead Man by sitting on his chest, looking for all the world like he was going to start tea bagging the guy.
After that, I was almost excited to see…
SAVIO VEGA!
Yes, we get our THIRD Savio Vega bout of the evening, with promises of a FOURTH as he slides past the Roadie.
Longtime Crappers will recall that one of my all time favorite wrestlers is Bret Hart. And if you’ve really been paying attention over the last few years, you might even remember that one of my favorite matches of all time was Jerry Lawler versus Bret at SummerSlam 93. To me, that bout had everything – it was as perfectly booked and worked a match as I’ve ever seen.
So you’d think I would love a rematch. And I would have, except that this bout, with Kiss My Foot stips, was slow and horrible. In fact, it might have been one of the worst of Bret’s career. Not only that, but the finish, in which Bret crammed Lawler’s own foot right back in his mouth, lead to yet another Vince brainfart: the introduction of Lawler’s personal dentist, Isaac Yankem, DDS.
Not sure if I’ve mentioned it today, but damn did the WWF suck back in ’95.
As if you needed more evidence to back up that statement, I give you our FOURTH Savio Vega match of the evening. And if that wasn’t bad enough, we get another heapin’ helpin’ of Mabel.
Sadly, the “Rocky” storyline Vince had been plugging all night with Savio comes to an end. The match is so enthralling that the fans start chanting for ECW.
Vince, seemingly totally perplexed, goes silent.
Following his big victory, we are treated to Mabel’s royal coronation. It’s a bad sign when you see something like this and start fondly remembering the “good old days” when Hacksaw Duggan was given the crown.
In other words: This sucks, Tough Guy! Hooooooooooooo!
Oh wait, it’s not.
Ah well, at least this stupid show is finally over.
No no, we now get a “main event” featuring Diesel (Kevin Nash) and Bam Bam Bigelow versus Sid Vicious and…Tatanka (Buffalo)!
You want action? You got it, pal!
Well, if you consider “action” Sid love tapping Nash’s elbow for approximately 20 minutes straight.
All of this excitement brought us to a finish that saw Sid take a walk from the ring Honky Tonk Man-style, thus ensuring more horrible Nash-Sid bouts.
The tournament, though, set up what the WWF felt would be their next marquee main event: Nash versus the newly christened “King Mabel”. Seriously, the company believed that fans wanted to see this bout, so much so that they had it headline one of their biggest shows of the year: SummerSlam.
Suffice to say, if I pull that tape out of the box in the future and it’s crumbling, that induction ain’t ever happening.