The 1992 WWE Royal Rumble was the fifth annual Royal Rumble. It took place on January 19, 1992 at The Knickerbocker Arena in Albany, New York. The main event, as in past Royal Rumble events, was the event's namesake match. The 1992 Royal Rumble match was historic because for the first time in the history of WWE, the last man standing in the match would win the WWE Championship, which had been vacated in December 1991. The match was won by Ric Flair, who last eliminated Sid Justice to win the match and the WWE Championship. Featured matches on the undercard were The Natural Disasters vs. The Legion of Doom for the WWE World Tag Team Championship, The Beverly Brothers vs. The Bushwhackers & Roddy Piper versus The Mountie for the WWE Intercontinental Championship.
Similar titles
Reviews
1. Orient Express Vs. New Foundation - First PPv appearance of Owen, and he's in great shape. 6/10 2. Intercontinental Championship: Annoying non-wrestler Piper Vs. Champ-The Mountie - Punch/kick match. Classic from Piper. Nice new champ. Blah. 4.5/10 Bushwackers on PPV? -10/10 3. Idiots from Bush Vs. The Beverly Brothers - Ratings above.4. Royal Rumble: Jake Roberts, The Barbarian, Rick Martel, The Berzerker, Piper, Jim Duggan, Jerry Sags, Repo Man, Sgt. Slaughter, Ric FLair, Hercules, Col. Mustafa, Macho Man, Skinner, British Bulldog, Million Dollar Man, Haku, Shawn Michaels, The Warlord, El Matador, Sid Justice, Irwin R. Schyster, Nikolai Volkoff, Texas Tornado, Virgil, The Undertaker, Big Boss Man, Greg Valentine, Jimmy Snuka, Hulk Hogan. - I like the most part with Piper/Jake Roberts and Flair in Triple Threat. Flair has got new record and belt within. 6/10
Here are the matches...The New Foundation v Orient Express: It took Orient Express exactly one year to get another P-P-V appearance and this time against the newly formed New Foundation (Owen Hart and an out-of-shape Jim Niedhart). The match was good, showcasing some impressive moves by Owen. Owen balanced on the top ring-rope to get out of an arm-bar at one point. Mr Fuji yet again used his stick to good effect allowing Owen to charge shoulder first into it. Despite the high quality of the wrestling, there was little doubt as to who the winners were as Owen pinned Tanaka after the Rocket Launcher. This would be The Orient Express's last WWF PPV and, despite their success, The New Foundation would split shortly afterwards too. 6/10'Rowdy' Roddy Piper v The Mountie: The match developed after Piper came to Bret Hart's aid after his recent loss against The Mountie (a 'high fever' contributed to this). Piper dished out most of the offence, making The Mountie submit to the sleeper-hold before using his own cattle prod against him. Despite the poor match it was nice to see Piper finally wear some gold. 4/10Bushwhackers v Beverly Brothers: This match was given too much time. A huge portion of it involved The Bushwhackers playing to the crowd before they do their typical Bushwhackers-get-beaten-up routine. Their assistant at ringside, a misfit called Jamison, got attacked by The Genius during the match. We were finally put out of our misery when The Beverly Brothers pinned Butch after a double axe-handle. After Bushwhackers lost the match, they finally got hold of The Genius allowing Jamison to get a measure of revenge. What felt like forever, Jamison finally kicked The Genius in the shin giving The Bushwhackers a moral victory of sorts. Horrendous. 1/10Legion of Doom v Natural Disasters: An awful plodding, lumbering match with a controversial ending tacked on the end for the sake of it. The Legion of Doom are limited when they wrestle bigger opponents than them because most of their attraction is seeing them throw people about. The Natural Disasters beat Legion of Doom by count-out. Apparently, despite Jimmy Hart's long period of time in the WWF, he still hadn't worked out that the WWF titles don't change hands via a count-out or disqualification. Hart made a big deal about it in a backstage interview saying he was going to call his lawyers to reverse the decision. Yawn... 2/10Royal Rumble 1992: For the first time, the WWF title is on the line after the controversial matches involving Hulk Hogan and Undertaker making the title vacant and the focus is on mainly one man - Ric Flair. Flair starts off at No 3 and continues to the end taking quite a beating in the process. Some excellent performances this year involve British Bulldog who picked No 1, Shawn Michaels, 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper, Irwin R Schyster and even 'Hacksaw' Jim Duggan (though it was a little difficult to track down Duggan because he looked quite similar to Piper in matching blue trunks). The main upset of the night was Ted Dibiase getting eliminated in less than 2 minutes. He never did have much luck after taking on 'Sensational Sherri' and only regained his fortunes when they parted company. For me, the main highlight of the night was Roddy Piper racing to the ring to get at Ric Flair half-way through, attacking him like a madman until Jake Roberts came out. I would have preferred to tease a Piper victory at the end by having him be the last person Ric Flair eliminate to win the Rumble. Sid Justice showed his dominance at the end after receiving a late number and 'Machoman' made an error jumping over the top rope after eliminating Jake Roberts forgetting he was in a Rumble. I personally think that was a botch as Undertaker made sure Savage was tossed back into the ring to save face. Flair finally eliminated Justice with outside help from Hogan to win setting us up for one of the best wrestling promos the WWF ever had featuring an overjoyed Bobby Heenan, Mr Perfect and a delirious Ric Flair. 7/10The WWF would give the roster a real spring-clean after this Royal Rumble. For various reasons Greg Valentine, Haku, The Barbarian, the late Texas Tornado, Nikolai Volkoff (thank God), the late Hercules, Col Mustapha (originally The Iron Sheik), Jimmy Snuka and The Warlord departed from PPV status though some of these wrestlers would return as cameos in later Royal Rumbles/PPVs. One important development was the crumbling of WWF Hulkamania which started in my opinion just after Wrestlemania VII. Hogan, just like in Royal Rumble 1989, whined about getting eliminated by Sid Justice and in retaliation eliminated Justice from the outside. The difference between 1989 and 1992 was, despite Justice trying as hard as he could to be heel, Hogan was booed for eliminating Justice. Times were changing and I am not sure Hogan was ready for that response which, along with the upcoming steroid trials, sparked his retirement bout at the next Wrestlemania. Talking about eliminations, is it pure coincidence that Hogan eliminated Warlord three times in a Rumble in four years? A shame really because I think Warlord could have been groomed to be a real contender if pushed right.One thing that is talked about a lot when mentioning Royal Rumble 1992 is the quality of the commentating. Bobby Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon expertly told the story of Ric Flair in such a humorous way that, in some respects, was better than the wrestling at times. An entertaining Rumble marred by some terrible undercard matches.
*SPOILERS* In all respects, this one was very good but not quite as good as the year before.The opening tag team match between the New Foundation and Orient Express was exciting, but doesn't quite measure up to the Rockers and Orient Express. This was the only time the New Foundation faced the Express; the Express and the Rockers had the thing down to an art by the time of their Royal Rumble match.As far as comparing the title changes from '91 and '92, I think everyone was more satisfied with Rowdy Roddy Piper dominating the Mountie than with the Slaughter-Warrior match. Piper was truly inspiring here, standing up for Bret Hart and becoming the first wrestler to perform in both the undercard and main event of a Royal Rumble. The end of the match is great, as he throws away his wild man persona and smiles broadly about his first WWF title win. In my opinion, he was the true star of this Rumble.The two other tag team matches were diverting.Now, the Rumble had only a few great performances, and for this reason, I don't put it in as high regards as the one from the year before, which had about fifteen. Still, it was one of the great ones. The set-up was perfect, letting the second-tier wrestlers (Davey Boy Smith, Shawn Michaels, Tito Santana, Big Bossman, Kerry von Erich) have their moments; then giving the stage over to the top level (Piper, Savage, Undertaker, Sid Justice, Hulk Hogan, Skinner). This was Ric Flair's WWF highlight, and it's good that they made it unique to his great WCW moments. In WCW, he had great singles matches; here, he had a great match with 28 other men.Perhaps I'm too old school. This was, after all, part of a much different era from the year before. So it's definitely worth it to buy the video if you can find it.
The 1992 Royal Rumble was the best Royal Rumble ever. It is equaled only by the 1989 Royal Rumble. The action was hot.(SPOILERS AHEAD)For the first time since the Rumble made it's debut we had a brilliant undercard. The charismatic Rowdy Roddy Piper won his first ever WWF belt by beating the hateful Mountie for the Intercontinental Title. The Legion of Doom battled the gigantic Natural Disasters in a good tag team match. The Bushwhackers had their usual comedy match with The Beverly Brothers and the New Foundation had a non-stop match with the Orient Express.Let's not forget the Rumble itself. The winner of this Rumble would automatically become WWF champion. The stars really went at it. Ric Flair competed for an hour taking blows from nearly every star. At the end it boiled down to Hulk Hogan, Sid Justice and Ric Flair. Justice eliminated Hogan but Hogan wouldn't accept the loss and grabbed Justice allowing Flair to eliminate Justice. Flair was the new champion-and despite being one of the bad guys I think the fans actually enjoyed seeing the Nature Boy as champion.I'll never forget this event.