Awesome Movie

As Good As It Gets

Admirable film.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This was one of the better Royal Rumbles that the WWF put on. The internet was not yet a household item at this time, so it wasn't as easy to know who was going to win the match. In so many other Rumbles everyone knew or had a pretty good idea who the winner was going to be. In 1993, it was pretty evident Yokozuna was going to win. In 96, HBK making his dramatic return and main event push was pretty obvious, same with Triple H in 2002. In 98, the WWF's roster was pretty thin and anybody with half a brain knew that Stone Cold Steve Austin was going to win. But in this particular Rumble the winner was not obvious from the start. And this wasn't like other Rumbles where one third of the participants were either glorified jobbers or people brought in from outside the WWF just to fill a slot. Here you had Hogan, Sid Justice, Ric Flair, Roddy Piper, Undertaker, Macho Man, Sgt. Slaughter. All of whom were viable candidates to win the Rumble. Future talent like Shawn Michaels and Davey Boy Smith also had major roles in the Rumble. I was very disappointed that Ted Dibiase got eliminated in the opening minutes of the match as he was one of my favorites growing up. This rumble also marked the final PPV appearance for longtime 80's WWF mainstays like Nikolai Volkoff, Greg Valentine, Haku, Jimmy Snuka, and the Iron Shiek (goes by Col. Mustafa at this event). All in all, just some great action as the WWF was in a transition period from the Rock N' Wrestling era of the 80's to the Bret Hart/HBK generation of the 90's. Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby "The Brain" Heenan are still my all time favorite commentator duo. Heenan's cheer leading for Flair was classic. I love it when Flair comes out at #3 and Heenan goes on and on about it not being "Fair to Flair." Truly Flair stole this rumble by winning it from the #3 position. At that time, it seemed like an impossible task. Before then, the rumble winners were all guys who had late draws. But this was one of Ric Flair's greatest wrestling performances ever.The under card was decent. Roddy Piper winning the IC title is a must see. The crowd absolutely ate it up. And the tag title match between LOD and the Nautrual Disasters was also pretty good, but nothing special. Now the other tag matches were really not all that good. Teams like the New Foundation, the Orient Express, and the Beverly Brothers never got over with the fans. And while the Buschwackers were loved by a lot of fans, they were never taken seriously as legitimate tag team contenders. And were really used as comic relief for their WWF career.All in all, a pretty good PPV for the WWF. Not the best, but certainly worth a look. If you are a Ric Flair or Roddy Piper fan this event is a must have. Fans of Hulk Hogan should skip this PPV as what went down at this event was the beginning of the end of the Hulkamania era in the WWF.

*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.

*possible spoilers*This is, without a doubt, the greatest Royal Rumble match there ever was, or ever will be, for several reasons...First, you have Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan doing the commentating, which is extremely silly at times (Heenan almost has a heart attack during the rumble match, hoping that Ric Flair is not eliminated), and of course, Flair's hour-long performance leading to his incredible victory (thanks to Mr. Hogan). Just incredible to watch, over and over again. And while the undercard features non-spectacular, but exciting matches, the rumble match steals the whole show. It is a definite must-see.The stipulations of the rumble match were simple...whomever ended up winning the 30-man free-for-all would automatically become undisputed WWF Champion, and Ric Flair drew #3...and he had some TOUGH competition ahead. There were many familiar faces in the match, Hogan, Santana, Valentine, Snuka, Michaels, Piper, Duggan, Roberts, etc. But while the veteran Royal Rumblers continued their glory in the ring, there were also a couple of impressive debuts in the 30-man contest...such as Irwin R. Schyster, a solo Shawn Michaels, and oh yes, Ric Flair. Talk about a debut...Flair draws #3, Heenan goes nuts, and we're only about 2:30 into the whole match. The commentary from then on up is hilarious, ya gotta hear it. And while Flair comes to the ring, Ted Dibiase is leaving the arena after being eliminated, and he ended up the only competitor that Flair was never in the ring with. A little later, a solo Shawn Michaels enters at #6, and he would impress and entertain. He was one of the true stars the first half of the match, faking eliminations and doing his own version of the "flair flop." Flair must do at least a handful of his own during the fight, it's really silly. Irwin R. Schyster was also impressive in his rumble debut. He entered around the halfway point of the match and ended up hanging in there and taking punches from everyone until the end, despite never eliminating anyone. Pretty impressive.Even more impressive though, was the man who eliminated IRS (by his tie), near the end of the rumble: Roddy Piper. Piper had already wrestled a match earlier on the show, against the Intercontinental Champion, the Mountie. It really wasn't that much of a match, but the crowd was deafening, they just loved it, especially when Piper pinned the Mountie for the 1-2-3 and the IC belt. The crowd just went crazy. Piper, in the rumble match, was in contention to win for a good 35 minutes, it was truly a great performance, but it was all for naught, as he was thrown out by Sid Justice near the end.And speaking of the end...Wooooooo! It was down to Savage, Hogan, Justice, and Flair, pretty good final four. Pretty DAMN good. Savage was thrown out quickly, and Justice managed to toss out Hogan, but Hulk never left the ringside, and he grabbed on to Sid's arm, and Ric comes up from behind and (with Hogan's help), eliminates Sid to conclude the greatest royal rumble match in the history and future of wrestling. I'd give it a 10/10. Bravo! With Flair's victory, he was dubbed "the 60-minute man," for his 60+ minute (actually 59:15) performance. It really is something to watch, I love it.So, wrasslin' fans who have never seen this pay-per-view before, I strongly suggest you do so IMMEDIATELY. I guarantee you'll love it to death. Thank you WWF for such a great show! Wooooooo!

wow, I watched this one live as a kid and my heart was beating. Owen Hart carried the opener to a great match. It was good to see Piper finally get a title. Beverlys and Bushwhackers sucked. LOD and Disasters was not bad but LOD should have gone over. Ric Flair killed it in the Rumble it's the best performance in Rumble history. His confrontations with Piper, Valentine, Bulldog, Hogan and so many others made that match. Savage running around like a maniac looking for Jake Roberts was also great. The ending was done really well upsetting me and I was 9! If Hogan could've made me mad at 9 there must have been a lot of mad people. It's too bad that for whichever reason Sid didn't get the big face push he deseved at the time he would have been over the top. It was an outstanding event