1998 ROYAL RUMBLE

IN OVER ONE HUNDRED COUNTRIES IN SEVEN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES LET US DO THIS YOU AND I as the intro to this 1998 ROYAL RUMBLE is not without poetry when it suggests that at least one man will tonight "EMBRACE THE SOULLESS ALLY THAT IS DESPERATION" here in San Jose! Jim Ross and Jerry "The King" Lawler are our commentators and that is definitely for the best and on the Spanish table we've got Carlos Cebrera and hey Tito Santana and the French-language broadcast is still going strong with Ray Rougeau and Jean Brossard and HEY MIKE TYSON is taking it all in from one of the boxes.


HOLY SHIT the Artist Formerly known as Goldust accompanied by Luna Vachon is fuckin crazy looking and most closely resembles Dr. Rockso the rock 'n' roll clown who loves cocaine from the hit heavy metal cartoon series Metalocalypse at this point yiiiiiikes they are showing a collection of his different recent outfits and this one is actually by far the most conservative. Oh no he broke up with Marlena? She seemed nice! And also freakaaaay. Goldust is facing the man I like to call Vader tonight and it is always strange to see Vader as a "fan-favourite." Vader pulls on the MMA-style gloves in preparation for the clubberin which is no doubt soon to occur. You know what, I'm not sure I have seen this Royal Rumble. I have definitely seen all of the previous ones at or around their time of original airing, but I think I stopped getting PPVs with bros around this time, largely, although I definitely watched the Wrestlemania that this leads to LIVE and with a bunch of awesome dudes (it's one of those weird things where I think I remember where everybody was sitting in this one dude's living room, even). But I was mostly just watching the TV shows in 1998 and by probably 1999 I was kind of done with it all for a while. But no that's crazy I MUST have watched the 1998 Royal Rumble HOLY SHIT TOP ROPE FIST DROP TO THE GROIN FROM GOLDUST. There is once again an awful lot of brawling outside the ring which I like fine when dudes are good at it and these two are. Also, Luna Vachon was pretty ripped. Somebody has a sign that says "TED TURNER IS GAY" and I would be surprised if that were true and the same guy has a sign that says "KARL IS SMART" which is no more likely imo. I do not at all oppose bringing a sign to wrestling but I have chosen my words deliberately here and that is to say *a* sign. 


"Vader is THICK" Jim Ross observes and who would ever argue. Vader goes up top for the VADERBOMB but is ferociously low-blowed while the fucking bonkers Luna Vachon distracted the referee. Not long thereafter however we get a second VADERBOMB attempt and Luna rushes in and jumps up on his back but Vader is like "whatevs" and executes the VADERBOMB with Luna on his back which was really really awesome and no I don't think I have seen this how crazy is that?


Worthless fucking Todd Pettingill seems to have been replaced with young Michael Cole who informs us that "Stone Cold" Steve Austin has arrived in the Stone Cold Pick-up Truck but Austin has no comment other than "park it and don't scratch it" and then something about someone's ass. The Godwins are hot on the tail of Austin but are a hair's breadth behind. Sunny comes out in foxy referee gear because she is tonight's foxy special guest referee and yeah she continues to communicate unmitigated luridness as we ready ourselves for a MINIS SIX MAN BOUT FUCK YES and our competitors are the team of Battallion, Tarantula, and El Torito "squaring off" against Nova, Mosaic, and Max Mini and iirc Max Mini is the money dude here, right? lol Sunny is checking the boots and ring gear of these cute little fellas who are probably all about liquor and whores and nothing but BUT THEY'RE SO CUTE. lol these little fuckers can WORK too and I don't just mean flippiness -- though there is certainly flippiness -- but also in terms of playing to the crowd and *communicating* and *telling a story* but mostly these guys are tiny. El Torito is my favourite early on but they're all neat! Lawler is like "Max Mini must be trying to learn English; I saw him reading a book backstage" and J.R. was like oh yeah which one and Lawler goes, "LITTLE WOMEN" and that was pretty good. We are shown a live shot of Mike Tyson and he is like LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL which is correct. He's in now and he flips and flips and it's like oh man what is he gonna do? and the first thing he does is get kicked in the fucking face by TARANTULA and it's awesome. Ahahahaha here he goes now and this Max Mini is the baddest eighty-seven-pound dude on the planet. Seriously seriously seriously though: if you were in the same room with an eighty-seven pound guy who you knew was a trained wrestler and knew how to fall, how long would it take before you tried to powerbomb him? HOLY SHIT MOSAIC OVER THE TOP TO THE OUTSIDE AND NOW IT IS LIKE ALL THE DUDES ARE DOING DIVES AND MAX MINIS WAS A CORKSCREW ASAI MOONSAULT OR SOME SHIT and moments later Max Mini gets the pin on my man El Torito after some seriously sick matwork. Sunny is on the ground and exhausted and PUNCHLINE.


THEY ARE THE NATION . . . OF DOMINATION and they are looking for Stone Cold. Farooq, D-Lo, Kama, and Mark Henry, I guess, though he is more than a decade away from being super awesome. Vince and Shane McMahon and Mike Tyson are all chilling in that box but there are no minis anymore so Mike Tyson looks way less happy. Now there are highlights of recent Ken Shamrock vs. The NATION stuff and maybe Mark Henry has always been awesome, actually. I mean he *was* trained by Leo Burke (as was Shamrock for that matter). Here's Intercontinental Champion "THE ROCK" Rocky Maivia  and let's see if he's awesome yet: not as awesome as he would get but already pretty awesome already yeah. Paula Jones humour: topical! It's still Howard Finkel doing the ring announcing which is nice. The Rock is like "you can do your ROCKY SUCKS all you want but The Rock is YOUR Intercontinental Champion" and yeah he is pretty good at this. How will he fare against "The World's Most Dangerous Man" Ken Shamrock as a cool INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP graphic flies across the screen and Shamrock comes out in a stance that Fire Pro calls "shooter"? 


Not well in the early going! But this is understandable as JR explains that Ken Shamrock might be the best no holds barred fighter ever, and if it isn't him it's probably Dan Severn. I am enjoying the work of referee Mike Chioda here, and when I googled to find out how to spell his last name I learned he was suspended from the WWE after a failing a drug test not long after the CM Punk/John Cena match in Chicago, which is a hell of a thing. I guess you've got to be clean out there with so much responsibility on your shoulders. This match is pretty good. Shamrock is better than I'd remembered and the Rock knows what time it is and that time is "time to be great at wrestling." OH SHIT PERFECTPLEX FROM SHAMROCK and some piece of shit has a laser pointer. God damn it I hate laser pointers. Back to Shamrock: remember how there was that story that everybody knew about how Vader was sent in there in Shamrock's first WWF match as a kind of punishment for working too stiff with dudes and Shamrock was supposed to rough him up a little and then that story turned out to be complete bullshit? FUUUUUUCK it had clearly been too long since I had seen The Rock's sweet DDT with the dude coming off the ropes because I am blown away right now by how slick that was. JR reminds us that these are young athletes in their prime and not the seniors' tour, and we know very well what he means us to understand by that pointed remark.


HURRICANRANA from Shamrock and he looks ready to enter "THE ZONE" but here comes Kama Mustafa to distract the referee as Rocky grabs brass knuckles out of his tights, levels Shamrock, and slips the knucks ever so delicately in Shamrock's tights. Shamrock kicks out and nails a belly-belly-suplex for three! Shit that was pretty good. Your winner and new INTERcontinental champion is Ken Shamrock HOWEVER the Rock is complaining to referee Mike Chioda that Shamrock hit him with a foreign object, an object which Chioda finds in Shamrock's trunks and the decision is reversed! That is just straight up classic stuff man and I love the classics like Aeschylus and this finish. OH SHIT SUPLEX AND ANKLE LOCK TO MIKE CHIODA so maybe his recent drug failure was because of a prescription pain medication issue that begin due to an ankle break here or something. Pat Patterson and other officials have come down to make sure no other crazy shit goes down. Hey when did Pat Patterson stop booking Royal Rumbles? Retired in October 2004 according to Wikipedia but is a consultant of some kind now. May he have a long and glorious retirement.


The great World Wrestling Federation Race War of '98 rages on backstage among various factions.


Next up we've got the Legion of Doom challenging the New Age Outlaws for the tag team titles and look I have never for a second liked D-X or the Outlaws and that is just the way it is man and if that means I am to be denounced as an enemy of fun then so be it. Some good video montagery here but nobody beats the WWE of right this very second in 2012 for video packages. lol the Outlaws are wearing Cartman t-shirts in some of these clips thus indicating that yes indeed this is 1998 we are looking at. IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU WOULD BE WELL ADVISED TO CAAAAAAAALLLLLL SOMEBODDAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY CURRENTLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY and yeah by some incredibly debased measure a guy who said "double crooked letter" in 1998 was thought to be a cool dude for a little while. This match is ragged beyond belief, with all kinds of confusion about who the legal man is and not in a way where it had anything to do with the match or the story or anything they just all fucked up and there is some shitty brawling on the outside and Hawk is handcuffed to the ring post and a chair shot DQ ends it and your winners but NOT new champions are the Legion of Doom who are really showing their age here and while Billy Gunn is OK at wrestling the ROAD DOGG is not. Oh yeah they came out in Brett Favre jerseys in the interest of "heat."


A Stone Cold pickup truck (it is a Chevrolet) is awarded to a lady from Tennessee as a video montage shows us why Steve Austin is entering this 1998 Royal Rumble as A MARKED MAN and it seems that the reason is that he has been stunnering a whole bunch of different people! And here we go with the Royal Rumble and it is a TWO MINUTE affair which is as you know the best way to do it. The stakes are of course a World Wrestling Federation Championship bout at Wrestlemania XIV which is where, Boston? Why would I remember that? HEEEEY IN AT NUMBER ONE IS CACTUS JACK but it's not the Cactus Jack music I remember which is too bad. I know that it became internet fashionable (maybe just in our small corner of the internet, idk) to dislike Mick Foley but I enjoy Cactus Jack and Foley's first book was great. Number two is Cactus Jack in his CHAINSAW CHARLIE guise and he comes in with a chainsaw which Foley knocks out of his hands with a chair and now Foley and Funk are whacking each other with chairs and weirdly Funk and Foley exchange chair shots that they are like in-character asking the other dude to hit them with. Tom Brandi (Tom "Boom Boom" Brandi? is that right? was that ever a thing?) is the third man in and Funk and Foley put him out right away so they can continue to do stuff with chairs which JR reminds us are not "stunt man chairs" but instead regular old metal folding chairs lol ok Foley just suplexed Funk onto two folding chairs that were deployed in, you know, normal chair sitting position. 


The Rock is in at number four and he is still a man of the Nation of Domination theme music rather than his own boss song. Cactus Jack smacks him pretty well with a garbage can which they then put over the Rock's head and Foley knocks him not *over* but instead *through* the ropes with a chair shot. WOOOOOAH Funk just totally whipped a chair down the aisle at Headbanger Mosh and you know what my problem was never with Headbanger Mosh; he's OK in my books. Funk misses a moonsault on Mosh while Cactus Jack and The Rock are busy being pretty awesome in the other corner. Here comes Phineas Godwin who is a dark and evil hog farmer at this point and I'm much more comfortable with that than the Godwins as happy-go-lucky country boys because the country is fucked up man. Both my parents are from the country so I speak on this matter as an unimpeachable authority not to be questioned by anyone especially people who are actually from the country and so would actually know. In at number seven is 8-Ball, who is I guess a member of the Aryan biker gang that has a problem with blacks and so has like half a problem with The Rock. There goes Cactus Jack at the hands of his bro Chainsaw Charlie and you know what, Cactus Jack was awesome. I'm not really a guy who is all about hardcore wrestling but in the hands of a true artist like Mick Foley or Necro Butcher or Mr. Pogo I am all for it (or at least mostly for it). 


IT IS BLACKJACK BRADSHAW and remember when they just kind of overnight were like "yeah this guy who you remember as just a guy is now JBL and he is wealthy and unbeatable" and it was like idk about this but then it turned out it was totally the role he was born to play? The Rock tries to push Funk over the top but Funk actually puts the Rock in an inverted triangle choke or "sankaku jime" and I am wondering if that was inadvertent. Owen Hart is up next but he is DASTARDLYLY ATTACKED by fucking Jeff Jarrett and James E. Cornette who JR informs us are there as representative of the NWA. JARRETT'S NO MORE THAN A BACK JUMPER is Jim Ross' inarguable contention. At this point Owen Hart was both the black hart and the sole survivor was he not? Poor Owen, man: he must have been lonely and then they fuckin killed him. Steve Blackman is in next and he is an enigma to me: I could have sworn that I read an interview where he was like "lol I don't know anything man the whole martial arts thing was pure gimmick" but I can find no evidence to support this and I'm probably just wrong. Blackman does a really shitty job of pretending to think he had eliminated Chainsaw Charlie and therefore walking away. That sounds easy enough to do but he fucked it up. 


Here is why you ban the piledriver: because if you don't dudes like 8-Ball whoever that is will just pick up Terry Funk and piledrive him in a nothing spot in the middle of the Royal Rumble and you could really hurt him man he is old as hell. D-Lo Brown is in next and now we're a little over a third of the way in and so far this isn't great or anything but I enjoyed the Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie stuff at the beginning. The Rock hasn't done much yet but he's in there for the long haul no doubt. Actually the Rock and D-Lo just got into it a little bit and so one might say that the cracks are beginning to show in this nation devoted to domination? YEEEEAAAHHH IT IS KURRGAN THE INTERROGATOR who is from around here and used to wrestle as THE ACADIAN GIANT and I think he mostly acts now: my brother saw him at a sci-fi convention here a year ago. He eliminates Mosh straightaway and then begins to bellow things. We are probably not far from "The Oddities" as a thing are we? I really didn't like any of that stuff. 


Marvelous Marc Mero who is apparently a boxer of some kind is led to the ring by Sable and I am not a guy who is like "the ladies who you find attractive are insufficiently attractive to me and therefore I am superior to you" but Sable is not for me man not for me. Kurrgan has done away with Steve Blackman who in all honesty will probably not be missed. The Rock is really going after D-Lo here so maybe this is it for them as tenuous bros. Ken Shamrock is in and he goes right for Kurrgan and lol apparently part of Shamrock's gimmick was that he was good at kicking which really defies credulity. A bunch of guys including Shamrock band together to knock Kurrgan over the top and it is back to the Locker Room Area to enjoy some rappie pie and other traditional Acadian fare. Here comes Headbanger Thrasher in his Marilyn Manson t-shirt and Doc Marten-esque boots but his pal has already been eliminated which is too bad for him. MANKIND is next which is pretty cool and yeah I definitely have not seen this though of course I have heard about this. Foley eliminates Funk immediately and goes to work on the Rock. Shamrock and the Rock *renew acquaintances* a little later. 


At number seventeen it is Goldust and he is wearing not a speck of gold on his genuinely disturbing silver lamé ensemble topped with ladies underthings. He eliminates Mankind but I have a sneaking suspicion that is not all we are going to see of one M. Foley this evening. Here comes National Wrestling Alliance North American Champion Jeff Jarrett who does not have a guitar with him with which he can come off the top rope so there is little chance of him being the least bit passable here and OH MY here comes Owen Hart exacting revenge for earlier shenanigans and one wonders if he is a valid entrant at this point since he never entered the match when his number was originally called? Jarrett believes he has eliminated Owen but Hart *skins the cat* and Owen eliminates Jarrett and JR says "GOODBYE NWA" and ain't that the truth ladies and gentlemen. THE HONKY TONK MAN is out next as the Rock eliminates Shamrock, and European Champion HHH and his consort Chyna come out and nail Hart with a crutch so he's out now I guess AND IT IS AHMED JOHNSON WITH A BEANIE AND SOME DANGLY EARRINGS and he goes after D-Lo in the corner. Lawler acknowledges Honky Tonk Wayne as his cousin which I don't recall ever happening any other times. Here comes smilin' Mark Henry who has only recently joined the Nation of Domination and one wonders if he will own? Ross mentions that Henry is one of seventeen wrestlers making their Royal Rumble debut here which has got to be a non-1988 record. That is a ton of turnover in the midst of these Monday Night Wars. Henry is selling way too much for Ahmed Johnson imo he should be WORLD'S STRONGEST SLAMming him. Have I mentioned that there has been "word from the back" that Austin has been assaulted? They've been talking about that a little. Henry eliminates Johnson and also Phineas who lol absolutely creams the referee on the outside, just totally booted referee Jack Doane (I think that's right) in the head and he is down and quite possibly SHOOT down. Number twenty two comes and goes with no no entrant and there is speculation that it was Austin's number. Man how many dudes are there in the Nation of Domination? Here comes Kama Mustafa and he goes after 8-Ball who is somehow still out there.  


*glass break* DUN DUN DA DUN STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN and the entire match stops and everybody looks down the aisle HOWEVER Stone Cold has snuck in the ring from the other side! This is pretty cool. He dumps Mero and 8-Ball before he even gets his LEATHER VEST off and then actually he totally chokes D-Lo with that very vest which is also cool. Boy after that initial reaction from the crowd and also Mike Tyson they all quiet right back down in kind of a hurry which is odd. Henry Godwin in next and he is wearing a confederate flag t-shirt no doubt signifying his opposition to the war of northern aggression as it is sometimes called by distinguished historians. Uh next in we've got Savio Vega's whole gang? That doesn't seem right and fair to me. Vega has issues with Austin and HOLY SHIT Austin just ruined Goldust forever with a clothesline. You know what is weird though? This match isn't all that exciting right now. At number twenty-seven we hear the Nation of Domination song for the eightieth time tonight and it is Ron "Farooq" Simmons and wait wait wait wtf Austin is out? no wait the Rock threw him out between the ropes rather than over them OK. They are BRAWLING ON THE OUTSIDE in classic late 1990s style and that is the action the camera follows thus trivializing all of the trivial dudes doing trivial shit in the ring right now. 


DUUUUUDE LOVE YEEEEAHHHH and the crowd *does not care* which is weird. Foley knocks Bradshaw to the floor and Goldust is on the outside now but I think he went out through the ropes and now he is mixing it up with Austin on the outside . . . man they are having like some serious conceptual problems about how to integrate the main event-style brawling du jour with the Royal Rumble match itself and the seams are showing a little on this one. Who is CHAINZ? oh he is an Aryan biker I get it. The crowd is silent with one man to go and that man is VADER THAT BIG OL' STINKY GRIZZLY BEAR as Jim Ross puts it here. Vader has the temerity and utter gall to eliminate the Honky Tonk Man so who do we have left here, we've got Vader, Goldust, Foley, Austin, Chainz, Godwin, Kama, the Rock, Thrasher, Mark Henry, Farooq, D-Lo and Savio Vega. Again I am struck by the near total indifference of the crowd. I mean, they are pleased when Austin gets rid of first Thrasher and then Kama but not like *super* pleased. He gets Savio, too, just before Goldust clotheslines Vader out which is kind of surprising. Godwin runs at Foley but misses and he's gone. Chainz tosses Goldust, so so much for Goldust seeming like a cool guy for eliminating Vader. I think Austin eliminated Chainz? Farooq got Mark Henry I think. This is not that clear. All of a sudden we are down to the final four which consists of former tag team champions Steve Austin and Dude Love along with Farooq and the Rock and lol it is SWEET SHIN MUSIC into a double-arm DDT. Foley then secures a Mandible Claw on Stone Cold who kicks him in the groin allowing Farooq to get the best of him alas Mick Foley it is not to be. Farooq is working Austin over in the corner but the Rock sneaks up from behind and dumps him so we've got STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN and THE ROCK and YEEEEAAAHH says the crowd for like a second and then it is like, near elimination, STONE COLD STUNNER, very real elimination and YEEEEEAAAAHHHH THIS IS WHAT WE ALL WANTED TO HAPPEN RIGHT but guys I don't know what to tell you other than that this was not that awesome. Like, without question this totally had to be the STONE COLD WINS THE ROYAL RUMBLE Royal Rumble and that happened so that's good but there was almost nothing cool that happened here. Even the Mick Foley triple entry thing was neat but in the building nobody cared and they didn't make as big a deal of it as you might expect on commentary; they were pretty much like "hey that's sumthin' I guess." An indifferent crowd fixed an indifferent Royal Rumble match squarely in its sights and I am on the whole pretty surprised that wasn't better. 


INTENSE MAN COLD STONE IS MY MAN are Mike Tyson's words to Michael Cole. A video package shows us highlights of Shawn Michaels and Undertaker performances that I have got to think outstrip anything that we're about to see here, right? Because that Hell in A Cell match was awesome and I don't think anybody ever talks about how their Royal Rumble match is actually the honey but we'll see. If I am remembering right HBK was at or near the peak of his being hard to deal with here, right? So maybe he'll fuck around out there and it will be funny. Oh fuck me it's a casket match. Jim Ross says that Michaels is the only guy to win every title in the World Wrestling Federation which reminds me that oh yeah he totally won the European Title which seemed as though it had been created for the express purpose of giving the Bulldog a big win in England or something, right? Triple H is our current European champion here as I mentioned previously but in my view the European title did not come into its own until one time Christian was like "AT LAST I WILL BE THE CHAMPION . . . OF EUROPE" or something and then a moment after that the European title fell out of its own after only recently having come into it man it was sad. The Undertaker comes out last despite his status as the challenger and as the lights are down we can see that about thirty dudes have laser pointers here. 


Michaels takes a pretty nasty spill to the outside in the early going in which he ricochets off the casket which looks like it fuckin hurt but on the whole I'm just not that into getting into and then out of a casket quickly as a substitute for like near falls and submission attempts and deride me as a traditionalist if you must because of those beliefs. Michaels is generally awesome at selling in a slightly broad and cartoonish way but there are a couple of moments here where I wonder if he's slightly being a dick by overdoing it; there's nothing near Hulk Hogan at THE SUMMERLSAM level or anything and maybe he is just *working zany* we might say but it seems odd. HBK is into and out of the casket which I initially mistyped as "cakety" and hooray however while in there he seems to have come across some sort of powder which he throws in the eyes of THE DEAD MAN which we see again in a replay from the perspective of CASKET CAM. What's up French announce table? Believe it or not this professional wrestling match from 1998 has gone to the outside for a prolonged period of time which is in fact only appropriate in this no-disqualification contest in which AN AMAZING FUCKING PILEDRIVER ON THE STEEL STEPS BY THE HEARTBREAK KID SHAWN MICHAELS JESUS CHRIST is as legal as a wrist lock. That was sooooo cool but now Triple H is assaulting the Undetaker with his crutch and what is not cool about this is that he is wearing his European title belt firmly affixed around his waist the whole time and he looks like A DOOFUS in the mold of mixed martial arts champion Tim Sylvia.


This is a good match so far but the crowd is listless as Michaels applies the sleeper hold and Jim Ross suggests that the Undertaker might be sleeping one off in the casket and I am like lol yeah maybe BUT NO the Undertaker escapes. A really nice elbow drop from the top and JR is like NOBODY IN OUR INDUSTRY DELIVERS IT BETTER in an obvious and unacceptable dig at "Macho Man" Randy Savage however now I can say with confidence that Michaels' top rope elbow is waaaaaay better than CM Punk's because I have seen both on the same day. After SWEET CHIN MUSIC which is not as cool as calling it a superkick imo Shawn Michaels rolls the Undertaker into the casket and crotch chops in the direction of his foe who then goozles him and GOES ON OFFENSE for like a second and then lololol Undertaker rolls into the casket for basically no reason and then once there realizes he is in the wrong position so he totally turns around head-to-toe style and then Michaels comes off the top rope with what they generously call an elbow drop and the lid closes on both of them and it is seven minutes of heaven I guess. Back in the ring we get a chokeslam and then aaaaaaaaahahahaha a jumping tombstone from the apron into the casket HOWEVER Chyna has mauled the referee and D-X and Savio and his dudes all hit the ring and then the lights go down AND IT IS KANE COMING TO HELP HIS BROTHER Jim Ross speculates and lol he goes on from there actually: "AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE OF THE BROTHERS OF THE NIGHT; KANE IS COMING TO HELP HIS BROTHER; BUSINESS IS ABOUT TO PICK UP!"  Kane clears the ring but I wonder what happens next because it would not surprise me at all if YES INDEED Kane has turned on his very own brother of the night thus rupturing their unholy alliance. A very shitty chokeslam into the casket follows. That's the finish I guess. Paul Bearer is out of makeup and also out at ringside as the casket is locked and wheeled away and casket matches suuuuuuuuuuuuuck ladies and gentlemen and the only things that can make them watchable in the least are: (i) rad piledrivers on the steps and (ii) tombstone piledrivers from the apron to the casket HOWEVER you can undo a lot of that good by carrying on after the match and that is what is happening now as Kane is hacking away at the casket with a fuckin ax and pouring gasoline all over the thing and this is stuuuuuuuuuupid AND MAH GAWD THE CASKET'S ON FIRE THE UNDERTAKER IS IN THE CASKET and then in an a WWF HOME VIDEO EXCLUSIVE we get another minute or so of this horseshit and we are treated to seeing crew put out THIS INFERNAL BLAZE MY GOD while the crowd is like "ok I guess?" They open the casket and are stunned to find not the charred remains of a guy who has just been murdered on TV but instead NOTHING AT ALL and the voice of the Undertaker goes KANE UNTIL OUR PATHS CROSS AGAIN I SHALL NEVER REST . . . IN PEACE and what a dumb fucking thing that was. The Undertaker's streak of getting his shit pushed in at the Royal Rumble remains in tact. 


A surprisingly shitty Royal Rumble on the whole, then: Vader/Goldust had a great finish, the minis six-man tag was totally good, and the Rock and Ken Shamrock was *totally* totally good; but the L.O.D. v. N.A.O. match was A COMPLETE DEBACLE as was sometimes said in Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game, and then the Royal Rumble match itself was surprisingly flat and there was really an awful lot of nonsense surrounding a couple of really cool moves in the title match. I'm as surprised as you maybe also are perhaps.