wrestling / Video Reviews
Dark Pegasus Video Review: King of the Ring 1993
August 28, 2008 | Posted by
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| King of the Ring 1993 by J.D. Dunn This is one I skipped over during my WWE PPV run, so here it is. Bret was stumbling around after losing the title, and they didn’t really know what to do with him because he was the most over regular wrestler on the roster, but Vince didn’t have confidence in him to carry the company. This PPV was an attempt to do *something* to placate Bret’s vocal fans. The fans are all over Razor for losing to the 1-2-3 Kid. Bret controls for a long period with a hammerlock. He misses a charge and posts his shoulder, though. Razor drops a few elbows for nearfalls. Bret comes back with the usual and blocks the Razor’s Edge. He walks up the ropes, goes over Razor’s shoulders and small packages him for a close, close nearfall. Bret stops to argue with the ref, so Razor clotheslines him and sets up for the Backdrop Superplex. Bret reverses in mid-air, though, and lands on top for the win at 10:27. Solid match that showed Bret’s ability to strategize and his craftiness too. **1/2 Ah, Mr. Hughes — the Big Daddy V of his era. Mr. Perfect actually had a fantastic series of matches with Doink the Clown (the Matt Bourne version) to qualify for this. Hughes actually moves quite well early on. He decides he’s a big, angry black man, though, and starts no-selling. Perfect bounces around like a Superball (as usual) for Hughes. Hughes blows something, so Perfect decides to make the comeback quick before he gets his neck broken. He hiptosses Hughes and backdrops him, both of which look physically impossible. That sets up the flipping neckbreaker, but Hughes grabs the Undertaker’s stolen urn and wallops Perfect for the DQ at 6:01. Normally, I’d complain about a DQ as lame as that, but it sets up Perfect vs. Bret. 3/4* Ross is just itching to run through Hacksaw’s football career. Duggan hits a series of clotheslines early, knocking Bigelow to the floor. Back in, Duggan slugs away but misses a charge and hurts his ribs. He can’t power Bigelow up for a slam, and Bigelow is able to scoop him up for a bearhug to work the ribs even more. Duggan fights out of it and goes for another slam but collapses. He fights back once more and *finally* gets that bodyslam he was looking for. He misses the 3-Point Clothesline, though, and gets finished off by the diving headbutt at 4:58. I liked the little storyline revolving around the bodyslam, but that’s all there was to the match. * The referees make Luger cover up the steel plate in his forearm. Both guys were undefeated at this point, which should tell you the finish right away. His advantage gone, Luger attacks Tatanka as he’s getting in the ring. Tatanka fights back and tips Luger’s standing mirror over on him. Tatanka grabs a wristlock, and there’s the bulk of the match. We get a word from Bigelow who wants to wrestle Tatanka in the next round. Lex takes over… and there’s nothin’ happenin’. Luger actually hits his flying elbow, but it only gets two. Tatanka fights out of a chinlock, but Luger yanks him down by the hair. Tatanka keeps getting rollup to keep the fans in it. Heenan: These guys are living on the edge. Yeah, the edge of Suck Cliff. Finally, he makes the big comeback gets several nearfalls – chops, sunset flip, powerslam. Luger cuts him off, though, about 14 minute in and hits a suplex. He walks around for a while, though. A front backbreaker gets two for Luger, but time expires at 15:00. Luger is good enough to be carried for 15 minutes. Tatanka is good enough to be carried for 15 minutes. Neither guy was good enough to carry the other for 15 minutes. Bigelow moves on to the finals. *1/2 The winner goes on to face a rested Bam Bam Bigelow. Bret and Perfect do some nice reversals off Bret’s attempts to hold a headlock. Bret gets two off a surprise Crucifix. Bret crossbodies him for two, but Perfect’s kickout sends him all the way to the floor. Bret rams him in the gut and sunset flips him for two. Perfect shoves him to the ropes and knees Bret in the gut. A standing dropkick sends Bret to the floor. Perfect holds the ropes for Bret to get back in and then kicks Bret when he’s halfway through. Well, Bret really should know better. Perfect takes him back out and moidahs him with a chop. Heenan offers to take Perfect back as Perfect slingshots Bret off the apron to the security rail. JR busts out “sickening thud.” Back in, Perfect comes off the top with a missile dropkick. ONE, TWO, THR-FOOT ON THE ROPES! Bret takes the “Bret Bump” to the corner. Perfect gets another two and goes up again. Bret catches him and superplexes him. ONE,TWO, TH-NO! Brain is starting to root for Perfect, I assume out of habit. Bret starts kicking Perfect’s legs out from under him and applies a figure-four leglock. YOU LOVE THIS MATCH! Perfect scratches to the ropes. The crowd gives him a mixed reaction. Perfect stomps on Bret’s face to get out of a spinning leglock; then he tosses Bret across the ring with two handfuls of hair. Perfect locks in a sleeper. Bret makes the ropes. Perfect chops him and slaps the hold on again, wrenching Bret’s neck back and forth. Bret rams Perfect’s head into the turnbuckle and tosses him across the ring by two handfuls of hair. Receipts are a bitch, baby. Bret with the usual, but Perfect keeps kicking out. Bret goes for the Sharpshooter, but Perfect squeezes his broken fingers. AWESOME! Perfect goes for the Perfectplex, but Bret counters and suplexes them both over the top rope to the floor. Perfect rolls back into the ring and feigns injury. Bret moves in for the kill, but Perfect pops up suddenly and small packages him! ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Bret shifts his weight to his own small package! ONE, TWO, THREE! Bret moves on in the best match in King of the Ring history at 18:55. Perfect can’t believe it. He teases decking Bret before eventually shaking his hand. Aww. A nearly flawless match plus a classy ending between two babyfaces. ****3/4 Hogan was scheduled to put Bret over at Summerslam, but he decided he didn’t want to do that. Vince decided he’d just put Yokozuna over and find a new Hogan. That’s why we got the Lex Express debacle. Yoko takes over pretty quickly and squashes Hogan for a while. Hulk comes back but can’t slam the big guy. Yoko clubs him down with a clothesline but misses a splash. Hogan slugs his way out of a bearhug but runs into a back elbow. Yoko hits a belly-to-belly suplex. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Hogan hulks up. It’s over, right? WRONG! Hogan hits the Usual and drops the leg. ONE – No way! Yoko kicks out. Hogan is confused, and so are half the fans. A cameraman jumps up on the apron for a closer look, so Hogan goes over to him like an idiot. The flash goes off in Hogan’s face, disorienting him long enough for Yoko to finish with a legdrop at 13:10. New champ. And the fan in the front row dressed as Hogan will never love again. Yoko adds a Banzai Drop to send Hogan packing for nearly a decade. And with that, Hulkamania was dead in the WWF. * Well, *someone* had to follow the title match. The Gunns are Bart (who still wrestles in Japan as far as I know) and Billy (Kip, the guy who wears Torrie Wilson’s old clothes in TNA). The Steiners, you know. Dibiase and IRS, you know. The Headshrinkers are Samu (who never amounted to much) and Fatu (who went on to fame as Rikishi). The match is nothing, although it looks good in the early going. The finish sees Billy Gunn get the hot tag but get hot-shotted by Dibiase. Dibiase is about to finish him off with the Million Dollar Dream. Instead, Dibiase drops it for no reason and gets small packaged at 7:02. Disappointing match with a bad finish. * You gotta wonder what would have happened had Vince gone with Crush instead of Luger as “the Next Hogan.” I think we might have had flying cars in that alternate timeline. Crush steamrolls over Michaels and then uses his quickness to knock Shawn to the floor. Crush starts to get really over with a Military Press and a tilt-o-whirl backbreaker. Diesel yanks Shawn to the floor to save him. Crush hops down and gets in Diesel’s face, so Shawn comes off the apron and shoves Crush into the post. Back in, Shawn covers. ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Shawn grabs a front facelock, boring the fans. Crush powers up and tosses Shawn around. In fact, he tosses him right over the top rope to the floor. Shawn comes off the top, but Crush sidesteps him. A sideslam gets two. Crush hits a big boot and a legdrop (hmmm) for two, and Crush clotheslines him to the floor. A pair of Doinks stalk their way down to the ring. I think the stogie completes the evil clown image. Crush stops to yell at them and gets superkicked at 11:14. Crush and Shawn had some good matches. This is not one of them. This was about average until the silly ending. Second bad ending in a row, and that’s only if I don’t count the cameraman in an awful, fake beard interfering a bad finish. ** Bigelow quickly overpowers Bret and tosses him all the way to the floor. Back in, Bigelow drops a headbutt and whips Bret into the buckle. Bret fires back but gets sent into the buckle again. More headbutts, and Bigelow grabs a bearhug. Bigelow gets bored with that even before the fans have a chance to, so he suplexes Bret and tosses him to the floor. Bret reverses a whip, sending Bigelow into the steel railing. Bret tries to capitalize by jumping off the railing, but Bigelow catches him and rams him into the post. Luna Vachon steals down to ringside and hits Bret with a chair while Bigelow distracts the ref. Back in, Bigelow hits the diving headbutt for the win at 9:26. Earl Hebner runs down and tells the original ref what happened, so they restart the match. Bigelow is pissed now. He goes after Bret’s back with headbutts. A headbutt to the face puts Bret down. Back to the bearhug and then to a Canadian Backbreaker. Bret slips out of that and backdrops Bigelow. Bigelow misses a senton but goes back to the Canadian Backbreaker. Bret grab a handful of Bigelow’s face and counters to a sleeper. Bigelow snaps him to the mat, but Bret dumps him to the floor. That sets up a pescado. Back in, Bret hits a flying clothesline for two and a bulldog for two more. Bigelow blocks the Sharpshooter and grabs a bearhug. Bret gets out of it again and tries a backdrop suplex. Bigelow shifts and gets two (using Bret’s own counter from earlier against him). He picks Bret up, but Bret hops up on his shoulders and finishes with the Victory Roll at 18:19. Good big-man-vs.-little-man contest. No one knew how to tell a story quite like Bret, and Bigelow was one of the better big men in the business – second only to Vader. *** |
The 411:Â Worth a look for Bret's performance throughout the show and for the last Hogan match until 2002. 1993 was a transition year from Hogan and Friends to "The New WWF Generation." Even though that was a slow, painful process, it is kind of fun to look back and see the origins of Bret, Shawn and the gang. Thumbs up. |
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| Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]  legend |
