Dark Pegasus Video Review: The Best of King of the Ring (Disc One)

The Best of the King of the Ring by J.D. Dunn Twitter.com/jddunn411 Facebook.com/jddunn411 Oh hai easy review! I do so love these. Why? Well, I’ll let Bruno Mars explain. Your host is King Booker. You know, I would be perfectly happy if they brought back the King of the Ring on TV and then held only the finals on PPV. At least then they’d be paying homage to a “prestigious” concept that still exists. They actually acknowledge the 1985 King of the Ring, but it wasn’t until 1993 where it became a big deal. In order, the past winners are Don Muraco (1985), Harley Race (1986), Randy Savage (1987), Ted Dibiase (1988), Tito Santana (1989), Bret Hart (1991). They don’t mention winners in 1990 or 1992, so it must have been Chris Benoit. Finally, the King of the Ring made it to PPV in a one-night tournament. King of the Ring Finals: Bret Hart vs. Bam Bam Bigelow (06/13/93). 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. *** WWF Heavyweight Title: Hulk Hogan (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. Yokozuna (w/Mr. Fuji – 06/13/93). 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. * King of the Ring Finals: Razor Ramon vs. Owen Hart (06/19/94). Interesting note: Owen has not cheated to any real degree thus far. He doesn’t even cheat that much here early on. Instead, he just relies on being a prick to get heel heat. It works too. Art cleverly changes his pick from Razor to Owen near the opening. Okay, we have Gorilla, Savage, Todd Pettingill, and Johnny Polo all predicting winners – AND ART DONOVAN PICKS IT RIGHT?! Owen gets a rope-assisted abdominal stretch. Ah, there’s the cheating. Razor blocks a hiptoss and chokeslams him for two. Owen goes up for a moonsault but gets caught with a backdrop superplex. That’s actually close to the finish of the opener. Razor signals for the Razor’s Edge, but he’s too close to the edge, so Owen backdrops him over. Jim Neidhart runs down and clotheslines Razor to the shock and horror of the fans. Owen drops an elbow off the top and picks up the win at 6:35. The New Foundation puts the boots to Ramon and gives him the Hart Attack. This was actually brilliant booking on the part of the WWF because Owen had been under the radar throughout most of the show, quickly and quietly beating his opponents without much of a fuss. Then, Neidhart comes down and sneak attacks Ramon, and it all makes sense in retrospect. Neidhart attacked Diesel so that Bret would have the title when he and Owen met at Summerslam because Neidhart was working with Owen all along. Why? Because Neidhart blamed Bret for throwing him overboard when Bret went off on his singles career. See, this is what we call a completely logical swerve, Vince Russo. *3/4 Kiss-My-Foot Match: Jerry Lawler vs. Bret Hart (06/25/95). How else would you blowoff a feud between two “kings?” We’re told that Lawler got ready for this match by training in horse stalls and refusing to wash his feet. Well, he’s from Tennessee. Isn’t that a bit redundant? Bret starts out hot but gets sent into the railing. The crowd gets on Lawler with a “Burger King” chant. Back in, Lawler hits THREE piledrivers. He takes his boot off and nails Bret with it, I guess in case dropping him directly on his head didn’t do the trick. The smell of Lawler’s feet seems to revive Bret, though, and he fights back. They brawl on the floor, and Hakushi and Shinja come down again. Hakushi’s interference backfires, though, and he takes out Lawler. Back in, Bret hits the usual and finishes with the Sharpshooter at 9:21. This would be Bret’s only win in this two-year feud. Bret fends off all the heels and sticks his toes in Lawler’s mouth. That’s not good enough, so Bret forces Lawler to kiss his own smelly foot. Lawler would be so traumatized by this that he’d have to go to a dentist to get the taste of de feet (heh) out of his mouth – a dentist named Isaac Yankem DDS. 1/2* Intercontinental Title: Goldust (w/Marlena) vs. Ahmed Johnson (06/23/96). Ahmed got knocked out by Owen Hart’s cast on an episode of Raw, so Goldust provided mouth-to-mouth with a side of tongue. Ahmed destroys Goldust to start and hits an over-the-top suicida. He tries to kill Goldie with the ringsteps, but Goldust rolls out of the way. Back in, Ahmed takes a wussy bump over the top to the floor to turn things around for Goldust. Goldust kills time with a chinlock. Ahmed blocks a sunset flip, but Goldust stays on top and covers… vertically… with genitals touching. Ahmed kicks out and misses a dropkick. Ahmed eventually “loses consciousness,” so Goldust gives him more mouth-to-mouth. It was all a ruse, though, and Ahmed goes nuts on him. QUEERIN’ DON’T MAKE THE WORLD WORK, SON! Spinebuster. Pearl River Plunge. Ahmed wins his first and only title at 15:33. Goldust would be retooled as just “kind of weird” instead of “kind of weird homosexual rapist.” Goldust was good at getting heat, but the match was slow and boring. *1/4 King of the Ring Finals: Steve Austin vs. Jake Roberts (06/23/96). Austin had just returned from getting stitches in his lip from the semifinals with Marc Mero. Jake was in even more dire straits, though, suffering internal injuries at the hands of Vader. Austin zeroes in on Jake’s ribs and shows no mercy. Austin’s body was still fairly normal at this point. He must have put on 20 pounds of muscle on his shoulders over the next two years. Gorilla Monsoon comes in and threatens to stop the match for Jake’s own good. Jake waves him off and suckerpunches Austin. Jake calls for the DDT, but Austin rams him into the corner, ramming the ribs again and again. Just when Jake is about to choke to death on his own blood (instead of the usual vomit), Austin hauls him up and finishes him with the Stone Cold Stunner at 4:37. Bad match, great story. * After the match, Austin delivers the promo that made him a star: “The first thing I want to be done, is to get that piece of crap out of my ring. Don’t just get him out of the ring, get him out of the WWF, because I proved, son, without a shadow of a doubt, that you ain’t got what it takes anymore! You sit there, and you thump your bible, and you say your prayers, and it didn’t get you anywhere. Talk about your Psalms, talk about John 3:16 – AUSTIN 3:16 SAYS I JUST WHIPPED YOUR ASS! All he’s gotta do is go buy him a cheap bottle of Thunderbird and try to get back some of that courage he had in his prime. As the king of the ring, I’m servin’ notice to every one of the ‘WW[F] superstars.’ I don’t give a damn what they are, they’re all on the list, and that’s Stone Cold’s list, and I’m fixin’ to start runnin’ through all of them. As far as this championship match is considered, son, I don’t give a damn if it’s Davey Boy Smith or Shawn Michaels. Steve Austin’s time has come, and when I get the shot, you’re lookin’ at the next WW[F] Champion, and that’s the bottom line because Stone Cold said so!”

The 411: Odd choices (no Bret vs. Perfect?), and they're shuffling things out of chronological order. Not exactly an auspicious start. It makes me think that, much like a Matchbox 20, there's probably enough good stuff for a two-disc "Best of" but not a three-disc set. I would have liked to have seen some of the pre-PPV stuff, but apparently it doesn't exist (or they're saving it for Blu-Ray).
Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]