Date: 01/24/1993

Location: Sacramento, CA

Announcers: Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan

The Setup

This was the first Rumble where the winner got a WWF title shot at WrestleMania after some disappointing PPV business performances leading to this. This also featured Razor Ramon’s first WWF title challenge on a PPV, after only being on TV for a little over seven months.

Business Notes 

VSplanet.com listed the show at 268,000 PPV buys, ranking in third place of the four WWF’s PPV that year, behind Wrestlemania and Summerslam. They also ranked second in the five Rumble PPVs until that point, trailing the 1991 version, headlined by the show’s first-ever WWF title match, Ultimate Warrior defending against Sgt. Slaughter (440k PPV buys). Overall, while a pretty low number by their previous boom standards for a PPV, it had to be somewhat encouraging to know the show did better than the prior year, when the winner of the Rumble won the title, guaranteeing a new WWF champion (260,000 buys). 

Prowrestlinghistory.com has an attendance of 16,000 for a $187,000 gate in their PPV debut in Sacramento. 

Results/Ratings 

Steiners def. Beverly Brothers in 10:33  ***1/2 

Intercontinental Title Match: Shawn Michaels (C) def. Marty Jannetty in 14 20 ***3/4 

Bam Bam Bigelow def. Big Bossman in 10:10 **1/2

WWF Title Match: Bret Hart (C) def. Razor Ramon in 17:52 ***1/4

Yokozuna won a Royal Rumble in 66:35 **1/4

Snap Bumps 

-When the Rumble came down to Savage and Yokozuna at the end, I remember watching this live and thinking Savage had to win because of his level of stardom, but they were pushing Yokozuna hard for a main event role. He had seven solo eliminations, a new record at the time, including Earthquake to prove who the real sumo and big man was. 

-Giant Gonzalez debuted, illegally threw Undertaker out of the Rumble and sucked pretty hard. I understand why they didn’t want to go with El Gigante’s old gear, which looked like it was both from Big 5 and not microwave safe, but the furred bodysuit was a fashion faux pas as unforgiving as socks with sandals. 

-Flair was in this match, despite already losing the taped “Loser Leaves the WWF” match against Mr. Perfect on Raw. He would finish up on their European tour in February. 

-The Rumble itself was largely pretty dull. There was a lot of filler in this one. 

-This was, of course, the debut of the Narcissist Lex Luger, where Bobby Heenan orgasmically and repeatedly screamed “Yes!” to the crowd during Lex’s posing routine. The crowd initially popped when they heard Luger’s name, but didn’t know how to respond to Heenan spooging on live TV. 

-Scott Hall had a bad wheel, but Bret still carried him to a good match. If there was a problem, the match had no big match feel at all for a WWF title match. Razor was extremely new to the company, and as much as I loved Bret at the time, I don’t think he hit that believable main eventer role until his second reign in 1994. 

-This was the first Rumble where the winner got the title shot at Mania. 

-This was, unfortunately, Razor’s only chance at a WWF title PPV match. 

-Bigelow and Bossman didn’t work bad, but it had so little heat. 

-They did a finish in the IC title match where Sherri accidentally cost Marty the match, which was a good finish to set up a Mania match that would have happened had Marty not been shitcanned, as he would be repeatedly in his career. I remember their Raw matches being better, but this was the best match on the show.

-Because Marty was fired earlier, it took over a year to finally get the Barber Shop angle into the ring.

-I believe this was their first “outsider” entrants’ Rumble match, with Tenryu and Carlos Colon appearing. This is the show where Gorilla facetiously calls the near discount-age Colon “young man.” 

-Bruce Prichard revealed on his podcast that there was at least some discussion about bringing in Scott Steiner as a surprise entrant who would win the match and wrestle Bret at Mania. What a match that would have been, and imagine how wrestling history would have changed after that.

-The Steiners/Beverlys tag may have been the best Steiners tag of their WWF run, which is a textbook example of damning with faint praise, but it was still really good. These two teams had good chemistry going back to when the Bevs were Minnesota Wrescking Crew 2 in WCW. It showed. I hated the Beverlys’ gimmick and their booking for their entire run. What a waste of talent. 

-This was Flair’s last PPV match until Royal Rumble 2002, when he faced Vince in a street fight. 

-Bob Backlund was the Iron Man, going 61:10 and placing just fifty-two seconds behind Flair’s 1992 Rumble win. He also eliminated Fatu and Rick Martel. This turned into nothing, as Backlund lost to Razor quickly at Mania. 

Rating: Thumbs Up 

The undercard saved a very so-so Rumble to give the show this rating. There were just too many people in the Rumble match that didn’t have a chance of wrestling Bret Hart at Wrestlemania to be too much fun, but the rest of the show is a breeze. Plus, Bobby announcing Lex is an all-timer. This was a perfectly fun wrestling show overall.