WWF Royal Rumble, Tampa, FL
A request! It’s the finals of a WWF tag team title tournament at the Rumble, with two kinda makeshift teams reaching the final.
Bigelow and Tatanka had beaten Men on a Mission and the Headshrinkers to get here, while Kid and Bob had replaced the Smoking Gunns in the tournament (Bart was injured in a rodeo) and are on a Cinderella run, having beaten Well Dunn and the Heavenly Bodies.
Would Bigelow and Tatanka finally bring goooold to Ted DiBiase’s worst of all time stable? Boy it seems likely, what with them being bigger!
(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)
Backstage, Kid and Bob cut the level of promo you’d expect. Sparky compares them to the San Diego Chargers, who had made an underdog run to the upcoming Super Bowl. They lost to the 49ers, 49-26.
Also, the Smoking Gunns get to face the winners on Raw. This is stupid! Why do they just get a shot because stupid Bart got hurt at the damned old rodeo?!
Plugg and Tatanka start and you wouldn’t guess it, but Tatanka is stronger. Vince points out that Kid is a former tag champ while nobody else, even the great Tatanka and Bam Bam, has ever won a major championship in the WWF. Nor any minor or regional championships in the WWF, to my knowledge!
Holly breaks out a spinning headscissors and a couple of his dropkicks. Bigelow tags in and runs into a drop toe-hold, then runs through a double-team effort by the babyfaces and clotheslines them both down. Kid hits a rana out of what would, in modern theory, be a pop-up power bomb. This is that good action on pay-per-view. You don’t get this on the Action Zone.
DiBiase’s fellas try to isolate the Kid. Well, they do, they’re not “trying to.” Lawler with repeated, awful Sally Struthers jokes that he delivers with no comedic timing whatsoever as Vince refuses to play along.
It’s a physical mismatch where Kid and Bob stay in it with timing, craftiness, and some measure of luck. “You wonder who’s going to win this particular matchup,” says Vince McMahon: Certified Human Being. Vince is also “not so sure” that “the wrinkle-fairy did a tap dance” on Lou Albano’s face, despite Jerry Lawler’s information.
It’s fairly clear that the team with the actual better tag team chemistry here is Kid and Bob, while Tatanka and Bigelow are very much singles wrestlers doing a tag team match. This is something you’re left to pick up on as a viewer, and more likely just a reality of everyone’s skill sets than something deeper in understated Lore.
But you also have to consider that Holly in particular is really over-matched, on paper, against these guys. Kid might pull one of his big upsets, maybe, but Bigelow and Tatanka are always gonna beat Holly. So it’s really isolating Holly that works best for Bigelow and Tatanka, and Holly is terrific taking the beating, including staggering to the wrong corner and actually tagging Tatanka, which is basically a laugh for Bob’s opponents.
Neat spot where Tatanka rams Holly’s head into Bam Bam’s skull in their corner, then Holly throws some really shitty punches, which is not something he’s known for, but something that can happen to anyone. Maybe not Jerry Lawler.
Hot tag to Kid sees him coming in flying at Bam Bam, hitting the heel kick and a missile dropkick, then knocking Tatanka off the apron and slingshotting out with a somersault dive, which Vince calls a “moonsault.” He listens and learns something from Jim Ross one goddamn time, and it’s the thing Jim Ross constantly got wrong. Go figure.
Kid up top again and lands the crossbody on Bigelow, but Tatanka is there to break up the pin. Holly comes in and dropkicks Tatanka right back out. DiBiase on the apron, referee distracted, and Bigelow is sick of this shit, just LAUNCHING Kid over the top and down to the floor, with Tatanka stepping aside to let the Kid crash hard.
Kid back in, Bigelow slams him and goes up top, Tatanka stands in the way, then hits the ropes like an idiot, which knocks Bam Bam off. Holly again knocks Tatanka out of the ring, and now the Kid and Bam Bam are both down, and the Tampa crowd is rocking to rally the Kid. This match had no heat coming in, no real issue, this is all the result of a simple and plain good tag team wrestling match.
Eventually, Kid drapes an arm over Bigelow and gets the pin.
Post-match, of course, Bigelow and Lawrence Taylor, who is not exactly at a celebrity peak, get into their confrontation and set up WrestleMania. HE’S CRAZY, DAT GUY!
Everything that works here is earned in the ring with what these guys do. Tatanka is his usual self, in that he’s fine but does nothing you remember 12 seconds after the match is over, but Holly and Kid are fantastic, and Bigelow holds up his end with his physical presence. It’s not a special or great match, but it’s really good, a cool moment for a couple of midcard guys (which wouldn’t last), and one of the few matches involving DiBiase’s atrocious Million Dollar Corporation that is actually worth remembering.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 