Percival Pringle III / Paul Bearer: 1953-2013

WWE Elimination Chamber 2013

 Here is this!

Team Rhodes Scholars vs Brodus Clay & Tensai

Despite breaking up the Rhodes/Sandow team, they've got fuck all nothin' to do with either of them, so they came up with a flimsy reason to put them in the free match against the fat dancers, who soon will have fit and chiseled competition from FahnDONgooo. It was a reunion, b/c the fans wanted it, which of course the fans did not, BOO. Still, this was less flimsy than the deplorable Matt Striker attempting to explain why Clay took a back bump when he was dropkicked in the back of the head by Sandow as he had Rhodes in his clutches. Striker, who does get credit for thinking fast, I'll say that, explained that Rhodes pushed off which caused Brodus to fall backwards. It was stupid, but what can you do? Brodus & Tensai are a fucking awful tag team with no chemistry but like a dickhead wearing a unicorn t-shirt because he has no actual personality, they have been thrown together because it's funny that they're fat and dance. They won, because the WWE tag team division is "back," which means it has two meaningful teams at a time and guys who wrestle on the Ion channel and the internet. Brodus & Tensai might get to be one. They might not.

WWE Royal Rumble (January 27, 2013)

Hello.

World Heavyweight Championship, Last Man Standing: The Big Show vs Alberto Del Rio (c)

This was pretty good, and the table chokeslam off the set was pretty sweet. Big Show has started to operate at an oddly high level the last couple of years, I feel like -- he might be better now than he ever really was before. He's smart and knows how to keep shit interesting. I will say he went to the chest slap about six times too often. Del Rio the babyface will work so long as they don't fuck it up; his music alone is worth cheering, and he's easy to like when you simply drop the heel tactics. Some guys aren't; I don't know that Miz will ever really work as a babyface, for instance. Del Rio retaining was obviously the right move.

WWF fans react to Shawn Michaels costing The Undertaker the WWF Championship

"The Undertaker got robbed! Shawn Michaels is a piece of crap!"

"It was a travesty of justice!" 

"I think Shawn Michaels is a traitor. I think he did it on purpose."

WWF SummerSlam (August 3, 1997)

The Summer Slam was always Bret Hart's favorite event. Or at least I like to pretend it was, because I barely recall him saying many other show names, but he said The Summer Slam a lot.

Coming into this event, Bret Hart was named No. 1 contender for the WWF title the night after Canadian Stampede, which deserved some explaining, really, but mostly it was forgivable if only because The Undertaker wouldn't be wrestling Faarooq, Vader, or Ahmed Johnson instead. Bret had taken off as the company's clear top heel, and at any rate, Undertaker had that whole dead brother thing going on anyway, and the title needed to go elsewhere. Bret promised to never wrestle on American soil again if he lost, so it was quite clear he would win. Shawn Michaels was named the special referee.

Stone Cold was on his first truly serious pursuit of a singles title, targeting Owen Hart and the Intercontinental belt. Austin said if he didn't win the title, he'd kiss Owen's ass, so it was pretty clear Austin would win.

The Patriot debuted! He got a win over Bret, thanks to Shawn. The Patriot was a curious hire on paper, since he wasn't particularly good, but they would need a stopgap main event foe for Hart in the near future, so he got the job. There have been worse hires.

The Mankind-Helmsley feud continued, even though Foley worked as Dude Love for a while, too. There was an awesome flag match on Raw. Goldust and Brian Pillman started their deal. The LOD drifted aimlessly with no real purpose to their existence. Davey Boy and Ken Shamrock got into it some. And that's where the show came from. Hooray! August 3, 1997, at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, NJ.

WWF Canadian Stampede (July 6, 1997)

And here's where it starts really getting good.

This show is considered one of the top-to-bottom best WWF pay-per-views ever, with no bad matches, some new flavor (that didn't last long, but whatever) on the undercard, and one of the hottest crowds ever for the main event in particular.

It's a show that can't really be duplicated. The Hart Foundation thing was damn impressive to pull off, with the group huge babyfaces in Canada -- particularly Calgary -- and major heels in the United States. I don't know that there has been a Canadian wrestler since Bret Hart to even come close to the level of love he received from that audience, and the Hart name itself meant something that almost surely, no other name will ever mean in Canadian wrestler. Texas will never have another Von Erich dynasty, and Canada will never have another Hart family.

By now, Paul Bearer has revealed his secret, that The Undertaker killed his parents and fucked up his brother, shockingly named Kane (weird parents), and that he'd been in contact with Kane. Undertaker was set up to face Vader for the WWF title on this show, as all the real contenders were kind of busy with other stuff going on, and, well, Vader's right there.

Also, Mankind and Hunter Hearst Helmsley have continued their feud, and get more chances to have a better match than their KOTR final.

July 6, 1997, from the Saddledome in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

WWF King of the Ring (June 8, 1997)

After Cold Day in Hell, Shawn Michaels returned to active duty in the WWF and hooked up with Stone Cold Steve Austin to beat Davey Boy Smith and Owen Hart for the tag titles, but they still didn't get along, because why would they? Even though Shawn wore a little headband and a t-shirt and jeans combo sometimes to fit in more with the changing tone of the WWF, he was still Shawn Michaels: Sexy Boy! Not Your Boy Toy! Heartbreak Kid! Teehee!, and that was just not Stone Cold's style, brah.

We've got Undertaker back with Paul Bearer because he has to be, what with Bearer knowing Undertaker's biggest secret and all. We've got the King of the Ring tournament, in which Hunter Hearst Helmsley originally lost to Ahmed Johnson in round one, only to get another spot in the tournament (beating Crush) after threatening to sue the WWF. Vader's continued push into irrelevance following the Kuwait thing helped, too.

Anyway, let's get on with the show. June 8 at the Civic Center in Providence, Rhode Island. Vince and JR have the call, since Lawler's in the tournament.

WWF A Cold Day in Hell (May 11, 1997)

This must be the most cheap-assed looking video cover they ever made. Holy cow. Look at those fonts.

May 11, 1997, from the Richmond Coliseum in Richmond, VA. Todd Pettengill opens up the broadcast with some of his usual clueless putz bullshit on the Free For All, but then it's right into action. OH BOY

Double J Jesse James vs Rockabilly (w/Honky Tonk Man)

This is the sort of feud that was really going places, obviously. Following their crowd-pleasing classic at Revenge of the 'Taker, the stakes really got raised when Honky Tonk Man hit Double J with a guitar on Raw and nobody gave a fuck. Backstage, Ken Shamrock is "shaken up" after an attack by Vader and Mankind, but he's OK and calm and "in the zone," says Todd. Todd makes faces. Just like last month, these two dopes can't do anything to make the crowd care, even though frankly the match is fine. Rockabilly wins with a DDT.

I just can't believe that Rockabilly didn't work out. Such a boss character. Money all over.

WWF Revenge of the 'Taker (April 20, 1997)

April 20, 1997, at the War Memorial Auditorium in Rochester, NY. For the life of me, I don't recall ever watching this show before.

On the Free For All, Handsome Dok Hendrix yaks at me about the sold-out building and kicks it down to The King, JR, and Vince Mackman.

Between WrestleMania 13 and this show, Sid disappeared, Paul Bearer failed to reunite with Undertaker, and Bret Hart stopped brother Owen and brother-in-law Davey Boy Smith from fighting anymore, uniting them for common goals n shit.

The Sultan (w/The Iron Sheik & Bob Backlund) vs Flash Funk (w/The Funkettes)

McMahon reckons that Flash Funk is often too eager to appease the audience. Flash tries a huracanrana from the top and gets powerbombed, and he loses in, like, two or three minutes. Poor Flash Funk. I think this was about when he was written off as a guy with a long entrance and a couple of carnal urban babes trailing him, but not WWF material. This isn't surprising, really, as much as I dig on some 2 Cold Scorpio. He ain't WWF-y. Never was.

WWF WrestleMania 13 (March 23, 1997)

WrestleMania 13 wasn't great. I don't even recall it being good, really, besides one match, and that's the only reason the show is remembered much at all aside from being WrestleMania. I haven't watched the full show in years now, so maybe I'll be gladly proven wrong, but I doubt it.

The lead-in Raw was one of my favorite episodes of the show, with the Sid-Bret cage match, and both scheduled Mania opponents (Undertaker and Austin) trying to interfere to help their upcoming foe win the match, thus securing a title shot for them at the big show, and Bret dropping "goddamn" and "bullshit" on Vince in the ring, plus Austin saying Bret was too big of a loser to win even with his help, and the four of them brawling as the show closed.

The best thing about this show, from a personal standpoint, is that it was the first WrestleMania I ever saw live. A few months prior I had purchased Starrcade '96, which was my first-ever live, unscrambled wrestling PPV. That became the routine: Starrcade with Christmas money, WrestleMania with March birthday money. But I watched them all live; either the audio was good enough on the PPV channel that it was like listening to a radio broadcast, or the audio was pretty good AND you could make out enough of the video for it to be a totally great and punk rock experience, fuck the man, not paying your hard-earned $29.95 for the blowoffs to all the Raw and Nitro feuds.

This year... a tempest engulfs utopia. This year... clouds of hatred and anger have eclipsed the heavens, shed darkness upon the Gods. We've watched as our heroes stepped down from their pedestals, witnessed malicious attacks by a depraved nation, beheld the dark, disturbing flashes from a once benevolent force.

THE SHOWCASE OF THE IMMORTALS