Throwback Thursday: Looking back at WWE King of the Ring 1996
Each and every Thursday I will look back at a different pay-per-view event from the past via the WWE Network. Want to see a certain event covered? Send your suggestions to @VaughnMJohnson on Twitter.
Last time, I covered In Your House: Ground Zero.
WWE King of the Ring 1996
Date: June 23, 1996
Venue: MECCA Arena (now the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena), Milwaukee, Wisc.
Some random notes
This was the fourth annual King of the Ring pay-per-view. However, WWE began crowning a King of the Ring in 1985.
This particular edition of the King of the Ring was especially historic given the circumstances surrounding it. This event took place a little more than a month after Kevin Nash (Diesel) and Scott Hall (Razor Ramon) left WWE to head back to World Championship Wrestling.
Their final night in WWE was very eventful and had massive ramifications on the upcoming King of the Ring tournament.
On their final night in WWE, Nash and Hall took part in what is referred to as the "Curtain Call", when they embraced their real-life friends Shawn Michaels and Hunter Hearst Helmsley in the middle of the ring after a match in Madison Square Garden in New York.
While the embrace was a touching moment for the four friends, the rest of the wrestling industry frowned upon it, as it wasn't keen on on-screen good guys mingling with on-screen bad guys.
Despite having no issue with it at first, Vince McMahon felt the pressure of the rest of the locker room to respond. The problem was that his hands were virtually tied.
He couldn't punish Nash and Hall because they were heading to another promotion. That left Michaels and Helmsley. McMahon couldn't afford to punish Michaels, as he was the WWE champion at the time and was the company's top draw.
That left Helmsley, who didn't have nearly the leverage Michaels had. However, he was on the ascent and was slated to win that year's King of the Ring tournament. But after the incident in New York, that went up in smoke.
Helmsley's punishment began in earnest on this night, when he was relegated to a non-televised match against Aldo Montoya.
With Helmsley in the proverbial doghouse, that left McMahon to look elsewhere for his 1996 King of the Ring. He eventually settled on Steve Austin. The rest, as they say, is history.
Because Jerry "The King" Lawler was competing in a match, the commentary team was comprised of McMahon, Jim Ross and 1994 King of the Ring Owen Hart.
Owen Hart was hilarious on commentary, especially during the Intercontinental title match between Goldust and Ahmed Johnson, where he claimed that Goldust didn't try to kiss Johnson a month earlier, but that he saved his life by administering CPR.
Also making a non-wrestling appearance on the show was Brian Pillman, who had recently signed with WWE. Unfortunately, he was still nursing an ankle injury that he suffered during a car accident.
With that said, let's get to the matches.
King of the Ring (semifinals) – Steve Austin def. Marc Mero
The Stone Cold character was in its infancy stages at this point, as he didn't even have his iconic music yet. However, it was apparent that Austin was finding that character and had begun to unleash it on television.
Speaking of music, I completely forgot that Sable's iconic theme music once belonged to Mero when he was dubbed the "Wildman."
From an in-ring standpoint, Austin was still known for his technical prowess, which in hindsight is weird to hear. This was more than a year before his severe neck injury, which forced him to become more of a brawler than a mat technician.
Austin had just shed the ill-fated ringmaster persona, where the entire modus operandi of the character was to showcase his technique.
During the course of the match, Mero hit Austin with a dive to the outside of the ring, which caused bleeding in Austin's mouth. The injury forced him to go to the hospital during the show to receive 16 stitches. Remember this.
Austin shook off his busted mouth to hand Mero his first loss in WWE.
King of the Ring (semifinals) – Jake Roberts def. Vader
Roberts was presented as the sentimental favorite to win the King of the Ring, as he was the cagey veteran looking for one last hurrah at the top of WWE.
Roberts, who was 41 years old at the time, was very open about his issues with drug addiction and it was used as part of his redemption story. It is crazy to think that it would be nearly another two decades before Roberts would finally gain his true redemption.
On this night, the Cinderella story advanced to the finals of the King of the Ring when Vader was disqualified by the official, giving Roberts the victory. The finish was done to get Roberts into the finals without actually beating Vader, who was being prepped for a title match with Michaels at SummerSlam.
After the match, Vader beat up Roberts and even hit him with a Vader bomb, injuring his ribs. This meant you had a King of the Ring final where one man was injured in storyline and another that legitimately went to the hospital to receive stitches.
WWE Tag Team championship – The Smoking Gunns def. The Godwinns
If there was any indication how behind the times WWE was in look no further than The Godwinns.
They were hillbillies that came to the ring with goats and were supposed to be the babyfaces everyone could love. Why this was done in 1996 is beyond me.
The Smoking Gunns being tag team champions is probably another indication of how far WWE had fallen by 1996. Thankfully, Billy Gunn recovered by becoming one half of the New Age Outlaws.
Bart Gunn could have recovered when he won the Brawl 4 All tournament in 1998, but that was all erased when Eric "Butterbean" Esch nearly knocked his head clean off his shoulders at WrestleMania 15.
For whatever reason, WWE cut to an interview with the Bodydonnas' manager, Cloudy. Cloudy was supposed to be a woman, but was clearly a man dressed in drag. According to this web site, the part of Cloudy was played by independent wrestler "Handsome" Jimmy Shoulders.
Cloudy was replacing Sunny, who was managing The Smoking Gunns, as the Bodydonnas' manager. WWE thought it would be a good idea to have her, ahem, I mean him cut a brief promo during the match.
The match was pretty standard. It was nothing horrible but nothing great either. The best parts of this match were how Sunny looked in her outfit and the WWE Tag Team title belts.
Those belts were so amazing and I have been praying and hoping for years for WWE to go back to them at some point. The current ones look like big pennies.
The Ultimate Warrior def. Jerry Lawler
Lawler used his entrance to cut a scathing promo on the Milwaukee fans and their sports teams, specifically the Milwaukee Brewers.
One of the many insults Lawler hurled was to a child. He said, "Is that your face or did your neck throw up?" Damn, that harsh, but wonderful at the same time.
The Ultimate Warrior was still very over by this point, but he still felt very much like yesterday's news by 1996. While pop culture was getting more edgy, WWE still felt very cartoony and there was no bigger example than The Ultimate Warrior.
There wasn't much to speak of from the match. It was quick and The Ultimate Warrior won.
The most exciting part was McMahon trying very hard to make The Ultimate Warrior seem like the biggest deal ever on commentary.
Mankind def. The Undertaker
For what we know of him now, it is funny to think that the Santa Claus-loving Mick Foley once played a sick and deranged character known as Mankind.
Even crazier was that Mankind routinely got the better of The Undertaker in 1996, including on this night, when he beat The Undertaker in relatively clean fashion. I say relatively clean because it came after Paul Bearer inadvertently hit The Undertaker with the urn. That is about as clean as it gets when it comes to The Undertaker in 1996.
As far as the match, The Undertaker didn't make his iconic entrance. Instead, he ambushed Mankind by sneaking into the ring and climbing to the top rope. When the lights came back on the arena, The Undertaker delivered a flying clothesline to Mankind to start the match.
The match was very good and told the story of just deranged Mankind was. He routinely squealed at the fans and kept fighting despite taking some pretty rough looking bumps.
WWE Intercontinental championship – Ahmed Johnson def. Goldust
Goldust had plenty of gold dust sprinkled all over the arena during his entrance. The only problem was that it all over ringside the rest of the night and routinely got stuck to other wrestlers' backs, most notably, the British Bulldog's.
If you thought was strange that gold glitter was all around the ring, it was more strange to me to see Marleena smoking a cigar indoors today, as you are not allowed to smoke in most public buildings today.
Johnson was so anxious to get his hands on Goldust that he burst through the doors of the entrance structure and ran to the ring, knocking down the doormen in the process.
It's still amazes me just how over Johnson was at this point. Everything he did was met with a huge reaction and his victory was met by a huge ovation. WWE clearly had major plans for this guy, which should come as no surprise given his physique.
It's a shame that injuries and apparently a poor attitude derailed all of that.
Johnson celebrated with all of the babyfaces backstage in what was a Coliseum Home Video exclusive, even ones that had lost earlier in the night.
King of the Ring (finals) – Steve Austin def. Jake Roberts
According to Austin, when he returned to the arena from the emergency room, he asked Michael Hayes, aka Doc Hendrix, what Roberts had said in his pre-match interview.
Roberts, going along with his tale of redemption, apparently mentioned verses from the bible. Hayes relayed that to Austin, which helped the wheels turn in his head about what he was going to say in his post-match interview.
The match itself was all about Austin inflicting more damage to Roberts' injured ribs. Then WWE president Gorilla Monsoon, who had cleared Roberts to wrestle earlier in the night, even came out and asked Roberts if he wanted to stop the match.
Roberts refused to give up, but his resiliency had no effect on the outcome. Roberts fired up for a moment and even attempted the DDT, but Austin thwarted his rally attempt, hit him with the stunner and won the King of the Ring tournament.
But the match wasn't really the story. The match isn't really what people remember about this event. It is everything that Austin said after it.
Austin made his way up to the throne for the ceremony of him being crowned the new King of the Ring. He never put on the crown. He simply looked at it with disgust.
He then turned to Hayes and said:
"The first thing I want to be done is to get that piece of crap (referring to Roberts) out of my ring!"
"Don't just get him out of the ring, get him out of the WWF because I proved, son, that without a shadow of a doubt, 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. Well, Austin 3:16 says I just whooped your a**!"
And there it was, the promo that started it all for Austin. Austin went on to talk about Roberts needing a cheap bottle of Thunderbird to get back some of his courage, but no one remembers that.
It was the line about Austin 3:16 that went from just another clever line in an interview to the front of millions of t-shirts all over the world.
It would still take Austin about another year to begin his true ascension to the top of the wrestling business and almost another two before he won the WWE championship, but this interview was the start.
WWE championship – Shawn Michaels def. The British Bulldog
Because of the legend behind Austin's post-match promo, it has made the main event of this pay-per-view essentially a trivia question.
That's because very few remember or refer to it when King of the Ring '96 comes up in a conversation.
Although it is largely forgotten, that doesn't take away from the quality of the match because this was easily the best of the show, which should come as no surprise given who was involved.
Bulldog was never known as the greatest wrestler in the world, but he could definitely hold his own in the ring and was very popular.
It didn't hurt that he was in the ring with Michaels. Michaels from 1996-97 was arguably his peak physically. He had great matches during his second run in WWE, but he was tremendous during this portion of his career.
Michaels picked up the win and held on to his title, but after the match, Owen Hart and Bulldog teamed up on him, which brought out new Intercontinental champion Johnson. However, Vader cooled off his momentum rather quickly and gave the advantage back to the heels.
Bulldog and Owen Hart eventually held down Michaels so that Vader could do the Vader bomb. This brought out The Ultimate Warrior to even the odds for the good guys. The crowd crazy when Warrior came and were treated to the odd sight of Michaels, Warrior, Johnson and Jose Lothario in the ring celebrating together to end the show.
It was then announced that Michaels, Warrior and Johnson would team up to face Bulldog, Vader and Owen Hart at the next In Your House titled International Incident.
The only problem was that Warrior never made it to International Incident. He had yet another falling out with WWE and left the company. He was replaced by Sycho Sid.
Warrior and WWE didn't have a relationship on a business level again until 2013, when he was a pre-order bonus character in the WWE 2K14 video game.
On WWE Network, we are treated to another Coliseum exclusive with Jim Cornette cutting one of his many tremendous promo alongside Owen Hart, Bulldog and Vader.