Adeel Hail
Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.
callanvass
(06.23.96)Live from Milwaukee, WIAttendance: 8,762Your hosts are Vince McMahon, Jim Ross & Owen HartKing of the Ring: Semi-Finals"Stone Cold" Steve Austin Vs Marc MeroAustin advances to the finals with a stunner. This is such an underrated match! Why is this not mentioned more often? These two just clicked right from the outset. Mero's high-flying style meshed very well with Austin's. You could tell this night was gonna be special for Austin with the way he moved, his mannerisms, etc. I'm gonna give this fantastic match four stars.****King of the Ring: Semi-FinalsVader (W/Jim Cornette) Vs Jake "The Snake" RobertsJake nails Vader with the DDT, but Vader grabs the referee on the way down. As a result, Jake wins by DQ. Vader injures Jake's ribs after the match. Weak finish aside, the aftermath was really effective. It gives Jake a Cinderella run to the finals and maintains Vader's status as a monster. *1/4Tag Team ChampionshipThe Smoking Gunns (C) (W/Sunny) Vs The Godwinns (W/Hillbilly Jim)The Gunns win after Bart nails Phineas from behind with his boot. This match is too inconsistently paced for my liking. Some times it was exciting, others it teetered on boredom. It didn't help that I had no interest in it to begin with.**Jerry Lawler delivers some epic insults to some of the fans in Milwaukee before the match. Jerry "The King" Lawler Vs The Ultimate WarriorWarrior wins with a flying shoulder tackle. This was complete crap. Warrior got his ass kicked for most of the match! All Warrior did was no-sell a piledriver from Lawler and hit a shoulder tackle, and that was it. Warrior's comeback run in 96 was very lame, even if the fans loved him.*Mankind Vs The Undertaker (W/Paul Bearer)Mankind wins with the mandible claw after Paul Bearer accidentally nails Taker with the urn. Even though it wasn't promoted as such, this was a no-holds barred brawl. There were a lot of hardcore elements at play here and I felt it suited both of them. This may not be on the level of their match at King of the Ring, but it's pretty good. Mankind winning was a shocker.***1/4Intercontinental ChampionshipGoldust (W/Marlena) Vs Ahmed JohnsonAhmed wins the title after a Pearl River Plunge. This was a pretty boring match for the most part. It's filled with too many rest holds and redundant psychology from Goldust. I loved the Goldust character back then, but he overdid it at times. *1/2Brian Pillman delivers a wonderfully eccentric promo about his arrival in the WWF. He was quite chilling to watch and said stuff you wouldn't see on TV today.In a cool moment, Austin and Pillman sharing a knowing exchange on Austin's way to the ring. For those that don't know, they were a tag team in WCW called The Hollywood Blondes. King of the Ring: Finals"Stone Cold" Steve Austin Vs Jake "The Snake" RobertsGorilla Monsoon tries to stop the match, but Jake says no. Austin becomes King of the Ring with a stunner. The match was short, but it had wonderful psychology. Austin was pugnacious, unrelentingly attacking the ribs of Roberts. Roberts had the heart of the lion for his fighting spirit. If you don't know about Austin's legendary, Austin 3:16 promo, be ashamed of yourself. In any case, here it is. "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've proved, son, 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-Austin 3:16 says I just whooped your ass! All he's gotta do is go buy him a cheap bottle of thunderbird, and try to take back some of that courage that he had in his prime. As the King of the Ring, I'm serving notice to everyone of the WWF 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 fixing to start running through all of them. As far as this championship match is concerned, I don't care if it's Davey Boy Smith or Shawn Michaels. Steve Austin's time has come, and when I get that shot you're looking at the next WWF Champion. And that's the bottom line, because Stone Cold said so"Thoughts: It's one of the greatest promos ever, plain and simple. WWF ChampionshipShawn Michaels (C) (W/Jose Lothario) Vs The British Bulldog (W/Jim Cornette & Diana Hart Smith)Mr. Perfect is the guest referee. Shawn wins after a superkick. This was better than their previous match at the In Your House PPV. Everything flowed better and there was more excitement. They started off a little slow, but this match delivered. ***1/2Shawn Michaels tries to fend off a 2 on 1 assault by The Bulldog and Owen Hart. Ahmed Johnson runs down to even the odds but Vader runs down and makes it 3 on 2. The Ultimate Warrior runs down to even it at 3 a piece as the faces celebrate to end the show.Thoughts: This was SUPPOSED to be Shawn Michaels, Ahmed Johnson & The Ultimate Warrior Vs Vader, Owen Hart & The British Bulldog at In Your House: International Incident, but Warrior was too undependable and Sycho Sid replaced him.8/10 ranking overall
oldskoolsi
SpoilersAlthough this PPV is mainly remembered for the birth of 3:16 it was actually quite a good event.The free for all match between the New Rockers and the Bodydonnas, although not shown in its entirety is an excellent opener.The first semi final king of the ring match between Steve Austin and Marc Mero is good, however the second, between Jake Roberts and Vader is disappointing with a lame ending.The final between Roberts and Austin is again a bit of a disappointment with respect to action but tells a good story and Austin's post match coronation is legendary with good reason. That promo would go on to generate millions of dollars of merchandise due two well known phrases first said during it, "Austin 3:16" and "cause Stone Cold said so".The other matches range from poor to superb. The Warrior-Lawler match is just a squash, whilst the Godwins-Gunns tag match is average. The Undertaker-Mankind match was very good and also the start of a great feud. The Goldust-Ahmed Johnson match pleasantly surprised me and the world title match between Shawn Michaels and the British Bulldog is an undiscovered classic.Also worth noting is the good job Owen Hart does as a colour commentator.Overall well worth a look.
Big Movie Fan
King of the Ring 1996 was a fairly good event but I felt that the undercard matches were great where as the tournament matches were pretty average.The tournament finalists were Marc Mero, Vader, Jake "The Snake" Roberts and Steve Austin-the matches were nothing special and a couple of them were far too short to be good matches.The undercard was great. The Undertaker battled his foe Makind in a fantastic match (the Undertaker and Mankind had one of the best feuds of 1996). The Ultimate Warrior battered Jerry "The King" Lawler to a pulp in a short match. I thought the Ultimate Warrior was a fantastic character in the WWF.The main event pitted Shawn Michaels and the late British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith. These two always had good chemistry in the ring and they assembled a fantastic match which was much better than their mediocre match the previous month at In Your House 8.All in all, a great event.
