Chris

Fast forward almost 21 years after I first started watching professional wrestling, and I finally made it up to my inner-child by sitting down to watch this 1991 UK exclusive show.Needless to say, my inner-child now hates me, for this was truly one terrible show.Broadcast onin October 1991, the Battle Royal from the Royal Albert Hall saw a bunch of meandering undercard bouts featuring combatants who would later return to the ring for the eponymous over-the-top-rope main event.Here's what went down.As the camera panned over a sea of British fans, most of whom delighted in wavingyellow foam fingers (despite the Hulkster being nowhere near London at the time)andwelcomed us tonight's show.There are some things that happen in professional wrestling which work far better with the live crowd than they do when viewed on television. This opening match betweenandis certainly one of those times.Both teams stalled for what felt like forever, each taking turns to play to the London audience and get them hyped up for tonight's event.What was obvious was that this did work,With each raised arm of a Rocker or jeering yell of a Nasty Boy, the crowd grew hotter and hotter. Your writer can only imagine how intense that must have beenMany years later and watching on video however, it just seems to drag, and drag, and oh yeah, drag.Still, once the actionfinally get away, this actually turned into a fairly enjoyable opening contest.Aside from a spot in whichandcontinuously swapped places behind the referee's back, not a great deal happened in this match that was all that memorable but, looking back, it was good for what it was and was certainly better than half the crap that would follow.In the end,induced shenanigans led to a win for the Nasties.Backstage,spoke toin front of a backdrop which looked like it had been left over from the 1970s. In usual Flair fashion, The Nature Boy hammered home his claim to beand hyped his feud withpromising punishment for Piper when they met in the night's main event battle royal.It was the combination of our opening tag team contest and this fairly good match between a Big Gold Belt carryingand a post-Strike Force, Pre-El Matadorthat almost led your writer to believewas going to be a good show.Indeed, despite neither man expending quite the amount of effort they were capable of, both worked hard to deliver a perfectly good match that could have been incredible given a proper build and the write amount of motivation from Santana and Flair.The Nature Boy hit all his trademark spots whilst Santana bumped and flew around the ring like a trooper, only to succumb to a cheap roll up shortly after the quarter of an hour mark.Keeping up with the format of match-promo-match, Mean Gene Okerlund next spoke toabout his upcoming clash withIn an otherwise unremarkable promo, the man from Cobb County, Georgia claimed that the United Kingdom fell under his jurisdiction and that he was there to serve law and order. Yep.Offering a retort, of sorts, Earthquake and Jimmy Hart made their way to Mean Gene Okerlund's famous interview platform. There, 'Quake managed to top his opponent's ridiculous boasts by insisting that both he and his partner,would win the every-man-for-himself battle royal later on in the show.By this point in the card, pretty much anything good that was going to happen had already happened.In a 15-minute match that was at least 14 and half minutes too long, Boss Man and 'Quake plodded around the ring to the delight of absolutely noone.Keeping the momentum firmly on the side of the bad guys, Earthquake picked up the win afterran in and cost his rival, Big Boss Man, the match.Afterwards, The Big Boss Man chased The Mountie to the back. It was the fastest either man had, or would, move for the rest of the night.Mean Gene's next guest was none other thanBefore speaking to the Tornado, Okerlund showed offessentially a giant Russian tea urn that would go to the winner of the much-hyped battle royal.Naturally, the 'Tornado promised to win said trophy and take it all the way back to Texas, but only, of course, after beating The Mountie.The Mountie replied in an on-the-platform interview with Mean Gene,Making his third appearance of the evening, Jimmy Hart led The Mountie in the night's second deadly dull encounter as the former Fabulous Rougeau took on the Texas Tornado.Following 10+ minutes of action, all of which looked like it enthralled the live audience back in 1991 than it did your video-watching writer in 2013, the Mountie scored the cheap win with his foot on the ropes for leverage.Chalk up another win for the heel contingent.In place of the usual Mean Gene promo, we next had a special makeshift edition ofsegment.Here, Bearer andmuttered the usual garbage about lost souls and the darkside, all of which apparently spelled the end for 'Taker's upcoming opponent,The coolest thing about this match was(or rather, a dude in a mask) playing 'Taker's theme music on the Albert Hall's grand organ.Apart from that, this was pretty much everything you'd expect. The Undertaker no-sold everything, Duggan yelledan awful lot and the fans in London, England chanteda great deal.I'll say that again.a lotThe match ended the way at least 90% of all Jim Duggan matches ended; Hacksaw hit his opponent with the 2x4 and got himself disqualified.5-0 to the heels then.Heading once more to the back, Gene Okerlund spoke to Rowdy Roddy Piper about the night's proceedings. Piper replied to Ric Flair's earlier verbal jabs and promised to head right for the many-time NWA Champion as soon as the battle Royal got underway.Typhoon, accompanied by Jimmy Hart, also had a few words for Gene. Those words were essentially the same as his partner, The Earthquake's: The Natural Disasters would somehow win the Battle Royal.More promos followed.promised to dethronein their upcoming tag team title match, beforepromised that the opposite would happen.Much like the Rockers/Nasties clash that kicked off this whole thing, both teams spent the first thousand years of this match stalling and getting the crowd fully involved.Though not quite on a par with the opening tag contest, the L.O.D/Power & Glory title match was at least mildly entertaining, and though it isn't exactly saying much, it was at least the third most entertaining match on an otherwise abysmal card.Predictably, the champions retained their gold when Animal caught Roma coming off the top rope and powerslammed him into oblivion.Backstage, Gene Okerlund spoke to crowd favouriteabout his upcoming match againstand, of course, the Battle Royal itself.Our special guest ring announcer for this match was none other than His Lordship himself,For the first, and probably only time ever in his career as a North American star, The British Bulldog was announced from his actual hometown of Golborne, Lancashire (instead of Manchester, which is close to Golborne, or Leeds, which isn't). If you're wondering, Golborne is basically the asshole end of nowhere, sandwiched between Wigan and the equally as unknown town of St. Helens.I would apologise for the geography lesson, but trust me, even that relatively uninteresting piece of information is more riveting than anything that happened between Davey Boy and The Barbarian.The live crowd, naturally, loved it, but the rest of us suffered a match where absolutely nothing of note happened until Davey Boy picked up a predictable win.In our final pre-match promo, The Nasty Boys hyped their appearance in the main event and promised us that things were 'I'm sure that, as a kid, I wouldn't snickerr at such things.Prior to our main event, Alfred Hayes joined Monsoon and Heenan on commentary.Unlike many battle royals your writer has witnessed, this one had each wrestler receive their own introduction (complete with music) as they made their way to the ring for tonight's main event.With the ring almost full, Roddy Piper was the last man to enter the ring, going straight after arch-rival Ric Flair. The two toppled through the ropes and brawled around the outside as the remaining 18 combatants battled inside the ring.Slowly but surely, bodies spilled from the ring until only Boss Man, Bulldog, Mountie and Typhoon remained." said Gorilla Monsoon, pointing out the obvious for the benefit, apparently, for those of us who hadn't been watching.After the Boss Man was thrown out, Jimmy Hart's men Typhoon and Mountie attempted a double-team against The British Bulldog. Unsurprisingly, Davey Boy tossed Mountie, and then Typhoon, to win the match.As Lord Alfred Hayes talked about thein the Albert Hall and sold The British Bulldog's victory as though he'd just overcome a three-on-one handicap and won the world title in the main event of Wrestlemania,returned to the ring and attacked The Bulldog.Eventually, none other than, walking crutch in hand, limped to ringside and saw off the heels.And so the show I always wanted to watch as a kid was over, and now that I've finally seen it, I need never see it ever again.The first two matches were enjoyable, and if you have nothing better to do, are worth checking out, but as for sitting through 150 plus minutes ofI really wouldn't recommend it.