1994 KOTR: The Pregame Show

So yeah, that was the poster for the 1994 King of the Ring. We start off with the 30 minute countdown, which is going to show those of us who haven't been following the story arcs exactly what led up to some of the matches tonight.

BRET HART (c) vs. DIESEL 

While tonight's main event is Champion vs. Champion, only Bret's World Championship is on the line...which I think tells you right there who the obvious winner of the match is. To be fair, Diesel got the monster push from the beginning, brought in as a bodyguard for Shawn Michaels who at the time held the Intercontinental title until being kayfabe suspended for not defending the title (in actuality, he tested positive for steroids), leading to Diesel's first singles competition. The WWF, liking what they saw kept Diesel as a dominant upper-midcarder even after Michaels returned at Survivor Series '93 with Diesel eliminating 7 people in 18 minutes from the next year's Royal Rumble and making him a feasible world title opponent for Bret Hart who had just won the title back from Yokozuna for the second time at Wrestlemania X. 

So Bret Hart goes on the King's Court a few weeks ago to hype his match with Diesel, when Jerry Lawler introduces his real guests Shawn Michaels and Diesel. 

After Diesel gives us a new meaning of the acronym VIP for "Very Intense Pain", he sucker punches Hart and gives him the Jackknife leading to a three on one beating with Lawler and Michaels. 

To make sure this doesn't happen again, Hart called up a mystery family member that's going to be at ringside tonight to watch his back...three guesses, and no it's not Owen.

So after that, we go to a recap of who beat who to get into the King of the Ring, followed up with Todd Pettengill being "entertaining", showing the King of the Ring bracket and giving his predictions for who he thought was going to win. 

On a side note, Todd Pettengill's mom was also in attendance for King of the Ring.

This would end up how the production crew would eat up time being not much else to talk about, showing the Macho Man's predictions from "Countdown to the Crowning", which I apparently missed. To Macho Man's credit, he does introduce a new definition for osmosis which is Bam Bam Bigelow beating Razor Ramon. As much as I liked the Macho Man, he was quite possibly one of the worst announcers in WWE's history. Which is fortunate because he was almost always teamed with Vince McMahon, who at that point in his career was basically Mike Adamle 0.7, so you can imagine how bad that was. 

Yup, so that's Macho Man's predictions for the first round.

After that, we go to Viscera in a ridiculous purple and yellow bedsheet when he was still Mabel, teaming with Mo in Men on a Mission and managed by this cheerful little guy in a white suit, Oscar who also served as Men on a Mission's personal "rapper". Anyway, he's going over predictions made by Johnny Polo (who would later go on to be Raven). Raven Polo predicted Mabel was going to win the whole thing, which I thought was weird because he was the heel guy and Men on a Mission were still faces at this point.  

"Yo nigga, what you got on my drank?"

Last, but not least we have the build up to Jerry Lawler vs. Roddy Piper which features some of the absolute worst, most uninspired mic work ever seen from Piper. The cliff's notes to this epically long buildup is Jerry Lawler makes a comment about Piper wearing a dress, Piper comes back and says he's coming back to the ring for one more match against Lawler and donating his winnings to the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. (Yes, I was surprised that was a real hospital's name when I googled it too.)

Piper makes a couple of videos from his dressing room on the set of his latest blockbuster smash "Tough and Deadly" costarring Billy Blanks, says something about not wanting to be a king, not retreating and not backing down which makes Lawler invoke wrestling cliche #402, the undersized impersonator on the King's Court. 

The segment went basically as expected for an impersonation skit, complete Lawler making the impersonator beg Lawler not to hurt him at the King of the Ring, talking about how there's nothing under his kilt, and making the impersonator crawl out of the ring after kissing Lawler's feet. Sadly, the most entertaining part of the entire build up. Hopefully the match itself isn't as bad as the two months of Piper mail-in promos we had to endure.

Well, hopefully you enjoyed the breakdown to the King of the Ring pregame show as much as I did. The King of the Ring itself is just a click away!