Author: Tom Lynch

Live Coverage Of The Seth Rollins ESPN Announcement 

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Seth Rollins is about to make his big announcement on ESPN Sportscenter. We will have live coverage of the announcement right here on thedailyspotlight.com.

A reminder that Roman Reigns will be making a big announcement of his own tonight on Monday Night Raw regarding his status for Summerslam 

Seth Rollins big announcement on ESPN is that he will be on the cover of WWE 2K18. 

Rollins came across real well during the interview appearing in a full suit. He said that being on the cover of the WWE 2K18 is a dream come true as he has always had a goal to get to the top of the mountain & this is just the next step in that goal. 

Rollins spoke about his injuries and how they were a bit of a setback but that he “doesn’t want to die without any scars” and that he’s feeling a lot better now. He then spoke about his match at Wrestlemania with Triple H saying that Triple H is unlike anyone he’s ever been in the ring with before a total world class athlete. 

The interview ended with Rollins being asked about the upcoming Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight & said that he would be surprised if McGregor was even able to land one punch but that if he did, he does have some real power so who knows. When asked who he thought had a better chance McGregor of beating Mayweather or his Bears winning the Super Bowl, Rollins said that his Bears were 3-13 last year & are a rebuilding team but he thinks McGregor has such little chance that he still has to go with the Bears. Ouch! 

ESPN Currently has an article up with the official announcement of Rollins being on the cover of 2k18 that you can check out right here http://www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/id/19675597/seth-rollins-appear-cover-wwe-2k18

This is a really big deal for Rollins as he becomes just the 2nd member of the full time roster to be on the cover of the 2K game in the last 5 years and the first since John Cena back for 2K15! 

Overall a really cool little piece on Rollins & a big deal for WWE to have ESPN break this story on Sportscenter. 

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Update on thedailyspotlight.com- I’m Engaged!

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So it’s been a long time.  Ok it’s been a really really long time but alas here we are, back on thedailyspotlight.com. You look great by the way, have you lost weight or is that just the angle? Regardless I’m going to get into a lot of stuff over the next few weeks as we get into a variety of topics but I felt I would take this time to catch everyone up to speed on where the heck I’ve been for the past three months or so.  I felt it would be in poor taste to hop on here and talk about Bryce Harper’s incredible walk off winner on Easter Sunday or my trip to the Magic Kingdom a few weeks ago without getting everyone up to speed.

Ch-ch-changes– First and foremost, I’m engaged! That’s right just one day after the 2017 Royal Rumble, which we were counting down to when we last left off, Eri and I took off for Iceland and on that very trip I popped the question and thankfully Eri said YES! This was by far the most nerve wracking thing I’ve ever done in my life but it’s a moment I’ll never forget.  Truth be told I wanted to propose for quite some time and was all set to do it in October of last year.  We had an idea to go to Thailand right after my birthday and I thought what better way than to take something about me and flip it to make it all about her. Unfortunately, Eri had just started a new job and couldn’t get off for over a week (I should point out that while it probably would have been frowned upon for me to do the same, I would have been able to make it work because meh I always find a way to make it work) so we couldn’t justify the trip to Thailand with the two days of travel that are required for the trip so we settled on Mexico and my plans to put a ring on it were shelved.
Shelved only because I knew that we had already booked a trip to Iceland in February.  Eri booked the trip about a year ago on a whim when seeing an unbeatable deal pop up on Groupon so I knew this trip was on the horizon and thought, what better place to do it then under the Northern Lights.  After all, I had seen all of these amazing one of a kind photos online of the Lights and proposals that took place right then and there. So that idea was set for a few months out and now came the planning process of how I was going to get the ring without Eri noticing what the heck was going on.  This was the hardest part because we are usually together and I’m not good at keeping anything hidden so it was really tough.  The entire designing process and then the resizing process was so much fun and had so many adventures that I honestly wanted to fill Eri in on everything because shit, this is what I usually do with the ups and downs of everyday life.  I have to give a shoutout to OKG Jewlery over here in Queens, New York.  They are some of the most passionate and incredible people that I found to work with.  They were able to take a vision I had and work with me, often coming in on the weekends and after hours to show me updates and communicate with me while Eri wasn’t around.  They made a stressful process completely manageable and I cannot recommend them enough.
The hardest part of this entire ordeal was getting the ring overseas and then freaking out that Eri would discover the ring at some point before I was able to ask.  The first part came to figuring out how to get the ring through the metal detectors at the airport.  Talk about a hold your breath moment as I sat there with my bag going through the medal detector, especially as I saw the TSA fella’s eye open super wide as my bag passed.  We made eye contact as I’m sure he read my expression that read “Please don’t blow this up for me bro!”…I had put the ring on the bottom of my bookbag in a glove with a little sign that said “Engagement Ring Enclosed”, please if you don’t get anything else from this entire post always remember…ALWAYS CARRY THE ENGAGEMENT RING ON YOUR PERSON!!!! Engagement rings are not cheap and even if you have it insured (which you absolutely should, that’s point number 2 to take away from this), the last thing you want to do is lose the ring because you checked your bag or left it in the hotel when you went for a hot dog over at Baejarins. From the moment the ring made it through security, it was in my pocket the rest of the trip until I gave it to Eri.
I thought this was going to be easier said than done because our Nothern Lights Tour was the first part of our trip.  On the way to the Lights, I couldn’t wait what an unbeliuevable moment this was going to be, the skies lit up with beaming green lights naturally occuring for us to see.  It was going to be magical!  But then it wasn’t….we got there and sure we saw a few faint lights but nothing like you see in the pictures.  I had no idea where those fellas who proposed got it done but there was no clear shot of the lights unless you had a super high tech camera lens, which I did, but there was no way to pose in front of the lights for a proposal.  Not to mention everyone who is there to see the lights does not want you to ruin their experience.  Any sign of a flash elicited grunts and groans from the folks on the tour and didn’t do much for the photo you were taking.  I imagined a beautiful photo of me on one knee prosign to an unexpected Eri with the backdrop of a variety of tour buses, angry tourists and a black sky…no bueno! So I returned to the hotel defeated and with a ring in my pocket trying to figure out what was next.
I had decided, with the help of my mother a couple of close friends I was texting with who threatened that I better not return home with a ring in my pocket looking forward to propose live at Wrestlemania 33 from our limited view seats, that I was ismploy going to wait the week out.  I figured that with all of the excursions we had planned, and brother do we love our excursions, I was going to find some moment where it felt right.  The enxt morning was our Ice Climbing excursions so ring in pocket we went Ice climbing up the Glaciers of Seljalandsfoss.  I have the coordinator of a 6 foot 4 white guy, so not very good, but I went swinging and climbing up the glaciers the best I could praying I wouldn’t fall to my doom.  Ok I didn’t care about my doom I just worried about the ring.  About five minutes into the trip I asked our tour guide where the highest peak we were going was and he pointed up to where I could barely see. I knew that was it, it was perfect.  I spent the rest of the excursion planning out how I was going to do this I was going to have someone film it and have someone take pictures, I was going to make a big speech, it was going to be marvelous and over the top…but almost none of that happened.  Instead, when we reached our peak I asked a photographer on the trip, from Shanghai to take a few pictures of us, I removed Eri’s glove and managed to get out just one question…”Will you marry me?”…time stood still for what felt like 3 hours until she said Yes!
What Else?- Well if you’re still reading this far down we are now on the road to weddingville.  Over the next 11 months there will likely be more wedding updates that you can stomach including many a video over on our youtube page https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy_gVqjuaWDp2QW6go6e0Xw... but don’t worry now that we’re back in the swing of things there will be plenty on the world of sports, wrestling and travel that you’ve come to expect here on the site.  After all, we were down in Orlando for Wrestlemania week and did all of the parks so you can expect to see all of that come out over the next few weeks, this was just my way of letting you guys know what’s been going on and from this moment forward…I’m back!

The Rumble of The Royal Rumble- 1991

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Ah Yes the Royal Rumble 1991, a show that I’ll always hold near and dear to my heart and it just may very well be a show that I’ve seen more than any other pay per view in WWE history.  Before we get to the show itself, I’d like to provide a bit of backstory as to where I was at the time in terms of being a fan.  Most people can’t tell you exactly how they became a fan but I can.  Well, I was only 4 years old so we’re talking these are my absolute earliest memories of wrestling and in life for that matter.  Towards the middle of 1990, my father was also a huge wrestling fan.  Every Saturday and Sunday my mother would work and this lasted for about five years from when I was about 6 months old until I was about 5 years old.  Thus, every weekend my father would hang out with me and we’d sit right in front of the television set watching wrestling.  We would watch 3 hours on Saturday afternoon and 3 hours on Sunday afternoon from the time that I was still in a carriage.  I really believe that from these moments wrestling became ingrained in me and I never turned back.

In 1990, my dad found a friend at work that was able to order the pay per view events.  He and my father split the cost of the shows and my dad’s friend would watch and record the shows and then hand them off to my father so he and I could watch the following week.  At the time, all you had to do at the time was avoid a little results section in the newspaper so it wasn’t like today in the world of Twitter, Facbook and insane amounts of WWE programming where you can’t avoid results for more than an hour.  In any event, once 1991 came around, this was really when cable television started to become big and so I remember on the day of the Royal Rumble there were men in our house all day.  They were blowing holes through the wall and making a ton of noise for what felt like all day.  I kept asking my parents what was going on but they just kept telling me it was a surprise.  When the men were done, my father had revealed that we had gotten cable television.  This meant that, for the first time ever, we were going to be able to order the Royal Rumble live on pay per view.

It was just an incredible idea, the likes of which I thought that I would never see.  It was just unheard of for me at the time to fathom that what I was watching on television was what was going on live at that moment.  I must have asked my parents, “so this is happening right now?!?” all night long. None of my other friends were getting pay per views and wouldn’t for quite a few years so I became the wrestling insider amongst my friends at the age of just 4 years old.  It is because of this that I will always hold this event in a special place in my heart.

Royal Rumble 1991

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Results

The Rockers (Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty) defeated The Orient Express (Tanaka and Kato) (with Mr. Fuji)

Big Boss Man defeated The Barbarian (with Bobby Heenan)

Sgt. Slaughter (with General Adnan) defeated The Ultimate Warrior for the WWF Championship

The Mountie (with Jimmy Hart) defeated Koko B. Ware

Ted DiBiase and Virgil defeated Dusty Rhodes and Dustin Rhodes

Hulk Hogan won by last eliminating Earthquake in the Royal Rumble match

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First things first this is the debut of the Royal Rumble theme song.  If you go  out and order the new “True Story of The Royal Rumble” blu ray set (which I suggest you do, it’s a fun watch) that’s the song you hear and it’s the song that’s the most synonymous with the Royal Rumble show.  This was also the show if which they started the really fun ad campaign with the poster you see above promoting all of the major superstars in the match.  I thought these were really cool and way ahead of their time.

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After a couple of years of the Royal Rumble being the complete focus on the show, it was as if this was the year where they made the Rumble event mean more overall.  This was the first Royal Rumble event which featured a World Title Match as well as the Rumble match.  In many ways, the title match was a bigger story than the Rumble match itself because it marked the end, in many ways, of the Ultimate Warrior experiment.  The Ultimate Warrior had won the world title from Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania 6 and had seemingly taken over as the face of the company.  However, business was down with the Ultimate Warrior as the face of the WWF and he just din’t click the same way that Hulk Hogan did when he was on top.  Thus, the decision was made to take the title off of the Ultimate Warrior at this show as Sergeant Slaughter defeated him for the belt.  Sergeant Slaughter had recently returned to wrestling and was now doing his Iraqi sympathizer character.  The decision to put the belt on Slaughter was a controversial one being that the US had legitimately gone to war in the with Iraq during the Gulf War.  Dave Meltzer described it in the Wrestling Observor Newsletter “Many within the WWF front office feared a media backlash against such an obvious attempt to heavily exploit the war” and “But in this case, the hypocrisy is just too much for me. The company can claim all day long not to condone the character, but it was the president of the company that was the creator of the character and the man who decided to make him champion at the height of the hostilities.”

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This year during the Royal Rumble, Hulk Hogan would go on to win the Royal Rumble which made sense.  Even thought the Rumble match was not yet for the shot at the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, it was clear that WWE was going back to Hogan to defend the US against Slaughter.  Thus, he was the logical choice for the Rumble win especially when he went on to dedicate the Rumble to the troops overseas.  Afew weird things in this Rumble started with the fact that Nasty Boy Brian Knobbs was in this match but Jerry Sags was not.  There was also an entrant who did not enter as the announcers were left wondering who it was supposed to be, it was Randy Savage but I don’t believe any explanation was given.  The incredibly racist Saba Simba also made an appearance in this Rumble as did a very young Shane Douglas.  The iron man in the match was Rick The Model Martel, who last over 52 minutes.

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Looking back at this show, the match of the night was actually the opener, a really fun match between the Rockers and the Orient Express.  The match is actually featured on the latest “True Story of The Royal Rumble” DVD set and is a lot fun.  This was towards the end of the Rockers run but they were always the best team to put on first and get the crowd going with fast paced matches, this night was no exception.

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Lastly, on this packed show, it’s also important to mention that this was the night in which  Virgil finally turned on the Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase.  This was one of my favorite stories ever told as it was laid out over 3 years from the Million Dollar man’s debut in November of 1987 all the way up until January of 1991.  Virgil was the man servant of Ted Dibiase and was treated like crap.  Finally at the end of their tag match against Dusty Rhodes and a very young Dustin Rhodes, Virgil finally had enough and stood up for himself, laying out Dibiase in the process.

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Looking back, while this may not be the best Rumble match itself of all time, it’s one of my favorite Rumble shows of all time.  What do you think about this show?  Did you think WWE was too much in utlizing the real life issues going on at the time between the United States and Iraq for this angle or do you feel that all is fair in love and wrestling?  Let me know in the comment section below or over on twitter @tommyonthespot.

The Rumble of The Royal Rumble 1990

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It’s amazing that as we continue this trip down memory lane looking back at all of the past Royal Rumble events to see how the Royal Rumble transformed and continued to evolve throughout the years.  Let’s get right into the results of the show and what I remember most when looking back at the event.

Royal Rumble 1990- Orlando Arena in Orlando, Florida- January 21, 1990

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Results

The Bushwhackers (Butch and Luke) defeated The Fabulous Rougeaus (Jacques and Raymond)

Brutus Beefcake fought The Genius to a double disqualification

Ronnie Garvin defeated Greg Valentine

Jim Duggan defeated Big Boss Man (with Slick) by disqualification

Hulk Hogan won by last eliminating Mr. Perfect in the Royal Rumble match

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It’s important to remember with these early Royal Rumble events that there was nothing on the line for the winner of the Royal Rumble.  What this meant basically was that the main selling point of the Rumble show was the Royal Rumble match and so everything went into the promotion of the Rumble match and building that match up with as much star power as possible.  Thus, when you go back and watch this Rumble match, it just flies right by because it’s a really loaded Rumble.  In this match alone you had Hogan, Warrior, Savage, Perfect, Rude, Dusty, Andre, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Piper, Jake Roberts and Jimmy Snuka.  That’s a dozen all time great WWE hall of famers off the top of my head.  It begins really quick too as 8 of the first 11 participants are all hall of famers and so this Rumble really holds your interest from start to finish.

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The hype for the Rumble throughout the show was also at a premium as I counted pre Royal Rumble promos from 18 of the participants.  Of course, there were also interviews with the Rumble participants before they got to the match.  The two highlights for me were Ted Dibiase and Mr. Perfect.  There was a good amount of intrigue around Dibiase leading into the event due to him buying number 30 the year prior but this year he revealed that Virgil had drawn number 1 for him.  Mr. Perfect, on the other hand, was really coming into his own as a top level heel.  He was still technically undefeated in WWE and revealed before the match that he had drawn the “Perfect number” basically letting everyone know that he was number 30.  It took a little bit of the mystique away from the Rumble that we knew numbers 1 and 30 since those two spots were always given a good amount of hype since it was built that number 30 held the greatest advantage and number 1 the greatest disadvantage (even though honestly number 2 starts off at the exact same moment that number 1 does but that’s neither here nor there).

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One of the things I really liked about the show overall was that there were a number of Wrestlemania matches that were teased throughout the night and eventually came to fruition.  Mr. Perfect would eventually go on to face Brutus Beefcake at Wrestlemania 6 after his post-match beatdown of Beefcake after his match with the Genious.  Dusty Rhodes and Randy Savage as well as Bad News Brown and Roddy Piper would also set up their respective Wrestlemania matches during the Royal Rumble match.  Of course though, the biggest showdown would come when both The Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan cleared house of everyone else in the ring until it came down to the two of them alone in the ring.  This was one of the first faceoffs between the two and the crowd just went bananas (quoting the late great Gorilla Monsoon).  It was the top babyface in the company and world champion, in Hulk Hogan, going face to face with the fastest rising arguably hottest babyface in the Ultimate Warrior.  Their faceoff was the moment of the match for me.  Eventually Warrior would get double teamed by the two next guys who entered the match, Rick Rude and The Barbarian, are double teaming the Ultimate Warrior when Hogan runs back in and hits everyone with a clothesline inadvertedly eliminated the Warrior. Just like that you had your Wrestlemania 6 main event.  Thus, while the rumble winner didn’t get a title shot at Wrestlemania just yet, a good amount of the top matches at Wrestlemania were foreshadowed during this show.

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The one thing that, looking back, I would have changed about this Rumble match was that I really wouldn’t have had Hulk Hogan win the match.  It made no sense to have Hogan, the champion, who’s popularity at this point was waning, win the Royal Rumble.  For one this match was all about Ted Dibiase who lasted over 45 minutes from number 1 and I thought he would have been an interesting winner in that he couldn’t win the Rumble at number 30 in 1989 but came back to win the 1990 Rumble all the way from number 1.  Regardless, his long run in the Rumble match would kickoff a three year stretch in where a heel would last the longest in the Rumble match culminating in 1992, which we’ll get to on Thursday.  Mr. Perfect also would have made all the sense in the world to win the Royal Rumble this year.  He was still undefeated and debuted as this arrogant SOB who continued to prove that he was better than everyone at everything.  A Rumble win here really would have gotten him over as that next top heel and had him come across as completely legitimate. (The Rumor I’ve heard for years was that Perfect was actually supposed to win the Rumble but the plan was changed to Hogan, seems to be strictly rumor though at this point)  Of course, at the end of the day, the no brainer choice for the Rumble win this year was the Ultimate Warrior.  He had all the momentum in the world going into this match and him getting the Rumble win over Hogan, to me, would have added even more intrigue to the mega match between the two at Wrestlemania 6.

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Aside from the Rumble, the one thing I always remember enjoying as a kid was the Rugged Ronny Garvin Vs. Greg Valentine match.  This was more hokeyness but it’s the only thing I remember from Garvin’s entire WWF run.  The story here was actually pretty unique in that Greg Valentine had defeated Garvin in a retirement match forcing Garvin to retire.  When Garvin did retire, he ended up getting all of these odd jobs in WWE like referee and announcer trying to screw with Valentine.until eventually Valentine begged for Garvin to get his job back so that Valentine could get his hands on him.  This led to a match between the two on this show in which Garvin won but what I remember most about this match was the Hammer Jammer.  The Hammer Jammer was a guard that Garvin wore that allowed him to block the figure four leg lock.  This lead to a spot in the match where Valentine locked on the figure four leg lock only for Garvin to make a bunch of funny faces as the move didn’t effect him because of the hammer jammer.  Funny faces aside, this was a pretty underrated match between two veterans.

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That’s going to do it for today but what were some of your favorite memories of the Royal Rumble 1990?  Let us know in the comment section below or over on twitter @Daily_Spotlight

The Spotlight On Monday Night Raw Tampa 1/2/2017

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WWE Monday Night Raw just went off the air a few minutes ago, emanating live from Tampa Bay, Florida and I thought that for the most part it was a pretty good show. I know a lot of folks I spoke to believed that Triple H would be returning to television tonight with this being the first Raw of the New Year and Monday Night Football being finished, but I’m glad that he didn’t. Raw already had Goldberg promoted for tonight and so they already had the audience coming in with him and it makes sense to stagger out some of these bigger headline attractions. There was no reason to bring back Triple H yet and I actually don’t expect him to be back into the thick of things until at the earliest The Royal Rumble as we are still a ways away from Wrestlemania and the focus right now should be on the Royal Rumble and filling up that 60,000 seat arena at the Alamodome. I feel that tonight’s Raw did it’s part to kick things into high gear as far as the Royal Rumble is concerned and with four weeks left of television until that show, that’s a pretty cool thing. Let’s get right into my highlights of the show tonight.

Goldberg On The Kevin Owens Show– The biggest promotion of the show tonight was all about the return of Bill Goldberg to Monday Night Raw. While I’ve really enjoyed Goldberg’s return to WWE over the past few months, he’s really only been involved with Brock Lesnar. This is clearly the big money match for Wrestlemania, or somewhere down the road, and there is still a lot to do between the two. That said, Goldberg has entered the Royal Rumble now and so it makes sense to see him in there with some of the other bigger names on Raw like he did tonight. I felt that Goldberg’s faceoffs with both Kevin Owens and Roman Reigns made them both feel like bigger deals and makes fans that are tuning in specifically for Goldberg, take notice of the Raw main event scene outside of Brock Lesnar, who isn’t there every week. There were people on twitter clamoring for Goldberg to destroy Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho upon coming out for the segment which I didn’t get at all. Owens and Jericho have been carrying Raw since Finn Balor’s injury and you don’t want Goldberg to come out an destroy all of their credibility that they’ve built up, instead, he enhanced it further.

BRAUN!!!- Another big story coming out of Raw tonight was the continued push of Braun Strowman. This guy is really starting to grow on me and I think WWE could have their next monster heel on their hands here. Braun looked like a beast in his destruction of Sami Zayn (who may need to go to Smakdown) in their Last Man Standing Match and then even more so during the post match beatdown. His showing up and destroying everyone recently have reminded me of early Stone Cold Steve Austin (to a much less extent) in that he’s unpredictable and doesn’t give a damn. Braun showing up at the end of the night with the three top guys on Raw and Bill Goldberg brought him up to that level and established him as a real threat to win the Rumble. This was made even more apparent during the awesome double spear as it took both Bill Goldberg (the guy who took out Brock Lesnar in less than 2 minutes) and Roman Reigns to take Strowman out. Sami Zayn did a ton to establish Braun as this monster and it’s exciting to see where Strowman goes now that he’s past Zayn.

The Ratings War– Last week for the first time since the brand split, Smackdown Live defeated Raw in the ratings. Tonight on Raw they actually acknowledged this with Stephanie McMahon returning and telling off Kevin Owens, Chris Jericho and Mick Foley proclaiming that Raw was now at war with Smackdown Live and that it was basically time to stop messing around. I thought this was real cool and added to the hostility between the two brands. Wrestling has always been better with competition and so it’s nice to see some internal competition within WWE. While it will never be the Monday Night War, there was legitimate competition between Raw and Smackdown within WWE back in 2002-2004 when Paul Heyman was overseeing Smackdown. Smackdown at the time was consistently better than Raw and would compete for better ratings with Raw from time to time so it’s good to see WWE getting back there.  

Match Of The Night- Each week as we do these post Raw columns we’ll have one section reserved in the end for the match of the night. If you don’t have much time and can only see one match, this is the one that you will want to go out of your way to see. While Sami Zayn and Braun Strowman had a really fun Last Man Standing match, the best match of Braun’s career to this point, I have to give the nod this week to Roman Reigns and Chris Jericho. Jericho and Reigns had a really good match for the US Title with the stipulation being that if Reigns were to get counted out or disqualified then he would lose the title. This led to a good amount of intrigue throughout the match that maybe Jericho would find a way to weasel his way to the title. The best false finish came when Jericho channeled his inner Eddie Guerrero and threw the belt Reigns only to fall and take a bump while the ref’s back was turned. Of course when the ref turned around and saw Reigns with the belt in his hands and Jericho down on the mat, he would believe that Reigns laid him out. It was wild to see the crowd doing the YES chant over the potential of the title change but it was not to be tonight as Roman Reigns retained the US Title. I was a little disappointed as I was hoping we would get a few weeks of Team Kevin and Chris running around with both Raw singles titles and I don’t think Roman needs the US Title especially if he is in contention for the Universal title belt.  
That’s going to do it for me for now but be sure to come back tomorrow where I’ll break down the highlights of what looks to be a loaded Smackdown Live show. Also be sure to check out “The Rumble of The Royal Rumble”, a series in which I will look back at every Royal Rumble for each day of January leading right up until the 30th Royal Rumble on Jnauary 29th. Later today will be the third part of the series, looking at Royal Rumble 1990!