Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53633 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-05-02
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 346 minutes

Synopsis
Features footage from the 1995 and 1996 King Of The Ring Championship, where fighters battle it out for the ultimate title.

Customer Reviews

The death of the 'New Generation'; the start of the 'Attitude era'...
At totally opposite ends of the WWF spectrum, these two pay-per-views, from June 1995 and June 1996 respectively, show the pre-`Attitude era' World Wrestling Federation both at its most ridiculous and its most sublime.

King of the Ring 1995 was, even by the generally low standards of that year, a dire card. With the very popular Scott `Razor Ramon' Hall injured shortly before the event, his spot on the show was taken by little-known underdog Savio Vega, who subsequently found the central elimination tournament built around him and his hopeless quest to claim the moniker of `King of the Ring' for that year. Wrestling four matches in one night (a feat not seen on a WWF show since Randy Savage won the World Championship tournament at Wrestlemania IV), the overexposed, and limited, Vega had short, totally forgettable scraps with villainous tax inspector Irwin R. Schyster, super-size sumo Yokozuna, and Jeff Jarrett's sidekick The Roadie, amazingly managing to beat them all. Vega eventually faced the truly atrocious Mabel (better known these days as occasional WWE stooge Nelson `Viscera' Frazier) in the final, and lost to him in a result that had the fans tearing their hair out in anger, as the supremely useless Mabel had previously toppled fan favourite The Undertaker earlier on the show. For some reason, Shawn Michaels, hot off a recent babyface turn, and the clear pick to win the entire tournament, was booked to do nothing but go to a fifteen-minute draw with mock-shoot fighter Kama (Charles `Godfather Wright) in a match that left everyone, including the bored-looking Michaels, totally nonplussed. The only other matches on the show were Bret `Hitman' Hart's victory over Jerry `The King' Lawler is a lame `Kiss My Foot' match (by mid-1995 the long-running Hart/Lawler feud was very old news), and a terrible main event tag team match pitting then-World Champion Kevin `Diesel' Nash and Bam Bam Bigelow against `Psycho' Sid Eudy and the lardy Native American Tatanka.
King of the Ring 1995 was a shockingly bad event and received terrible contemporary reviews; thankfully the WWF's pay-per-view standards did rise as the year went on, and most of their subsequent events (particularly In Your House II, Summerslam, and Survivor Series) provided some choice action.

By contrast, King of the Ring 1996 was a very strong card, that, whilst not a perfect WWF presentation, had the good fortune to come on the very cusp of a new dawn for the promotion. A mixture of strong matches and intense angles, pairing the company's most popular performers with interesting newcomers, the show has a freshness and intensity to it that are still striking when viewed today.
What everyone remembers most about the show, of course, is that it was the first time we got a really good look at the revolutionary figure of Stone Cold Steve Austin, a wrestler who subsequently became the company's most prominent figurehead and their most popular wrestler of the 1990s; after beating fellow WCW reject Marc Mero in a reasonably strong semi-final match, Austin famously went to a local hospital and had his busted upper lip stitched, before returning the arena and beating the injured veteran Jake `The Snake' Roberts (who had managed to pull off a fluke semi-final victory over the monster heel Vader) in a short, mercilessly booked final. Disregarding the hokey crown and sceptre props that were usually awarded to the victor, Austin then cut a profanity-laced interview, voicing his intention to tear through the competition and get to the very top of the promotion. This interview also saw Austin coin the immortal catchphrase `Austin 3:16', when poking fun at the defeated Roberts' religious convictions.
As well as Austin's amphetamine enema of a tournament victory, the show also has several other well-remembered highlights. Newly signed to the WWF, Mick `Mankind' Foley had his first pay-per-view match with The Undertaker, and beat him quite cleanly in a result that left long-term WWF fans open-mouthed with shock; nobody had ever been allowed to look this competitive against The Undertaker before. It was the start of 1996's most compelling feud, and one that yielded several more very strong pay-per-view matches (though none were able to repeat the shock factor of the original). WWF World Champion Shawn Michaels had a long (over twenty-five minutes), and well-constructed main event match with Davey-Boy Smith, in what would prove to be the British Bulldog's last real shot at headlining. The bout still holds up alongside Smith's more famous clashes with Bret and Owen Hart as one of his finest ever matches; it is also second only to Michaels' September 1996 match with Foley as the best main event the `Heartbreak Kid' produced during his (overrated) first stint as World Champion.
The `Loose Cannon' Brian Pillman also made his first appearance on a WWF pay-per-view; hobbling to the ring on crutches, the former tag team partner of Steve Austin cut the evening's other intense promo, in which he swore to decimate the WWF, before briefly acknowledging his history with Austin as the tournament final began. It was a typically unexpected piece of improvisation from (the seemingly mad) Pillman, a wrestler whose injuries prevented him from capitalising on his intense interviews in actual matches; after a largely inactive eighteen months on the company's books, Pillman was to die in a hotel room in October 1997. And in yet another impressive verbal performance, the late, great Owen Hart provided the show with a witty running commentary.
With fan heat powered by the intense homophobia of most of the crowd, the forgotten Ahmed Johnson's Intercontinental Title victory over the outrageously camp Goldust came off far better than it had any right to. The Ultimate Warrior, mere weeks away from being fired from the WWF for the final time, had a reasonably pleasing (because it was so short) encounter with Jerry Lawler in which he beat the obnoxious `King' senseless, whilst the lovely Tammy `Sunny' Sytch again provided some much-needed eye candy during a typically dull tag team match in which the pistol-toting Smokin' Gunns faced the pig-farming Godwinns (don't ask).
Though it would take a few more months for the WWF to really capitalise on the strong new talents showcased here, the last months of 1996 and much of 1997 would see Austin, Foley, and others become the promotion's most dependable and inventive performers. For many, the first elements of what would grow into the `Attitude era' appeared for the very first time at King of the Ring 1996.

mixed like allsorts
king of the ring was an event that is sorely missed,however after watching 1995s i may be a bit hasty in saying that,there wasnt much to get excited about on the card at all and the main event was pretty lame,the winner may have deserved it on the night but he couldnt carry the company even in the short term,
the following year is alot better,the birth of stonecold steve austin and '3.16',jake the snake was bang out of shape as he huffed and puffed his way through the night,the main event was solid also ,a three star rating is the perfect overall score.