WWF King of the Ring 1997 - June 1997

WWF King Of The Ring 1997 - June 8th 1997 - Providence, Rhode Island

Matches

Hunter Hearst Helmsley defeated Ahmed Johnson (6/10)

Mankind defeated Jerry Lawler (6/10)
Goldust defeated Crush (7/10)

The Hart Foundation defeated Legion of Doom and Sycho Sid (7/10)

Hunter Hearst Helmsley defeated Mankind {King of the Ring Final} (7/10)

Shawn Michaels fought Steve Austin to a draw (8/10)

The Undertaker defeated Farrooq {WWF World Heavyweight Title} (8/10)

Moments - Positives

The dominating feud of this PPV continued to be Austin and the Hart Foundation but as HBK returned and won the tag team titles with Austin this had an HBK / Austin match with a bit of an edge. Its always good to see a one on one match between the tag team champions especially when they are unlikely to be a tag team. This match was great and must have inspired Wrestlemania 14's main event! The World Title match on paper was very poor but Farrooq and Nation of Domination were so built up in the WWF at the time that it worked and the match itself was very good. HHH finally got his big break and won the King of the Ring tournament which is a positive moment in my mind. Also the Mankind promos are excellent during the show.

Moments - Negatives

Not a huge negative but the first round of KOTR could have been better. I was always puzzled when the WWF used Jerry Lawler in the ring when they had so much talent ready to breakthrough. Surely using Rocky Maiavia would have been better

Overall Summary

This was a great show and a great PPV event. Though on paper not the best main event, the HBK/Austin match steals the show and is worth a watch as it really is the Wrestlemania 14 match should have been. The main event actually turns out to be very good and between that and HHH winning King of the Ring, this was one of the stronger KOTR PPV events ever.

SCORE = 8.5