This was a good match. Steamboat was really good here. They start with some brawling right off the bat. It settles down into a test of strength. Eventually Steamboat starts working Rude's arm. This is just terrific. Their was a real nastiness to it.He was just yanking on it. dropping knee drops, twisting it. Just really good work. It looks like Rude is about to gain the advantage with rough house tactics. It's just a tease, Steamboat battles back in control with chops. We get a rope running spot and takes a knee to the outside. Rude follows up with running his back into the ring apron, and then a bodyslam. Rude does the old Superbrawl pose, but his arm hurts too much. Rude uses a chinlock. This was done well because of the crowd, and Steamer's selling. Eventually Steamer escapes and we get a fun little sequence that leads to Steamer back in the chinlock. Steamer gains momentum and escapes with an Electric Chair. We have a finish with nearfalls. Steamer goes to the top and Rude pulls the ref in front. Rude puts him in a Bruno Sammartino backbreaker. It looks like Rude won, but the ref called it a DQ.

Rick Rude vs. Ricky Steamboat (Royal Rumble 1/24/88)

-          Ricky controls early with an arm bar after a test of strength and the usual Rude gaga. The arm stuff was solid and they kept it moving but the crowd was quiet. Rude takes over and controls with his sitting chin lock. The crowd rumbles when Ricky was attempting to break out and came alive when he hit the electric chair drop to escape. Rude goes back to the chin lock and Dragon escapes and gets the 10-count turnbuckle slam to get the crowd to participate. They try the bridge up out of a pin sequence but it sort of missed at first and they had to try again. They had the hot ending with multiple near falls and the crowd is really excited. Dragon was going to hit the flying body press but Rude pulls the ref in front. Rude hooks in the back breaker as the ref revives. Rude is celebrating his win but Steamboat wins by DQ. I thin kthis had too much of that Rude chin lock action but Steamboat made this interesting and it did have the fun ending. Maybe if it had a clean win, I would have pushed it through. Not this time though.