1996 King of the Ring

The 1996 King of the Ring show was a PPV hosted by the World Wrestling Federation. The attendance was 18,785 people, and the buy rate was 1.79. The undercard would feature matches from the King of the Ring tournament, while the co-main event was Duke "The Dumpster" Droese defending his WWF Championship against Aldo Montoya and the main event was Undertaker vs Steven Dunn in a king of the ring final.

Background
The focus of the show was on the annual King of the Ring tournament, with the winner getting a shot at the WWF Championship. The octofinals were broadcast on WWF RAW while the quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals were contested at the King of the Ring show. The octofinals saw Steven Dunn defeat Kidd Video Fabulous with the Stunn Dunn, Shawn Michaels defeat Mabel by countout, American Badass New Jack defeat The Roadie with a top rope elbow drop, Lex Luger defeat German Goe with a belly to belly suplex, The Ryback defeat G.Q. with a shell shock, Undertaker defeat Yoshi Kwan with a tombstone piledriver, Xanta Klaus defeat Mo with the nutcracker, and Bret Hart defeat Ultimate Warrior with a sharpshooter to advance.

The only non-KOTR match on the show was Duke Droese vs Aldo Montoya. The RAW after Money in the Dank saw Aldo defeat The Mighty Kwang and Chris Benoit in a triple threat #1 contenders match due to assistance from Aldo's mentor Vince McMahon. Droese would then appear on the first ever edition of Kwang TV the following RAW. The segment saw The Mighty Kwang interview Duke on Montoya. Duke uttered his famous line "Aldo, you're a piece of trash, and I take out the trash for a living. So at King of the Ring, I'll take you out" here. Aldo would, in return, taunt and attack Droese leading up to King of the Ring.