Tag: WWE

(Read part 1 here)

So we’ve looked at the worst, now it’s time for the best as I continue to countdown every Royal Rumble match winner ever from the very worst to the very best.

13 – Hulk Hogan – 1990 & 1991

I had some difficulty placing Hogan on this list, but I think right in the middle feels right in the end.

On paper, both of Hogan’s Rumble wins are fairly impressive, with 6 and 7 eliminations in ’90 and ’91 respectively, and eliminated some fairly big names to do it both times. In addition to this, Hogan would win the WWF Championship at Wrestlemania 7 in ’91, and although he lost at Wrestlemania 6 in ’90, the match has achieved legendary status in the decades since.

So again, the question must be posed, why have I put him this low?

The thing is, the “world championship opportunity” stipulation wouldn’t be brought in until 1993, so the Royal Rumble was still basically for nothing, and in both ’90 and ’91, Hogan was ALWAYS going to be fighting for the title at Wrestlemania (in fact he already was WWF Champion going into the ’90 Royal Rumble). There was never any reason for Hogan to win either of the Rumbles he did, so ultimately it didn’t achieve anything that wouldn’t have been achieved anyway.

12 – Bret Hart – 1994

Now, the other side of the ’94 coin.

While Luger would horrifically fail with his opportunity that came from co-winning the Rumble, Bret would do very much the opposite.

He started off the night at Wrestlemania 10 with an amazing match with his brother Owen Hart, a match which Hart clearly put his all into despite having to perform again later on in the night, and would sadly come out the loser of it. That mattered little by the end of the night, however, as after yet another hard-fought match, Bret would topple the giant Yokozuna and stand triumphant as the new WWF Champion.

It’s very rare that one man puts on two incredible performances in one night, though I had to drop Bret down a few places due to the fact he was simply a “co-winner” of a Royal Rumble, and not a winner. Sure what he did was amazing, but the fact that he didn’t outright win the ’94 Rumble does take the shine off the apple just a little.

11 – Asuka – 2018

Historic.

I’m sorry for giving you horrible flashbacks to the time WWE couldn’t go half a sentence without shouting how “historic” the first Women’s Royal Rumble was, but looking back now, they were right. I wasn’t overly thrilled by the first ever women’s Royal Rumble at the time, but going back and watching it now, it was better than I gave it credit for, with there being plenty to like before Asuka entered the fray.

Asuka did eventually enter the match at number 25, and from that moment on it seemed pretty obvious she was going to win. Personally, I feel WWE were quite smart about it, with Sasha Banks digging into her old heel persona to direct the eternally evil Bella Twins to try and get rid of Asuka. Eventually, she would overcome this, and top off the night on a high note.

What came after her Rumble win wasn’t brilliant though. Charlotte would snap Asuka’s undefeated streak at Wrestlemania 34 in a match I still maintain Asuka should’ve won. She would then continue to be torn down in her feud with Carmella, and wouldn’t recover until the dying breaths of 2018 when she finally claimed the Smackdown Women’s Championship at last month’s TLC.

That said, this victory will go down in history for being the first of its kind, and I tend to look back on this one fondly as well.

10 – Triple H – 2002 & 2016

I didn’t think Triple H would make it this high in my list, but looking back on his two Rumble victories, I quite enjoyed both of them.

In 2002, Triple H’s performance was fairly standard, lasting just over 20 minutes and eliminating 4 men on his way to victory. However, the last few moments of the match were rather exciting in their execution, with Kurt Angle almost winning the match, and while the thought of a Jericho vs Angle Mania match makes my mouth start to salivate, Triple H – who was fresh of a huge return – was a good counter of Jericho’s heel antics.

Speaking of which, complain all you like about how Jericho played second fiddle in his own Wrestlemania main event where he was champion, Triple H looked great throughout the whole thing, and in this list, that’s all that matters.

Moving onto 2016, Triple H’s win here is something that tends to divide opinion quite drastically.

Some people believe that Triple H winning the WWE Championship was a cynical and unnecessary move that simply served Triple H’s ego providing his 14th World Championship. While others think it was a great moment that was well executed and served the story that was being told between the McMahons and Roman Reigns.

I tend to fall into the 2nd camp, although I understand the perspective of the first. Triple H entering at number 30 to win was arguably the most predictable “surprise” in Royal Rumble history, but it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. People were so zeroed in on not wanting Roman Reigns to win, that literally anyone else was fantastic, and it was executed brilliantly, with Roman going out just before the end to create some proper investment in Ambrose in the final moments.

Sure, Triple H would go on to lose the title back to Roman Reigns at Wrestlemania 32, but it’s hard to argue with winning the WWE Championship with the Royal Rumble.

9 – John Cena – 2008 & 2013

Cena’s two Rumble wins seem very much like two sides of the same coin.

In 2008, John Cena wasn’t even expected to participate, having to have surgery on a torn pectoral muscle; a surgery with an expected recovery of 6-8 months. However, John Cena doesn’t care for your puny human recovery times and returned triumphantly after only 3 months to enter at number 30 and win the 2008 Royal Rumble. That moment is an iconic Rumble moment, so shocking that even the Cena hating New York crowd that night couldn’t help but cheer at it.

What happened following the match however was quite strange.

The following night on Raw, Cena claimed he just couldn’t wait to fight Randy Orton, and the Wrestlemania match was instead scheduled for No Way Out in February, (A bit weird, but ok). Then the match ended in disappointing fashion when Orton intentionally got himself disqualified to retain the title, (Even weirder, but we’ll see where this is going…). Then at Wrestlemania, Triple H was added to make it a triple threat, where Randy Orton won quite easily. Oh.

It was all just a really strange way to get to Randy Orton retaining his championship twice, pretty underwhelming to say the least.

Cena’s win in the 2013 Rumble was pretty much the exact opposite, with the win itself being extremely predictable and quite boring. With it being no secret that Rock vs Cena II was on the horizon for Wrestlemania 29, and The Rock having a WWE Champion match that same night, Cena’s win felt entirely like an inevitability.

Then going into Wrestlemania 29, the pair had a perfectly serviceable match, that ended up with Cena winning the championship and standing victorious.

Ultimately, both of the big moments here are big enough to overcome the bad ones and place Cena higher up on this list.

8 – Shinsuke Nakamura – 2018

Now, we have the one entry that Ryan ranks higher than it deserves because Ryan wants to.

It’s well known by this point that I loved the 2018 men’s Royal Rumble, with it featuring pretty much everything I love about the match. In addition to this, Shinsuke Nakamura winning it is one of those things that we couldn’t quite believe was going to happen. WWE had spent 7 years conditioning us for disappointment with their Royal Rumble winners, that we just didn’t want to get our hopes up. With guys like Cena and Reigns in the match, surely something would go wrong and we’d all end up miserable again.

However, that wasn’t the case as after a fantastic final 4, Nakamura would eliminate both John Cena and Roman Reigns to win the Royal Rumble after being on WWE’s main roster for under a year and that feeling was incredible. That’s what I remember in wrestling more than amazing matches and more than great characters, it’s the moments of pure emotion that I feel while watching it.

Now, I’d be remiss if I didn’t address what happened after Nakamura’s Rumble win because it’s the reason I couldn’t bear to bring it any higher than 9.

First of all, Nakamura lost his title match at Wrestlemania 34 to AJ Styles. That’s Bad! Then he impaled AJ right in his balls. That’s Good! Then he proceeded to lose to AJ three more times before doing nothing of note for the rest of the year. That’s Bad, very, very bad.

While Nakamura’s future in WWE is up in the air, I think it’s important we celebrate this amazing Rumble performance, because it might be the best we’ll ever get.

7 – Brock Lesnar – 2003

The rise of Brock Lesnar is something that was very much once in a lifetime. Never before or since has someone successfully come into the WWE main roster and immediately asserted themselves as a permanent main event force.

Lesnar hadn’t even been in the WWE for a year when the ’03 Royal Rumble rolled around and he’d already been WWE Champion once before. Lesnar wasn’t in the Rumble for very long, entering at 28 and only being in the ring for 9 minutes before he won, but in that time he threw out 4 men, including The Undertaker.

Following his win, Lesnar would fight Kurt Angle at Wrestlemania 19 for the Undisputed Championship in what many call the best match of Lesnar’s career. Even if he did almost kill himself during the match, he came out the victor in the end and seems to be a very solid template for a successful Royal Rumble winner.

6 – Rey Mysterio – 2006

It’s wins like this that stop us losing hope in the Rumble when someone we hate wins it every damn year.

Being the number 2 entrant in the Royal Rumble really does seem like more of a curse than number 1. Despite having to fight for just as long and do just as much work as number 1, WWE treats winning from the number 2 spot as far less impressive for some reason. Regardless, Mysterio lasting a record 1 hour and 2 minutes in the ’06 Royal Rumble to win it is arguably one of the best feel-good stories that have been told in a Rumble to date.

Once you put all the controversy surrounding how WWE exploited the death of Eddie Guerrero to one side, the rest of the saga was pretty feel good too. Mysterio’s performance at Wrestlemania 22 was arguably just as impressive as his feat in the Rumble match, defeating both Randy Orton and Kurt Angle in order to claim the big gold belt.

Mysterio is the prime example for how you book a babyface to win a Royal Rumble and is something I wish we’d see a tad more often in WWE. I’m looking at you, Seth Rollins.

5 – Edge – 2010

Tell all the long and valiant hero stories you want, there are few things in wrestling that feel as good as a surprise return.

As with Cena in ’08, Edge’s return in the 2010 Royal Rumble really was a total surprise to cap off what had already been one of the best Royal Rumble matches ever. Entering at 29 (thanks to Batista having reserved the number 30 spot for himself), Edge needed only 7 short minutes to claim his victory, eliminating both John Cena and Chris Jericho on his way.

His Wrestlemania 26 match against Chris Jericho for the World Heavyweight Championship didn’t go quite as well though, with Edge surprisingly being defeated by Jericho to continue their still fairly young feud. However, such a brilliant and surprising win in one of my favourite Rumble matches was so exhilarating that I couldn’t possibly have put it any lower on the list.

4 – The Undertaker – 2007

Now we’re getting to the point in the list where it’s getting really hard to pick any one of the others.

The 2007 Royal Rumble wasn’t among one of the best in terms of overall quality, but the action from the moment The Undertaker entered the match at the number 30 spot makes it have the best finale in Rumble history. First of all, the timing of the entrance was spot on, with The Great Khali laying everyone out and looking to potentially ruin the match, only for the countdown timer to hit zero, the lights to go out and the iconic gong rang through the arena to mark the arrival of the deadman.

Undertaker quickly dispatched of the Great Khali and clear the floor of anyone else left standing until only one other remained…Shawn Michaels. What followed next was almost ten minutes of incredible back and forth action that made you feel like the match could end at any moment with either man standing victorious and giving us just a little taste of what was to come in their legendary encounter two years later. It had to end eventually though, and The Undertaker dropped Michaels’ to the floor to claim his first Royal Rumble win of his iconic career.

What followed at Wrestlemania 23 was great as well. Undertaker would face off for the World Heavyweight Championship against Batista, in what was one of Undertaker’s better Wrestlemania matches and perhaps Batista’s greatest match. You don’t need me to tell you, but Undertaker, of course, would win the title at Wrestlemania and take his streak to 15-0.

3 – Chris Benoit – 2004

Every single year, you’ll hear the same snippet of information from someone of the commentary team, that “only two people have ever won from the number 1 spot!” They’ll be all too excited to tell you that the first one is Shawn Michaels, but they’ll be very silent on the second.

That’s because the second is Chris Benoit. I’m not going to go into why, but if you don’t then a quick Google should tell you everything you need to know.

Aside from the tragedy behind the man who won the 2004 Royal Rumble, this was perhaps my favourite win out of the ones on this list. He didn’t win the Royal Rumble by being lucky or cowardly or opportunistic, he won by being smart. The clearest indication of that is right at the end, as Benoit face of against the Big Show. Benoit knows he’s not going to be able to pick the giant up, so why bother trying? Instead, he waits until Big Show tries to throw him out, and leverages his weight and uses Big Show’s momentum to drag the giant over the top rope and to the floor. It’s such a rare display of intelligence and logic from a WWE babyface that I can’t help but love it.

What happened after the win was brilliant too, defeating both Triple H and Shawn Michaels in the main event of Wrestlemania 20 to claim the World Heavyweight Championship. Leading to the beautiful moment were best friends Benoit and Eddie stood tall to end the biggest WWE show of the year. It’s just a shame it’s a moment we can never look at the same way again.

 2 – Ric Flair – 1992

Being a WWE fan of only five years, I often don’t really “get” or appreciate stuff from the mid-’90s or earlier, but watching the 1992 Rumble, I totally understand why everything about it is so beloved by long-time fans.

With arguably the most star-studded Rumble ever, and the number 3 entry spot, it was going to be one hell of a challenge for Ric Flair to come out victorious in the 1992 Royal Rumble, a match that was for the vacant WWF Championship. If there’s one thing you can rely on Ric Flair to do though, it’s to find a way to win by any means necessary.

After one hell of a Rumble match, Ric Flair would throw Sid Justice over the ropes (with a little help from Hulk Hogan) to win the match and claim his first WWF Championship. Immediately afterwards Flair would cut one of his best promos “with a tear in his eye”.

While Flair’s run with the title would be very long, with him losing it to Randy Savage a couple of months later at Wrestlemania 8, it felt like a massive deal, that the guy who was all about the NWA and old-school wrasslin’ was the undisputed champion of the WWF, at least for a little while.

1 – Stone Cold Steve Austin – 1997, 1998 & 2001

Could it really have been anyone else?

Being the only man (to date) to have won three Royal Rumble matches is quite the achievement, considering there are only a select few superstars that get to win one. The Royal Rumble just seemed to be where Austin could be at his best.

While the 1997 Rumble wasn’t all that good overall, it had some really great moments, all of which had something to do with Stone Cold. The sequence where Stone Cold had cleared the ring and was throwing people out faster than they were coming in was great to see, and the image of Austin sitting on the turnbuckle checking his watch is an iconic Royal Rumble image. It got even better when the expression of Austin’s face would change from whimsy to fear the moment Bret Hart’s music played.

Austin’s first Rumble win, however, was a tad tainted. For one, Austin was actually eliminated from the match, but the referees were busy breaking up a fight at ringside between Vader and The Undertaker, which allowed Austin to sneak back into the ring and eliminate Bret Hart after the hitman thought he had won.

Due to the controversial nature of the win, Austin’s title shot wouldn’t come at Wrestlemania, but instead at In Your House 13, where he would lose a fatal 4 way, and go on to have his infamous match with Bret Hart at Wrestlemania 13.

1998 was a vast improvement from this. For starters, this time instead of Austin looking terrified, it was everyone else who looked on in fear when Austin’s music hit at the number 24 spot. Austin would then go balls to the walls eliminating everyone in sight until eventually he tossed The Rock out of the ring, and would win his first ever WWF Championship from Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania 24.

2001 was yet another triumphant win for Austin, not going on quite the same tear he did in ’97 or ’98 thanks to some well-placed shots by Triple H, but a fantastic performance nonetheless. The 2001 Rumble was also a very star-studded one, with the amazing final 4 of The Rock, Austin, Kane and Billy Gunn (well they can’t ALL be winners). Regardless, Stone Cold would come out victorious and go on to fight The Rock for the WWF Championship at Wrestlemania 17, where he would win the title by shaking hands “with the Devil himself”.

Three Rumble wins, all of which had at least some really great qualities to them lands Austin undisputedly in the top spot on this list.

And that – as they say – is that. Thank you so much for reading this list (kudos if you didn’t just skim to see the top and bottom three), but the fun doesn’t stop here! The Rumble is a mere 6 days away, so I shall be giving out my predictions on Friday, and a review the following week.

Stay tuned for that, and follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo to read it as soon as it comes out!

Alright, time for a big task.

While I could’ve just ranked all of the Rumble matches themselves and been done with it, I personally think ranking the winners is much more interesting.

There’s so much to consider when it comes to putting all of the competitors in a ranked list like this: How did they perform in the match? What were their stories going into the match? What did they do following their win? Not to mention outside factors surrounding the match and its winner.

So what am I ranking these men (and woman) based on? The main things I’ll be taking into account are their performance in the Rumble match (Entry Number, Eliminations, How did they actually win?) and what they did in the months following their Rumble victory, paying special attention to their title opportunity at the following Wrestlemania.

Finally, for people who won multiple Rumbles, I’m grouping their wins together and taking an average, so it doesn’t clog up the list.

26 – Vince Mcmahon – 1999

The owner of the WWE booked himself to win the Royal Rumble. Does any more really need to be said? Well, let’s say it anyway.

The ’99 Rumble was a pretty underwhelming one anyway, with the focus being taken away from the action in the ring far too often to see whatever Stone Cold and Vince Mcmahon were getting up to backstage. Which meant we couldn’t get a lot of the staples that make a Royal Rumble so much fun to watch.

At face value, Vince’s stats are quite impressive, he entered at Number 2, which is essentially the same as Number 1, and lasted over 56 minutes before winning the match. However, when you see what actually happened, it gets significantly more underwhelming. For one, Mcmahon was only in the match to eliminate Stone Cold, that was all he wanted to do, he didn’t care about winning the damn thing. He also spent most of the match sitting around on commentary or in the bowels of the arena beating up Stone Cold, and he was only able to succeed with an awful lot of help from just about everyone.

As for what he did afterwards, he forfeited his title shot because – and I can’t stress this enough – he never wanted to win the match, however in doing so, the title shot defaulted to the runner-up of the match which was, you guessed it, Stone Cold, COMPLETELY defeating the point of Mcmahon even entering the match in the first place.

It seemed like a really roundabout way to get Austin into the main event of Wrestlemania 15, and they really should’ve just given Stone Cold his third consecutive Rumble win.

25 – “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan – 1988

“First the worst” as they say…

I get that since it was the first ever Rumble match, WWE hadn’t quite worked out exactly what they wanted to do with it just yet, but this whole thing was just so underwhelming.

For a start, there were only 20 men in this match instead of the 30 that would be in from ’89 onwards and, after entering at number 13, Jim eliminated a measly 3 men before being declared the winner. Nevertheless, that’s all fine as long as he can use the momentum that something like winning the first ever Royal Rumble would give you, so what did he do two months later and Wrestlemania 3? Well…..ummm ran in and caused his enemies, The Iron Shiek and Nikolai Volkov to win their match via disqualification…..right.

Unfortunately the first ever Rumble match isn’t quite the amazing spectacle it would soon become, but everything’s gotta start somewhere.

24 – Roman Reigns – 2015

I really wanted to put Roman higher than this, but I just couldn’t do it.

It’s hard to describe the 2015 Rumble as anything other than a disaster. I felt like WWE were actively trying to piss off its fanbase by choosing to do the exact opposite of what we wanted to see at every opportunity, with things like Daniel Bryan being eliminated super early, and the Big Show and Kane boringly dropping everyone out of the ring like they were moving furniture.

It was all ok though because a conquering hero that we all loved was going to come and put a stop to it! A hero called……Roman Reigns……oh. Roman Reigns has perhaps never been hated more than he was on this night (and that includes when he “retired” The Undertaker in 2017) and it’s not hard to see why.

Roman had been booked terribly since the breakup of the Shield, to the point where any momentum he would’ve had coming out of that was long dead. It’s been said many times, but you have to fuck up HARD to get a crowd to boo The Rock in 2015, but Roman Reigns winning the Royal Rumble did just that.

23 – Big John Studd – 1989

“Second the best”, well, not quite.

While the match itself saw a whole host of vast improvements from its progenitor the previous year, the same cannot be said for the treatment of the winner.

Before the stipulation where the winner gets a world championship match at Wrestlemania was added, the whole thing seemed to feel rather purposeless; while it was still full of the fun things we expect from a Rumble, there didn’t feel like there were any real stakes.

As for Studd’s performance in the match, it was a fairly standard performance from a Rumble winner, entering at the ever-so-popular 27 and lasting a little over 12 minutes, with a tad underwhelming 2 eliminations. However, once again it’s what happened to him in the aftermath of his victory that drops him down this far. While I’m aware of what a big deal Studd was in his day, at Wrestlemania 4, all he was just a special referee for Andre vs Jake Roberts.

Imagine if that’s what became of this year’s Rumble winner, we’d all be fuming, and as such, I can’t bring myself to place it any higher.

22 – Yokozuna – 1993

Honestly, I’m surprised that this one got as high as it did.

Yokozuna’s performance in the ’93 Rumble was actually fairly impressive, lasting for just under 15 minutes and eliminating 7 men on his way to victory. Admittedly, his win was slightly undercut by the fact he won by throwing Randy Savage out after Savage stupidly tried to go for a pinfall…in the Royal Rumble.

Once again though, Yokozuna falls this far down this list thanks to what happened following his victory. At Wrestlemania 9, Yokozuna fought Bret Hart for the title and won, becoming the WWF Champion! That’s great! Well hold up for a second, we’re not done. For one, it wasn’t a clean win, since Bret was blinded by salt being thrown in his eyes. Secondly, the match was awful, thanks to Yokozuna skipping a large portion of the planned match due to being gassed. Finally, after Yokozuna’s victory, who should come out but Hulk Hogan.

Oh cool, are they going to staredown and set up a future confrontation? Are they going to restart the match so Bret can reclaim his title?

NOPE

Instead, Mr Fugi challenged Hogan to a match right there and then and Hogan beat Yokozuna in short fashion. Oh.

21 – Randy Orton – 2009 & 2017

I’m not still salty about it, honestly, I’m not.

You’d think a multiple time winner of the Royal Rumble shouldn’t be this low down on the list, but let’s break this down.

First up, 2009, and it’s not a good sign when I had to look up who won this match because I genuinely couldn’t remember (it was the only one I couldn’t remember too.) In addition to this, such a large portion of the match was dedicated to Triple H vs Legacy it shoved a lot of other cool stuff out of the way in the match. Orton actually lasted an impressive 48 minutes after entering at number 8, however thanks to Legacy doing a lot of the work for him, he only got 3 eliminations.

He then went on to fight Triple H for the WWE Championship at Wrestlemania 25 in one of the biggest anti-climaxes ever. The build to the match was brilliant, with wife-kissing, Mcmahon punting and home invasions galore, and then the match happened and it was perhaps one of the most boring matches I’ve ever seen. Oh, and Randy lost, so that sucks.

So now we look to 2017 for some redemption an- Oh God the memories are returning, so much pain, so much pain.

I try my best to avoid checking the betting odds in the week before a wrestling event for fear of spoilers, but in 2017 it was rather hard to avoid because they were just so odd. Not only did no-one in the IWC really have any clue who was going to win, but the betting odds were fluctuating by the day, until suddenly out of absolutely nowhere, Randy Orton shoots up to the top with 7/2 odds of winning; and we all got very worried.

Then, following the worst number 30 entrance in history (thank you Roman) our fears were realised as Randy Orton claimed his second Royal Rumble victory.

His performance was nothing special this time around, lasting 20 minutes and ending up with only a single elimination. Granted, he did win the WWE Championship at Wrestlemania, but he would just as quickly lose it to Jinder Mahal, and I don’t want to talk about that right now because the pain just won’t stop.

20 – Sheamus – 2012

If you read these lists of mine often, then you might think I have it out for Sheamus a bit, and you’d be right.

While I think he’s been brilliant since teaming up with Cesaro, but I entirely hated pretty much everything he did before that; Case in point, the 2012 Royal Rumble and what followed it.

Sheamus’ performance was the definition of a “standard” Royal Rumble performance: entering at 23, lasting about 20 minutes and eliminating 3 men of little consequence along the way. With this Rumble, however, you have to factor in the fact that Jericho was originally planned to win this match, but when that got leaked online, WWE panicked and changed it for the sake of changing it. I understand the need for intrigue and mystery, but switching Chris Jericho for Sheamus? Come on.

Then what happened after. I really don’t want to talk about it, so I’ll just say 18 seconds and leave it at that. Let us shed a small tear and move on.

19 – The Rock – 2000

While I want to just sit here and type “The Rock didn’t win the 2000 Royal Rumble” over and over again, let’s look past it.

Generally, the 2000 Royal Rumble was a tad overshadowed by what came before it, with Triple H and Mick Foley putting on a brilliant match for the WWF championship. Not to mention, this was in an era where all of the big names were either out with injury, or just building themselves up, so it’s not a very star-studded match.

Rocky eliminated 4 men on his way to “victory” in this match. With the thing I will never stop mentioning, where both of The Rock’s feet touched the floor before Big Show’s meaning – and say it with me boys and girls – The Rock didn’t win the 2000 Royal Rumble. I don’t care if they used it in a future storyline, I’m still upset about it.

Speaking of future storylines though, The Rock ended up being on the losing end of his Wrestlemania 16 match, in yet another main event that became all about the Mcmahon’s stupid infighting.

18 – Batista – 2005 & 2014

Batista’s Rumble wins are both incredibly memorable ones, although not exactly for the best of reasons.

Everything was going rather well for Batista in the 2005 Rumble, he had a great storyline lined up for him and was being able to put on a fairly dominant display on his way to a Rumble win, but it all went wrong at the last possible second.

The story is well known, but let’s recap it again because it’s hilarious.

So Batista lifts Cena up for the Batista bomb for what is presumably the finish, but physics decides it’s having none of that. Instead, the force Batista lifts Cena up with causes Cena to over-rotate and it all ends up with both Cena and Batista falling out of the ring at the exact same time. Seriously, watch it back, there was no way to tell who hit first.

Unlike 1994, this wasn’t supposed to happen, so now we have mass confusion, with the referees stalling for time until they get some word from backstage as to what the fuck they’re supposed to do. At which point a furious Vince Mcmahon storms down to the ring (which is always funny), and upon launching himself into the ring, tears BOTH HIS QUADS. I thought Kevin Nash tearing one by walking was bad, but both of them, simultaneously, by simply getting into the ring.

Eventually, the match is restarted and Batista gets rid of Cena in short order, but his win will forever be overshadowed by the chaos that came before it.

Oh God, we’re still not done. Now we must turn our attention to 2014 and see what horrors it holds within.

Things went wrong here long before the Rumble even started, as Batista’s return was intended to be a surprise, but WHOOPS the internet got involved again and it leaked. Which meant instead of the big adrenaline high you get from seeing a huge return in the middle of the Rumble, we got a very slow and very boring promo on Raw to mark his return.

The main story of the 2014 Royal Rumble was about a little man who wasn’t even in the match, by the name of Daniel Bryan, you might’ve heard of him. Fans were so desperate to see Bryan win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, that any winner not named Daniel Bryan was going to get booed out of the building. Enter Batista.

I could tell you his stats, but it really doesn’t matter, the moment Batista eliminated Roman Reigns to win the match, all that would ever be remembered are the boos, the never-ending boos.

Batista would eventually lose his title match at Wrestlemania 30 after the aforementioned little man inserted himself in the match for one of the best Wrestlemania endings ever. Just a shame Batista was a complete non-factor in all of it.

17 – Lex Luger – 1994

So we’ve talked about the Rumble that accidentally ended in a draw, now let’s talk about the one that was supposed to.

Luger actually had the better performance of the two winners in the ’94 Rumble, with 6 eliminations in a little over 20 minutes. Normally I’d take how exactly they won into account, but the fact that both Luger and Bret Hart eliminated each other simultaneously makes it quite hard for me to place.

I’m just going to have to go on what happened to him following his Rumble win and well…let’s just say Bret was the real winner. After some confusion, it was announced that both Hart and Luger would wrestle two matches at Wrestlemania 10 and Luger won the right to fight the champion (Yokozuna) first. That match ended when Mr Perfect (the special referee) disqualified Luger.

Luger had pretty much every advantage going into Wrestlemania 10 and he couldn’t put it away, not to mention how his WWF Championship match was just used to further a separate storyline, not really anything worthy of a Royal Rumble winner.

16 – Alberto Del Rio – 2011

There are a number of reasons why Del Rio placed this low. First of all, Del Rio very nearly didn’t win the Royal Rumble, because none other than Santino Marella had rolled out of the ring earlier in the match and nearly won by blind-siding Del Rio after he believed he had won.

Although, when he finally did win the match, things didn’t really go much better for him, as his World Heavyweight Championship match opened Wrestlemania 27, and he lost to Edge, who then proceeded to damage Del Rio’s car. Even though Edge would retire very shortly after, Del Rio was once again denied the championship thanks to Christian beating him for it the very next month.

While Del Rio would enjoy a brief run with the WWE Championship later in 2011 thanks to the Money in the Bank briefcase and Kevin Nash, his Royal Rumble win was most definitely a failure.

15 – Braun Strowman – 2018
(Greatest Royal Rumble Event)

You’d think the winner of the “Greatest Royal Rumble” would be a bit higher than this wouldn’t you?

Well, for one thing, this Royal Rumble was the “greatest” in size alone, with a record 50 entrants. Although at face value, Braun had an extraordinary showing – lasting 22 minutes and eliminating a record 13 men – ultimately I can’t bring myself to place him any higher simply because the match didn’t mean anything.

This was the very first of WWE’s event in Saudi Arabia, which meant nothing of real consequence was ever going to come from it. All Braun got for winning was a trophy which was destroyed in a couple of weeks and an ugly looking championship belt which we never saw again. Braun would win the Money in the Bank briefcase following his Rumble win but that ended in disaster too.

If we get a second GRR event in 2019, I certainly hope something better comes out of it than 2018’s.

14 – Shawn Michaels – 1995 & 1996

Again, someone who feels like they should probably be a little higher on the list, but the heartbreak kid’s Royal Rumble accomplishments really aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Shawn Michaels is often touted as being the first man to win the Royal Rumble from the number 1 spot, but that achievement becomes a whole lot less impressive when you actually watch the 1995 Royal Rumble. First off, entrants were coming in at a lightning pace, seemingly at 30-second intervals instead of the usual 90. This significantly decreased the run time of the match, with a match that usually lasts over an hour being decreased to a mere 38 minutes.

In addition to this, the list of participants in the match where a who’s who of absolutely no-one in WWF at the time. HBK, British Bulldog and Owen Hart were the only people of note in the match, so while Michaels’ 8 eliminations sound impressive, there wasn’t exactly anyone else in there to stand up to him.

Then he went to Wrestlemania 11 and lost to Deisel in boring fashion thanks to Sid being an idiot.

So why’s he in the middle of the list and not lower down? Well, his consecutive victory in 1996 was significantly more impressive than his first.

The field was full of legitimate competitors this time around, so when Michaels’ scored 8 eliminations this time around it seemed like a proper achievement. In addition to this, HBK won by eliminating Diesel, who had thwarted his attempts at the WWF Championship a year earlier.

Then following his win the ’96 Rumble, Shawn Michaels would go onto defeat Bret Hart in the classic 60 minute Iron Man match at Wrestlemania 12 to claim the WWF Championship and fulfil the boy-hood dream we keep hearing about.

So that’s part 1! Thank you very much for reading this far, part 2 will be coming your way on Monday, so make sure you follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo to see it as soon as it comes out. Until then, please share this around on social media and I’ll see you soon!