Big John Studd winning the Rumble?

[icarus]

Anyone have any background on why the above happened??

I know back in those days, winning the rumble wasn't the launching pad into WM as it is today, but even still, it makes no sense to me. After winning, he went on to ref the Jake/Andre match at WM5 and then disappeared.

Wouldn't it have made more sense for someone like Warrior, Rude, Hennig, Dibiase etc to have won?

[nerdinitupagain]

Wasn't the first rumble just a mid-card filler match?

[icarus]

the 1988 one was. the 89 one had all the top stars ... hogan, savage et all.

[DiBiase is Good]

It was nice to see a nostalgia pop for Studd, but storyline wise it served no purpose. 2 months later Studd was the referee in possibly the worst match of WM5 and was gone not long after that.
I'm not just saying this as a DiBiase mark, but DiBiase really should've won the Rumble. Although judging by his meaningless 3rd on the card match with Beefcake at Wrestlemania they didn't know what to do with him anyway.

[lildude8218]

I think it was pretty much to prove that anyone could win the Rumble. Studd had been a TOP heel in the company for years before leaving near the end of 86. He returned at the end of 88, told Heenan off and was then supposed to become an upper middle babyface. He won the Rumble, had a brief house show feud with Akeem, and they picked him to ref the Jake/Andre match.

Basically Studd/Andre from years ago was supposed to be recreated with the roles reversed. But Andre was in the middle of a hot feud with Jake. So they did the right thing and had them end it with a big blowoff at Mania which was to signal the start of Jake/DiBiase and Studd/Andre. Which happened for a good 2 months until Studd suddenly quit one afternoon in June.

They had been doing some Studd/Duggan vs Andre/Haku matches at this point. so maybe Summerslam might've been completely different had Studd stayed around. Either he and Haku could've been added to the 6 man tag, making it an 8 man tag. or Studd and Andre could've had a one on one PPV match.

[molson5]

I've definitely heard plans of a Studd/Andre feud, but both guys were pretty broken down by then. I think they were expecting more from Studd, but he just didn't fit in with the new times.

Though in kayfabe, there's nothing wrong with him winning with a late number. The guy was huge, he should have been a favorite. Big guys are always considered "favorites" in Royal Rumbles/Battle Royales, but they never actually win.

[wolfmoon103100]

I believe Studd had a tumer, Maybe cancer at the time and it was a thank you win. Thats why he didn't wrestle much after that.

[Agent P]

I think Studd was supposed to have a hyooge comeback, but it never happened.

[bobolebowski]

Hmmm many theories....I always liked Studd....And was glad to see him win the Rumble

[rzombie1988]

I've always heard he won it as a thank you type of gift.

[lovingway]

I remember seeing his son try out for Tough Enough a few years back. Is he still a wrestler?

[cuneo77]

i was wondered why studd left,he beat up andre on superstars and that was that

[Lino]

The Royal Rumble match that year was more about Mega Powers about to explode than Big John Studd winning it. I always wondered the same, Studd could've been pushed to main event status but never was.

[reiko22]

maybe Vince didn't think that Studd was marketable enough for the era compared to guys like Hogan and Warrior

[stevierichardsfan]

dibiaseisgood said:

It was nice to see a nostalgia pop for Studd, but storyline wise it served no purpose. 2 months later Studd was the referee in possibly the worst match of WM5 and was gone not long after that.
I'm not just saying this as a DiBiase mark, but DiBiase really should've won the Rumble. Although judging by his meaningless 3rd on the card match with Beefcake at Wrestlemania they didn't know what to do with him anyway.

i agree from having him in the main event for the worlt title no less then having him in a 3rd match with beefcake was stupid

[Aceorton]

I think Studd got it not just because of his comeback push or as a thank-you, but also by simple process of elimination.

It's the first Rumble on PPV, so it needs a semi-pure result. You want to show that the match favors tough, big, strong guys, and that the luck of the draw is crucial. So you need the winner to be a large, powerhouse babyface who enters late.

In order to build the Savage-Hogan split, they needed to do their angle in the middle. So they're gone. Andre, DiBiase and the Twin Towers would have been interesting winners, but as heels that's probably not what the WWF wanted. Guys who were part of "official" tag teams obviously weren't going to win, and ditto for any lower-card guys.

Who's left for the babyfaces? Jake? Beefcake? Hercules? I have soft spots for all of them, but none of them would have been a convincing winner, considering what the Rumble was supposed to mean in those days.

Studd made sense on paper. Unfortunately, it was BO-RING.

Considering Hogan won it the next two years with numbers later in the draw, you could argue they didn't really get creative with a Rumble until Flair won with No. 3 in '92.

[Deleted]

wolfmoon103100 said:

I believe Studd had a tumer, Maybe cancer at the time and it was a thank you win. Thats why he didn't wrestle much after that.

Studd had the early stages of Hodgkin's disease, from which he would die from a few years later. Many do consider this a "thank you for all your years of hard work" kind of win. (Studd virtually going belt-less his entire WWF career, unless you count his role as a member of the then-tag champs Executioners in the mid-70s. The other members being Killer Kowalski and Nikolai Volkoff - all under masks.)

The Rumble was supposed to be a sort of set-up for another Studd-Andre match, but they (for some reason) decided to have the blow-off match to the Andre-Jake Roberts feud instead. This match was the supposed to be another layer in the set-up for an Andre-Studd match, which never happened.