What is Your Favorite #1 and #2 in the Rumble?

[msc]

Rumble musings eh?

1988 - "How ironic these two bitter rivals have started number one and number two?" Let's lampshade it. Bret and Tito do OK but are feeling out the process.
1989 - Ax and Smash. Idiots. Smashing each other. Then they are too tired for Andre.
1990 - DiBiase/Koko - Fun for about 90 seconds.
1991 - Bret/Dino Bravo. Awful and clunky. Their mutual hatred is obvious from miles away and makes everything even more awkward.
1992 - Bulldog/DiBiase - Decent but alas DiBiase was hurt so it wasn't as good as it should have been.
1993 - Flair/Backlund - Old school but slow.
1994 - Scott Steiner/Samu - Suplexes and smashes. Underrated fun.
1995 - Shawn Michaels/Bulldog - These two are great but 60 seconds is no time to do much bar a few quick sequences.
1996 - HHH/HOG - Not the fastest start but Triple H acting up makes it good.
1997 - Crush/Ahmed - Huff and puff. Crush swearing at Ahmed's music is great. Ahmed sucks and Crush struggles to get him to do anything.
1998 - Cactus Jack/Terry Funk. Two legends destroy each other. There's a chainsaw. This is classic.

"You get eliminated by going over the top rope and both feet touching the floor."
"Or to have one of your major limbs hacked off by a chainsaw!"
"I believe that was an amendment added late Wednesday afternoon."

hah.

1999 - Vince/Austin - Cathartic if you were an Austin fan.
2000 - Dlo Brown/Grandmaster Sexay - Some nice interactions between two underrated stars.
2001 - Jeff Hardy/Bull Buchanan - Oh this is great, Bull's rough and tumble taking on Jeff's flying around the ring.
2002 - Rikishi/Goldust. A pairing none of us thought about before hand, but they have nearly 3 minutes here before Bossman shows up and it flies by.
2003 - Jericho/HBK - An angle beatdown so hard to call.
2004 - Benoit/Orton - Good stuff
2005 - Benoit/Eddie Guerrero - Nuff said.
2006 - HHH/Rey. OK.
2007 - Flair/Finlay - A right retro opening. These two never faced off, otherwise, in WWE.
2008 - Taker/HBK - Close calls, two legends, awesome.
2009 - John Morrison/Rey Mysterio - they go for broke with near falls from the off. Exciting.
2010 - Dolph Ziggler/Evan Bourne - They rush through a 10 minute match in 90 seconds.
2011 - Punk/Bryan - Good stuff.
2012 - Miz/Alex Riley - Mediocre and ends quick.
2013 - Ziggler/Jericho - "You still got it!" "I never lost it, baby!"
2014 - Punk/Rollins - Set up the man of the match for the entire rumble, just it turned out to be Seth Rollins.
2015 - Miz/R-Truth. Mediocre.
2016 - Reigns/Rusev - Mediocre.
2017 - Big Cass/Jericho. Odd pairing.
2018 - Rusev/Balor - Great stuff with Rusev just trying to dominate early with his power, and Balor hanging on for grim life.
2019 - Elias/Jarrett - Goofy.
2020 - Brock/Elias - Goofy.
2021 - Edge/Orton - a brawl outside the ring with weapons. Very different to previous starts, tbf.
2022 - AJ/Nakamura - Looked great but was booked like the WWE didn't give a damn, because it wasn't Brock.

So from that, I rate Rusev/Balor (2018) and Taker/HBK (2008) as the best opening two, but would big up Jeff/Bull, Scott/Samu and Rey/Morrison as pretty damn enjoyable too.

[Ozman]

Ax and Smash as 1 and 2 set the tone for “anything can happen in the Rumble”.

[msc]

Ax - Oh boy, I'm number one, this will be a struggle, who is number 2?
Smash - Hi!
Ax - Oh yeah, I forgot you literally just told me.
Smash - So yeah, this is going to be a tough match.
Ax - Maybe we should conserve our ener...
Smash - Smash Hit!
Ax - Or not.
(2 minutes later)
Smash - Man, I'm knackered. You hit hard.
Ax - You hit me in my f***ing back, you idiot.
Smash - Hey, isn't that Andre?
Ax - Oh shit.
(2 minutes later, Andre flips the knackered Smash to elimination land)
Smash - I REGRET NOOOOOOTHING.
Andre - I just Repo'd your shit.
Ax - Huh?
Andre - That'll be hilarious in 3 years, trust me.