Hulk Ranks Every Royal Rumble PPV From Best To Worst.
Jan 19, 2020 10:47:16 GMT -5
anglarite and thehottag like this
Post by Hulkshi Tanahashi on Jan 19, 2020 10:47:16 GMT -5
Hulk Ranks Every Royal Rumble PPV From Best To Worst.
1. 1992: The Greatest Royal Rumble Of All Time. Some call this a one-match-show, with the excellent Rumble match elevating the whole show to greatness. While the Rumble match was great, that “one-match-show” label does a huge disservice to the whole show. For one, there was a great underrated tag team match between The New Foundation (Jim Neidhart and Owen Hart) and The Orient Express that opened show; once again, the Orient Express are half responsible for a great tag team opening match. Also, this PPV saw “Rowdy” Roddy Piper winning his only singles title in WWE as he defeated The Mountie for the Intercontinental Title in a fun little match. The Tag Team Titles match was an interesting clash as champions The Legion Of Doom had to take on The Naturals Disasters, a team they couldn’t manhandle like they had done to other teams throughout their careers. Even the worst match on the show, The Bushwhackers VS The Beverly Brothers, wasn’t that bad. Though, the PPV does belong to the Rumble match. The Greatest Rumble Match Of All Time was filled to the brim with Hall Of Famers competing to win the vacant WWE Title. Giving a prize to the winner was a brilliant touch as it added more stakes and storyline drama and really made it special for the winner. After this Rumble, all the others would have a World Title shot at WrestleMania for the winner, which shows just how important this match was. Outside of that, we got Bobby Heenan’s greatest commentary job, that weird moment where “Macho Man” Randy Savage eliminated himself to get to Jake “The Snake” Roberts but still being allowed to compete in the match, and Ric Flair going the distance to win the title. His win was very historic, especially since he became the 2nd man in wrestling history to have won the NWA and WWE Titles. That really helped to sell just how important the 1992 Rumble was. It’s been built up for years as the ultimate Rumble PPV, but it has managed to live up to the hype ever since.
2. 2001: After a stellar year for PPVs, the 2001 Royal Rumble was elevated by 2000’s winning streak and got 2001 off to a great start. It began with a great little Tag Team Titles match between Edge & Christian and The Dudley Boyz, which proved that the Dudleyz didn’t need tables to have a good match. Then, we got a fantastic Ladder Match between Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho. It’s still the only Ladder Match in Rumble history, and I suspect that its quality has led to WWE not even trying to top it. The Women’s Title match was the worst part of the show, mainly because of Chyna’s kayfabe neck injury. It came off as exploitative, but it didn’t ruin the show. After that, we got a great heel vs heel match with Triple H taking on Kurt Angle for the WWE Title. It was amazing how they could get the crowd into the match despite both men being so hated. And, finally, we had the Rumble match. Easily one of the best, this match had it all. Raven bringing in weapons, Kane blasting The Honky Tonk Man with his guitar, Scotty 2 Hotty reluctantly entering the ring after Kane and The Undertaker had cleaned house, Kane pulling off the best Rumble performance by a non-winner, and Stone Cold winning his 3rd Rumble. It was a wild ride that capped off an excellent PPV.
3. 2000: A lot of these Rumble PPVs are elevated on the strength of one match, and that one match is usually the Rumble match. This PPV was an exception. This time it was a non-Rumble match with the amazing Street Fight between Triple H and Cactus Jack for the WWE Title. That match was bloody, brutal, and a little horrific. It was perfect, a ballet of violence that got Triple H over as the company’s top heel and showed just why Mick Foley was great at taking a vicious beating. It set the stage for a great year for PPV matches. As for the rest of the PPV, the Rumble match was a lot of fun. It featured some great moments, like Too Cool’s dance break, Bob Backlund’s surprise return, and The Rock winning. The rest of the card had some great highlights, like Tazz’s debut win against Kurt Angle and the first ever Tables Match. Even the worst part of the show, the bikini contest that has aged horribly compared to today’s crop of women wrestlers, was enjoyable thanks to Mae Young winning for wanting to flash her basset hounds to the crowd, a nice little subverision of the sexist segment. The year 2000 has been called WWE’s Best Year For PPVs, and it got off to a great start with the Royal Rumble.
4. 1998: Going into the 1998 Rumble, everyone knew that Stone Cold Steve Austin was going to win the Royal Rumble. And, everyone knew that Shawn Michaels would survive his Casket Match for his WWE Title with The Undertaker thanks to Kane. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. Despite the predictability of the event, it was still a great PPV. The undercard matches were fun little spectacles, especially the Tag Team and Intercontinental Title matches. Sure, they ended with shenanigans: The New Age Outlaws intentionally got DQ’ed to survive the Legion Of Doom, and The Rock outsmarted Ken Shamrock by slipping some brass knucks in his trunks. But, they were entertaining and got the crowd going; so they did their part. The WWE Title match was really good despite the predictability, mainly because it was between The Undertaker in his prime and Shawn Michaels right before he hurt his back. Literally since it happened during that match and he didn’t really feel the aftereffects until later. The Rumble match itself wasn’t all that great. It was too crowded throughout, and the predictability of Stone Cold’s win did hurt it. But, it basically had one job to do: get Austin over as an unstoppable force set to become WWE Champion. And, it did it with aplomb. Besides, Austin needed to win. He had to become the company’s top babyface after Bret Hart left. While he had defaulted into the role in the wake of the Montreal Screwjob, the 1998 Rumble just proved he was the right choice even if WWE had other options. Sure, it was predictable, but this PPV proved that predictability isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
5. 2007: If you take out that awful Test and Bobby Lashley match, then this could have gone much closer to the top. Though, that one match couldn’t keep this PPV out of the Top 5. The Hardys and MNM put on another killer tag match in the opener. Batista and Mr. Kennedy had a pretty good match for the World Heavyweight Title match. And, this PPV features Umaga’s best match as he had a great Last Man Standing match with John Cena for the WWE Title. But, this is one Rumble PPV that belongs to its marquee match. It was a really good Rumble match with some good spots. I liked how the ECW wrestlers brought in weapons. Rumble matches should have more weapons. That table spot with Kane and Sabu was cool. And, they finally managed to make The Great Khali look great by having him eliminate 7 guys in 44 seconds. But, the kicker was the end, in which The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels had a mini-preview of their WrestleMania matches. They fought tooth and nail to win the match, pulling off the best ending to a Rumble match ever. Just having 2 great workers damn near kill themselves to win was a smart way to end the match and really put this Rumble into the pantheon of great PPVs.
6. 2010: Some people call this the last great Rumble. It’s not hard to see why. Most Rumble matches follow a pattern. They’ll either stay filled up throughout the match with elimination few and far in between. Or, they’ll fill up until a big cleaning house moment only to fill up again before the end. Some will see eliminations come fast and furious until the last third, where it’ll fill up. But, this one tried something different. In the first third of the match, CM Punk dominated until Triple H came in. Then, in the middle, the ring filled up until Shawn Michaels came out and took out most of the combatants with Triple H. And, after John Cena came in, the eliminations came one right after another. No one from Numbers 20 to 30 lasted 10 minutes. In fact, only 3 guys lasted over 5. It was different and stood out from the usual Rumble patterns, which made it unique and enjoyable. There were also some great moments, like CM Punk’s dominance, Beth Phoenix’s incredibly smart elimination of The Great Khali, and Edge’s surprise appearance. But, the Rumble really belonged to Michaels. His pursuit of the Rumble win so that he could get another match at The Undertaker, who was the World Heavyweight Champion at the time, made the match great. From him taking out Triple H to his elimination by Batista, he put on one of the great acting performances in wrestling history. And, his anger at losing, leading to him superkicking Cena, Batista, Edge, and the referee. It was great stuff. As for the rest of the show, it had 2 good World Title matches, especially the World Heavyweight Title match between The Undertaker and Rey Mysterio. Though, it was the Rumble match that really made this PPV great.
7. 2005: You know it’s a good PPV when even the filler segments are top notch. Most PPVs have these little comedy skits to fill time. Every once in a while, you’ll get one that stands out, like Shawn Michaels kicking Stan. But, this PPV was filled with them. From Christian asking Tomko for a beat and him getting denied to Eddie Guerrero stealing Ric Flair’s wallet to the epic encounter between Snitsky and Heidenreich, this PPV was a comedic delight. Funny enough, it would also give us an unintentional funny moment at the end when Batista and John Cena accidentally fell out at the same time and Vince McMahon tore his quads getting into the ring and had to sit on the mat to restart the match. However, the comedy wasn’t the only thing great about this PPV. It has some killer matches. Edge and Shawn Michaels stole the show in the opener. The Casket Match between The Undertaker and Heidenreich was a fun spectacle. The 2 World Title matches were enjoyable. And, the Rumble itself was pretty fun. It had a great ending with Cena, Batista, Edge, and Rey Mysterio in the Final 4. Sure, there was the botch ending, but it was a perfect botch. Batista managed to fall out of the ring right with Cena to make it looked like it was planned. So, even in failure, this Rumble succeeded.
8. 1991: The first great Royal Rumble. The first 3 Rumble PPVs were okay, but it was clear that WWE was mainly focused on the Rumble match. With this one, they put some effort in the undercard, which really paid off. For the first time, the WWE Title was defended at the Rumble. And, yeah, it was Iraqi sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter ending The Ultimate Warrior’s not-so-ultimate title reign; but the match wasn’t really terrible. Ironically, it was 2 other matches that really put over this PPV. The opening match between The Rockers and The Orient Express is an all-time tag team classic. It’s easily one of the best matches at a Rumble PPV. And then, there was the sleeper match between The Big Boss Man and The Barbarian. On paper, this looked like a filler match. But, in practice, holy hell! Those 2 guys had amazing chemistry and gave us an underrated gem. The other 2 undercard matches were okay. And, the Rumble match itself didn’t really live up to previous 2 nor the all-time classic that came after it. But, it was still a fun match. It was hampered a little by being crowded throughout and by Hogan winning again, but there have been worse Rumble matches. And, it didn’t take away from a really good PPV.
9. 2003: Yes, this PPV has that infamous World Heavyweight Title match between Triple H and Scott Steiner. And, yes, it also had a match between Torrie Wilson and Dawn Marie with the storyline revolving around Marie marrying Torrie’s dad and killing him with sex during the honeymoon. But, at least Steiner and Triple H were both working with injuries. So, don’t blame them for the match’s quality; blame the person who decided to have them work an 18 minute match with both of them having injured legs. And, at least, ,the Torrie and Dawn match was over quickly. Also, the amazing quality of the WWE Title match and the Rumble match more than made up for those two trainwrecks. Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit put on a wrestling clinic that could have easily elevated this PPV to this ranking even if the Rumble had sucked. Though, that Rumble didn’t suck. In fact, it was one of the best worked Rumbles in a long while. It started off strong with Chris Jericho’s sneak attack on Shawn Michaels. Putting a bunch of their best workers in the early part and letting them go crazy was a smart decision. While there was a bit of a lull in the middle, things picked up when Brock Lesnar came in and started throwing guys around. Him eliminating Matt Hardy with an F-5 was a cool spot. This PPV shows that just having some great matches on the card can really make a show.
10. 2002: After the disappointing Invasion angle had come and gone, things didn’t look too good for this Rumble PPV. Yet, it was a good one. The undercard was filled with some good matches, especially the Street Fight between Ric Flair and Vince McMahon (Flair managed to give Vince his best match despite Flair’s morale being completely shot) and the WWE Title match between Chris Jericho and The Rock (further proof that The Rock is the most unselfish man in wrestling as he lost to Jericho for the 3rd time on PPV without ever getting a victory over Y2J). As for the Rumble match, it was a very unique one. It was most empty throughout the match; the most number of men in the match at once was 6, and that only happened 3 times. Despite the sparseness of the match, it still had some fun moments. Maven eliminating The Undertaker is still best Rumble elimination. The Godfather bringing out numerous hos was ridiculous fun. Triple H’s entrance going on longer than the match time for most of the competitors. The Hurricane failing to chokeslam Stone Cold Steve Austin and Triple H. Mr. Perfect somehow lasting to the Final 4 in his first match with the company since 1993. It was a fun match, despite Triple H winning.
11. 2018: When WWE announced that they were going to have 2 Rumble matches, one for the men and one for the ladies, many were worried that this would cause some Rumble fatigue on one show. So, how did WWE overcome this? By putting on 2 good Rumble matches. The first Women’s Rumble was a lot of fun. The only complaint I had was that there were too many spots where the active competitors rolled out of the ring without being eliminated, which caused some confusion as to who was still in the match, and that lame ending with Ronda Rousey, who wasn’t even in the match, pointing to the WrestleMania sign with the actual winner, Asuka, still in the ring. Other than that, it was fine. I like how they gave a lot of past women a chance to compete in a match that they never had a chance to when they were active competitors, especially Molly Holly. She’s still got it. Also, Stephanie McMahon wasn’t bad on commentary! That was a freaking miracle. Though, as good as the Women’s Rumble was, the Men’s Rumble was better. It was well booked with a terrific ending. I like how they teased us by having Shinsuke Nakamura getting double teamed by John Cena and Roman Reigns only for him to overcome the odds and take them both out. As for the other matches, they were okay. The only real dud was the match involving Jason Jordan. Other than that, it was a good Rumble PPV. WWE set up a good template for doing Rumble PPVs with 2 Rumble matches: 2 non-Rumble matches, a Rumble match, 2 more non-Rumble matches, and another Rumble. If only they had followed it the next year.
12. 1993: Easily the most underrated Royal Rumble, it doesn’t get a lot of love mainly because it happened during one of the company’s worst years. Though, it is amazing how good this PPV was considering that they lost a lot of talent from the year before. Hulk Hogan, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, and Jake “The Snake” Roberts were gone. Ric Flair would be gone soon after. “Macho Man” Randy Savage would be used more for commentary until he left in 1994. The roster was thinning. But, this Rumble was a good showcase for some new talent to replace the old. The Steiner Brothers and Bam Bam Bigelow had good debut matches. Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty had a really good match for the Intercontinental Title. And, Bret “The Hitman” Hart had a great underrated match with Razor Ramon for the WWE Title. As for the Rumble match, it was a fun match with some good moments: Mr. Perfect eliminating Flair, The Undertaker getting manhandled by Giant Gonzalez (if only it had been a better wrestler), Bob Backlund lasting over an hour, and, of course, Yokozuna getting put over strong as the new top heel. Sure, it had a crummy ending (what in the hell was Macho Man thinking doing that weird pin spot!?), but the rest of the match made up for it. It was easily one of the better shows in a bad year.
13. 1995: Yes, this had a shitty Rumble filled with a who’s who of WrestleCrap. And, yes, it had an awfully boring Undertaker-IRS match. So, what possessed me to rank this PPV so high? The title matches. The 1995 Rumble had 3 title matches, and they were all pretty damn good. The WWE Title match between Diesel and Bret “The Hitman” Hart was top notch. Bret did a great job pulling a good match out of Diesel, and this was an underrated classic even with it ending in a draw. The Intercontinental Title match between Razor Ramon and Jeff Jarrett was well booked; I liked how Jarrett was able to talk Ramon into restarting the match after getting counted out from The Roadie taking out Ramon’s knee. It was a great set up for the ending and gave the match a good story. The Tag Team Title match was pretty good, and it did a good job of setting up the Bam Bam Bigelow/Lawrence Taylor match at WrestleMania XI. In fact, that Rumble match, while being pretty bad, is still watchable thanks to Shawn Michaels and The British Bulldog. Having those 2 guys come in at the beginning and last all the way was a smart move as they managed to make the match enjoyable. How they were able to carry 28 other guys by themselves is beyond my comprehension.
14. 2021: Well, this was a decent little show. There were a lot of pleasant surprises throughout. Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler winning the Women’s Tag Team Titles back after losing them a month earlier was a little shocking. Drew McIntyre and Goldberg had an okay match. This could have been a recipe for disaster as WWE apparently thinks having a man who is getting over COVID wrestle a man in his 50s who has been prone to botch since he was in his prime is a good idea. Plus, many feared that Goldberg would win another world title off of a young since he’s done it 2 times before. So, it was great that McIntyre won. Sasha Banks and Carmella had a fun little match. The Last Man Standing Match between Roman Reigns and Kevin Owens was good; it had a great finish with Roman handcuffed to a piece of the entrance set in a way that kept him from standing only to see him attack the ref so that Paul Heyman can come free and then he could knock KO out with the Guillotine. And, the 2 Rumbles were good. I liked how they kept hyping up Charlotte Flair as a potential back-to-back winner and Randy Orton as a potential 3-time winner only to see them lose to Bianca Belair and Edge. It was a nice bait-and-switch. Also, Belair and Edge were surprise winners. Even as a huge Edgehead as I am, I didn’t see him winning at all. In all, it was a fine PPV. Not one of the best Rumbles, but definitely better than a lot that’s come before it.
15. 2013: Coming into this PPV, everyone knew that John Cena was going to win the Rumble match and that The Rock was going to end CM Punk’s long WWE Title reign to set up Once In A Lifetime 2 at WrestleMania NY/NJ. And, sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. Despite that predictability, it was still a good PPV. The Rock and CM Punk’s match was fine, especially since The Rock hadn’t wrestled full time for a while. And, the Rumble match had its moments, like Kane saving Daniel Bryan from elimination only to drop him, Kofi Kingston using JBL’s chair as a pogo stick to get back into the ring, and Bo Dallas throwing out Wade Barrett. As for the other matches, Alberto Del Rio and The Big Show had an entertaining Last Man Standing Match to start the show and the Tag Team Title Match between Team Hell No and Team Rhodes Scholars was pretty good. Still, the predictability of the Rumble and the WWE Title Match kept me from ranking this PPV too high. But, it was a lot better than other Rumble PPVs.
16. 2009: Fun fact: this PPV’s Rumble match holds the record for Most Men In A Rumble Match At One Time with 15. Yes, half the competitors in the match were in the ring at once. This makes it sound like this Rumble match wasn’t any good. But, somehow, WWE made a crowded Rumble match a good one. The ending was pretty good, with Triple H forced to take on all 3 Legacy members in the end. It would have been better with a better babyface, like The Undertaker; but it still worked. John Morrison and Rey Mysterio had some cool Rumble saves. And, I liked how Santino Marella set the new shortest time record in a Rumble where 9 guys lasted over 30 minutes. The undercard was pretty damn good, too. The ECW Title match was okay. Beth Phoenix and Melina had a good match, which would have been better if they had gotten some more time. And, the two World Title matches were good, especially the WWE Title match between Edge and Jeff Hardy; Matt Hardy’s heel turn was well done. All in all, it was a fine Rumble PPV.
17. 2016: You’d think that a Rumble PPV where Roman Reigns was forced to defend his WWE Title in the Rumble match, got taken out early on only to show back later on, and then lost to Triple H just to set up a WrestleMania main event match between the two would be terrible. But, amazingly, this was a pretty good show. Despite all that Roman shenanigans, the Rumble match was much better than the previous 2. There were some great moments, like AJ Styles’s surprise debut, Brock Lesnar VS The Wyatt Family, and R-Truth bringing a ladder into the ring thinking he was in the MITB Ladder Match. The rest of the card was good as well. With all the main card matches being title matches, it really made this PPV feel special. Kevin Owens and Dean Ambrose had a great Last Man Standing Match for The Intercontinental Title. Kalisto and Alberto Del Rio’s United States Title match was pretty fun. And, the WWE Tag Team and Divas Titles matches were okay. All in all, it was an enjoyable PPV. Too bad it lead to a shitty WrestleMania.
18. 2020: When it was announced that WWE Champion Brock Lesnar was going to be in the Royal Rumble at Number 1 and NOT defending the title, many fans groaned. We all knew it was going one way or another: either Cain Velasquez was going to be Number 2 and take him out early, or Brock was going to dominate the first half of the match. Sure enough, Brock dominated the first half of the match, setting a new record for the most consecutive eliminations at 13. Though, I have to be honest: it wasn’t that bad. Honestly, if it had been anyone other than Brock, I would have enjoyed it. If Braun Strowman or Keith Lee had taken out 13 guys in a row, I would have liked it. But, it was Brock who did it; and I just didn’t like it because I’m sick of seeing Brock Lesnar make everyone his bitch. But, other than Brock’s dominance, it was a fine Rumble. I liked the change of pace by having 1 guy dominate the first half and then let the second half be up in the air. I also liked that Drew McIntyre won. It was a nice surprise. And, I was impressed by how well Edge did in the match; he showed no signs of ring rust. As for the other Rumble, similar to the Men’s, the Women’s Rumble was a fine match with 1 flaw: Charlotte Flair winning. Honestly, I don’t have that much of a problem with Charlotte but rather how she’s booked (I could say that about half the wrestlers on the WWE roster). Her booking has killed any interest I have in seeing her as Women’s Champion. I would have much preferred if Shayna Baszler or Bianca Belair (who took out 8 women each, a total of 16 women, over half the field) had won the match. But, other than that, it was a well booked Rumble. As for the non-Rumble matches, they were fine. Roman Reigns and King Corbin’s match was good but could have had a few minutes trimmed from it. Bayley and Lacey Evans had an enjoyable match. Becky Lynch and Asuka’s match was unsurprisingly; I would have been surprised if it hadn’t been good. Bray Wyatt and Daniel Bryan’s Strap Match was fine, but I would have preferred if it had the four corners rule. And, the 2 pre-show matches were fine. In all, it was a fine PPV with a few flaws. Nothing too bad but not exactly stellar either.
19. 2019: To be honest, I’m a little bias towards this PPV for one simple reason: the layout in Chase Field looked fantastic. It was a great change of pace from the cookie cutter arenas WWE is always in. If WWE held all their PPVs in baseball stadiums, I wouldn’t complain. As for the actual PPV, it had its moments. While the 2 Rumble matches weren’t as good as the previous years, they were still pretty fun. I especially liked how Becky Lynch snuck her way into the Women’s Rumble. And, Nia Jax appearing in both the Women’s and Men’s Rumbles was fun. Also, I liked how Naomi and Kacy Catanzaro had better Kofi spots than Kofi Kingston. As for the undercard, both Women’s Title matches were great, and the two World Title matches were enjoyable. However, there were some flaws to this PPV. For one, it did NOT need to be 6 hours. That’s just way too long. Also, why in the hell did The Miz and Shane McMahon win the SmackDown! Tag Team Titles? Not only that but f***ing Shane destroyed The Bar. One of the best throw-together tag teams got their asses kicked by the boss’s 50-year-old son! What the hell!? Despite that, I still enjoyed this Rumble PPV.
20. 1990: Here’s another one-match-show from the Rumble’s early years. Not a single title match on the undercard. Instead, we got The Fabulous Rougeaus taking on the Bushwhackers in the Rougeaus’ last match together, The Genius wrestling his only WWE PPV match against Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake, a submission match between Ronnie Garvin and Greg Valentine in which both guys kept trying to pin one another, and a forgettable Big Boss Man/“Hacksaw” Jim Duggan match. Hell, the best thing on the undercard was a special edition of The Brother Love Show with Sensational Sherri and Sapphire. But, that Rumble. Man, that Rumble! Easily one of the best. Ted DiBiase lasts for 40 minutes. Demolition takes out Andre with ease. “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and Bad News Brown getting into blood feud. And, the best part: Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior staring each other down. The Orlando crowd, which had been hot for pretty much everything that night, went apeshit! Hell, that one moment alone is why I ranked this PPV so high. Though, they blew it with the ending. Mr. Perfect really should have won, preferably thanks to Hogan and Warrior getting into each other’s way. Despite that, it was still a great Rumble match that elevated a so-so PPV.
21. 1994: Well, it certainly was a memorable PPV. I mean, you had Owen Hart turning on his brother Bret and then botching his first heel promo by claiming that he kicked Bret’s leg out from under his leg. You had 2 winners for the Rumble match, which was pretty much the most memorable thing from the 1994 Rumble, besides Diesel dominating the first half. And then, there was that freaking Casket Match. Yokozuna had to have 10 guys help him defeat The Undertaker. They opened the urn, which contain green smoke. And, after they all managed to put Taker in the casket, Taker spoke from inside the casket on the pre-TitanTron and then ascended to the heavens from the screen and disappeared until he returned to wrestle himself at SummerSlam. Of course, that whole displayed didn’t make for a good PPV, but there are some things worth watching. The Tag Team Title match where Owen turned on Bret was really good, and Razor Ramon had a good Intercontinental Title match with IRS. Still, I can’t call this a good PPV considering all that Undertaker silliness. But, I’ll take a bad memorable PPV over a boring one any day of the week.
22. 1989: The first few Rumble PPVs were basically one match shows, with the undercard paling in comparison to the Rumble match. That really shows with the 1989 Rumble. At this PPV, we had “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan and The Hart Foundation taking on Dino Bravo and The Fabulous Rougeaus in an okay opening bout that didn’t really mean much storyline wise. Then, there was a so-so Women’s Title match between Rockin’ Robin and Judy Martin, which took place right when WWE had stopped giving a shit about women’s wrestling. After that, Harley Race and Haku fought for the King Of The Ring crown because WWE thought fans would care about that shit. Also, The Ultimate Warrior and Rick Rude had a posedown instead of actually wrestling one another or competing in the Rumble match. Why? Only WWE knows. Speaking of the Rumble, this was the best match of the PPV. And, to be fair, it was a pretty good Rumble. It started off great with both Demolition members beating the shit out of one another. Andre The Giant eliminating himself when Jake “The Snake” Roberts threw Damien into the ring was a great spot. The Warlord’s 2-second elimination is comedy gold. And, Hulk Hogan accidentally throwing out “Macho Man” Randy Savage and them nearly coming to blows was a great moment, setting the stage for their eventual breakup. Though, the Rumble’s ending wasn’t that good. After Hogan got eliminated, there weren’t any big names to fill his void. Sure, Ted DiBiase was there, but he really needed a bigger babyface to play off of than Big John Studd, the eventual winner. By the way, his win was a big mistake, especially since WWE quickly soured on him. Maybe they could have saved the Hogan-Savage spot for later in the match and had DiBiase win by taking advantage of their miscommunication. Despite that, it was still a good Rumble match, enough to elevate above some lesser Rumble PPVs.
23. 1988: I feel a little bad ranking the 1st Rumble so low. But, just because it was the 1st doesn’t change the fact that this was a middle of the road show. This was the Rumble’s pilot episode: setting up the premise but filled with a lot of details that would not survive this initial outing. Case in point: this has the only 20-man Rumble match in the PPV’s history. The match itself wasn’t bad, but it could have been a lot more dramatic with 10 more guys in the mix. Also, this Rumble holds the distinction of being the 1st Rumble PPV where the Rumble match didn’t go on last. It ended with a 2-Out-Of-3 Falls Match between The Islanders and The Young Stallions, which wasn’t good enough to really warrant going on last. As for the other matches on this PPV, the only one worth your time is the Women’s Tag Team Title match between The Jumping Bomb Angels and The Glamour Girls. This was a really good match, which just shows how much of a shame it was that WWE abandoned its women’s division so quickly in the late 1980s instead of nurturing it. Also, “Ravishing” Rick Rude and Ricky Steamboat somehow had a subpar match. I don’t know how that happened. By the way, I really shouldn’t have referred to this Rumble as a “PPV,” since it actually aired on cable. That’s another reason why it feels like a TV pilot because it basically was one.
24. 2008: This was a mixed bag PPV, where there were some good parts and some bad parts just lumped together. The good was the two World Title matches. Edge and Rey Mysterio had a good fight for the World Heavyweight Title, while Jeff Hardy showed he was a main event talent in his battle with Randy Orton for the WWE Title. The bad was the other 2 undercard matches. Ric Flair and MVP’s match was just there to fill time, and it had the stipulation of Flair’s career being on the line. JBL and Chris Jericho’s match just stunk. These 2 had no chemistry, and mercifully, this brought an end to their feud. As for the Rumble match itself, it was also a mixed bag. It had a great beginning with The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels, the last 2 men in the 2007 Rumble, starting off this one. And, John Cena’s surprise appearance at Number 30 was legitimately shocking. The MSG crowd was so surprised that they actually cheered for Cena at first. Of course, once he showed up and it became apparent that he was winning, they quickly soured on him. Also, Finlay got disqualified from this Rumble match, which had never happened before. And, Chavo Guerrero, the ECW Champion at the time, competed in the match even though the winner could choose to challenge him for his title at WrestleMania. Like I said, good parts and bad parts.
25. 1997: Much like the previous year’s Rumble, this one wasn’t terrible; but at the same time, nothing really stands out as great either. Though, the 1997 Rumble is slightly better than the 1996 one for a few reasons. For one, bringing in a bunch of guys from AAA livened up the show and gave it a unique feel. Also, the matches at this PPV were better than the previous year’s. And, holding the PPV in the large Alamodome gave it a cool look. However, compared to other Rumble PPVs, nothing really sticks out as spectacular. There have been better undercard matches. The WWE Title match was okay. And, the Rumble match itself is fine. Stone Cold Steve Austin’s performance was good. But, the convoluted ending, with Austin sneaking back in after being thrown out by Bret “The Hitman” Hart to eliminate The Undertaker, Vader, and Hart, brought it down and set off a weird, needlessly complicated storyline to set up the WrestleMania 13 main event that got further complicated when Shawn Michaels lost his smile. Outside of that weird Rumble ending, the most memorable moment from this PPV was The British Bulldog saying that he was gonna win the Rumble because he’s bizarre. That’s a good description for this PPV as well.
26. 2017: Well, this PPV happened. Sure, we got another John Cena-AJ Styles match that stole the show. But, this time, Cena won to claim his 16th World Title. Now, we have to hear about how Cena has tied with Ric Flair even though he really hasn’t. And, we have the prospect of Cena “breaking” Flair’s record to look forward to. As for the rest of the card, the preshow matches were just there to fill time on the preshow. The Universal Title match between Kevin Owens and Roman Reigns was okay, but it had some shark cage silliness. By the way, cool it with the f***ing shark cages, WWE. You’re gonna do to them what Vince Russo did for pole matches. The RAW Women’s Title and Cruiserweight Title matches were nothing special. And then, there was the Rumble match. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. For one, the whole match was built around an epic encounter among Brock Lesnar, Goldberg, and The Undertaker. That would have been fine in 2004. But, in 2017, when 2 of them are too old have a good match over 5 minutes and the other gets gassed after 10, not so fine. Plus, they wasted a spot on Roman. And, Randy Orton was a weird choice for winner, especially considering how he turned down his WrestleMania World Title match after his then-buddy Bray Wyatt won the WWE Title and then changed his mind. That was a weird WrestleMania build. So, in all, it wasn’t a great Rumble. But, there have been worse.
27. 1996: It’s not a good show. It’s not a bad show. It’s just A show. I mean, Shawn Michaels wins again and goes on to win the WWE Title at WrestleMania XII. But, his win at the previous Rumble was much more memorable, and that match featured Mantaur. The only thing that really stood out in this Rumble match was Vader’s huge meltdown at being eliminated, Razor Ramon running in to get the 1-2-3 Kid for costing him the Intercontinental Title earlier in the night, Steve Austin falling out of the ring on accident, and all the one-timers that were booked for this show. If you ever needed to prove that Dory Funk, Jr., Takao Omori, Doug Gilbert, and The Headhunters were in a Rumble match, here’s your proof. The rest of the card wasn’t much better. A bunch of so-so matches that didn’t really stand out, except for the WWE Title match between Bret Hart and The Undertaker that went on last mainly to set up a Undertaker/Diesel feud and was mostly memorable for the fact that it wasn’t very good. They would go on to have better matches the next year, and we’d go on to watch better Rumbles after this one.
28. 2004: History has not been kind to this PPV. Though, at the time, it was seen as a one-match-show, with the undercard underwhelming while the Rumble match stood out. Not hard to see why because the undercard was underwhelming. A red hot feud between Eddie and Chavo Guerrero fizzled out. Hardcore Holly somehow got a WWE Title match with Brock Lesnar mainly because Lesnar had injured him nearly 2-years earlier. He clearly had no business challenging Brock Lesnar for the WWE Title. Shawn Michaels and Triple H had a boring Last Man Standing Match for the World Heavyweight Title that ended in a double count-out. If only they had had their New Year’s Eve 2003 RAW match at this PPV. As for the Rumble match, it told a great story with a wrestler being forced to enter at Number 1 in order to win the match only for him to persevere and survive the whole match and take out The Big Show to win the match. Said wrestler deserved the win for years of loyalty to the industry. Unfortunately, said wrestler was Chris Benoit, who would proceed to destroy his legacy 3 years later and completely taint all his accomplishments, including this Rumble match. It was a great story that has been ruined by future context, further dragging this PPV down with it.
29. 2022: WWE in 2022 is one big tease, giving you glimpses and promises of a good time only to shut it down immediately and give you a big case of blue balls. The 2022 Royal Rumble is a good example of this. The PPV (or PLE as they call it now) started with a really good Seth Rollins/Roman Reigns match with a great story in Rollins taunting Reigns with the fact that he’s won their one-on-one matches so far. Logically, this would mean that Reigns would have won definitively, but WWE decided to have Reigns get DQ’ed and then beat the shit out of Rollins with a chair. This sounds fine in a vacuum, but WWE books these kinds of finishes all the time. So, it loses its impact and looks like another bullshit finish to the fans. Then, there was the other World Title match: a dream match between Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashley for the WWE Title. However, said dream became a nightmare as Lesnar spammed the hell out of the match with a bunch of German suplexes. And then, Reigns showed up to cost Lesnar the title, using a match fans had been calling for ever since Lashley returned to WWE into a stepping stone of a match fans have been calling for WWE to stop booking for a good while. As for the non-World Title matches, Becky Lynch and Doudrop’s match was really good, but it was hindered by an apathetic crowd thanks to WWE booking it in the death spot after the Women’s Rumble. Not only was the crowd spent from the Rumble, they were also distracted by the WrestleMania sign catching fire thanks to the pyro they used after the match. This spot really should have gone to the Mixed Tag Match between Edge & Beth Phoenix VS The Miz & Maryse. By the way, why is Edge fighting Miz when he could be taking on guys he hasn’t wrestled yet, like AJ Styles or Kevin Owens or Bobby Lashley. Same with Beth and Becky Lynch, Sasha Banks, or Asuka. Then, there were the Rumble matches. The Women’s Rumble was fine. It was nice to see ladies like Melina, Lita, RTC Ivory, and Knockouts Champion Mickie James back, but it was a shame that WWE chose to bring in people rather than use the NXT ladies who could have easily filled up the match. At least, they could have left out Kelly Kelly and Summer Rae. Anyway, the match was fine until Ronda Rousey showed up and won the match. Bold move bringing her back considering the hissy fit she threw when the fans turned on her. I’m sure that won’t happen again. As bad as that was, it was nowhere near as terrible as the Men’s Rumble. The match was boring as f***. You know it’s bad when Johnny Knoxville and Bad Bunny are the most interesting guys in the match. Plus, there was Shane McMahon’s bullshit, which was so bad it pissed off Vince so much that he later fired Shane as a scapegoat. However, Shane wasn’t to blame for the finish. WWE decided to have Lesnar just show up at the end and win. Such an uninspiring ending. WWE is capable of putting on great shows. But, thanks to Nick Khan, WWE can make money despite bad shows leading to low ratings and attendance. So, they have incentive to change, but fans have all the incentive they need to get their gratification elsewhere.
30. 2011: To be fair, it’s not really terrible. The non-Rumble matches were okay. And, the big 40-man Rumble looks kind of quaint compared to the 50-man Rumble WWE held for the Saudis in 2018. But, since most of this PPV is the 40-man Rumble match, and since that match is a huge mess, this PPV is a huge mess. For one, WWE built up a big battle between the New Nexus led by CM Punk against Wade Barrett’s new group, The Corre, to happen in the Rumble match. Neither group ended up facing one another (except for Punk and Corre member Justin Gabriel at the beginning that saw Punk easily throw Gabriel out in less than a minute), making the whole thing pointless. Though, The Nexus working together to throw people out so that CM Punk could win was a great part of the match. Unfortunately, they had Super-Cena come in and destroy the New Nexus much like he did to the old Nexus back at SummerSlam 2010. Speaking of Cena, his elimination spot was nearly ruined when Alex Riley fell out of the ring before he was supposed to. And, The Corre did jack squat. Finally, there was the winner, Alberto Del Rio. He was supposed to be a big deal fairly quickly. Having him win the Rumble so quickly in his WWE run was a good start. But then, WWE killed his momentum by having him lose to Edge for the World Heavyweight Title in the opening match at WrestleMania XXVII. Which makes me wonder, if the winner was gonna challenge for World Heavyweight Title in the curtain jerker spot, why not just have Santino Marella win the match. The crowd was all for it, and it would have been a cool “anything can happen” moment. I would have booked it like that. Then again, I would have booked a 30-man Rumble and built up the undercard some more, like a normal Rumble PPV. But, what the f*** do I know? WWE makes millions of dollars putting on so-so shows like this one every month.
31. 2006: Is it better to be memorably bad or boringly okay? Honestly, I think it’s a wash. Case in point: the 2006 Royal Rumble. The beginning of a boring PPV year saw Gregory Helms win the Cruiserweight Title in a throw-together 6-man match. He would go on to hold the title for over a year largely because I’m fairly certain that WWE forgot this title existed until it was time to book it for a match and just kept it on him. Then, we got Mickie James in the middle of her awesome lesbian stalker gimmick try and fail to get a watchable match out of Ashley Massaro. Then, they had the Rumble match go on in the middle because of what would happen at the end of the show. Said Rumble saw Rey Mysterio win because his good friend Eddie Guerrero had died a few months earlier, and people felt sorry for him. I guess no one gave a shit about Eddie’s nephew Chavo. Also, said Rumble was filled with scrubs like Sylvan, Tatanka, Eugene, and Orlando Jordan. Then, John Cena and Edge had an okay match for the WWE Title, but instead of letting Edge hold onto the title, they gave it back to Cena even though fans had fully turned on him at this point. And finally, the reason the Rumble went on in the middle: an awful World Heavyweight Title match between Kurt Angle and Mark Henry that saw The Undertaker show up at the end to challenge Angle for the title by doing some spooky shit that caused lightning to strike the ring and make it collapse. By the way, this only looks cool when someone suplexes The Big Show from the top rope. Anyway, it was a snoozefest. Moving on.
32. 2012: “Anyone can enter!” they said. We had no idea what that meant, but we found out. Anyone included the 3 announcers calling the match, a couple of Hall Of Famers (one of whom was unintentionally, unceremoniously working his final match), a female wrestler working her only WWE match, Alberto Del Rio’s personal announcer, and the Road Dogg. It wasn’t a great Rumble match. The undercard wasn’t much better. An 8-Diva tag match and a Brodus Clay-Drew McIntyre match were just thrown onto the show to fill time. Daniel Bryan, The Big Show, and Mark Henry fought in a lackluster Steel Cage match that went short because Henry was injured. And then, there was Kane VS John Cena. Good God almighty! What a f***ing disaster that was! The match wasn’t great, the storyline around it not only drug both guys into the mud but also killed Zach Ryder’s career, and the whole thing kept Kane from entering the Rumble match, ending his Rumble streak. The only things that kept this PPV from being a total disaster was a pretty good WWE Title match between CM Punk and Dolph Ziggler and Sheamus winning the Rumble match even though Chris Jericho was the more obvious choice. It was a nice switch since Sheamus needed it more, but it did lead to the infamous 18 Seconds match at WrestleMania XXVIII. So, even when it did something right, the 2012 Rumble f***ed up.
33. 1999: Leave it to Vince Russo to book a Rumble match where the ring is empty twice. Yes, TWICE. The first time was when Stone Cold Steve Austin chased after Vince McMahon who escaped after Austin eliminated Golga, leading to an ambush in the bathroom that would take Austin out of most of the match. This ended up going on for so long that Droz came out at Number 4 with no one in the ring and had to wait for the next guy to come out to basically restart the match. After that, there were a bunch of jobbers and some quick eliminations. Then, came the second time, when Kane came in at 17 and cleared the ring (of all 4 guys in the match at the time) only to later eliminate himself after attacking some people from an insane asylum sent to take him away. The ring remained empty until Vince showed back up to remind everyone he was still in the match. Then, Ken Shamrock, one of Vince’s Corporation goons, came out. And, they sure as shit weren’t gonna fight. So, Vince exited to ring to join commentary, and Shamrock stood around in the ring to wait for the next guy to come out and restart the match again!!!! The rest of the card wasn’t much better. The matches weren’t terrible but not exactly memorable. Except for the I Quit Match between The Rock and Mankind for the WWE Title. Though it was the best match on the PPV, it’s still hard to watch considering the 11 chair shots to the head Mankind took and everything we know about CTE’s today. As for the Rumble, everyone knew that Austin was gonna win. So, they swerved us by making Vince the winner. But, Vince’s win became pointless as he gave up his shot at the title match at WrestleMania, which ended up going to the runner-up: Stone Cold Steve Austin. Instead of making history and having Austin be the only man to win 3 consecutive Rumbles, they went for unpredictability just to keep the fans on their toes. But, sometimes predictable is the way to go.
34. 2014: So, Batista leaves WWE in 2010. Some time later, he ends up getting cast as Drax The Destroyer in “Guardians Of The Galaxy.” WWE, feeling like he’s about to become a household name, decide to bring him back into the fold and put him into a high profile match at WrestleMania XXX. Unfortunately, they put him into the match that everyone and their mother wanted Daniel Bryan in: main eventing in the WWE Title match. At the 2014 Royal Rumble, Daniel Bryan tears the house down with Bray Wyatt in the opening match. Despite that, people hoped that he’d somehow end up in the Rumble match and win. When Rey Mysterio got booed to eternity when he entered at Number 30, it became apparent that Batista was winning. The fans were pissed. It didn’t helped that the other matches on the card feature a Brock Lesnar squash of The Big Show and the 9th PPV singles match between John Cena and Randy Orton, both of whom busted their butts to put on a great match that Philly booed out of the building. It was a shitshow, but thanks to the fans rejection of Batista and CM Punk walking out the next night, WWE had no choice but to put Bryan in the main event and win the title. While it did give us a great WrestleMania, it was still a terrible Royal Rumble.
35. 2015: Worst Royal Rumble Ever. One year earlier, WWE pisses off their fans by not having Daniel Bryan show up in the Rumble match, instead giving them Batista as the Rumble winner even though they didn’t really want him. You’d think they would learn from their mistake, but you’d be wrong. Sure, Bryan was in the Rumble match, but he only lasted 10:36. And, to make matters worse, Goldust came out right after Bryan’s elimination, which meant the words “Shattered Dreams” were on the Titantron. Basically, they were trolling the fans. Also, Kane and The Big Show (2 old guys no one really cared about anymore) eliminated Dean Ambrose, Bray Wyatt, and Dolph Zigglers (guys the fans actually liked). And, Roman Reigns won, but once again, he was a Rumble winner no one wanted. Hell, they even knew that the fans might reject him and brought in The Rock in hopes to prevent this. And, that didn’t do a damn thing. Fans booed, and #CancelWWENetwork became the top Twitter trend worldwide, and WWE eventually had to pull off the Heist Of The Century at WrestleMania 31. As for the rest of the event, it was filled with 1 really good match (Brock Lesnar VS John Cena VS Seth Rollins for the WWE Title) and a bunch of meaningless tag matches. All in all, it was a shitshow and easily the worst Royal Rumble.
1. 1992: The Greatest Royal Rumble Of All Time. Some call this a one-match-show, with the excellent Rumble match elevating the whole show to greatness. While the Rumble match was great, that “one-match-show” label does a huge disservice to the whole show. For one, there was a great underrated tag team match between The New Foundation (Jim Neidhart and Owen Hart) and The Orient Express that opened show; once again, the Orient Express are half responsible for a great tag team opening match. Also, this PPV saw “Rowdy” Roddy Piper winning his only singles title in WWE as he defeated The Mountie for the Intercontinental Title in a fun little match. The Tag Team Titles match was an interesting clash as champions The Legion Of Doom had to take on The Naturals Disasters, a team they couldn’t manhandle like they had done to other teams throughout their careers. Even the worst match on the show, The Bushwhackers VS The Beverly Brothers, wasn’t that bad. Though, the PPV does belong to the Rumble match. The Greatest Rumble Match Of All Time was filled to the brim with Hall Of Famers competing to win the vacant WWE Title. Giving a prize to the winner was a brilliant touch as it added more stakes and storyline drama and really made it special for the winner. After this Rumble, all the others would have a World Title shot at WrestleMania for the winner, which shows just how important this match was. Outside of that, we got Bobby Heenan’s greatest commentary job, that weird moment where “Macho Man” Randy Savage eliminated himself to get to Jake “The Snake” Roberts but still being allowed to compete in the match, and Ric Flair going the distance to win the title. His win was very historic, especially since he became the 2nd man in wrestling history to have won the NWA and WWE Titles. That really helped to sell just how important the 1992 Rumble was. It’s been built up for years as the ultimate Rumble PPV, but it has managed to live up to the hype ever since.
2. 2001: After a stellar year for PPVs, the 2001 Royal Rumble was elevated by 2000’s winning streak and got 2001 off to a great start. It began with a great little Tag Team Titles match between Edge & Christian and The Dudley Boyz, which proved that the Dudleyz didn’t need tables to have a good match. Then, we got a fantastic Ladder Match between Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho. It’s still the only Ladder Match in Rumble history, and I suspect that its quality has led to WWE not even trying to top it. The Women’s Title match was the worst part of the show, mainly because of Chyna’s kayfabe neck injury. It came off as exploitative, but it didn’t ruin the show. After that, we got a great heel vs heel match with Triple H taking on Kurt Angle for the WWE Title. It was amazing how they could get the crowd into the match despite both men being so hated. And, finally, we had the Rumble match. Easily one of the best, this match had it all. Raven bringing in weapons, Kane blasting The Honky Tonk Man with his guitar, Scotty 2 Hotty reluctantly entering the ring after Kane and The Undertaker had cleaned house, Kane pulling off the best Rumble performance by a non-winner, and Stone Cold winning his 3rd Rumble. It was a wild ride that capped off an excellent PPV.
3. 2000: A lot of these Rumble PPVs are elevated on the strength of one match, and that one match is usually the Rumble match. This PPV was an exception. This time it was a non-Rumble match with the amazing Street Fight between Triple H and Cactus Jack for the WWE Title. That match was bloody, brutal, and a little horrific. It was perfect, a ballet of violence that got Triple H over as the company’s top heel and showed just why Mick Foley was great at taking a vicious beating. It set the stage for a great year for PPV matches. As for the rest of the PPV, the Rumble match was a lot of fun. It featured some great moments, like Too Cool’s dance break, Bob Backlund’s surprise return, and The Rock winning. The rest of the card had some great highlights, like Tazz’s debut win against Kurt Angle and the first ever Tables Match. Even the worst part of the show, the bikini contest that has aged horribly compared to today’s crop of women wrestlers, was enjoyable thanks to Mae Young winning for wanting to flash her basset hounds to the crowd, a nice little subverision of the sexist segment. The year 2000 has been called WWE’s Best Year For PPVs, and it got off to a great start with the Royal Rumble.
4. 1998: Going into the 1998 Rumble, everyone knew that Stone Cold Steve Austin was going to win the Royal Rumble. And, everyone knew that Shawn Michaels would survive his Casket Match for his WWE Title with The Undertaker thanks to Kane. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. Despite the predictability of the event, it was still a great PPV. The undercard matches were fun little spectacles, especially the Tag Team and Intercontinental Title matches. Sure, they ended with shenanigans: The New Age Outlaws intentionally got DQ’ed to survive the Legion Of Doom, and The Rock outsmarted Ken Shamrock by slipping some brass knucks in his trunks. But, they were entertaining and got the crowd going; so they did their part. The WWE Title match was really good despite the predictability, mainly because it was between The Undertaker in his prime and Shawn Michaels right before he hurt his back. Literally since it happened during that match and he didn’t really feel the aftereffects until later. The Rumble match itself wasn’t all that great. It was too crowded throughout, and the predictability of Stone Cold’s win did hurt it. But, it basically had one job to do: get Austin over as an unstoppable force set to become WWE Champion. And, it did it with aplomb. Besides, Austin needed to win. He had to become the company’s top babyface after Bret Hart left. While he had defaulted into the role in the wake of the Montreal Screwjob, the 1998 Rumble just proved he was the right choice even if WWE had other options. Sure, it was predictable, but this PPV proved that predictability isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
5. 2007: If you take out that awful Test and Bobby Lashley match, then this could have gone much closer to the top. Though, that one match couldn’t keep this PPV out of the Top 5. The Hardys and MNM put on another killer tag match in the opener. Batista and Mr. Kennedy had a pretty good match for the World Heavyweight Title match. And, this PPV features Umaga’s best match as he had a great Last Man Standing match with John Cena for the WWE Title. But, this is one Rumble PPV that belongs to its marquee match. It was a really good Rumble match with some good spots. I liked how the ECW wrestlers brought in weapons. Rumble matches should have more weapons. That table spot with Kane and Sabu was cool. And, they finally managed to make The Great Khali look great by having him eliminate 7 guys in 44 seconds. But, the kicker was the end, in which The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels had a mini-preview of their WrestleMania matches. They fought tooth and nail to win the match, pulling off the best ending to a Rumble match ever. Just having 2 great workers damn near kill themselves to win was a smart way to end the match and really put this Rumble into the pantheon of great PPVs.
6. 2010: Some people call this the last great Rumble. It’s not hard to see why. Most Rumble matches follow a pattern. They’ll either stay filled up throughout the match with elimination few and far in between. Or, they’ll fill up until a big cleaning house moment only to fill up again before the end. Some will see eliminations come fast and furious until the last third, where it’ll fill up. But, this one tried something different. In the first third of the match, CM Punk dominated until Triple H came in. Then, in the middle, the ring filled up until Shawn Michaels came out and took out most of the combatants with Triple H. And, after John Cena came in, the eliminations came one right after another. No one from Numbers 20 to 30 lasted 10 minutes. In fact, only 3 guys lasted over 5. It was different and stood out from the usual Rumble patterns, which made it unique and enjoyable. There were also some great moments, like CM Punk’s dominance, Beth Phoenix’s incredibly smart elimination of The Great Khali, and Edge’s surprise appearance. But, the Rumble really belonged to Michaels. His pursuit of the Rumble win so that he could get another match at The Undertaker, who was the World Heavyweight Champion at the time, made the match great. From him taking out Triple H to his elimination by Batista, he put on one of the great acting performances in wrestling history. And, his anger at losing, leading to him superkicking Cena, Batista, Edge, and the referee. It was great stuff. As for the rest of the show, it had 2 good World Title matches, especially the World Heavyweight Title match between The Undertaker and Rey Mysterio. Though, it was the Rumble match that really made this PPV great.
7. 2005: You know it’s a good PPV when even the filler segments are top notch. Most PPVs have these little comedy skits to fill time. Every once in a while, you’ll get one that stands out, like Shawn Michaels kicking Stan. But, this PPV was filled with them. From Christian asking Tomko for a beat and him getting denied to Eddie Guerrero stealing Ric Flair’s wallet to the epic encounter between Snitsky and Heidenreich, this PPV was a comedic delight. Funny enough, it would also give us an unintentional funny moment at the end when Batista and John Cena accidentally fell out at the same time and Vince McMahon tore his quads getting into the ring and had to sit on the mat to restart the match. However, the comedy wasn’t the only thing great about this PPV. It has some killer matches. Edge and Shawn Michaels stole the show in the opener. The Casket Match between The Undertaker and Heidenreich was a fun spectacle. The 2 World Title matches were enjoyable. And, the Rumble itself was pretty fun. It had a great ending with Cena, Batista, Edge, and Rey Mysterio in the Final 4. Sure, there was the botch ending, but it was a perfect botch. Batista managed to fall out of the ring right with Cena to make it looked like it was planned. So, even in failure, this Rumble succeeded.
8. 1991: The first great Royal Rumble. The first 3 Rumble PPVs were okay, but it was clear that WWE was mainly focused on the Rumble match. With this one, they put some effort in the undercard, which really paid off. For the first time, the WWE Title was defended at the Rumble. And, yeah, it was Iraqi sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter ending The Ultimate Warrior’s not-so-ultimate title reign; but the match wasn’t really terrible. Ironically, it was 2 other matches that really put over this PPV. The opening match between The Rockers and The Orient Express is an all-time tag team classic. It’s easily one of the best matches at a Rumble PPV. And then, there was the sleeper match between The Big Boss Man and The Barbarian. On paper, this looked like a filler match. But, in practice, holy hell! Those 2 guys had amazing chemistry and gave us an underrated gem. The other 2 undercard matches were okay. And, the Rumble match itself didn’t really live up to previous 2 nor the all-time classic that came after it. But, it was still a fun match. It was hampered a little by being crowded throughout and by Hogan winning again, but there have been worse Rumble matches. And, it didn’t take away from a really good PPV.
9. 2003: Yes, this PPV has that infamous World Heavyweight Title match between Triple H and Scott Steiner. And, yes, it also had a match between Torrie Wilson and Dawn Marie with the storyline revolving around Marie marrying Torrie’s dad and killing him with sex during the honeymoon. But, at least Steiner and Triple H were both working with injuries. So, don’t blame them for the match’s quality; blame the person who decided to have them work an 18 minute match with both of them having injured legs. And, at least, ,the Torrie and Dawn match was over quickly. Also, the amazing quality of the WWE Title match and the Rumble match more than made up for those two trainwrecks. Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit put on a wrestling clinic that could have easily elevated this PPV to this ranking even if the Rumble had sucked. Though, that Rumble didn’t suck. In fact, it was one of the best worked Rumbles in a long while. It started off strong with Chris Jericho’s sneak attack on Shawn Michaels. Putting a bunch of their best workers in the early part and letting them go crazy was a smart decision. While there was a bit of a lull in the middle, things picked up when Brock Lesnar came in and started throwing guys around. Him eliminating Matt Hardy with an F-5 was a cool spot. This PPV shows that just having some great matches on the card can really make a show.
10. 2002: After the disappointing Invasion angle had come and gone, things didn’t look too good for this Rumble PPV. Yet, it was a good one. The undercard was filled with some good matches, especially the Street Fight between Ric Flair and Vince McMahon (Flair managed to give Vince his best match despite Flair’s morale being completely shot) and the WWE Title match between Chris Jericho and The Rock (further proof that The Rock is the most unselfish man in wrestling as he lost to Jericho for the 3rd time on PPV without ever getting a victory over Y2J). As for the Rumble match, it was a very unique one. It was most empty throughout the match; the most number of men in the match at once was 6, and that only happened 3 times. Despite the sparseness of the match, it still had some fun moments. Maven eliminating The Undertaker is still best Rumble elimination. The Godfather bringing out numerous hos was ridiculous fun. Triple H’s entrance going on longer than the match time for most of the competitors. The Hurricane failing to chokeslam Stone Cold Steve Austin and Triple H. Mr. Perfect somehow lasting to the Final 4 in his first match with the company since 1993. It was a fun match, despite Triple H winning.
11. 2018: When WWE announced that they were going to have 2 Rumble matches, one for the men and one for the ladies, many were worried that this would cause some Rumble fatigue on one show. So, how did WWE overcome this? By putting on 2 good Rumble matches. The first Women’s Rumble was a lot of fun. The only complaint I had was that there were too many spots where the active competitors rolled out of the ring without being eliminated, which caused some confusion as to who was still in the match, and that lame ending with Ronda Rousey, who wasn’t even in the match, pointing to the WrestleMania sign with the actual winner, Asuka, still in the ring. Other than that, it was fine. I like how they gave a lot of past women a chance to compete in a match that they never had a chance to when they were active competitors, especially Molly Holly. She’s still got it. Also, Stephanie McMahon wasn’t bad on commentary! That was a freaking miracle. Though, as good as the Women’s Rumble was, the Men’s Rumble was better. It was well booked with a terrific ending. I like how they teased us by having Shinsuke Nakamura getting double teamed by John Cena and Roman Reigns only for him to overcome the odds and take them both out. As for the other matches, they were okay. The only real dud was the match involving Jason Jordan. Other than that, it was a good Rumble PPV. WWE set up a good template for doing Rumble PPVs with 2 Rumble matches: 2 non-Rumble matches, a Rumble match, 2 more non-Rumble matches, and another Rumble. If only they had followed it the next year.
12. 1993: Easily the most underrated Royal Rumble, it doesn’t get a lot of love mainly because it happened during one of the company’s worst years. Though, it is amazing how good this PPV was considering that they lost a lot of talent from the year before. Hulk Hogan, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, and Jake “The Snake” Roberts were gone. Ric Flair would be gone soon after. “Macho Man” Randy Savage would be used more for commentary until he left in 1994. The roster was thinning. But, this Rumble was a good showcase for some new talent to replace the old. The Steiner Brothers and Bam Bam Bigelow had good debut matches. Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty had a really good match for the Intercontinental Title. And, Bret “The Hitman” Hart had a great underrated match with Razor Ramon for the WWE Title. As for the Rumble match, it was a fun match with some good moments: Mr. Perfect eliminating Flair, The Undertaker getting manhandled by Giant Gonzalez (if only it had been a better wrestler), Bob Backlund lasting over an hour, and, of course, Yokozuna getting put over strong as the new top heel. Sure, it had a crummy ending (what in the hell was Macho Man thinking doing that weird pin spot!?), but the rest of the match made up for it. It was easily one of the better shows in a bad year.
13. 1995: Yes, this had a shitty Rumble filled with a who’s who of WrestleCrap. And, yes, it had an awfully boring Undertaker-IRS match. So, what possessed me to rank this PPV so high? The title matches. The 1995 Rumble had 3 title matches, and they were all pretty damn good. The WWE Title match between Diesel and Bret “The Hitman” Hart was top notch. Bret did a great job pulling a good match out of Diesel, and this was an underrated classic even with it ending in a draw. The Intercontinental Title match between Razor Ramon and Jeff Jarrett was well booked; I liked how Jarrett was able to talk Ramon into restarting the match after getting counted out from The Roadie taking out Ramon’s knee. It was a great set up for the ending and gave the match a good story. The Tag Team Title match was pretty good, and it did a good job of setting up the Bam Bam Bigelow/Lawrence Taylor match at WrestleMania XI. In fact, that Rumble match, while being pretty bad, is still watchable thanks to Shawn Michaels and The British Bulldog. Having those 2 guys come in at the beginning and last all the way was a smart move as they managed to make the match enjoyable. How they were able to carry 28 other guys by themselves is beyond my comprehension.
14. 2021: Well, this was a decent little show. There were a lot of pleasant surprises throughout. Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler winning the Women’s Tag Team Titles back after losing them a month earlier was a little shocking. Drew McIntyre and Goldberg had an okay match. This could have been a recipe for disaster as WWE apparently thinks having a man who is getting over COVID wrestle a man in his 50s who has been prone to botch since he was in his prime is a good idea. Plus, many feared that Goldberg would win another world title off of a young since he’s done it 2 times before. So, it was great that McIntyre won. Sasha Banks and Carmella had a fun little match. The Last Man Standing Match between Roman Reigns and Kevin Owens was good; it had a great finish with Roman handcuffed to a piece of the entrance set in a way that kept him from standing only to see him attack the ref so that Paul Heyman can come free and then he could knock KO out with the Guillotine. And, the 2 Rumbles were good. I liked how they kept hyping up Charlotte Flair as a potential back-to-back winner and Randy Orton as a potential 3-time winner only to see them lose to Bianca Belair and Edge. It was a nice bait-and-switch. Also, Belair and Edge were surprise winners. Even as a huge Edgehead as I am, I didn’t see him winning at all. In all, it was a fine PPV. Not one of the best Rumbles, but definitely better than a lot that’s come before it.
15. 2013: Coming into this PPV, everyone knew that John Cena was going to win the Rumble match and that The Rock was going to end CM Punk’s long WWE Title reign to set up Once In A Lifetime 2 at WrestleMania NY/NJ. And, sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. Despite that predictability, it was still a good PPV. The Rock and CM Punk’s match was fine, especially since The Rock hadn’t wrestled full time for a while. And, the Rumble match had its moments, like Kane saving Daniel Bryan from elimination only to drop him, Kofi Kingston using JBL’s chair as a pogo stick to get back into the ring, and Bo Dallas throwing out Wade Barrett. As for the other matches, Alberto Del Rio and The Big Show had an entertaining Last Man Standing Match to start the show and the Tag Team Title Match between Team Hell No and Team Rhodes Scholars was pretty good. Still, the predictability of the Rumble and the WWE Title Match kept me from ranking this PPV too high. But, it was a lot better than other Rumble PPVs.
16. 2009: Fun fact: this PPV’s Rumble match holds the record for Most Men In A Rumble Match At One Time with 15. Yes, half the competitors in the match were in the ring at once. This makes it sound like this Rumble match wasn’t any good. But, somehow, WWE made a crowded Rumble match a good one. The ending was pretty good, with Triple H forced to take on all 3 Legacy members in the end. It would have been better with a better babyface, like The Undertaker; but it still worked. John Morrison and Rey Mysterio had some cool Rumble saves. And, I liked how Santino Marella set the new shortest time record in a Rumble where 9 guys lasted over 30 minutes. The undercard was pretty damn good, too. The ECW Title match was okay. Beth Phoenix and Melina had a good match, which would have been better if they had gotten some more time. And, the two World Title matches were good, especially the WWE Title match between Edge and Jeff Hardy; Matt Hardy’s heel turn was well done. All in all, it was a fine Rumble PPV.
17. 2016: You’d think that a Rumble PPV where Roman Reigns was forced to defend his WWE Title in the Rumble match, got taken out early on only to show back later on, and then lost to Triple H just to set up a WrestleMania main event match between the two would be terrible. But, amazingly, this was a pretty good show. Despite all that Roman shenanigans, the Rumble match was much better than the previous 2. There were some great moments, like AJ Styles’s surprise debut, Brock Lesnar VS The Wyatt Family, and R-Truth bringing a ladder into the ring thinking he was in the MITB Ladder Match. The rest of the card was good as well. With all the main card matches being title matches, it really made this PPV feel special. Kevin Owens and Dean Ambrose had a great Last Man Standing Match for The Intercontinental Title. Kalisto and Alberto Del Rio’s United States Title match was pretty fun. And, the WWE Tag Team and Divas Titles matches were okay. All in all, it was an enjoyable PPV. Too bad it lead to a shitty WrestleMania.
18. 2020: When it was announced that WWE Champion Brock Lesnar was going to be in the Royal Rumble at Number 1 and NOT defending the title, many fans groaned. We all knew it was going one way or another: either Cain Velasquez was going to be Number 2 and take him out early, or Brock was going to dominate the first half of the match. Sure enough, Brock dominated the first half of the match, setting a new record for the most consecutive eliminations at 13. Though, I have to be honest: it wasn’t that bad. Honestly, if it had been anyone other than Brock, I would have enjoyed it. If Braun Strowman or Keith Lee had taken out 13 guys in a row, I would have liked it. But, it was Brock who did it; and I just didn’t like it because I’m sick of seeing Brock Lesnar make everyone his bitch. But, other than Brock’s dominance, it was a fine Rumble. I liked the change of pace by having 1 guy dominate the first half and then let the second half be up in the air. I also liked that Drew McIntyre won. It was a nice surprise. And, I was impressed by how well Edge did in the match; he showed no signs of ring rust. As for the other Rumble, similar to the Men’s, the Women’s Rumble was a fine match with 1 flaw: Charlotte Flair winning. Honestly, I don’t have that much of a problem with Charlotte but rather how she’s booked (I could say that about half the wrestlers on the WWE roster). Her booking has killed any interest I have in seeing her as Women’s Champion. I would have much preferred if Shayna Baszler or Bianca Belair (who took out 8 women each, a total of 16 women, over half the field) had won the match. But, other than that, it was a well booked Rumble. As for the non-Rumble matches, they were fine. Roman Reigns and King Corbin’s match was good but could have had a few minutes trimmed from it. Bayley and Lacey Evans had an enjoyable match. Becky Lynch and Asuka’s match was unsurprisingly; I would have been surprised if it hadn’t been good. Bray Wyatt and Daniel Bryan’s Strap Match was fine, but I would have preferred if it had the four corners rule. And, the 2 pre-show matches were fine. In all, it was a fine PPV with a few flaws. Nothing too bad but not exactly stellar either.
19. 2019: To be honest, I’m a little bias towards this PPV for one simple reason: the layout in Chase Field looked fantastic. It was a great change of pace from the cookie cutter arenas WWE is always in. If WWE held all their PPVs in baseball stadiums, I wouldn’t complain. As for the actual PPV, it had its moments. While the 2 Rumble matches weren’t as good as the previous years, they were still pretty fun. I especially liked how Becky Lynch snuck her way into the Women’s Rumble. And, Nia Jax appearing in both the Women’s and Men’s Rumbles was fun. Also, I liked how Naomi and Kacy Catanzaro had better Kofi spots than Kofi Kingston. As for the undercard, both Women’s Title matches were great, and the two World Title matches were enjoyable. However, there were some flaws to this PPV. For one, it did NOT need to be 6 hours. That’s just way too long. Also, why in the hell did The Miz and Shane McMahon win the SmackDown! Tag Team Titles? Not only that but f***ing Shane destroyed The Bar. One of the best throw-together tag teams got their asses kicked by the boss’s 50-year-old son! What the hell!? Despite that, I still enjoyed this Rumble PPV.
20. 1990: Here’s another one-match-show from the Rumble’s early years. Not a single title match on the undercard. Instead, we got The Fabulous Rougeaus taking on the Bushwhackers in the Rougeaus’ last match together, The Genius wrestling his only WWE PPV match against Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake, a submission match between Ronnie Garvin and Greg Valentine in which both guys kept trying to pin one another, and a forgettable Big Boss Man/“Hacksaw” Jim Duggan match. Hell, the best thing on the undercard was a special edition of The Brother Love Show with Sensational Sherri and Sapphire. But, that Rumble. Man, that Rumble! Easily one of the best. Ted DiBiase lasts for 40 minutes. Demolition takes out Andre with ease. “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and Bad News Brown getting into blood feud. And, the best part: Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior staring each other down. The Orlando crowd, which had been hot for pretty much everything that night, went apeshit! Hell, that one moment alone is why I ranked this PPV so high. Though, they blew it with the ending. Mr. Perfect really should have won, preferably thanks to Hogan and Warrior getting into each other’s way. Despite that, it was still a great Rumble match that elevated a so-so PPV.
21. 1994: Well, it certainly was a memorable PPV. I mean, you had Owen Hart turning on his brother Bret and then botching his first heel promo by claiming that he kicked Bret’s leg out from under his leg. You had 2 winners for the Rumble match, which was pretty much the most memorable thing from the 1994 Rumble, besides Diesel dominating the first half. And then, there was that freaking Casket Match. Yokozuna had to have 10 guys help him defeat The Undertaker. They opened the urn, which contain green smoke. And, after they all managed to put Taker in the casket, Taker spoke from inside the casket on the pre-TitanTron and then ascended to the heavens from the screen and disappeared until he returned to wrestle himself at SummerSlam. Of course, that whole displayed didn’t make for a good PPV, but there are some things worth watching. The Tag Team Title match where Owen turned on Bret was really good, and Razor Ramon had a good Intercontinental Title match with IRS. Still, I can’t call this a good PPV considering all that Undertaker silliness. But, I’ll take a bad memorable PPV over a boring one any day of the week.
22. 1989: The first few Rumble PPVs were basically one match shows, with the undercard paling in comparison to the Rumble match. That really shows with the 1989 Rumble. At this PPV, we had “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan and The Hart Foundation taking on Dino Bravo and The Fabulous Rougeaus in an okay opening bout that didn’t really mean much storyline wise. Then, there was a so-so Women’s Title match between Rockin’ Robin and Judy Martin, which took place right when WWE had stopped giving a shit about women’s wrestling. After that, Harley Race and Haku fought for the King Of The Ring crown because WWE thought fans would care about that shit. Also, The Ultimate Warrior and Rick Rude had a posedown instead of actually wrestling one another or competing in the Rumble match. Why? Only WWE knows. Speaking of the Rumble, this was the best match of the PPV. And, to be fair, it was a pretty good Rumble. It started off great with both Demolition members beating the shit out of one another. Andre The Giant eliminating himself when Jake “The Snake” Roberts threw Damien into the ring was a great spot. The Warlord’s 2-second elimination is comedy gold. And, Hulk Hogan accidentally throwing out “Macho Man” Randy Savage and them nearly coming to blows was a great moment, setting the stage for their eventual breakup. Though, the Rumble’s ending wasn’t that good. After Hogan got eliminated, there weren’t any big names to fill his void. Sure, Ted DiBiase was there, but he really needed a bigger babyface to play off of than Big John Studd, the eventual winner. By the way, his win was a big mistake, especially since WWE quickly soured on him. Maybe they could have saved the Hogan-Savage spot for later in the match and had DiBiase win by taking advantage of their miscommunication. Despite that, it was still a good Rumble match, enough to elevate above some lesser Rumble PPVs.
23. 1988: I feel a little bad ranking the 1st Rumble so low. But, just because it was the 1st doesn’t change the fact that this was a middle of the road show. This was the Rumble’s pilot episode: setting up the premise but filled with a lot of details that would not survive this initial outing. Case in point: this has the only 20-man Rumble match in the PPV’s history. The match itself wasn’t bad, but it could have been a lot more dramatic with 10 more guys in the mix. Also, this Rumble holds the distinction of being the 1st Rumble PPV where the Rumble match didn’t go on last. It ended with a 2-Out-Of-3 Falls Match between The Islanders and The Young Stallions, which wasn’t good enough to really warrant going on last. As for the other matches on this PPV, the only one worth your time is the Women’s Tag Team Title match between The Jumping Bomb Angels and The Glamour Girls. This was a really good match, which just shows how much of a shame it was that WWE abandoned its women’s division so quickly in the late 1980s instead of nurturing it. Also, “Ravishing” Rick Rude and Ricky Steamboat somehow had a subpar match. I don’t know how that happened. By the way, I really shouldn’t have referred to this Rumble as a “PPV,” since it actually aired on cable. That’s another reason why it feels like a TV pilot because it basically was one.
24. 2008: This was a mixed bag PPV, where there were some good parts and some bad parts just lumped together. The good was the two World Title matches. Edge and Rey Mysterio had a good fight for the World Heavyweight Title, while Jeff Hardy showed he was a main event talent in his battle with Randy Orton for the WWE Title. The bad was the other 2 undercard matches. Ric Flair and MVP’s match was just there to fill time, and it had the stipulation of Flair’s career being on the line. JBL and Chris Jericho’s match just stunk. These 2 had no chemistry, and mercifully, this brought an end to their feud. As for the Rumble match itself, it was also a mixed bag. It had a great beginning with The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels, the last 2 men in the 2007 Rumble, starting off this one. And, John Cena’s surprise appearance at Number 30 was legitimately shocking. The MSG crowd was so surprised that they actually cheered for Cena at first. Of course, once he showed up and it became apparent that he was winning, they quickly soured on him. Also, Finlay got disqualified from this Rumble match, which had never happened before. And, Chavo Guerrero, the ECW Champion at the time, competed in the match even though the winner could choose to challenge him for his title at WrestleMania. Like I said, good parts and bad parts.
25. 1997: Much like the previous year’s Rumble, this one wasn’t terrible; but at the same time, nothing really stands out as great either. Though, the 1997 Rumble is slightly better than the 1996 one for a few reasons. For one, bringing in a bunch of guys from AAA livened up the show and gave it a unique feel. Also, the matches at this PPV were better than the previous year’s. And, holding the PPV in the large Alamodome gave it a cool look. However, compared to other Rumble PPVs, nothing really sticks out as spectacular. There have been better undercard matches. The WWE Title match was okay. And, the Rumble match itself is fine. Stone Cold Steve Austin’s performance was good. But, the convoluted ending, with Austin sneaking back in after being thrown out by Bret “The Hitman” Hart to eliminate The Undertaker, Vader, and Hart, brought it down and set off a weird, needlessly complicated storyline to set up the WrestleMania 13 main event that got further complicated when Shawn Michaels lost his smile. Outside of that weird Rumble ending, the most memorable moment from this PPV was The British Bulldog saying that he was gonna win the Rumble because he’s bizarre. That’s a good description for this PPV as well.
26. 2017: Well, this PPV happened. Sure, we got another John Cena-AJ Styles match that stole the show. But, this time, Cena won to claim his 16th World Title. Now, we have to hear about how Cena has tied with Ric Flair even though he really hasn’t. And, we have the prospect of Cena “breaking” Flair’s record to look forward to. As for the rest of the card, the preshow matches were just there to fill time on the preshow. The Universal Title match between Kevin Owens and Roman Reigns was okay, but it had some shark cage silliness. By the way, cool it with the f***ing shark cages, WWE. You’re gonna do to them what Vince Russo did for pole matches. The RAW Women’s Title and Cruiserweight Title matches were nothing special. And then, there was the Rumble match. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. For one, the whole match was built around an epic encounter among Brock Lesnar, Goldberg, and The Undertaker. That would have been fine in 2004. But, in 2017, when 2 of them are too old have a good match over 5 minutes and the other gets gassed after 10, not so fine. Plus, they wasted a spot on Roman. And, Randy Orton was a weird choice for winner, especially considering how he turned down his WrestleMania World Title match after his then-buddy Bray Wyatt won the WWE Title and then changed his mind. That was a weird WrestleMania build. So, in all, it wasn’t a great Rumble. But, there have been worse.
27. 1996: It’s not a good show. It’s not a bad show. It’s just A show. I mean, Shawn Michaels wins again and goes on to win the WWE Title at WrestleMania XII. But, his win at the previous Rumble was much more memorable, and that match featured Mantaur. The only thing that really stood out in this Rumble match was Vader’s huge meltdown at being eliminated, Razor Ramon running in to get the 1-2-3 Kid for costing him the Intercontinental Title earlier in the night, Steve Austin falling out of the ring on accident, and all the one-timers that were booked for this show. If you ever needed to prove that Dory Funk, Jr., Takao Omori, Doug Gilbert, and The Headhunters were in a Rumble match, here’s your proof. The rest of the card wasn’t much better. A bunch of so-so matches that didn’t really stand out, except for the WWE Title match between Bret Hart and The Undertaker that went on last mainly to set up a Undertaker/Diesel feud and was mostly memorable for the fact that it wasn’t very good. They would go on to have better matches the next year, and we’d go on to watch better Rumbles after this one.
28. 2004: History has not been kind to this PPV. Though, at the time, it was seen as a one-match-show, with the undercard underwhelming while the Rumble match stood out. Not hard to see why because the undercard was underwhelming. A red hot feud between Eddie and Chavo Guerrero fizzled out. Hardcore Holly somehow got a WWE Title match with Brock Lesnar mainly because Lesnar had injured him nearly 2-years earlier. He clearly had no business challenging Brock Lesnar for the WWE Title. Shawn Michaels and Triple H had a boring Last Man Standing Match for the World Heavyweight Title that ended in a double count-out. If only they had had their New Year’s Eve 2003 RAW match at this PPV. As for the Rumble match, it told a great story with a wrestler being forced to enter at Number 1 in order to win the match only for him to persevere and survive the whole match and take out The Big Show to win the match. Said wrestler deserved the win for years of loyalty to the industry. Unfortunately, said wrestler was Chris Benoit, who would proceed to destroy his legacy 3 years later and completely taint all his accomplishments, including this Rumble match. It was a great story that has been ruined by future context, further dragging this PPV down with it.
29. 2022: WWE in 2022 is one big tease, giving you glimpses and promises of a good time only to shut it down immediately and give you a big case of blue balls. The 2022 Royal Rumble is a good example of this. The PPV (or PLE as they call it now) started with a really good Seth Rollins/Roman Reigns match with a great story in Rollins taunting Reigns with the fact that he’s won their one-on-one matches so far. Logically, this would mean that Reigns would have won definitively, but WWE decided to have Reigns get DQ’ed and then beat the shit out of Rollins with a chair. This sounds fine in a vacuum, but WWE books these kinds of finishes all the time. So, it loses its impact and looks like another bullshit finish to the fans. Then, there was the other World Title match: a dream match between Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashley for the WWE Title. However, said dream became a nightmare as Lesnar spammed the hell out of the match with a bunch of German suplexes. And then, Reigns showed up to cost Lesnar the title, using a match fans had been calling for ever since Lashley returned to WWE into a stepping stone of a match fans have been calling for WWE to stop booking for a good while. As for the non-World Title matches, Becky Lynch and Doudrop’s match was really good, but it was hindered by an apathetic crowd thanks to WWE booking it in the death spot after the Women’s Rumble. Not only was the crowd spent from the Rumble, they were also distracted by the WrestleMania sign catching fire thanks to the pyro they used after the match. This spot really should have gone to the Mixed Tag Match between Edge & Beth Phoenix VS The Miz & Maryse. By the way, why is Edge fighting Miz when he could be taking on guys he hasn’t wrestled yet, like AJ Styles or Kevin Owens or Bobby Lashley. Same with Beth and Becky Lynch, Sasha Banks, or Asuka. Then, there were the Rumble matches. The Women’s Rumble was fine. It was nice to see ladies like Melina, Lita, RTC Ivory, and Knockouts Champion Mickie James back, but it was a shame that WWE chose to bring in people rather than use the NXT ladies who could have easily filled up the match. At least, they could have left out Kelly Kelly and Summer Rae. Anyway, the match was fine until Ronda Rousey showed up and won the match. Bold move bringing her back considering the hissy fit she threw when the fans turned on her. I’m sure that won’t happen again. As bad as that was, it was nowhere near as terrible as the Men’s Rumble. The match was boring as f***. You know it’s bad when Johnny Knoxville and Bad Bunny are the most interesting guys in the match. Plus, there was Shane McMahon’s bullshit, which was so bad it pissed off Vince so much that he later fired Shane as a scapegoat. However, Shane wasn’t to blame for the finish. WWE decided to have Lesnar just show up at the end and win. Such an uninspiring ending. WWE is capable of putting on great shows. But, thanks to Nick Khan, WWE can make money despite bad shows leading to low ratings and attendance. So, they have incentive to change, but fans have all the incentive they need to get their gratification elsewhere.
30. 2011: To be fair, it’s not really terrible. The non-Rumble matches were okay. And, the big 40-man Rumble looks kind of quaint compared to the 50-man Rumble WWE held for the Saudis in 2018. But, since most of this PPV is the 40-man Rumble match, and since that match is a huge mess, this PPV is a huge mess. For one, WWE built up a big battle between the New Nexus led by CM Punk against Wade Barrett’s new group, The Corre, to happen in the Rumble match. Neither group ended up facing one another (except for Punk and Corre member Justin Gabriel at the beginning that saw Punk easily throw Gabriel out in less than a minute), making the whole thing pointless. Though, The Nexus working together to throw people out so that CM Punk could win was a great part of the match. Unfortunately, they had Super-Cena come in and destroy the New Nexus much like he did to the old Nexus back at SummerSlam 2010. Speaking of Cena, his elimination spot was nearly ruined when Alex Riley fell out of the ring before he was supposed to. And, The Corre did jack squat. Finally, there was the winner, Alberto Del Rio. He was supposed to be a big deal fairly quickly. Having him win the Rumble so quickly in his WWE run was a good start. But then, WWE killed his momentum by having him lose to Edge for the World Heavyweight Title in the opening match at WrestleMania XXVII. Which makes me wonder, if the winner was gonna challenge for World Heavyweight Title in the curtain jerker spot, why not just have Santino Marella win the match. The crowd was all for it, and it would have been a cool “anything can happen” moment. I would have booked it like that. Then again, I would have booked a 30-man Rumble and built up the undercard some more, like a normal Rumble PPV. But, what the f*** do I know? WWE makes millions of dollars putting on so-so shows like this one every month.
31. 2006: Is it better to be memorably bad or boringly okay? Honestly, I think it’s a wash. Case in point: the 2006 Royal Rumble. The beginning of a boring PPV year saw Gregory Helms win the Cruiserweight Title in a throw-together 6-man match. He would go on to hold the title for over a year largely because I’m fairly certain that WWE forgot this title existed until it was time to book it for a match and just kept it on him. Then, we got Mickie James in the middle of her awesome lesbian stalker gimmick try and fail to get a watchable match out of Ashley Massaro. Then, they had the Rumble match go on in the middle because of what would happen at the end of the show. Said Rumble saw Rey Mysterio win because his good friend Eddie Guerrero had died a few months earlier, and people felt sorry for him. I guess no one gave a shit about Eddie’s nephew Chavo. Also, said Rumble was filled with scrubs like Sylvan, Tatanka, Eugene, and Orlando Jordan. Then, John Cena and Edge had an okay match for the WWE Title, but instead of letting Edge hold onto the title, they gave it back to Cena even though fans had fully turned on him at this point. And finally, the reason the Rumble went on in the middle: an awful World Heavyweight Title match between Kurt Angle and Mark Henry that saw The Undertaker show up at the end to challenge Angle for the title by doing some spooky shit that caused lightning to strike the ring and make it collapse. By the way, this only looks cool when someone suplexes The Big Show from the top rope. Anyway, it was a snoozefest. Moving on.
32. 2012: “Anyone can enter!” they said. We had no idea what that meant, but we found out. Anyone included the 3 announcers calling the match, a couple of Hall Of Famers (one of whom was unintentionally, unceremoniously working his final match), a female wrestler working her only WWE match, Alberto Del Rio’s personal announcer, and the Road Dogg. It wasn’t a great Rumble match. The undercard wasn’t much better. An 8-Diva tag match and a Brodus Clay-Drew McIntyre match were just thrown onto the show to fill time. Daniel Bryan, The Big Show, and Mark Henry fought in a lackluster Steel Cage match that went short because Henry was injured. And then, there was Kane VS John Cena. Good God almighty! What a f***ing disaster that was! The match wasn’t great, the storyline around it not only drug both guys into the mud but also killed Zach Ryder’s career, and the whole thing kept Kane from entering the Rumble match, ending his Rumble streak. The only things that kept this PPV from being a total disaster was a pretty good WWE Title match between CM Punk and Dolph Ziggler and Sheamus winning the Rumble match even though Chris Jericho was the more obvious choice. It was a nice switch since Sheamus needed it more, but it did lead to the infamous 18 Seconds match at WrestleMania XXVIII. So, even when it did something right, the 2012 Rumble f***ed up.
33. 1999: Leave it to Vince Russo to book a Rumble match where the ring is empty twice. Yes, TWICE. The first time was when Stone Cold Steve Austin chased after Vince McMahon who escaped after Austin eliminated Golga, leading to an ambush in the bathroom that would take Austin out of most of the match. This ended up going on for so long that Droz came out at Number 4 with no one in the ring and had to wait for the next guy to come out to basically restart the match. After that, there were a bunch of jobbers and some quick eliminations. Then, came the second time, when Kane came in at 17 and cleared the ring (of all 4 guys in the match at the time) only to later eliminate himself after attacking some people from an insane asylum sent to take him away. The ring remained empty until Vince showed back up to remind everyone he was still in the match. Then, Ken Shamrock, one of Vince’s Corporation goons, came out. And, they sure as shit weren’t gonna fight. So, Vince exited to ring to join commentary, and Shamrock stood around in the ring to wait for the next guy to come out and restart the match again!!!! The rest of the card wasn’t much better. The matches weren’t terrible but not exactly memorable. Except for the I Quit Match between The Rock and Mankind for the WWE Title. Though it was the best match on the PPV, it’s still hard to watch considering the 11 chair shots to the head Mankind took and everything we know about CTE’s today. As for the Rumble, everyone knew that Austin was gonna win. So, they swerved us by making Vince the winner. But, Vince’s win became pointless as he gave up his shot at the title match at WrestleMania, which ended up going to the runner-up: Stone Cold Steve Austin. Instead of making history and having Austin be the only man to win 3 consecutive Rumbles, they went for unpredictability just to keep the fans on their toes. But, sometimes predictable is the way to go.
34. 2014: So, Batista leaves WWE in 2010. Some time later, he ends up getting cast as Drax The Destroyer in “Guardians Of The Galaxy.” WWE, feeling like he’s about to become a household name, decide to bring him back into the fold and put him into a high profile match at WrestleMania XXX. Unfortunately, they put him into the match that everyone and their mother wanted Daniel Bryan in: main eventing in the WWE Title match. At the 2014 Royal Rumble, Daniel Bryan tears the house down with Bray Wyatt in the opening match. Despite that, people hoped that he’d somehow end up in the Rumble match and win. When Rey Mysterio got booed to eternity when he entered at Number 30, it became apparent that Batista was winning. The fans were pissed. It didn’t helped that the other matches on the card feature a Brock Lesnar squash of The Big Show and the 9th PPV singles match between John Cena and Randy Orton, both of whom busted their butts to put on a great match that Philly booed out of the building. It was a shitshow, but thanks to the fans rejection of Batista and CM Punk walking out the next night, WWE had no choice but to put Bryan in the main event and win the title. While it did give us a great WrestleMania, it was still a terrible Royal Rumble.
35. 2015: Worst Royal Rumble Ever. One year earlier, WWE pisses off their fans by not having Daniel Bryan show up in the Rumble match, instead giving them Batista as the Rumble winner even though they didn’t really want him. You’d think they would learn from their mistake, but you’d be wrong. Sure, Bryan was in the Rumble match, but he only lasted 10:36. And, to make matters worse, Goldust came out right after Bryan’s elimination, which meant the words “Shattered Dreams” were on the Titantron. Basically, they were trolling the fans. Also, Kane and The Big Show (2 old guys no one really cared about anymore) eliminated Dean Ambrose, Bray Wyatt, and Dolph Zigglers (guys the fans actually liked). And, Roman Reigns won, but once again, he was a Rumble winner no one wanted. Hell, they even knew that the fans might reject him and brought in The Rock in hopes to prevent this. And, that didn’t do a damn thing. Fans booed, and #CancelWWENetwork became the top Twitter trend worldwide, and WWE eventually had to pull off the Heist Of The Century at WrestleMania 31. As for the rest of the event, it was filled with 1 really good match (Brock Lesnar VS John Cena VS Seth Rollins for the WWE Title) and a bunch of meaningless tag matches. All in all, it was a shitshow and easily the worst Royal Rumble.