Kids, The Royal Rumble Used To Be Good

by Peter Edge

There was something about the Royal Rumble when I was a kid that I loved. It wasn’t the unpredictability of it; the older I grew, the more obvious it was who would be winning each match. No other person was winning in 1998 apart from Stone Cold Steve Austin. The 2000 edition was The Rock Show. Triple H coming back from injury and entering the 2002 Rumble could mean just one thing: he was winning. But during my teenage years, the enjoyment of this match came from not the unpredictability, but the divergent nature of the match. No other match in wrestling was like this. No other promotion in my landscape was doing a match like this (now every other promotion in my landscape has done a match similar to a Royal Rumble). Once a year, a Royal Rumble would happen and an hour or so would whizz by and for the next week, my and my mates at school would talk about what had happened.

During my school years, by picking up a buddy who had a keen eye on old VHS tapes from Coliseum Home Video, I started to watch old Rumbles from the past. The 1990 and 1992 Rumbles are some of the finest hours in wrestling history. I have a massive soft spot for 1994. The 2001 and 2002 ones aged brilliantly, while the 2004 edition has a black cloud hanging over it because of its winner. I remember watching it a few years ago and thinking, “Holy smoke, the actual work is tremendous here.”

But after that, 2007 and 2008 have resonated with a lot of people. The final minutes of the 2007 Rumble are awesome with Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker but before then? What do you remember about it? 2008 had a nostalgic feel about it, with faces from Madison Square Garden’s past making surprise entrances, but the ultimate shock being John Cena, who had suffered a torn pec in October that was supposed to have put him out until after “WrestleMania”, as the final entrant. But before then, it was a fine Rumble and nothing more.

But as we hit the 2010’s, we got long meandering Rumbles with hardly any flow. The 2014 and 2015 Rumble became focal points for fans’ protests about the state of the Fed’s booking, and while the Rumble got its act together a bit in years before the pandemic – the men’s edition in 2020 is the last S Tier Rumble. It’s the only one since 2004 to be in contention for the Mt. Rushmore of Royal Rumbles. It’s so unique in the litany of template Rumbles we now see, with the first half being the most extended singular person dominating the ring trope in Rumble history. Someone surviving two minutes against Brock Lesnar in this one was a big achievement, leading to the moment that Drew McIntyre eliminated Lesnar feeling as though it was the making of a main eventer.

Even when Brock gets eliminated, the Rumble doesn’t die on it’s backside, with some fun action happening after that moment and that surprise – which I will talk more about later as I put a take out there that Edge’s entrance might have been the moment that jumped the shark regarding the Royal Rumble (got all the Cope haters hooked now, haven’t I?).

Before talking about the last great Rumble, let’s look at other editions of the over the top rope, staggered entrant spectacular in a time when the Royal Rumble was actually good.

© WWE

1990: Third Times a Charm

The 1990 Rumble was just the third of its kind and the second to be on PPV. The first ever Royal Rumble aired on USA Network, with the fact that Jim Crockett Promotions was having a PPV the same night just being a massive coincidence according to WWE history books (which are as useful as a PragerU history book). The Rumble didn’t hit its mark as a PPV until the Attitude Era with only two shows hitting above 300,000 buys before 1998;- in 1991 because “Gulf War, I guess” and in 1993 because Lex Luger was a draw, which is a fact from this Lex Luger fan.

Ted DiBiase is the No.1 entrant, which is a good callback from the previous year, as in ‘88, DiBiase had bought the number 30 spot from Akeem, who was the 23rd entrant, a trade so bad that I think DiBiase might have been moonlighting as the Cleveland Browns GM.

DiBiase would end up clearing the ring of number 2 and 3 (Koko B.Ware and Marty Jannetty) before the two minute interval was up, the first time that the sole man dominating the ring trope was used in a Rumble. But it’s when No.4, Jake Roberts (who was feuding with Ted at the time), enters that this match gets going and begins one of my favourite stretches in Rumble history.

From entrants 4- 7, everything feels electric, helped by all the people being ridiculously over. No.5, Randy Savage, entering means it’s two heels against one face until No.6, Roddy Piper, comes in. This leads to a double clothesline getting an insane pop and with some fun elimination teases between Piper and Savage. The WWE really didn’t listen to its audience during this one because the Fed, and the Rumble primary booker until the mid-00’s Pat Patterson, would just put the big names in the second half of the 30 from then on.

When No.7, The Warlord enters, the fun stops (like anytime The Warlord enters the ring). From there, quite a bit of “Royal Rumbling” takes place, i.e. we get people in corners trying to eliminate each other for long periods but with enough moments to hold the fans attention, before the 12-20 entrant part falls fallow in terms of excitement. When The Ultimate Warrior enters at No. 21 things pick up, with wrestlers going overboard quicker than the final hour of Titanic. When Hulk Hogan comes in at No.25 “My Heart Will Go On” might as well have played, as more people go overboard, leaving just two people left in the ring.

When the fans realise it’s just Hulk and Warrior the crowd noise levels go up big time. The two most popular people in WWF are alone in the ring and the tease of an altercation is setting pulses racing. This never happened in WWF in the years before. The last time the top two babyfaces in Titan faced off against each other was 1972 in Shea Stadium, with Bruno Sammartino vs Pedro Morales going against each other. Bobby Heenan, whose main charges have been eliminated, is staying at ringside because he has to see first hand what is going to happen.

What happens is two men with limited offence running into each other with a criss-cross (that felt as long as the Daniel Garcia and Wheeler Yuta one a few weeks back), and a double clothesline to finish it off. As a tease for the WrestleMania VI match to come, it worked.

All that was apparently needed was a second member of Power Of Pain to stop the fun. The Barbarian came out making both members, (he and Warlord) as welcome guests to this Rumble as Candace Owens is to a Kirk family dinner right now, leading to things going fallow again. The one highlight is Warrior getting eliminated by a combination of Rick Rude, Hogan and Barbarian and then going back into the ring to hit both Rude and Barbarian before running away scot free.

Hulk Hogan would win after overcoming two against one odds against Rude and Mr. Perfect. Rumours have abounded that Perfect was supposed to win, but on the afternoon of the show, Hogan played his “that doesn’t work for me brother” card. Whether that’s true or not has never been established, and Hogan certainly never beat the allegations in the years after with his carry on. It has to be said that in a time where “Hogan must pose” was the booking philosophy of WWF, a Mr. Perfect win would have looked odd; even if it would have helped rocket boost the best worker in the company at the time.

© WWE

1992: Simply the best?

The 1992 Royal Rumble is easily on my Mount Rushmore for best hours in wrestling history. The story was simple: After a vacation for the WWE Title after shenanigans at the Survivor Series and Taboo Tuesday PPVs, the Winged Eagle belt was on the line for the winner to grab.

Ric Flair may now be known as the bloke who tweets with every word being a capital letter as well as someone who has committed so many alleged sexual assault crimes that he would feature on a multi part episode of SVU, he is one of only two that is worthy for debate to be wrestling’s GOAT (the other is Hiroshi Tanahashi). While the eventual obituary that I will do for Social Suplex on Flair will have to mention the Plane Ride From Hell and the insistence he had on flashing people in hotels (plus doing racisms frequently, and his campaigning for a politician so racist that he would have made Nigel Farage go “whoa there buddy”), it will also mention how big of a moment Ric Flair joining the WWF was.

Flair was the man of the 1980s for the world of wrestling outside of New York. He was a multiple time Wrestler of the Year winner, including in 1990; the year before his big defection. Flair jumped ship to WWF after a fall out with Jim Herd, but the Nature Boy didn’t pull up any trees on arrival, thanks to a Hulk Hogan house show program not doing the business the WWF expected on top of the promotion failing to commit to the “invader from another promotion” bit. But as the Rumble got closer, Flair did become one of the more focused names on WWF TV. In storyline, he was one of four favourites heading into the match, alongside Sid Justice, The Undertaker and Hulk Hogan.

Is it obvious that from my focus on Ric Flair, that he’s the guy who won right? In doing so, Flair turned in one of the great performances in wrestling history in this match, as he had to literally fight through twenty-eight people after entering as No.3. But he isn’t even the MVP of this night; that honour goes to Bobby Heenan.

Heenan, a former manager in the Fed, was on commentary with Gorilla Monsoon. In canon, he had been appointed to the team that consulted for Flair during his WWF career, along with Mr. Perfect. That meant that whilst Flair was going through the gauntlet, Bobby was becoming the vocal embodiment of what high blood pressure sounds like. He was getting more aghast and more nervous as each minute the match rolled on whilst delivering some of his greatest ever one-liners on that night.

“Jack Tunney- the best President since Noriega”, a quip from Bobby Heenan before Jack Tunney’s proclamation pre-match is strangely timely, with US news networks and podcasters using the Manuel Noriega saga as a historical precedent for the US’ recent kidnap…, sorry arrest (I need to correct myself for legal reasons) of Nicolas Maduro. Ted Dibiase’s elimination by the British Bulldog is greeted with an exasperated “Oh no!” by Heenan, as he sees an ally for Flair go by the wayside. But the Heenan freak-outs are only just getting started: Heenan’s reaction when Ric enters at No.3 was just as big of a freak-out as Houston Texans’ C.J Stroud has any time a pass rusher gets within six feet of him.

The anxiety continues to ratchet up with every man that comes in. When Flair starts chopping Haku, a former Heenan charge, Bobby screams “what are you doing?” When The Barbarian, another Heenan charge from the past, comes in Bobby says, “he doesn’t like anyone, he barely liked me when I managed him” and “there’s a reason he’s called The Barbarian. He’s not a hairdresser on his day off you know”.
Heenan is the voice of desperation as the Rumble enters its final stages, as he pleads with God, saying that he’s sorry for everything he’s ever done. He sounds like me in injury time during the Europa League final when my team Tottenham were leading, praying they would cling on.

But my praise of Heenan’s performance shouldn’t diminish from Flair’s at all. The beauty of Flair’s hour is that he is the centre of attention at all times. In modern times, the “ironman” performances see the wrestler in question hide for significant portions of the match, but Flair doesn’t do that. Every new entrant that comes in goes to Flair and does something with Ric. Kerry Von Erich hits his rival from World Class with a discus punch which ignites a comically brilliant bump from Flair. Greg Valentine puts the man he feuded with in Mid- Atlantic in a Figure-Four, which gets an insane pop. These are two of the many landmark moments of Flair’s story on this night. Whether accidental or not, this match is actually a love letter to the world away from WWF before McMahon initiated the national expansion, with Flair going toe to toe with many of the people he faced when he was NWA Champion before the whole wrestling world was shaken up when Vince Jr. bought the company from Vince Sr.

The end is the only thing that could possibly be changed. If someone could have thought of the 1997 finish for this match and have Ric, exhausted be thrown over the top rope but with refs distracted by a brawling Hulk Hogan and Sid Justice on the outside, creep back in and eliminate people and be the last one standing, then it’s five stars, but at ****½ it is on the Rushmore Tier of Royal Rumbles. The 1992 Rumble is, in my opinion, the Abe Lincoln of that tier.

In the next decade the Rumble really showcased what WWF was for the other 365 (or 366 in a leap year) days of the year. 1993 to 1997 were insanely low on star power, to the point that the company used partner promotions to help fill the thirty man field, with Genichiro Tenryu (of all people) appearing in the ‘93 and ‘94 Rumbles. Dick Murdoch made a random appearance in the 1995 match (which had one minute intervals) and 1996 saw Doug Gilbert, Dory Funk Jr. and Takao Omori appear, before 1997 had AAA guys coming out to no pop (precursor to future Rumbles maybe?). When the Attitude Era came into being the Rumbles did see an increase in names but also had to deal with how you would imagine a Vince Russo booked Royal Rumble would look like.

© WWE

2001: Down to The Wire

2001 would see the Attitude Era all but come to an end. Even if the transition out of that era came with the words “Ruthless Aggression,” it had really ended the moment Stone Cold Steve Austin and Vince McMahon shook hands, turning Austin heel. But three months before the Wrestlemania 17 main event, was where one of the most eventual Rumbles of all time took place.

Those that are nostalgic for the 90s in the UK will remember the platform it was on. The PPV aired on Channel 4, but on a fifty minute delay from the original start time because the channel that gave us EuroTrash railed against Mae Young’s fake prosthetic breasts being exposed as well as the bloody WWF Title Match between Triple H and Cactus Jack. Those of a certain age here will remember magical moments, like the commercial break that came on just as The Big Show made his surprise return to main roster WWE after months in OSW. The broadcast had its issues, but probably also had one of the five biggest TV audiences that WWE had ever been in front of; here in Britain.

Those watching saw a Royal Rumble match that was one of the greatest. A match so good it made Kane look good. This is the Rumble that is most comparable to The Wire- in that it’s not great until it is great, when The Hardy Boys eliminate themselves while juking it out so Drew Carey, the No. 5 entrant, can be on his own until Kane comes in at No.6.

Despite Drew trying to bribe him, Kane attempts a chokeslam on Carey until Raven, who I guess prefers the US version of Whose Line is It Anyway to the UK, enters at No. 7 and hits Kane with a Kendo stick. Drew runs away from the Rumble so Chapter two of this Rumble, which might as well have had chapter names to it, can commence.

The Hardcore weapons chapter begins here, with the next few entrants being the Hardcore Title regular. There are weapons aplenty, including a bowling ball and a bin (which would make for a good night out in Birmingham). This carries on for three intervals until Kane eliminates everyone, including walking wellness policy violation Grandmaster Sexay in what was his final ever WWF PPV match.

A comedy spot sees Honky Tonk Man enter, sing his theme and then get hit by his own guitar before elimination.

Chapter Three is The Rock and Kane Show. Dwayne’s enters at No. 13, leading to the pair going through people as they enter, including Taz, whose ten second performance went as well as his commentary for the main event of the All Out 2025. This continues until the Super Heavyweights enter the fray and then K-Kwik, the artist now known as R-Truth, enters.

The ring fills just enough for Big Show to come in to start Chapter Four- The A-Listers. Show begins to eliminate people, only for Rock to eliminate him before the two minute interval is over. Big Paul would chokeslam Rock through the table in retaliation so that Dwayne could have a lunch break.

Steve Austin’s entrance is interrupted by Triple H (because they are feuding), and we see the first ever blade job in a Royal Rumble in the process.

The parade of A-Listers continues with Billy Gunn at #28 (am I being sarcastic?) and then an actual massive surprise, as Haku comes in. Whilst Haku may not be a Hall of Famer, the surprise and significance of this moment needs to be mentioned. Haku (or Meng when in WCW) was contracted to WCW, or so people thought, because Haku had won the WCW Hardcore belt just seven days earlier at “SIn”. His arrival confirmed a “jump” across promotions that made Haku the first big surprise (re)debut in Rumble history. Haku walked so Edge could run (probably from one end of the stage to another).

Somehow Billy Gunn is in the Final Four, but that doesn’t last long. Rock and Austin tease WrestleMania X-Seven with a brief altercation before Dwayne’s elimination, and then there are a couple of chair shots to Kane that maybe explains why Glen Jacobs is a right-wing dummy. They are followed by a clothesline over the top and Austin wins.

The 2001 Royal Rumble is the most eventful Rumble in its history with the booking of this match helping it flow really well between its multiple stanzas. While I joked that this Rumble made Kane look good, the truth is, Kane helped this match look this good.

His eleven eliminations went down in Fed folklore, so much so that when Roman Reigns broke the record for most eliminations in a Rumble after Kane had held it for thirteen years, it was the most obvious sign that Reigns was going to be pushed to the stratosphere. That particular Rumble was also a sign that the Rumble is also seen as a match for the hardcores, with the fans in attendance being the most reactionary when things were not to their liking. The ‘14 and ‘15 Rumbles being the most notorious for fan backlash, with fans booing when babyfaces Batista and Roman Reigns were the last ones standing.

Those vibes were hiding the fact that one of the more unique match-ups in wrestling had become a template.

The 2018 Men’s Rumble was really good, with the flow of the Rumble having no bumps in the road, and a fantastic final six producing exciting final minutes of the match, but in all, the Rumble was losing the annual excitement that this very infrequent WWE watcher had that always had for the Rumble no matter what. Rumbles were now a different beat to those days when I would wake up early on a Monday morning as a kid on the final Monday of January to watch the Royal Rumble, when my friends and I would be buzzing about the match we had all made sure to watch before school. But in 2020, something happened: A very different Royal Rumble broke out.

© WWE

2020: Drew slays the beast

There are forty-four reasons to really dislike Brock Lesnar, but in a “hand it to ISIS” moment, it is Brock that makes the 2020 Men’s Royal Rumble. The diversion from the template that had made it so predictable in the decade before is what makes it fun here, as Brock goes through every man that enters the ring for the first half of the match, with just Kofi Kingston (because they never gave him a rematch for the WWE Title), Rey Mysterio (because they were feuding), Keith Lee, Braun Strowman (because he’s a big motherfucker) and Ricochet (because they needed a challenger for Brock’s belt for the bloodmoney PLE) being the only ones of the first half of the field to last the entirety of a ninety second interval before Drew McIntyre arrives at No. 16 and eliminates Brock with the Claymore Kick.

Brock running through people the way he does makes this match very different. There’s no filler, not letting the fans warm themselves up for the usual backloading of the stars in the 21-30 slots. The fans are assaulted with a metaphorical makeup gun (like in the Wizard of Evergreen Terrace episode of The Simpsons) with how things just happen, and that thing is the same thing over and over again, like it’s February 2nd.

Once Drew eliminates Brock, things go back to normal but it’s still a good kind of normal with the action being strong until one of the ultimate surprise moments in Rumble history happens.

The pop when “you think you think you know me” hits is gigantic. There had been murmurings of Edge being back around after AEW offered a deal to Adam Copeland during the formation of All Elite Wrestling. This prompted WWE to break the bank in their offer to Cope, and that moment of shock and joy is palpable and transmits through the screen in the few minutes that follow. We get the callbacks which invariably follow to a match up between the members of the tag team Rated RKO at WrestleMania (what an awful match) and the Backlash match, which isn’t the greatest match of all time, no matter how many times they tried to Clockwork Orange you into believing that.

The final third of the match falls into the template, with the big names who were top of whatever schmuck bookmaker odds sheet being the ones left. The Final Four wasn’t as memorable as the one in the Men’s Rumble two years previous, and it also does fall into the cheat code idea of Roman Reigns vs. someone the bookers want fans to cheer (as fans in attendance at Rumbles didn’t want Roman to win the Rumble at this time), however, the action is still good enough to put this match in the Rumble Rushmore, therefore making this the rare occurrence of something post-2018 in Fedland that I liked.

Hang on, I need to take a cold shower now.

This Rumble is beloved by many people. It’s top of the Cagematch list for Rumble matches, and while there are some that dislike that first half of the ‘20 match, I put that down to Fedpilled people wetting themselves when something breaks the norm. But another ingredient to the argument that people have in saying that the final Rumble is the best ever might actually be the reason why the Royal Rumble has lost its religion.

I like the 2023 Men’s Royal Rumble (shit, time for another cold shower). While not a S Tier match, it is on the next tier down. Whilst it has faults, it is a lot better than the other Rumbles that have taken place in this decade since Covid caused the world to stop in its tracks. Others disagreed.

Someone that I follow on Twitter said that the 2023 Men’s Royal Rumble sucked. There’s an argument that that match was weirdly booked at times, especially the Cody Rhodes return at No.30, but it didn’t suck. When I enquired on this, the reply was that “you do need some element of surprise, intrigue and mystery” and that “a huge part of the fun in the Rumble is the mystery”.

No, it isn’t. The three cast iron entries to my Rushmore of Rumbles that had the following surprises:

1990 – None.

1992 – The Barbarian/Nikolai Volkoff (and they were featured in the opening credits of the PPV).

2001 – The Honky Tonk Man and Haku.

And my next tier ones (bar 2008 and 2020) have the following:

2004 – Mick Foley (and that was part of a storyline with Randy Orton).

The best Rumbles have a flow, constant eliminations with minimal “Royal Rumbling” and a great ending that never relies on a surprise entrant. Only on two occasions have surprises actually resonated (2008 and 2020) and if a top two tier Rumble has something nostalgic it is, in the most part, brief. It has inherently focused mostly on the present.

But there is a subsection of the fanbase of the New York Territory that want the surprise moment and will be left disappointed when that moment fails to materialise, which sounds on par for a company that is obsessed with “moments” rather than logical storytelling. By the time you read this, you will know if a particular person will make a return to the company that he spent 18 years in, on and off, making it the second time he makes a surprise appearance at a Saudi Rumble. That’s the benchmark of expectation from Fedheads in 2026.

This is no longer the Rumble that I grew up on. It’s no longer fun, no longer has any flow to it and too template to be interesting (sounds like FPL in 2026). The number two event in WWE these days is now the perfect lodger in the house that Vince McMahon built; it has no soul and is a waste of time with zero things to take from it.