In 2 weeks time one of my favourite events of the year will happen. The Royal Rumble! I love this event every year and partly because of the Rumble match itself. So I decided to have a little look back at some past Rumbles. Now I will say this if you want to hear reviews of all the rumbles then check out Aftermath radio where Jimmy Kordeas and Arda Ocal are looking back at them all and they are fantastic podcast. Anyways I'm going to look at 3 Rumbles from the 90's and 3from the 2000's. For each event I'll pick what I thought was the best match, what was the worse and share my view on the Rumble match. So lets begin.
Royal Rumble 92-Greatest of All Time
Best Match: The New Foundation vs. The Orient Express. This match could not compare to the fantastic opener that was the Rockers vs. Orient Express from the previous year however it was a damn good match. To me Neidhart and Owen were always an odd team but to be honest Neidhart just seemed to do very little after breaking away from Bret. Anyways this was a great way to open the show.
Worst Match: The Natural Disasters vs. LOD for the Tag Titles. The Legion of Doom were never the greatest workers and the same could be said for the Natural Disasters so you can imagine the results. In fairness it was not that bad but it wasn't good. Basically it was 4 big men being big. Enough said.
Rumble: What can you say apart from this was probably the greatest rumble ever. One of the most high profile rumbles ever. The match itself was for the WWF championship and so many stories were going on but the main story was Ric Flair. Flair walked in at number 3 and ended up winning the entire thing. Bobby Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon do a fantastic job on commentary helping put over Flair and the situation. This is a rumble that has to be watched. Flair won by eliminating Sid Justice, with some help from Hogan, and he then cut one of the best promos ever. My personal highlight was Jake Roberts reaction when Macho Man came out, Randy ran to the ring and Roberts hid. Randy then looked around for him but Roberts came back in after Savage was knocked down. I don't know I just liked that.
Royal Rumble 95-Hey look it's Pamela Anderson
Best Match: Diesel vs. Bret Hart for the WWF championship. Granted these two had a better match at Survivor Series but this match wasn't bad either. At that time it was weird to see babyface vs. babyface and to have both men trade off getting heat. Bret was always great in the ring and Diesel could have a good match with the right guy. What was a let down was the finish. During the match interference happened twice with a group (lead by Shawn Michaels) beating up Diesel and then a group (lead by Owen Hart) beating up Bret. The finish came when both groups came down and attacked leading to a no contest. It was a downer to an otherwise great match.
Worst Match: Undertaker vs. IRS. At this time Undertaker just went through the mentions and did the same old thing. IRS didn't do much hear either apart from get his tie grabbed. The quality in the ring was bad but I think the purpose was to move the story along, the Undertaker was taking out the Million $ Corporation so in this match the Takers urn is stolen and King Kong Bundy beats him up. We move on.
The Rumble: The fastest and in my opinion worst Rumble ever. Entrants came ever minute and there was a serious lack of stars in there. Shawn Michaels and the British Bulldog start and end the rumble match. In my view I don't get why they put such a focus on Shawn being number 1 and winning, if the interval time was like previous years it would of been a big deal. To be fair to Shawn he bumped his ass off he was flying all over the place. The highlights to this rumble were the infamous "one foot" finish which made it look like the Bulldog won but my personal highlight was Bret Hart coming out and beating up Owen & Bob Backlund when they were entering the rumble causing them to be eliminated in seconds.
Royal Rumble 97-Look at this place it's massive!
Best match: Hunter Hearsy Helmsley vs. Goldust for the Intercontinental title. To me this match showed just how good these two were and were going to be. This match was extremely physical with the action getting very hardcore. I remember Goldust just beating the hell out of Hunter with the steel steps. The match had everything, someone got burned with a cigar, steps were used, the title belt was thrown around and we got some kissing. It was a great brawl and a great match to open the show, and it helped advance two young careers.
Worst Match: Ahmed Johnson vs. Faarooq. Great googly moogly! As Jim Cornette would say. I like Ron Simmons but Ahmed Johnson was not great. The hype to this match was fantastic it's just a shame in the ring work was crap mainly due to Ahmed's limitations.
The Rumble: This was a little bit of a mixed bag star wise but it wasn't bad. If anything it helped Stone Cold into a star. Him being in the ring by himself so often was great and the way he used that time as well. The match was filled with ups and downs moments in terms of action but the final section, started when Bret Hart came down was the best in my view. Highlights included Austin being eliminated but not being seen so he comes back in and wins it. Another highlight was Jerry Lawler, who was on commentary, says "It takes a King" he enters the ring and gets limited by Hart in seconds and then gets back on commentary and says "To know a King". Just great!
Royal Rumble 02-Hey in case you didn't know the Games back people!
Best match: Ric Flair vs. Vince McMahon in a Street Fight. We never imagined this match would happen but man what a match it was. Flair is one of the greatest ever and in the right situation Vince can put on a great match as well. Vince dominating Flair made sense as Vince was probably in better shape than Flair (looks wise anyways). Everything about this match just flowed so well, we hated Vince when he took pictures of Flair and gave it to his kids at ringside and we loved it when Flair came back and kicked Vince's ass. Just a fantastic brawl in my view.
Worst match: Spike Dudley & Tazz vs. The Dudleys for the Tag title. Why did Spike and Tazz have the tag titles? And why for so long? This match was short and basically consisted of Spike getting his ass kicked and Tazz making the save. Which wouldn't be bad if a) we hadn't seen it hundreds of time in ECW and b) Tazz wasn't the smallest guy in the match. The highlight here, Stacy Keibler man is she hot!
The Rumble: Not bad was a nice little mix of stars and you could see several possible winners but sadly it was all based around HHH and his return. The final section with Angle and Hunter was great and to be fair HHH winning made perfect sense. The match had it's lows but the final section was fantastic. Highlights included Maven, who was pretty new after winning Tough Enough, eliminating the Undertaker in a shocking moment. Mr. Perfect returning was a personal highlight and him spitting out his gum and swatting it away while HHH tried eliminating him was amazing. I also loved the Hurricane trying to double chokeslam Austin and Hunter and the two of them just throwing him out.
Royal Rumble 04-The Rumble that never happened!
Best match: HHH vs. Shawn Michaels in a Last Man Standing for the World Heavyweight Championship. I always had mixed feelings when these two met in the ring, sometimes they put on a awesome show but other times it wasn't anything special. This match was something special. You could feel the heat in this match and this was a prime example of when blood can help a story. These two beat the hell out of each other and it was brutal. Now the match ended in a draw but by watching it you can understand why. The match ended with Shawn hitting Sweet Chin Music on HHH and because Shawn had lost so much blood he couldn't get up either. It looked like he could of won if he was in a slightly better condition and Hunter got to keep the belt leading to a possible rematch down the road.
Worst match: Brock Lesnar vs. Hardcore Holly for the WWE title. I hate Hardcore Holly and the fact that he only got a title shot because Lesnar shoot injured him sums up Holly's career in my view. This match was just all kinds of wrong. Brock could put on a fantastic match but Holly was just awful, I've never seen a match with Holly in that was worth watching again apart from his Hardcore title and that's just because he got his ass beat with weapons! Seriously though I bet many people weren't even aware this match happened.
The Rumble: Now this is a bigger deal. Chris Benoit, you know THAT guy, entered number 1 and won the whole thing after going over an hour in the ring. Benoit eliminated Big Show in a dramatic final segment to win the match. What I really liked about this match was that it looked like were going repeat the 95 Rumble and have both 1 and 2 at the end, number 2 being Randy Orton, but that was changed when Mick Foley made a surprise return and eliminated him. The other highlight here was the teasing of the Undertaker's return which caused Kane to be eliminated. We all knew Taker would return but this was the beginning of the Dead man coming back!
Royal Rumble 07-The Old Timers can still go
Best match: John Cena vs. Umaga in a Last Man Standing match for the WWE title. 2007 was one of the best years for Cena in my eyes, his in ring work was fantastic and this kicked off his year. Umaga was an unstoppable monster who Cena just barely beat earlier in the month so we all thought that he couldn't win here. This match was insanely brutal and dramatic. Umaga really went out of his way to go through some insane stuff to help make him look great and in term make Cena look great. At this time they were 3 announce tables at ring side and I remember Umaga running over 2 and trying to splash Cena on the 3rd but Cena moved. This is another match were blood helped tell a story, that is one of the things I miss now WWE is PG. The finish came when the top rope was unscrewed and Cena applied the STFU with the rope wrapped around Umaga's neck and repeating it several times. It looked brutal so much so that on the next night Umaga was so bruised by it it was insane!
Worst match: Bobby Lashley vs. Test for the ECW title. I can't tell you how glad I am that Lashley doesn't wrestle any more. He was just awful and his wife cut a better promo then he could. The man marked as "the next big star" was just wrong on so many levels. Now I liked Test (RIP) but he wasn't brillant and couldn't make Lashley look good. Hell very few could.
The Rumble: Looking back at the list of entrants not many could of won it but I didn't see Taker and HBK being the final two. Boy was I glad they were though as they probably put on the most dramatic finishing section of any rumble match ever! But to honest apart from the ending there is very little I remember from this Rumble. The fact is that the final two men would both be challenging for each brands World title at Mania that year and that is how the Rumble should work in my view.
So there you have it, a little mini review of 6 Rumbles in the past. I will end this by saying I hope and pray that Jericho or Orton don't win the Rumble this year. My pick is Dolph Ziggler but I'll be happy if Sheamus or Wade Barrett won it.
