COUNTDOWN: The Ultimate Royal Rumble Rankings

9. Royal Rumble 2018 (men’s)
Boy there is an awful lot to complain about with the WWE product especially over the last few years. Their inability to book babyfaces, the constant beatings of anyone cheered by fans, breaking up duos who are over with the fans, dumb/silly storylines that make no sense, I could go on, however on this night, they got it right. The Rumble itself has more often than not fallen into the boring category over the years, it’s a match the crowd loves to shit on. Luckily Rusev & Balor were out to start which guarantees the crowd won’t boo either man. After a bit we get Andrade Almas, fresh off his Takeover match the previous night and until Nakamura came out at 14, not much happened aside from Tye Dillinger getting destroyed by KO & Zayn so Sami could have a spot in the match. Big names like Rollins, Cena, Orton, Miz, a returning Rey Mysterio and Adam Cole BAY-BAY all enter and it’s a pretty fun Rumble at that point. Yes it was slow to start, but it had enough juice to get through the slow parts. The momentum didn’t stop dead like previous years. However, Roman was out at 28 and the crowd booed heavily as per tradition. The Royal Rumble match is really the one match each year that causes Roman to be this massive heel whether they want him to be or not. Since 2015 he had been labeled as “the guy” so since the crowd didn’t want that, of course they’d boo him, he was screwed one way or another. Anyways Goldust at 29 and Ziggler, who, at 30, hasn’t had a strong Rumble showing since I think 2012 or 13 (I’m not looking it up)? Ziggler stays in for like 2 minutes and is dumped every year it seems. Anyways I loved the ending as Balor, Reigns, Nakamura, Rey, Cena & Orton remained. Orton was out, so no repeat luckily, Rey was next and then we get the crowd chanting that both Cena & Roman sucks. Cena tosses Balor, then Nakamura dumps Cena and we get a Shinsuke Nakamura & Roman Reigns face off. The crowd was nuts for this as it’s the guy they love vs the guy Vince loves. I did love the tease of Roman winning it, I’ll admit it, I’d been trained to be disappointed in this match, so I bit. Luckily Nakamura hit a Kinshasa and eliminated The Big Dog to take it. Say what you want about how boring the current product might be, but this was a highlight of 2018. One that gets overshadowed due to the historical significance of the 1st Female Rumble and the fact that Nakamura lost at Mania (and the entire feud with AJ).

7. Royal Rumble 2003
This was such an enjoyable Rumble from start to finish as you started off with the heated Jericho/HBK feud as Christian posed as Y2J to distract Shawn long enough for Jericho to beat the living shit out of him and bloody him up before tossing him FIRST. It was a shock that HBK would be eliminated immediately in a match he’d won twice, but it brought the heat on Jericho for their feud and I loved it. You had some young guns like Mysterio, Edge, Christian, Chavo, then a few lower card guys like Dreamer, Hugh Morrus, B2 (BOO-YA!!), then pick it up again with RVD, Eddie and The Hardys. It was the perfect balance and it wasn’t at a time when the Rumble was this long drawn out deal or watered down by surprise/comedy entrants. Both RAW & Smackdown had a pretty evenly balanced roster for this match and I liked how they were spread out in this. Some notable moments were the Jericho/HBK spot, poor Chris Nowinski having his face smushed by a mistimed Edge/Mysterio top rope dropkick, Tommy Dreamer put a massive welt on Jericho’s face with a kendo stick shot (Jericho got him back with a brutal shot to the head), John Cena doing a rap prior to his entrance ("you can't approach this, I'll be choking you like Sprewell be choking coaches" was my favorite line), Maven thinking he eliminated Taker two years in a row, but failed miserably this time. Brief glimpses of future heavy hitters like Cena and Batista, then have Brock Lesnar win it, last eliminating Taker to stamp his ticket to face Kurt Angle in a Mania classic. This whole show really gets remembered for how epic Benoit/Angle was and how comically bad Steiner/Triple H was, so the actual Rumble tends to get forgotten, but it shouldn’t. It's a really enjoyable Rumble match, one that should be talked about far more than it does, which is barely ever.

6. Royal Rumble 2002
This might be the Rumble that’s rated higher than it should, but I’ve always loved this one. From the returns, the shocking moments, the big names, the end, I loved it. Hell, even though Kid Rock is all kinds of awful, I did like that Cocky was the theme as the video package leading up with all the heavy hitters in the WWF showed you just how stacked this show was with talent. Goldust, Val Venis, The Godfather & Mr. Perfect all returned after being gone for a while (some much longer than others) & I loved how Perfect made the final 4, thought it was funny how Godfather spent his whole 2 minutes bringing ladies out, only to get tossed quick, Val was fine & Goldy was as well. Then we got to Maven, the Tough Enough winner who had the most shocking elimination ever in Rumble history. Undertaker was a damn badass here as his Red Devil gimmick, he had just destroyed nearly the entire 1st 1/4 of the field, then The Hardys & Lita, so we just assumed Maven would be next on the hit list, but instead, we get Maven hitting a perfect dropkick eliminating Taker. JR on the call made this even better and it still remains one of my favorite eliminations. We’d then get the Stone Cold run eliminating a handful of guys until Triple H came out. I don’t think there’s been a better series of vignettes building for someone’s return from injury than the Triple H/U2 videos. I love U2, so seeing this video set to Desire was absolutely perfect. Cut to the MSG return and the crowd was insane, so it made complete sense for Trips to win this whole thing. The Hurricane looking to eliminate both Austin & Hunter will always be a hilarious visual too. I do like how they saved a ton of heavy hitters for the 2nd half as you ended the match with guys like Austin, Angle, Trips, RVD, Booker, Show, Kane and while some of them didn’t last long, I do like them getting all the lower level guys out of there first. Sure Triple H was the obvious choice, but its better he has to win it against the best instead of winning against 1 or 2 of the best, if that makes sense. The pop was huge, the ending with Angle was well done & despite having a dumb storyline for Mania, Trips won the title to cap off a historic return.

2. Royal Rumble 2008
This might surprise you, but this was a lot closer than you’d think with the final 2 on this list. After re-watching this Rumble again within the last few weeks, I was blown away by how entertaining it was. You only hear about the huge return at the finish, but the rest of the match I loved. You start with the final 2 from last year in HBK & Taker, after a bit of comedy to follow (Santino, Khali), you get another heavy hitter in Batista a few guys later and we get a pretty enjoyable Rumble after that (if you discount the Hornswoggle stuff, but at this point it wasn’t played out yet, so I’m fine with it). We got a final face off with Jimmy Snuka and Roddy Piper at MSG, the match stopped as the guys in the ring just watched 2 legends go at it for a minute. Shawn got revenge for the previous year and tossed Taker, only to get eliminated by Mr. Kennedy immediately after. The only real dumb part of the match was Finlay coming out a little early to save Hornswoggle from getting beat up & was thus DISQUALIFIED, one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. They said it was from “jumping the gun” which is so dumb since we’ve had guys do that before, not to mention people have used weapons before. I’m spending way too much time bitching about this, so let’s move on. You had Triple H enter at 29 and thought it was his match to lose at this point as he eliminated 6 guys ultimately, but then you got arguably the biggest surprise in Rumble history as John Cena enters at 30 to blow everyone’s minds. This wasn’t a spoiled return, this was completely unexpected as Cena was supposed to be out for MONTHS longer, but instead, we get a legit shocking return. You don’t have many of those anymore in pro wrestling as everything is spoiled, but I remember watching this live at the time and having a legit Holy Shit reaction. Trips & Cena had a good back & forth before Cena ultimately won it. I really loved everything about this match. There was minimal down time, only a brief moment of “WTF? That makes no sense”, it was bookended by 4 of the all time greats & the highlights were wonderful. It just doesn’t compare to the #1 Rumble in history.

The Ultimate Royal Rumble

So I wanted to do something different to go along with the Rumble ranking & World Title rankings, so I thought about making The Ultimate Royal Rumble match. I don’t mean your dream Rumble with 30 all time greats, but the 30 best guys to enter at each number. That took a friggin while to compile the list of guys who entered at each number. Might sound a little confusing, but here are my rules, hopefully it’ll be easier to understand. I'll do 5 a day with the final 5 coming on Sunday.

Rules:
-The best entrant at each number will be chosen
-You can only be in it once (though I can pick guys from the same Rumble)
-2011 entrants will only count to #30 despite it being a 40 man Rumble
-Greatest Royal Rumble isn’t included

1. Chris Benoit (2004)
We start things off with a very obvious choice as Benoit going the distance makes him the best #1 entrant ever. While HBK did it in 95, his competition was nonexistent with probably 28 of the 30 guys being dudes who didn’t stand a chance. Benoit had legit threats like Orton, Cena, Angle, RVD, Jericho & Big Show. Not to mention this was a longer Rumble match, unlike the 95 one, which thankfully was only 1 minute intervals.


2. Rey Mysterio (2006)
Looking back on Rey winning this year’s Rumble, he did do an awful lot of sitting in the corner during the match, but I gave him the spot here due to the pure emotion surrounding him winning it and dedicating it to Eddie. His time is still the longest in Rumble history (if you don’t count the Greatest Royal Rumble) and I’m happy they had him win it at an early number. The story really wouldn’t have been as great if the greatest underdog ever won the Rumble at 27 or something.

3. Ric Flair (1992)
I said Benoit was one of the obvious choices, but Flair could be THE most obvious as the #3 slot is historically linked forever to the Nature Boy and his legendary run in the 92 Rumble. Add to that the Bobby Heenan commentary and it’s a thing of beauty. Despite being in a new promotion, Flair stuck by his motto of “to be the man, you got to beat the man” as he outlasted everyone, every heavy hitter the WWF had. I loved every second of it.

4. The Rock (1998)
Spoiler alert, I’ll be talking about Stone Cold later in this list and it’ll be from this Rumble as the 98 Rumble was essentially designed for Austin to take it. However, there was a thorn in his side that’d try his hardest to prevent him from stamping his ticket to WrestleMania and it’s the guy who he’d been feuding with for the previous few months, The Rock. While we hadn’t been introduced to The Great One or Brahma Bull quite yet, we were right at the beginning of the arrogant cocky asshole Rock we’d all come to love. It was the perfect final hurdle for Austin to jump as The Rock had the ironman spot in this one going over 51 minutes. While only 3 eliminations, The Rock hung tough to the very end and it was a great showing from The Great One.


5. Edge (2007)
While Steve Austin had a much more dominant run in the 97 Rumble at the #5 slot, I went with a different number for Austin like I said, so next up was Edge, who at this point wasn’t in his Smackdown World Title run yet, but he was Rated RKO Edge as he was well on his way to being the top guy. With the exception of The Great Khali clearing the ring towards the end of the match, Edge was the Ironman and had 5 eliminations. He lasted 44 minutes, teamed well with Randy Orton once he entered, got the best of both Hardys and made it to the Final 4, technically Final 3 as the Rated RKO boys were eliminated about the same time by Taker & Shawn. It was a very strong showing from the Rated R Superstar.

6. Kane (2001)
Could there be a better choice here? Kane steamrolled damn near everyone in this match and he did it throughout the entire thing. From annihilating the Hardcore division dudes, to interacting with Drew Carey, forming a brief reunion with Taker, to eliminating The Rock, he made it to the Final 2 and the story told with the Big Red Machine in this one was excellently done. It was fitting that the last monster Stone Cold had to get passed was Kane who ruled this match.

7. Diesel (1994)
Yes Braun Strowman in 2017 was more dominant at tossing guys out, but he was already an established monster. Diesel on the other hand, came out of nowhere with this performance of eliminating 7 guys in the early part of this Rumble. Sure they were lower card guys like Virgil, The Smokin Gunns, Bob Backlund, Kwang, then Owen Hart & Scott Steiner, but this was still early in the Rumble history, so performances like this weren’t seen by many & when they were, it was by guys like Hogan or Warrior. This was a star making performance for Diesel, even if his main event push didn’t come until the end of the year.

8. Randy Orton (2009)
There really wasn’t a better heel in the WWE in late 08-early 09 than punt happy Randy Orton. Luckily in this one, the match, like I mentioned in the Rumble match rankings, was focused on Orton, Legacy & Triple H and their struggle to win the match. It’d become rare that a heel would win the Rumble, but luckily Orton did this year (despite a giant swing & miss at Mania). 48 minutes and always had Rhodes or Dibiase to save him from trouble, then at the end have a 3 on 1 advantage over Triple H, it was a no brainer for Orton to take this. Despite only 3 eliminations, they were Triple H, Kane & Big Show, so at least he made it count. Strong showing from The Viper on this night. Much better Rumble win than his other one in 2017.

9. Big Boss Man (2000)
Obviously the Big Boss Man wasn’t anywhere near a legit World Title contender at this point (despite getting a World Title match the previous month that went all of 3 minutes), but when you have a list of guys at #9 like Danny Davis, Kwang, Pierroth, David Otunga, Hornswoggle, Husky Harris & Zack Ryder, you’ll understand why I went with Boss Man on this one. He lasted quite a while in this one and eliminated a few guys as well. So while it’s nowhere near a ground breaking or memorable performance like you’d expect for an Ultimate Royal Rumble spot, this was by far & away the toughest/weakest spot in the entire Rumble history. To show you how unmemorable this was, the only picture I could find when I googled 'Big Boss Man Royal Rumble 2000' was this one of The Rock beating him up.

10. Daniel Bryan (2015)
A year prior the crowd revolted against creative & Vince for not having Bryan in the Rumble, so the following year, the crowd lost their shit when his music hit and out came DB at 10, this was the redemption they wanted for the previous year, which was filled with awful booking & untimely injuries, cut to 10 minutes and 36 seconds later and after ONE elimination…….Bryan was the 12th man eliminated in the Rumble. You might be asking, why the hell did I pick Bryan in this spot? It’s simple, the crowd reaction. Sometimes the crowd reaction is more memorable than anything else and this show, the crowd revolted, except instead of just the last 10 or so minutes in 2014, they revolted the entire rest of the match. This was a terrible Royal Rumble match in 2015, but the most memorable part about it was the crowd not getting Daniel Bryan for more than 10 minutes. For that reason, I went with him at this spot.

16. Kofi Kingston (2018)
The reason behind this one is simple; I need a highlight reel moment, so I turn to Kofi. While I don’t like the pancake gimmick with New Day, I do remember tweeting they should use pancakes as stepping stones to help Kofi stay in. While they didn’t do exactly that, he did step on one pancake to save himself and proceeded to literally get launched clear back into the ring from the floor by Woods & Big E. They don’t always have to have dominating runs, I need a little bit of comedy and Kofi is a never ending supply of memorable moments in the Rumble match.

17. Braun Strowman (2016)
As much as I really wanted to pick Owen Hart from the 96 Rumble, with the exception of hitting another enzugiri on HBK & lasting 20 minutes, he only eliminated Hakushi & Barry Horowitz, so I opted for Strowman, who, despite still being a year away from being the “monster among men”, was a 2016 version of Diesel, eliminating Kane, Big Show, Sami Zayn, Mark Henry and had a hand in eliminating Brock Lesnar. So the list of guys was pretty impressive as with the exception of Sami, Braun got rid of virtually every other monster in the match. For only being on the main roster for a few months, Braun looked very strong in his debut Rumble appearance.

18. Shawn Michaels (1996)
Another no brainer here as HBK dominated the 96 Rumble and unlike the previous year, it at least had a few threats for him to get passed. 95 Rumble was filled with so many lower level guys, at least this one had guys like Vader, Yokozuna, Diesel, Owen Hart, The British Bulldog and Shawn eliminated all of them. Add to that he tossed the 123 Kid, Isaac Yankem & Jerry Lawler on his way to winning it all. Like I said in the other rankings, this match was made for HBK, so of course he gets this spot.

19. John Cena (2013)
When a year where the Rumble was pretty much set up for you to win, I’m actually pretty surprised that Cena ONLY eliminated 4 guys in this year. Like I’ve stated in the Rumble rankings, this was the most predictable Rumble in history, so it’s amazing Cena didn’t legit eliminate 29 other guys. Instead he tossed Cody, Cesaro, Heath Slater & finally Ryback to win it. Not a murder’s row or anything, but Cena was one of (if not the only) dominant guy in this Rumble. Stone Cold had another strong showing at this number in 2002, but he’s coming up at a different spot. Another, which I legit was going to go with, but didn’t, was the One Man Gang from the original Rumble in 1988, who tossed 6 guys, but that was really a trial run Rumble more than anything. Cena gets the nod.

20. Rob Van Dam (2006)
This was a tough one as you had some serious superstars at this spot like Kurt Angle, John Cena, Undertaker, but they either had super underwhelming showings (Angle in 2005, in for 37 seconds) or were just more dominant at other spots (Cena in 2018 wasn’t nearly as good as 2013 at #19, while Undertaker in 1992 seems memorable, but only had 1 elimination), so it fell on The Whole F’N Show. With the exception of Rey & Triple H who went the entire 1 hour plus and had 6 eliminations each, the one with the most eliminations after them was actually RVD with 4 (Animal, Carlito, Goldust & Super Crazy). So while he was only in for 24 minutes, he did work while he was in there and made it to the Final 4 as well. So Mr. Monday Night takes the spot and with pretty good reason.

26. Kurt Angle (2002)
So part of me wanted to pick Big Show from 2000 at this spot, but I went with Angle instead simply because Kurt had more competition in his match and he ultimately didn’t look weak at the end. Technically Show had won his match, Rock’s feet hit the floor with Big Show, but Rock just jumped back in the ring and got the win. With Kurt, while he did lose clean, he was last in there with Triple H, Austin, RVD, Booker, Perfect; it was just a higher level. Plus let’s not kid ourselves; I’m picking Kurt over almost anyone if I had to. Simply put, Kurt makes an Ultimate Rumble more intense. It’s True, It’s True.

27. Yokozuna (1993)
I was somewhat surprised that Yoko got the win at the 93 Rumble and honestly, I shouldn’t have been, early 90s, huge dude, that’s about the only requirement you needed to be a main event guy for Vince. Yoko was still only a few months into his run though, despite guys like Savage & Undertaker really being the only other threats (Flair too, but he was wrapping his time up literally that week), as a kid, I was cheering for Savage to take it. Yoko was a deserving winner though as he was dominant as soon as he got in the match, tossing out guys like Owen Hart, Earthquake, the “youngster” Carlos Colon (as Gorilla called him on commentary), Bob Backlund & finally Randy Savage. I just wish they didn’t make Savage seem like a bone head trying to pin Yoko which led to the final elimination. This is about as strong of a performance from a rookie in a Rumble ever.

28. Batista (2005)
As much as I wanted to give Batista’s win from 2014 the nod here for shits and giggles, I simply couldn’t do it. Instead I opted for the Rumble win that pushed Big Dave into the main event picture. I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up how the ending completely fell apart as it wasn’t really supposed to happen the way that it went down. So after 5 eliminations, 11 minutes of ring time, 2 torn Vince quads, 1 botched finish and a couple restarts, this massive clusterfuck ultimately went to Batista, who up to that point eliminated Edge, Chris Jericho, Snitsky & Christian. I guess you can only count eliminating Cena once, even though you could count it a few times & wouldn’t get an argument from me. I wish it would’ve been a better ending, but it is what it is. The Animal won like he was supposed to and went on to Mania winning the title in dominate fashion.

29. Brock Lesnar (2003)
Unlike others who have won the Rumble, Brock had to earn his spot by beating Big Show earlier in the night. I dug that little touch as it was another hurdle for Brock to jump to get to Kurt. Brock came in and did what he did best, even in 2003, beat guys up. He threw around Team Angle like rag dolls, launched Matt Hardy clear over the top with an F5, then ultimately found himself in the Final 4 with Kane, Taker & a young Batista. Of course it had to be Brock as they’d been building for him to finally get his shot at Kurt for a while now and finally with this win, he was going to get it. Granted Yoko had been in the WWF a shorter time before he won his Rumble, Brock, still in his rookie year, was more impressive considering the caliber of competition he faced on his way to winning this match.

30. The Undertaker (2007)
All I’d really have to type is that Taker was the first man ever to win the Rumble at #30, so that’s good enough reason for me to give him the final spot. That’d be a pretty crappy way of ending all this wouldn’t it? The Dead Man came into the match at a time where almost everyone was eliminated by The Great Khali, so aside from a few others; it was the showdown between the two big men. Luckily Taker dispatched of Khali rather quickly and then tossed MVP, so then as HBK tossed Rated RKO, we got essentially our match with Taker & Shawn. It was so awesome as it was in San Antonio and the crowd really wanted Shawn, but after some fantastic false finishes, we had The Dead Man win it. What made this so special was we were always trained to think that the #30 guy, despite having the biggest advantage, never really had a strong chance of winning. So I was legit surprised Taker won not only at the #30 spot, but also because it was in Shawn’s hometown. With only 3 eliminations, the story of this one made this a no brainer.

Ranking Every Team in Survivor Series History....Check
Ranking Every Match in WrestleMania History......Check
Ranking Every Match in Summerslam History......Check
Ranking Every Rumble/Title match in Royal Rumble History......Check


Again, like the end of every one of these...

I'm tired.