just thought of another one that wasn’t that great and that the 1993 royal rumble. Nothing really happened in that one, they tried to make us believe that backlund had a shot at winning that match by giving him the ironman spot of the rumble only to eliminated him second to last and then the dumb ending of macho man doing the top rope elbow on yokozuna and then covering him only to get push out of the ring made no sense and made one of the all time great look stupid in the process. 93 isn’t talk about by many people but that was one of the first bad rumble match in the history of the rumble
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1999, 2014, and 2015 are the ones that sting the most to me. Those last two really deflated the crowd, '15 early on in the match no less, and I feel had really misguided choices. I was there live for '15 as well, but in a club box and kind of isolated from the really angry fans. '99 was a serious bore.
The 40-man Rumble and 50-man Greatest Royal Rumble can fuck right off, thank you very little
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The answer is last years Greatest Royal Rumble by a mile. It was terrible in every way. It had random nobodies from NXT to get to fill all the spots. Poor booking. A dead crowd. The Saudi Arabia bullshit. It messed up the Wrestlemana booking. And an hour long match is only worth any investment if there’s something on the line.
LOL Greatest Royal Rumble isn’t canon.
Aside from the star power and Heenan’s commentary the 92 Rumble is actually bad if you watch it. Its just guys hanging on to the ropes and no big moments or great eliminations. I think it is has just become the cool thing to say rather than people’s actual opinion. Was it as beloved at the time?
The star power and Heenans commentary was all you needed.
If the vast majority of people’s opinion are its one of the GOAT rumbles…I wouldn’t dismiss it as “the cool thing to say”…being the contrarian seems like being the cool.guy.
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You mean you don’t like THE CORREE?
The end with Hogan and Sid, the whole performance by Ric Flair.
Thought I’d revive this old thread as we approach the Rumble.
Last years was god awful and I’m sure whenever they give us will be better this year but I have high hopes this could be an all time great rumble if they play it right as so many people could win.
I think they rumbles an opportunity to reset a few characters and I hope they do.
People don’t really like dorky idiots and the crowd have even taken to a more serious Miz after his recent change.
I’d like to see Gunther, Drew, Chad Gable and a strong stable - maybe Lashley and the Profits get given a good push. I worry they’ll take some out to have singles matches (Gunther) though which just never makes sense to me.
What do the rest of you think?
I strongly disagree about the 2023 Men’s Royal Rumble match. I thought it was one of the best in years. And I think that was the general consensus as well.
Fans were behind Cody who got a big pop that he won. There was the match long storyline of Gunther going bell-to-bell. There was the insane Ricochet & Logan Paul spot. Lots of fun moments throughout. Booker T may not have been the most exciting nostalgic entrant but since it was in Texas he got a good pop. It was fun! The women’s Royal Rumble was pretty good as well.
Whereas the 2022 Royal Rumble was a slog with a Brock Lesnar win setting up a third Lesnar vs Reigns WM main event that nobody wanted.
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Yeah, I remember liking the 2023 Rumble a lot.
If he’s in it, I hope Kofi doesn’t have a mishap like he’s had the past two years. Maybe just wrestle regularly.
I could see Gable going for a run in the match based on how good a 2023 he had.
I think the men’s match is clearly either Cody or Punk, and I’m leading more towards Cody so that he could choose to go to Smackdown to challenge Reigns. Women’s was more up in the air… until last night when we had that segment with Rhea and Becky.
Do we see Andrade returning in the Men’s Rumble? Do we see Sasha or Naomi in the Women’s Rumble?
I foolishly said the night of the 2022 event that I thought the Men’s Rumble was good. Guess I was buzzing from the wildness of it while watching it in a party, because I do not think it’s good thinking back. Especially after hearing how Shane forced his way in and all of the stuff with Brock.
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Have I got my years mixed up?? Maybe I’m remembering 2022. Yep…sorry my bad. I was thinking last year was the terrible Shane McMahon debacle.
sorry
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I don’t remember a lot of 2000s (which probably says something about them right there), but the worst ones in my mind are 1995, 1998 and 2022.
1988 and 1989 are also pretty bad, but they were still kind of figuring it out then. 1990 has the first great moment with the Hogan/Warrior showdown.
Best is still 1992 in my opinion. And I think 2020 is awesome. The Rumble was a cold concept in my mind ever since they went to having two world titles, but they made a great adjustment with Brock choosing to be #1 and putting him over huge, then using him put McIntyre over just as huge.
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2022 for me. But 2015 managed to get Mysterio booed heavily. 2012 was also bad, Jericho should have won that year. And 95 had by far the worst roster and the shortest match
Somewhat related, the funniest Rumble to look back on is 2014: an arena shitting on the finish because Roman Reigns didn’t go over… followed by five years of arenas shitting on the finish every time he did.
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Kinda interesting reading all of these responses. Is the Royal Rumble a case of if you build up a match long enough and say how great is it loud enough that the audience will eventually believe it’s a good match? I haven’t watched every single RR but it kind of sounds like there’s been more bad rumbles than good rumbles and it’s overcome that to be an event that even fans who don’t watch, like myself, will tune in.
I think the thing that makes the Rumble important – a world title match at Wrestlemania – is also the thing that makes it a difficult match to book. How many serious potential Rumble winners can the match have in a given year when the winner needs to be in the main event (or ‘a main event’ 
) of the biggest show of the year?
I also think Vince had his spots that had to be in there:
- #1 is still there at the end (and somehow worse than drawing #2)
- The Monster who gets a ton of eliminations
- The person who gets eliminated in two seconds
- Kofi spot(s)
- #30 needs to be some kind of surprise/pop (I agree with this one)
These are all fine on their own, but when you do every single one, in every single Rumble, it really loses something. Will be interesting to see how many of these tropes last over the next few years with VKM not involved in the creative.
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I’d say the 2022 Rumble was pretty weak just because it was so painfully boring. It was very obvious that no one in it (for example Happy Corbin, Robert Roode, Rick Boogs, Johnny Knoxville, Omos, Ridge Holland and so on) was going to win and they had a very lame surprise that actually surprised nobody, when they had Lesnar enter at number 30 to win it. The entire thing felt like a big admission that they had no stars ready to face Roman Reigns.
This Rumble could really be interesting coz you could say Drew, Gunther, Punk and Cody could all realistically win. Even though we know it’ll just be between the last 2. But we could also see The rock and Brock so who knows. Here’s just hoping we don’t see a McMahon
I think we’re all forgetting the dreck that was 2009 where the babyfaces were all idiots against Randy Orton and Legacy. It was especially frustrating after an excellent 2008 Rumble that’s been mentioned above.
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