Rowdy Roundtable: Favorite Royal Rumble Matches of All Time

Jan 26 2019 LaToya Ferguson

With the Royal Rumble this Sunday, there’s only one question left: What’s your favorite Royal Rumble match of all time? No, not a match on a Royal Rumble card (I’m a big fan of Edge vs. Rey Mysterio at Royal Rumble 2008 though), but the Royal Rumble match itself.

Members of the RondaRousey.com staff came together to talk about their own personal favorites, and as it turns out, there is a lot of overlap around these parts when it comes to choices in favorite Royal Rumble.

Kyle Fowle

I’d never argue against the 1992 Royal Rumble objectively being the best of the bunch, but for me personally, I was in Philadelphia for the 2018 Rumble, and that will always be my favorite. It’s more than just the live experience influencing that decision though. It’s also a Rumble that’s just immaculately booked. There’s so much great storytelling. So sure, it was cool to see Rey Mysterio come back, and Adam Cole and Andrade “Cien” Almas makes main roster appearances, but it was the smaller details that stood out. There was Heath Slater getting beaten down on the ramp by a number of competitors and then finally getting in the ring and eliminating Sheamus. What a moment! And you can’t forget about Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn beating up Tye Dillinger, denying everybody in the arena the “10” chant they so desperately wanted.

Then there was the perfect Final Four of John Cena, Roman Reigns, Finn Balor, and Shinsuke Nakamura. Those four allowed WWE to play off preconceived notions and fan interest/hatred, crafting a story about the untouchable Cena or Reigns potentially winning yet again, while the newcomers did their best to snag a win. Shinsuke finally getting that major win in WWE was just the icing on it all, a surprising and welcome finish to my personal favorite Royal Rumble match.

Kel Dansby

There have been many iconic Royal Rumble matches throughout the years, but there’s one that will always stick out in my mind and that’s the 1992 Royal Rumble.

In my opinion, it was Ric Flair’s greatest WWE moment and a scenario we may never see duplicated in a Royal Rumble match. Flair’s grueling hour in the ring was filled with tension—thanks in part to the theatrics of the legendary Bobby “The Brain” Heenan on commentary.

During the match, Flair eliminated the likes of “The British Bulldog” Davey Boy Smith, the Big Boss Man, “Macho Man” Randy Savage, and Sid Justice. The Sid Vicious elimination remains one of the most shocking Royal Rumble moments in history: Many people assumed Flair would battle it out with Hogan to set up a WrestleMania match for the ages, but instead it was Vicious who’d move into a feud with Hulk. Sure, many fans were disappointed at that moment, but it was hard to keep that energy once Flair began cutting his post-match promo. It’s one that proved Flair could be “The Man” in any promotion.

Kimberly Schueler

When I think about my experiences watching Royal Rumble matches, the 2006 Rumble is my favorite. I don’t remember anything about it besides stressing out about how long Rey Mysterio was in it (it ended up being over an hour) and freaking out when he finally won.

“My favorite Rumble is the one that my favorite guy won” is probably a lame answer and it’s definitely a smart wrestling fan answer, but that’s my answer!

Justin Golightly

On the day of my birthday in 1992, the WWE (then emblazoned by a clunky and beautiful golden WWF logo) put on what is one of the best Royal Rumble matches of all-time. These events were always star-studded but this was this like the entire pantheon of Greek gods going to war with each other: Ric Flair, Macho Man, Roddy Piper, Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker, Shawn freakin’ Michaels. It goes on.

This match wasn’t for a mere title shot—the last man standing at the ’92 Rumble would actually win the vacant WWF World Heavyweight Championship. A stipulation that wouldn’t come back until 2016! Roddy Piper had already won the Intercontinental Championship earlier that night and was trying to become a Champ Champ™ long before UFC’s Conor McGregor applied to trademark the phrase.

The crowd was absolutely on fire the whole time. Hogan and Sid Justice had an elimination so polarizing it would turn Sid vicious (Ed. note: Ugh.) and be edited out of TV replays as well as the VHS. But the supernova brighter than all these flashes of greatness was Flair. He got the death sentence of coming out third, but he flopped, chopped, and schemed his way all the way to the belt in a masterful performance. It was magic.

Albert Ching

A Royal Rumble match is kind of like pizza—even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. (That’s how the saying goes, right?) With 30 separate participants entering one at a time, plenty of star power, and usually a few surprises thrown in, the Royal Rumble is almost always a fun time, even if the match quality and storytelling naturally varies from year to year.

So that’s why my favorite Royal Rumble match isn’t necessarily what I’d say is the best Rumble match, but is, for me, the most memorable. And it’s a tie between the two most recent ones: the 2018 men’s and women’s Royal Rumble matches.

Here’s the thing: Life can be pretty bleak for an Asian-American pro wrestling fan. The industry has its pluses and minuses, but positive, diverse representation has never been its strong suit. Growing up biracial and watching WWE, most Asian characters were portrayed stereotypically, and often as the butt of a joke: specific to the Royal Rumble, in the 2000 match, TAKA Michinoku and Funaki repeatedly tried to enter despite not being official participants, and were thrown out immediately every time for comedic effect.

Last year men’s Royal Rumble was special not just because it was a good match—though it was!—but because Shinsuke Nakamura, a Japanese-born performer who had moved to WWE in early 2016 after winning fans over worldwide as the “King of Strong Style” in New Japan Pro-Wrestling, was the winner of the match, last eliminating Roman Reigns, clearly one of WWE’s top stars. While it wasn’t a complete shock, it was still pretty surprising—the biggest win of Nakamura’s WWE career, and the start of his ascent to WWE Championship-level matches. But it was also a major win for an Asian-born wrestler in WWE, who traditionally have had a difficult-if-not-impossible time breaking through to the main event—the closest a Japanese performer had come to winning the Royal Rumble in the past was Yokozuna in 1993, a Samoan wrestler who played a Japanese character.

Of course, there was still the historic first-ever women’s Royal Rumble match left to go that night, and even though Asuka was still riding an undefeated streak that started during her 2015 debut in NXT, it still didn’t seem probable that two Japanese wrestlers would walk out the two winners of the Royal Rumbles—but it happened, with Asuka eliminating Nikki Bella and proving that the 29 other women in the match were indeed not ready.

Though fair complaints have been made by fans over the direction of both Nakamura and Asuka since their Rumble victories—they both lost the title shots they earned at WrestleMania 34—the fact that two Japanese-born wrestlers, who portray non-stereotypical characters that are taken seriously as competitors, won such high-profile matches really did feel like a turning point. While there’s still a ways to go, the fact that a form of entertainment that for decades relied on negative stereotypes of all types of foreign-born performers, embraced these two, is progress. And they’re both in major singles matches at this year’s Royal Rumble, proof they’ve continued to have a positive impact.

You can watch every Royal Rumble pay-per-view on the WWE Network.