The Art of Avoiding Royal Rumble Elimination

The 2019 Royal Rumble pay-per-view aired on Sunday, January 27. Men and women competed in Royal Rumble matches for their respective divisions, with every wrestler trying to toss the others over the top rope and out of the ring. The last wrestler standing—for the women, it was Becky Lynch; for the men, it was Seth Rollins—won a title shot against the champion of their choosing at WrestleMania.

We already talked about what makes a strong offense in a Royal Rumble match, and this article will go over something just as important if not more so: the art of avoiding elimination from the battle royal.

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First, let’s look at what gets wrestlers elimination quickly. The compilation above shows that the top thing that will kill a wrestler’s chances in the Rumble is a lack of presence of mind. Most of these competitors look really hyped up to enter the match but aren’t actually paying attention to the reality of their surroundings, which leads to their WrestleMania dreams being quickly dashed. These are embarrassing losses for the wrestlers, but always pretty hilarious for the audience.

As we went over in the previous article, size matters when it comes to the Rumble. Not only do mass and strength make it easier for a wrestler to eliminate people, but these qualities make it more difficult for a performer to be eliminated. To make up for this, smaller wrestlers need to use their brains and creativity to overcome for their lack of brawn.

A classic example of this is the always-innovative Rey Mysterio, whose quick thinking and lucha libre prowess helped him win the 2006 Royal Rumble match. Mysterio, who had been in the match for over 62 minutes, found himself one of the last three competitors left, with both opponents nearly a foot taller than him. Mysterio first clung to the top rope like a sloth to send Triple H tumbling to the floor, leaving him alone in the squared circle with Randy Orton. Orton attempted to lawn dart Mysterio out of the ring, but the masked wrestler countered the move into a hurricanrana, sending Orton over the top rope to win the match.

About a decade earlier, Shawn Michaels used both his athleticism and creativity to win two Rumbles in a row, in 1995, he (the first entrant in the match) and “The British Bulldog” Davey Boy Smith (the second) found themselves the last two men remaining in the battle royal. Bulldog thought he had eliminated Michaels, but HBK stayed in the game when only one of his feet touched the ground rather than the required two, and he was able to get back in the ring to gain victory.

In 1996, Michaels and Bulldog again made it to the final four along with Kama and Diesel. Again Smith thought he got Michaels, but HBK landed on the apron, slid under the bottom rope, and clotheslined Bulldog to eliminate his rival. Kama also thought he eliminated the smaller man, but Michaels was able to hang on to the top rope and skin the cat back into the ring. After Kama was eliminated by Diesel, Michaels superkicked his former bodyguard-turned-enemy to win the Rumble for the second year in a row. He’s not considered one of the best Rumble competitors ever for no reason.

Though he has yet to win a Royal Rumble match, Kofi Kingston has become known for avoiding elimination from the battle royal in incredible fashion almost every year. He’s been caught by the Rosebuds, jumped onto Big E’s shoulders, hopped back to the ring on an office chair, walked on his hands, and used pancakes as stepping stones.

Similarly, parkour master John Morrison was previously known for these kinds of maneuvers, including jumping from the apron to the barricade and the jumping back to the stairs to reenter the ring, as you can see in the video below. Naomi established herself as the Kingston/Morrison of the potential women’s division in the first women’s Royal Rumble match in 2018 when she used the barricade and a rolling chair to avoid elimination.

But the outcomes of Royal Rumbles over the years have shown that it takes both a strong offensive and defensive game for a wrestler to outlast 29 other Superstars and punch their ticket to WrestleMania.