The 2016 Royal Rumble happens this Sunday, January 24, and it’s for the top prize in the company for the first time since 1992. Everybody’s got their own winner. Some think Roman Reigns will continue to overcome the odds — it’s what he does — and retain the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Some think Brock Lesnar will win, to set up another Lesnar/Reigns match for WrestleMania. Hell, some people are picking Daniel Bryan to show up with a magically healed everything and return to the top of the card. John Cena, maybe? John Cena’s a Wolverine, it could happen.
To celebrate the Rumble, we’ve decided to take a look back at he past winners, from Hacksaw in 1988 to The Big Dog in 2015, and rank them. We consider this a definitive ranking, and have provided a helpful explanation of that wrestler’s position for you to skim past as you make sure your pick is #1.
Let us know who you think are the best and worst Rumble winners in history in our comments section.
22. “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan – 1988
Regular readers probably guessed who’d take the bottom spot on our list.
Duggan (who you can read about here) won the Rumble before the Rumble was important. He won the very first version, with only 20 entrants, meaning he doesn’t even get the “29 other Superstars” talking point. He won by last eliminating One Man Gang, who had eliminated The Ultimate Warrior and Jake “The Snake” Roberts. How much cooler would it be if The Ultimate Warrior had won the first Royal Rumble? How much better would it be if Bret Hart had won? He was the first entry in the first Rumble.
This Rumble was followed on the card by The Islanders vs. The Young Stallions, if you need a better idea of how important it was.
21. Sheamus – 2012
Eighteen seconds. If you’re reading this and you’re thinking, “Wow, I wouldn’t have put Sheamus this low,” 18 seconds. That’s what happened next. He’s lucky I didn’t put him at #23.
Everybody thought Chris Jericho was winning the 2012 Rumble. Everybody. Sometimes (thanks to the Internet) WWE realizes that everybody knows what they’re planning, and thinks it’s more important to surprise us and make us feel like we don’t know anything than to tell the correct story, or follow through with the story they’d already started telling. We figured it out, WWE called an audible and had Sheamus eliminate Jericho to win. He went on to win his “WrestleMania main event” in less than 20 seconds at the beginning of the show. Jericho got his WrestleMania championship match anyway, wrestling CM Punk for the WWE Championship. But hey, that wasn’t the actual main event, either.
Sheamus wouldn’t make a prestigious honor look as bad as “Royal Rumble winner” again until he won Money in the Bank.
20. Batista – 2005, 2014
Poor Batista. The guy won two Royal Rumbles, and both of the wins were cursed.
The 2005 Rumble ended with Batista trying to Batista Bomb John Cena. He stumbled backwards and hit the ropes, and they both flopped out to the floor. With a double elimination and no winner, Mr. McMahon hit the ring. Now, when I say “hit the ring,” I don’t mean he came to the ring, I mean he tried to slide in under the bottom rope and literally hit the ring with his thighs. He tore both of his quads, and had to sit against the ropes barking orders while Cena and Batista threw each other out again to prove a point. They bicker, the match gets restarted, and Batista nonchalantly wins again. Here it is, in all its glory:
You’d think they’d get it right with Batista’s second win, right? Nope. When he came back in 2014, he accidentally entered a Royal Rumble that everyone was expecting to include Daniel Bryan, but didn’t. Whoops. Any Rumble during the Bryan Era without Bryan or a Bryan win is an instant fail in the eyes of lots and lots of wrestling fans. Don’t believe me? Ask Rey Mysterio in 2014, or Roman Reigns in 2015. Here’s one of many, many clips of Batista being mercilessly booed for his efforts. Batista became “Boo-tista,” and by WrestleMania he was only 1/3 of the main event, losing to (you guessed it) Daniel Bryan.
19. Bret Hart/Lex Luger – 1994
I hate putting Bret Hart this low, but he’s one half of the only official “co-winners” in Royal Rumble history. The worst part? He shares his spot with “Made in the USA” Lex Luger. That’s like putting filet mignon on a plate with a bunch of Cheetos.
The worst part is that they allowed this decision to stand. Nobody showed up and restarted the match, to set that precedent early. Lex got his half of the WrestleMania X main event, though, scheduled right after Men on a Mission vs. The Quebecers, and before Earthquake vs. Adam Bomb.
18. Roman Reigns – 2015
Remember that thing I said about Daniel Bryan? It got worse in 2015, when WWE thought it’d be fine to have Bryan eliminated halfway through the match with no fanfare. That turned the second half of the match into Philadelphia audibly vomiting on everything else that happened. The final moments of the match are Big Show and Kane calmly eliminating everyone else the crowd could POSSIBLY want to win the match like they were bags of garbage, en route to Corporate Mandate Roman Reigns going Superman and winning. The reaction’s so bad that they bring out The Rock to congratulate him, and the crowd keeps booing. You got a WWE crowd to boo The Rock in 2015. That should unlock some sort of failure achievement.
WWE spent the rest of 2015 saying, “no, really, you LOVE Roman Reigns,” and not really turning it around until November. Let’s relive the magic!
17. The Rock – 2000
We might as well get The Rock on here, too.
Don’t get me wrong. The 2000 Royal Rumble is one of the best and most fun Rumbles ever … it’s just that, you know, Rock didn’t actually win. Big Show did. They go over the top rope at the same time, and Rock’s feet hit the floor before Big Show’s even over the rope. Here’s a pic, if you don’t remember. The Rock not winning the Rumble and still getting to win because he’s The Rock would be at the very bottom of our list if he wasn’t The Rock.
The only thing it’s missing is 15-year-old Roman Reigns holding up The Rock’s hand, then looking confused at all the cheers.
16. Randy Orton – 2009
Do you remember Randy Orton winning the Royal Rumble? You probably don’t. It’s an implanted memory. You’re like, “well, he’s Randy Orton, so of course he’s won a Royal Rumble match. Right? And like, Legacy was involved?”
That’s the … well, legacy of Randy Orton. He’s done everything and accomplished more than almost any superstar in WWE history, but very little of what he’s done actually matters. We remember the moments of Orton — the punt to Mr. McMahon, the RKO counters, that kind of thing — but not him collecting those endless accolades on his resumé. But yeah, he won the 2009 Royal Rumble with the help of Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase Jr., and went on to have a WrestleMania main-event stinker with Triple H. You know what the crowd wants to see after Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker? Fifteen minutes of slow stomping.
I’d include a video clip here, but nobody was interested enough to upload one.
15. Hulk Hogan – 1990, 1991
On one hand, Hulk Hogan’s Royal Rumble wins are when the match became “important.” Hogan elevated the match from a fun but meaningless thing for mid-carders and brought it to the main event, and everyone after him had the win treated like a special accomplishment. Plus, the 1990 Rumble invented (or at least popularized) the modern “two big or important guys who’ve never met before notice each other in the middle of a battle royal” trope. That Hogan/Warrior moment is still good enough to give you goosebumps.
On the other, it’s Hulk Hogan. Hogan won two Rumbles in a row the exact same way: by being Hulk Hogan. In 1990, it was no-selling and tossing out Mr. Perfect. In 1991, it was getting his win back on Earthquake. Lots of big boots, lots of leg drops, lots of seizures of strength. Popular opinion of Hogan allows me to cram him somewhere in the middle of the list, because like everything else in Hogan’s career, it’s equal parts “important” and “f*cking horrible.”
14. Big John Studd
Studd gets the #14 spot for two reasons:
1. He helped substantiate the completely untrue-after-1985 statement that the biggest and heaviest guy in a battle royal is the favorite.
2. He won by eliminating the Million Dollar Man, and his celebration involved him beating up Virgil.
“Celebrated by beating up Virgil” is enough to put you above at least half the Royal Rumble winners. Studd’s one of those guys you don’t appreciate until you go back and watch him, because he was always sorta the Go-Bots to Andre the Giant’s Transformers. “I’m big and heavy, but not as much as that notably big and heavy guy!” Studd also earns points for winning the first 30-man Royal Rumble, and for being the rose that grew through the sidewalk crack between Jim Duggan and Hulk Hogan.
To make it more palatable for modern audiences, let’s set Studd’s win to nu-metal:
13. Triple H – 2002
This is the closest Kurt Angle ever came to winning a Royal Rumble. It was so close.
Triple H was a different beast in 2002. By 2000 and 2001, jokey dick-pointer Triple H reinvented himself. Not only was he a main-eventer and a WWF Champion, he was great in the ring. His street fight with Cactus Jack at Royal Rumble 2000 and Three Stage of Hell match with Stone Cold Steve Austin at No Way Out 2001 are two of the very best matches of the era. In May of 2001, he went down with an injury in one of my favorite Pre-Crisis matches ever (and maybe the best Raw match of all-time), teaming with Stone Cold against Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit.
He returned eight months later, in January 2002. If you don’t remember the pop the man got, go back and listen to it. This is a Triple H that felt like a wrestling God. A wrestling savior. He’d spend the next … oh, let’s say 10 years INSISTING that he was a wrestling God and wrestling savior, which burned out all the good will jerks like me had for him and left a trail of broken, discarded, wasted stars in his wake. It was a weird transition. Still, the 2002 Rumble is H at the peak of his powers, and … yeah, Kurt Angle still should’ve won.
12. Brock Lesnar – 2003
When Brock Lesnar won the Royal Rumble, he was only 25 years old. The best part? He eliminated The Undertaker to win. I wonder if that will ever come around again?
Joking aside, the final four of Brock Lesnar, The Undertaker, Kane and Batista has to be the hossiest final four in Rumble history.
It’s fun to go back and watch Lesnar’s early years in the company. He’s such a different performer now. He had all the strength and athleticism in the world back then, but he didn’t become Brock Lesnar until he took that time away and built up an ambiance. Pulling the trigger on Brock here was such a good call, and it’ll be fun to see if they give him another shot at winning in 2016. They should bring back Dom and put him camera-side, as well, so we can see if he’s still horny 24/7.
11. Edge – 2010
1992 is the easy answer for best Rumble ever, but go back and watch 2010’s edition. That’s my vote for the best Rumble of the modern era. It was won by a returning Edge, one of two “surprise return” winners on the list, and that picture tells you everything you need to know.
With three former champions in the ring — Cena, Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho — #29 hits, and it’s the Rated-R Superstar. The crowd’s reaction is incredible, only mildly ruined by Michael Cole’s insincere “oh my!” call. Edge makes his triumphant return to action and lights everybody up until #30 shows up, and it’s Batista. Yes, Batista is a Royal Rumble ruiner. He eliminates Shawn Michaels, which is an important plot point in the best non-Limp Bizkit WWE hype video ever.
Anyway, Edge was great and this Rumble ruled. “Whoever wins the Rumble eliminates Cena last” should be an annual tradition.
10. Alberto Del Rio – 2011
This one ranks high for two reasons, neither involving Virgil:
1. It was the first (and so far, only) 40-man Rumble, making it the biggest of all-time.
2. It ended with one of the best and most memorable fakeouts in Rumble history. You know the one.
Del Rio thinks he’s won the match, but he forgot about lowly Santino Marella, who’d gone through the ropes, but not over them. Santino summons his sentient snake-arm attack — wrestling is weird — and strikes. For a minute, WWE honestly tricked you (or me, at least) into thinking Santino was going to pull off the greatest surprise upset ever. It’s a moment that still holds up, and a trope they’ve started to use a little too much. Remember Rusev popping up at the end of last year’s Rumble? Even NXT did it in a women’s battle royal … twice, back-to-back.
You could’ve had that WrestleMania main event, Santino.
9. John Cena – 2008, 2013
In your brain, it probably feels like John Cena’s won 25 Royal Rumbles. He wins everything. I originally had Cena lower on the list for that very reason. John Cena always wins. How can you get happy or excited or nostalgic for that time he won a thing? It’s like growing up a Yankees fan. The broad, “27 World Series Championships” talking point becomes more important than any single time they won it. Also, more important than any time they don’t.
2008 was forgettable as hell. The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels killed as the final two in 2007, so in 2008 they started the Rumble, and John Cena and Triple H finished it. You may recognize the “me too” Triple H move from him having back-to-back matches with The Undertaker right after Shawn. Pay no attention to these observable trends, people. All that said, Cena’s return at #30 that year remains one of the most electric moments in Rumble history, and his smug YES I’M BACK, I DON’T NEED REHAB FOR MY INJURIES, I’M JOHN DAMN CENA pose is iconic. A top 5 ever Cena moment. Check it out:
If he pulled one of those in the 2016 Rumble, I wouldn’t be surprised.
2013 was a little different, as the extremely 2010s WWE final four of Cena, Dolph Ziggler, Ryback and Sheamus gave Cena his second Rumble win, and set him up to challenge WWE Champion CM Punk in the main event of Wrestle … sorry, couldn’t type that with a straight face. It was to set up another match with The Rock.
8. Vince McMahon – 1999
The definitive Attitude Era win. You either hate this one, or you love it.
Thanks to a rigged numbers draw, Stone Cold Steve Austin was forced to enter the Rumble at #1. Vince McMahon was #2, and protected himself by saying he’d give a $100,000 bonus for anyone who tossed Austin over the top. The training videos were enough to give this a top 10 spot:
During the Rumble, McMahon keeps finding ways to not actually be in the match, whether it’s sneaking off into the crowd and disappearing or popping in for color commentary. Austin eventually “wins,” leaving it as just him and Vince, so he snatches him from the outside and drags him in to finish him off. But OH NO, The Rock shows up at ringside and Austin gets absurdly distracted, allowing Vince to eliminate Austin, win his own $100,000 bonus and win the Royal damn Rumble.
If you’re a modern fan who’s used to the evil heel authority figures cheating to win with no comeuppance, don’t worry: the followup to the Rumble happened a few weeks later at St. Valentine’s Day Massacre: In Your House, in which Austin and McMahon have a steel cage match and McMahon takes one of the most glorious beatings ever.
7. Yokozuna – 1993
WWE babyfaces are dumb. DUMB.
The 1993 Rumble is one of the best-ever examples of this. It all comes down to Macho Man Randy Savage, probably the most notable WWE star ever without a Rumble win, and Yokozuna. If you aren’t on the “Yokozuna was awesome” train, you haven’t watched his matches since you were a kid. Either that, or you couldn’t get past the weird racial iffiness of the whole thing.
Anyway, Yokozuna destroys pretty much everyone he faces in the Rumble — this is the closest Bob Backlund ever came to winning, which makes me sad they didn’t have Royal Rumbles in 1980. Yoko wrecks Savage, too, but Savage’s comebacks were savage af. He knocks the big man off his feet and connects with a flying elbow drop (to the gut!). He then goes for a pinfall. I can’t bold that enough. Yokozuna’s response? Throw him over the top rope and eliminate him from his back. It’s equal parts stupid and awesome, and it’s a finish that’s stuck with me for 20+ years. Going for a lateral press in the finals of a Royal Rumble is the second dumbest decision Savage ever made, behind “recording a rap album so he could diss Hulk Hogan.”
Note: both of those things are spectacular
6. Rey Mysterio – 2006
Rey Mysterio is one of those unfortunate souls who won a Rumble entering at #2. That means they had to wrestle the entire match like entrant #1, but are robbed of the “THEY ENTERED FIRST AND WON” honor if they win. Entering at #2 is such a scam.
Still, entering at #2 is the same damn thing as entering at #1, and Mysterio won after starting at the start. That was good enough to earn him the “longest time spent in a Rumble” honor at 1:02:12. Those are top shelf accomplishments for one of the smallest competitors in Rumble history, and probably the smallest if you eliminate minis.
Bonus points for last eliminating Triple H and Randy Orton.
5. Chris Benoit – 2004
When you see the annual “Royal Rumble by the numbers” video package, you’ll hear them mention that two men have entered at #1 and won the Rumble. They probably won’t tell you who those men were. Because reasons.
Benoit winning the Royal Rumble was an unbelievable moment for those of us who’d spent the better part of a decade loving and supporting him, but watching pro wrestling promotions pull the rug out from under him at every possible opportunity. You know that “underdog” thing WWE loves to do with guys like Daniel Bryan? The natural “WHAT THE F*CK” of Chris Benoit fandom birthed that.
His Rumble win was also great because he won with SWEET SCIENCE. The final two were Benoit and Big Show, a guy Benoit can’t just pick up and toss out. When it looks like a beaten Benoit is going to get gorilla pressed to the floor and another heaping helping of WELP was about to be scooped onto our plates, Benoit reversed into a front facelock. Show tried to toss Benoit out, but Benoit landed on the ropes, held the facelock and dragged Show as far over the top rope as he could. By the time the choke actually started choking Show out, he was so far over that his fatness forced gravity to throw him at the ground. Benoit won the way he always did: by being amazing at wrestling.
If it weren’t for all the other sh*t and how impossible it is to enjoy his work now, this would be #2.
4. The Undertaker – 2007
Best finish ever.
The 2007 Royal Rumble came down to two WWE legends: Shawn Michaels, winner of two previous Royal Rumbles, and The Undertaker. Instead of doing a fun sprint to crown a winner, Taker and Shawn almost had a full match, built around the idea of how hard it would be to eliminate one of the best WWE stars in history if they absolutely refused to be eliminated.
The finish exists as sort of a prologue to their WrestleMania 25 and 26 classics, and feels very similar … lots of trading and countering of finishers, high drama, high-stakes exchanges, only punctuated with battle royal elimination teases instead of pinfalls. It’s as good as you can get without someone trying to lateral press you.
3. Shawn Michaels – 1995, 1996
“The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels and Stone Cold Steve Austin share a unique statistic: they’re the only two Rumble winners to not only win two Rumbles, but to win one as a face, and one as a heel.
Shawn wins his first in 1995. He and the British Bulldog start the Rumble at #1 and #2, respectively, something that wouldn’t happen again until Austin and McMahon in ’99. Shawn looks like he’s eliminated, but popularizes the “both feet have to touch the floor” talking point by only letting one of his feet touch. Bulldog celebrates prematurely, Shawn jumps him from behind and steals it. He’d go on to lose his WrestleMania match to Diesel by being too preoccupied with how much better than Jenny McCarthy Pamela Anderson was.
In 1996, Michaels would kick Diesel over the top to win his second-consecutive Rumble. That victory sent him to WrestleMania XII, where “the boyhood dream” would come true.
Combine those wins with the greatness of all the times Michaels came close, but didn’t win, and you’ve got one of the best Royal Rumble performers of all-time.
2. Stone Cold Steve Austin – 1997, 1998, 2001
Stone Cold Steve Austin followed the same trajectory as Shawn Michaels. In 1997, Bret Hart nonchalantly chucks him over the top rope and to the floor. All the referees are preoccupied with a ringside brawl between Terry Funk and Mankind, however, and miss the elimination completely. Austin snuck back in, eliminated both The Undertaker and Bret Hart and won. He’d end up having the finish contested and wrestling Hart, Undertaker and Vader for the WWF Championship, but the win stands.
His second Rumble win saw him in full Face of the Company mode, battling the only man he should in the finals of a Royal Rumble in 1998, The Rock. He continued to use his brain here, celebrating a victory prematurely, but keeping his focus to fight off The Rock’s sneak attack, dropping him with a Stone Cold Stunner and tossing him out to win.
In 2001, he won his third Rumble, the only person to do so so far. He’s stuck between heel and face in that one, blistering Kane with a chair until he’s able to clothesline him out. That ultimately sets up the ultimate Rock/Austin confrontation in the main event of the best WrestleMania ever. Pretty good run, wouldn’t you say?
1. Ric Flair – 1992
With a TEAR IN MY EYE …
This was a tough decision. Do you give the top spot to the man who has won the most Rumbles in the most ways, or to the guy who only won one, but won the WWF Championship in the consensus greatest Rumble ever? I’d probably have my wrestling blogger card taken away if I didn’t put Ric Flair and his triumphant Royal Rumble ’92 victory in the top spot, so let’s argue about it forever.
Or, better idea: watch the greatest post-match victory promo ever. +1 to Bobby Heenan for making it that much greater.
