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#Post#: 8410--------------------------------------------------
Top five Royal Rumble memorable moments
By: tnafanforum Date: January 23, 2013, 5:28 pm
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With the WWE Royal Rumble 2013 right around the corner, I
started thinking about past Rumble memories. The Rumble match
lends itself to creativity, surprises, and thrilling memories.
Today I look back at the top WWE Royal Rumble Memorable Moments.
This is a tough blog to write because you have the Rumble match
itself and you have the spectacle surrounding the event of
non-Rumble matches. Some of the best Rumble event moments have
come from non Rumble matches like the Hogan-Andre signing, the
Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude posedown, Jeff Hardy coming
within inches of winning his first world title, and Rock vs.
Mick Foley I-Quit match. However to keep with the theme of the
Royal Rumble match, I wanted to focus specifically on Royal
Rumble matches and look at lasting memories coming from the big
event.
1 – Ric Flair wins the Royal Rumble and the WWF world
heavyweight title, 1992 Royal Rumble. Maybe it is my age, maybe
it was my love for Ric Flair and the Four Horsemen as a
teenager, maybe it was the greatest call in the history of
sports entertainment by an announcer, but Ric Flair winning the
92 Royal Rumble is far and away the greatest moment in Rumble
history.
What made this one so great besides the above is that it was
like one long dream match for Ric Flair fans. On one night you
got to see every Ric Flair dream match in one match between
Flair being in the ring with Roddy Piper, Jake Roberts, Hulk
Hogan, and the Undertaker. The look on Flair’s face when Piper
came down the aisle was one of the greatest sells in pro
wrestling history. Some may even argue that this was Flair’s
last great stand as the match was just a masterpiece from one of
the greatest of all time.
2 – John Cena enters the Rumble at #30 as the mystery entrant,
2008 Royal Rumble. I am far from any kind of John Cena fan, but
this was Cena’s greatest moment. Sadly in this day and age of
hot shot wrestling angles, pro wrestling surprises rarely pay
off. While the Rumble always had surprise entries, even those
rarely paid off other than Jake Roberts, Honkytonk Man, and a
few others. Cena’s surprise appearance in the Rumble may be the
last great wrestling surprise in quite some time.
Cena had been off of television completely for almost three
months after getting injured in October on Monday Night Raw. The
buzz after Cena’s injury was that Cena would be out for seven
months which would have taken off of WrestleMania 24. Even a
week prior to the Rumble Cena did an interview where he talked
about his disappointment in missing WrestleMania 24. Everyone
involved did a fantastic job of keeping Cena’s return a huge
surprise as even the biggest wrestling skeptics never predicted
Cena’s appearance at the Rumble.
In a 2008 blog I wrote this about Cena’s entrance, “I talked a
lot about fan passion at the time on my radio show and in blogs
yet the fan reaction to John Cena at the Rumble is something
that people still talk about today. The entrance itself is
arguably the greatest Rumble entrance in the history of the
match. The place went nuts in a way that rivaled Stone Cold
Steve Austin and The Rock in their heyday. It was truly a
historic WWE moment that helped solidify Cena’s WWE status as a
WWE superstar.”
Like him or not, John Cena’s surprise entry and the crowd
reaction in Madison Square Garden was one of the greatest
moments in Royal Rumble history. Jim Ross’ call here was almost
as memorable as Heenan’s call on Flair winning in 1992.
Unfortunately the WWE had several announcers calling the match,
all tripping over each other to crowbar their lines into the
moment. If not for Joey Styles and Michael Cole stepping over
the WWE Hall of Fame announcer, Ross’ call probably would have
stolen it all.
3 – Steve Austin and Vince McMahon start the Royal Rumble as 1 &
2, 1999 Royal Rumble. As frenzied as the crowd in Madison Square
Garden for John Cena, the crowd at Arrowhead Pond may have even
gone more crazy for the opening moments of the main-event. After
almost a year of torment from Mr. McMahon, Steve Austin would
finally get his revenge on his boss. The twist here is that
McMahon “randomly” picked Austin’s number at 1 for the Rumble
while he “randomly” picked #30. However, Commissioner Shawn
Michaels vetoed that and declared that Vince would now start as
#2, thus making McMahon vs. Austin for the first time since
their RAW match which ended in chaos a year earlier.
The heat and intensity for this was like no other Rumble opening
moment. Wrestling fans were chomping at the bit to see Austin
vs. McMahon. Austin started out by stomping McMahon like he was
a man possessed or as J.R. put it, he “stomped a mudhole in
him.” The two would go their separate ways later in the Rumble
only to come back for more at the end. The Rumble ended and
started the same way as it all came down to Austin and McMahon
in a dramatic moment. Vince McMahon dumped Steve Austin over the
top rope after The Rock distracted Austin to win the Rumble.
Most wrestling fans would grunt at the thought of a booker/owner
putting himself over in such a big match, but this one worked.
Between the videos of Shane and Vince McMahon training, the
angles in between, and the months of buildup, Austin vs. McMahon
in the Rumble is undoubtedly a great moment in WWE history.
4 – Kane eliminates 11 WWE superstars in a row from the Royal
Rumble, 2001 Royal Rumble . I never thought I would ever create
any kind of top WWE list that would include Kane but fair is
fair. This was an awesome moment or series of events that is
still remembered right around Rumble time. At this point in
time, Kane’s 11 eliminations was a record and the announcers put
it over as such, making you for one moment think that you were
in the midst of watching wrestling history.
For a few minutes Kane dominated the Rumble like no other as he
single-handedly eliminated all of the entries from 7-12 as they
walked down the aisle and into the Rumble. The Rock stopped the
massacre temporarily when he entered at #13. The Undertaker
would later work with Kane and the two would eliminate several
Rumble competitors. Kane would later eliminate The Rock to bring
the Rumble down to him and Austin. Austin won the match winning
his third Rumble and thus ending the domination of Kane.
5 – Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior collide for the very
first time, 1990 Royal Rumble. This is where the list becomes a
little controversial because I know there a lot of wrestling
fans reading this that will probably disagree. I went back and
forth between Shawn Michaels or Chris Benoit running the
gauntlet from entering #1 in their respective Rumbles and
winning, Undertaker and Shawn Michaels starting the Rumble in
2008, or Austin just cleaning house in 1998 but if you are
looking specifically at great Rumble moments in the match, this
has to edge out any one of those single performances.
It may be hard to understand the gravity of the moment if you
didn’t live it as a wrestling fan and that is understandable. In
the 1980s WWF, heels rarely fought heels but babyfaces never
fought babyfaces. But for WWF fans a polarizing divide had been
brewing between The Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan and their
fans. For some, it was Hogan burnout after six years they wanted
to see someone new at the top of the show. For others, they were
Hulkamaniacs forever and as much as they loved to root for
Warrior against Rick Rude or Hercules he was not in the league
of Hulk Hogan.
There were teases going into the Rumble between WWF champion
Hogan and WWF Intercontinental champion Ultimate Warrior as to
what would happen if it came down to each man, but that was
nothing new in pre-Rumble hype. Unlike past Rumbles, this time
the WWF paid off and gave the fans what they wanted. The
Ultimate Warrior entered the Rumble at #21 and Hulk Hogan
entered the Rumble at #24. Hogan and Warrior each took turns
clearing the ring of Shawn Michaels, the Honkytonk Man, Tito
Santana, Haku, Superfly Snuka, and Rick Martel. The Orlando
Arena went nuts after Martel hit the floor and the only two men
left in the ring were Hogan and Warrior. have only been seconds
but WWF fans got the dream match they had always hoped to see
and were left wanting much more. They’d get it and then some in
just a few months in what is still one of the most memorable
matches in WrestleMania history. For this and the gravity of the
moment, this is one of the greatest moments in Royal Rumble
history.
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