We have come up with a list of the five best Royal Rumble matches ever.
We are close to this year’s event. The Royal Rumble PPV (pay-per-view) event takes place on Sunday, January 28, 2018 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the Wells Fargo Center and will air on the WWE Network and some traditional pay-per-view outlets. Both Raw and SmackDown brands will be featured.
Although the sports entertainment company has yet to announce any matches for the event, it’s been reported that Brock Lesnar will defend the Universal Title in a Triple Threat Match against Kane and Braun Strowman.
We start our list with No. 1 with the 1992 Royal Rumble, which took place on January 19 at the Knickerbocker Arena in Albany, New York. It had perhaps the most star-packed line-up ever, with the cream of the territorial crop converging in a single ring under the WWE banner.
This match is historic because for the first time, the last man standing would win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, which had been vacated in December 1991. It featured 1980s legends Ric Flair, Roddy Piper, Ted Dibiase, Kerry Von Erich, Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan as well as future WWE Hall of Famers such as Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker.
In the end, Flair, who eliminated Sid Justice with the help of Hogan from the outside, won the match.
The No. 2 best Royal Rumble took place on January 18, 1998, at the San Jose Arena in San Jose, California. This event is a great snapshot of the WWE on the cusp of the Attitude Era.
It had awkward mix of the old and the new, with on-their-way-out New Generation holdovers like Ahmed Johnson and the Godwinn brothers mixing it up with the sort of edgier characters that would soon take over.
The main event was a casket match between Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. The Royal Rumble match,which Stone Cold Steve Austin won with his final elimination of The Rock, marked his second Royal Rumble win.
The No. 3 best Royal Rumble took place on January 23, 2000, at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York. The main event was the Royal Rumble match, which The Rock won by last eliminating The Big Show to win the match.
It also marked the first WWE pay-per-view event to air on terrestrial television in the United Kingdom, as Channel 4. If there was any doubt who would win, the crowd’s reaction to the Rock eliminates it as quickly as the Rock eliminates the Boss Man.
The No. 4 best Royal Rumble took place on January 21, 2001, at the New Orleans Arena in New Orleans, Louisiana. It had a good roster and a winner who was a true legend beloved by the fans. It ends with an all-time final four of Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Kane. Austin would go onto win the match.
Rounding out the list at No. 5 is the Royal Rumble that took place on January 27, 2008, at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York and featured talent from the Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brands. John Cena ended up winning it.
No matter how you feel about him, you probably agree that Cena’s responsible for one of the most shocking and memorable Royal Rumble moments ever.
What are your thoughts on this list? Do you agree with it? Have YOUR say in the comments section below and the fourth episode of GiveMeSport’s WWE podcast is here!
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