The History Of The Royal Rumble

This time a year i start thinking about the up coming six months of WWE programing. With my two favorite events being in the next 6 months The Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania. Wrestlemania we know as the World Series or Superbowl of the WWE but i consider the Royal Rumble like the play offs. It’s the stepping stone to Wrestlemania. Its what now gives us at least one number one contender to a world title and starts the road to Wrestlemania. With the rumble coming up on January 25th i thought i’d go over the history of The Royal Rumble.

Credit for the rumble can be given to Pat Patterson who came up with the original idea for this match. The way the match works is thirty participants enter the ring in regular intervals, usually 90 seconds. It starts with with the first two participants in the ring. The rumble is an elimination style match in which the only way to eliminate a participant is by them going over the top rope and both feet touching the ground. The elimination is only valid if a referee sees both feet on the ground. 

There have been instances where referees haven’t seen a participant touch the ground such as “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Sean “X-pac” Waltman. Some competitors have even gone under the ropes and come back at a later time, Vince McMahon, and Steve Austin have both used this tactic. The winner of the rumble get a title shot in the main event of Wrestlemania. This wasn’t always true as in 1992 the winner of the rumble, Ric Flair, won the WWE Championship for winning the match, also getting the Wrestlemania title shot wasn’t added as a stipulation until 1993.

The Royal Rumble was originally broadcast on the USA network on January 24, 1988, only had 20 participants, lasted thirty three minutes and was called The Rumble Royale. This first rumble was won by “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan. The next year it was made into a Pay Per View and was part of the big five of WWE’s pay per views along with Wrestlemania, Summerslam, Servivor Series and the now defunct King of the Ring.

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