Theo Dious Grades Every Royal Rumble
 

Self-explanatory - The Rumble is days away and I intend to review and grade each previous Rumble. Just the match, not the whole card. No I don't expect to be done by Sunday necessarily.

1988
The inaugural Royal Rumble was certainly not the big event it would turn out to be, beginning life as a midcard attraction on a show whose main draw was a contact signing for the Hogan/Andre rematch. The one thing that every Rumble does, and fairly well, is showcase the mid- and lower card wrestlers and this did just that very well. Possibly one of Bret Hart's first chances to shine on his own on a big stage as he entered first and lasted a good long time. Popular names of the day like Jake Roberts, Junkyard Dog, Hillbilly Jim, and an on-the-rise Ultimate Warrior kept the crowd enthused. Classic McMahon/Ventura commentary with Vince at his ham-fisted best and Jessie verbally smacking him around while insisting that he couldn't enter the Rumble because he was wearing his nice clothes. In the end Jim Duggan writes his name firmly in WWE history as the first Rumble winner, ensuring himself some return engagements and eventually having the distinction of competing in Rumbles in 4 different decades. By today's standards, Duggan winning would be akin to R-Truth snagging a victory, but it was a different animal at the time and the creative elimination of the One Man Gang at the end made a good finish.

Match: B
Commentary: B
Winner: C

There was more than one rumble

It's a work in progress Sir.

It'll largely be written on the can during my breaks.

Looking forward to more reviews. The Rumble is my favorite match of the year.

Mine too. I've been meaning to do this for years. I watched 88 and 89 last night but most of them I've seen enough times not to need to.

1989
I don't know how much better this Rumble could have been. It wasn't the best ever but it was nearly perfect for what they had to work with. It has a perfect flow throughout, stating off with the drama of the tag team champions Ax and Smash coming in first and second before teaming up against Andre when he came in at number three, a good buildup of midcard names in Mr Perfect, Jake, the Honky Tonk man and both Rockers before inserting Hogan and Savage. This year's Rumble was the main event and focus of the show, as evident by the inclusion of WWF Champion Randy Savage in the match and highlighted by the tension between Hogan & Savaget after Hulk dumped Macho out, and the furtherance of the Hogan/Bossman feud when DiBiase's shenanigans led to the Twin Towers entering back to back. The crowd was suitably pissed by Hogan's exit from the match (and less annoyed than they should have been by his disgraceful behavior leading to Bossman's elimination and their subsequent brawl.) There's match fairly smoothly returns to a battle of midcard supremacy, leading to the Million Dollar Man's ill-gotten entry at number 30 and subsequent final elimination by Big John Studd. Yeah maybe there could have been a better winner, but they weren't likely to give DiBiase the win after Hogan was tossed out, preferring to send the fans home happy (Virgil's "#31" entry and subsequent beatdown was certsinly an entertaining extra) and since Studd was someone slated for a renewed push it made sense. The Monsoon/Ventura commentary was one of the best in Rumble history, playing up the surprise of Demolition coming in at #1 and #2, the existing Andre/Jake, Savage/Bad News, Hogan/Bossman and Hercules/Heenan feuds, and DiBiase's buying of the final entry while antagonizing each other. Their Hogan arguments and specifically Jesse's line "Hogan would clothesline Elizabeth if he had to!" was particularly golden.

Match: A
Commentary: A
Winner: B

I myself am on 94 Rumble and Vince and Million Dollar Man at the booth is bad. Just so bloody awful

Duggan was main eventing MSG in 1988. He arguably a top 5 babyface in 88.

Duggan was over like rover but he was like your typical mid card main eventer. None of his matches seemed to have finishes lol

Lol describe a "mid card main eventer"

He was just never a prime focus. He was definitely fairly protected but he wasn't on say, Piper's level.

Ehh... I don't know if he's top five next to Hogan, Savage, Jake, Steamboat, and JYD in the company. I do understand that a lot of people were over in a way that the company would kill for these days and that Duggan getting the win fit at the time. In hindsight though I think there might have been more enduring choices.

Come to think of it I don't know if Savage was a face at that point. Nor do I know how over Warrior was at the time...

In 1988 JYD was pretty much gone and Steamboat had lost a lot of steam. I'd put Hogan, Savage and Warrior ahead of Duggan, but that's it. Duggan vs Andre was a pretty big program.

I'm still kinda baffled as to how Duggan got over.

Crowd pandering? USA and HOOOO chants mostly.

Definitely wasn't technical acumen.

I do enjoy calling people "tough guy" still to this day.

Was it more of a ROWBOAT after he lost that steam?!!!?!?!???!!?1one!

:shifty: :| :shifty: :roll:

He's played a big, dumb goofball with a Patriot gimmick. Combine that with awesome charisma and that's how he got over.

The big dumb goofball always has a ceiling. And maybe you're right, "top 5" sounds about right, but he's never getting past 5 with his silliness. Wasn't overly fond of his look to be honest but yeah, the crowd was definitely into him. I don't know how they would have felt about him being champion.

Mind you, in another era with more edge to his character he could have been more. I've seen some of his territory stuff and it's good.

Oh no I'm not saying he was World Champ material, but he was definitely a top 5 face during that time.

Sometimes in arenas before events start, people still yell HOOOOOOOO along with WOOOOOO!

Happened at the Raw I went to last June.

<font color=goldenrod>Yeah, that's happened in pretty much every show I've been to.

And then in 2007 there were also a lot of pre-show yells of "KENNEDY!!!"</font>

Seth would say WWE ruined everyone

Meant to do more of these over the weekend but snowstorm.

1990
This was kind of the beginning of the Rumble as the total showcase snapshot of where the company is at the beginning of any given year. Man per man I think everybody in this match was totally over (shut up, Dino Bravo and the Red Rooster were over in that day and age.) The only real low point in this Rumble was the brief period after Hogan dumped the Warrior and he came back in to throw people around, then a brief lull, but mostly it was nonstop action. DiBiase's entrance at number one contrasting his previous year's bought and paid for number thirty and his endurance round throughout the match was very well done. Again you had some good feud building with Jake & DiBiase, Piper & Bad News, and the opening sparks of the Hogan/Warrior feud to culminate at Wrestlemania. I mostly just didn't like the ending very much because I've always loved Mr. Perfect and having him win would have been one of the high points of Rumble history. Oh, and fucking Tony Schiavone? The only good part of him being on commentary for this was hearing Ventura pwn his ass repeatedly. He was never, ever a fit for the WWF and I have no idea why anyone thought he would be.

Match: A-
Commentary: C
Winner: B

You know I watched a bit of Duggan over the past few days and I realized this - whatever else he is, you can tell he's having a LOT of fun doing what he's doing. I think that goes a long way towards getting some guys over that might otherwise have much more trouble doing so.

1990 was clearly a 5/7

CM Punk.

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Gonna make a thread reviewing Theo Dious' reviews of the royal rumbles. It's what people want.

Clearly.

4.6 out of 7 at best.

Miss those Ventura/Mcmahon commentaries. How I wish Jesse could be alongside Cole today and tear him apart weekly

Jesse would go non-stop on Conspiracy theories he would sound like a Minnesota version of Fox Mulder.

1991
This Rumble bears a pretty big resemblance to the previous year's; it's a showcase of the mid- and upper cards of the WWF at the time, you have a few feuds of the day weaving in and out of it, and Hogan takes the win at the end. It's fairly forgettable to be honest. The idea that someone other than Hogan would win was laughable to me as a child at the time. The idea that Earthquake might somehow steal the win from him was an outside possibility, but that feud had so little heat left I'm still astonished that they made it the final focus of the match at all. The real hot things on the card had aleady taken place; Slaughter took the belt from the Warrior, and Virgil turned on DiBiase. When the Rumble is in third place to anything else on the PPV, it's not great. Piper's commentary wasn't fantastic either, though Monsoon made a valiant effort to carry him, he came across as disjointed and confused through most of it (granted that was a lot of Piper commentary even if he did have his moments.) Also I'm pretty sure you can spot Shane McMahon as a referee trying to contain the spillout from the Rick Martel/Jake Roberts brawl.

Match: B-
Commentary: C-
Winner: C

Piper was so bad on commentary

A lot of the time he made it seem like your dad was watching the show and making really weird comments about what was going on.