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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
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