10 Fascinating WWE Royal Rumble 2008 Facts

9. It Was The Debut Of Mike Adamle

the undertaker shawn michaels royal rumble 2008
WWE.com

At first, when my friends and I saw 1970s NFL running back-turned-broadcaster Adamle pop up that night in the Garden, we were kinda optimistic. He was a decent host of American Gladiators in the day, and he wasn't one of those young catalog model-turned-wooden interviewers that WWE hires for aesthetic's sake. Perhaps veteran Adamle could bring some gravitas to the shows.

But man, when he said "Jeff Harvey", it was over. As time passed, it was clear just how little product knowledge Adamle possessed, and his cheerful cluelessness turned into a potent running gag. WWE went with the flow and made him one of the biggest meta-jokes in company history.

It stopped being amusing in 2017, when Adamle retired from all broadcasting, after revealing diagnoses of dementia and CTE. Both conditions are likely related to harsh blows to the head he endured as a football player. At the time, Adamle also revealed that he had been suffering from epileptic seizures for close to twenty years.

Contributor
Contributor

Justin has been a wrestling fan since 1989, and has been writing about it since 2009. Since 2014, Justin has been a features writer and interviewer for Fighting Spirit Magazine. Justin also writes for History of Wrestling, and is a contributing author to James Dixon's Titan series.