For the better part of three decades, wrestling fans have come to expect and be treated to an annual tradition that is all but guaranteed to entertain. The Royal Rumble has grown throughout the past 27 years to become an institution that is almost as synonymous with WWE as WrestleMania itself. Try to imagine a year without the Rumble its virtually impossible at this point. The Royal Rumble match marks the official beginning of the road to WrestleMania, a march toward WWEs biggest pay-per-view event of the year. The Rumble also gives fans the first official confirmation of a world title match, with the winner of the Rumble headlining Mania. Since the Rumble is a once-a-year event, winning it is seen as a distinct and prestigious honor those who have won are held in varying degrees of high esteem. Basically, if you win the Royal Rumble, youve got a huge spotlight cast on you for at least three months, longer if you manage to win the world title at WrestleMania. The Rumble can help launch a career, even more so than winning a world title. But not all Rumble winners are created equally, and not all Rumble winners ascend the ladder of success. Before 1992, there was no tangible prize attached to winning the Royal Rumble. The 92 Rumble was contested for the then-vacant WWF World Championship, while every Rumble since has been for a WrestleMania world title shot. Some of those who have won the Rumble have gone on to win at Mania and become major stars. Others have lost, squandering months of build-up. So lets take a look at the 28 men who have won the 27 Royal Rumbles and see how they stack up against each other.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
