10 Most Underrated WWE Royal Rumble Performers

10. Bob Backlund

Way back in 1993, Bob Backlund set the record for the longest-ever stint in the Royal Rumble match, clocking in with a mammoth time of 1:01:10.

These days though, he rarely gets much of a mention in the Royal Rumble conversation, and there a few potential reasons why.

First off, his record has since been broken. Twice, in fact; first by Chris Benoit in 2004 and again by Rey Mysterio in 2006. On top of that, and despite the titanic effort, Backlund didn’t actually win the Rumble outright—falling at the penultimate hurdle to eventual winner Yokozuna. Benoit and Mysterio, on the other hand, did manage to end the night victorious to punctuate their hour-plus stints.

Finally, and perhaps most crucially, he wasn’t the first to breech the 60-minute mark. 12 months prior in 1992, Ric Flair had lasted one hour and two seconds, and not only that but, much like Benoit and Mysterio, Flair’s effort had been a winning one.

So it’s easy for Backlund’s name to be overlooked when we scan back through the history books, but given that his record stood for an impressive 11 years, I reckon that’s enough to earn him a spot on this list.