10 Weirdest WWE Royal Rumble Entrants
"A lot of fire in this youngster!"
Over the past three decades, well over 300 men and precsiely 31 women have ran down the ramp with fire in their belly, all hoping for a shot at WrestleMania glory (at least, once that became the established tradition).
It's fair to say that the vast majority of those hopefuls simply never had one. When Bushwhacker Luke marched down to the ring for his stint in 1991's edition, he almost certainly didn't expect to see his name in lights at the end of the night from a field also including eventual, inevitable winner Hulk Hogan, an emerging Bret Hart, and perennial threat Earthquake. That's probably why, after being flung in four seconds flat by the Canadian monster, he kept marching right on, in the knowledge he'd picked up a pretty pay packet for next to no work.
Others not only had no chance of winning the Rumble, but had no bloody right being there in the first place. With such a huge pool of participants - and wrestling being what it is - it should come as no surprise that WWE's January tradition has seen its fair share of completely crazy competitors.
Some of them have been so far out of left field, that even the company themselves didn't know who they were.
10. Hiroki Sumi (Greatest Royal Rumble)
April's ludicrous 'Greatest Royal Rumble' farce scraped the earth from beneath the barrel as it stretched to fill each of the mammoth 50 (fifty!) available spots.
This meant that no fewer than 18 'superstars' (we're using that term very loosely) made their Rumble debut in the desert, including perennial curtain jerkers The Ascension and Mike Kanellis, cameos from dreadful former stars The Great Khali and Hornswoggle, and inexplicable NXT trainees - the Babatundes and Dan Mathas of this world.
But nobody - nobody - had fingernails digging into scalps quite like Hiroki Sumi, a man so obscure that WWE themselves ran an article following the show asking just who in the blazes he was.
Whatever his background - a former Sumo wrestler with a pretty impressive record, apparently - he didn't do particularly well, being quickly flung over the top by fellow behemoth Mark Henry. Rumours Sumi was presented to Saudi royalty by obsequious WWE officials as 'Yokozuna, honest' have been overstated. But are probably true.