10 Wrestling Matches That Shaped Vince McMahon’s Vision Of Sports Entertainment

4. The Royal Rumble Match - WWF Royal Rumble (January 24, 1988)

The battle royal was a winning concept.

Its ingenious structure, its inherent, non-stop suspense, masked the shortcomings of even the most limited wrestlers - but those first five minutes of any given iteration are invariably a blur of inactivity. The field could be comprised of All Japan Pro Wrestling's Four Pillars Of Heaven and the Four Horsemen - but only when that field thinned could it approach something entertaining. Pat Patterson's ingenious twist was to have performers enter the match at timed intervals. It removed that impenetrable swirl of mass - in the beginning, at least - and the countdown approach provided it with a mathematical formula for fan engagement.

The 20-man 1988 match doesn't hold up to the all-time classics which followed it - but it paved the glorious road, the one lapsed and casual fans recall more fondly than even any WrestleMania main event. McMahon's first reaction to Patterson's suggestion? "A stupid battle royal". He was behind the times even when his finger was on the pulse.

Patterson also devised the sadly-shelved Championship Scramble concept, the formula of which also guaranteed wall-to-wall action. A true wrestling genius, Patterson remains WWE's go-to man for laying out an epic, important main event match.

The DNA of WWE was near enough hard-coded by his genius hand.