Sunday January 25th sees the official start of 'The Road To WrestleMania' with the Royal Rumble Pay-Per-View event and the 28th annual Royal Rumble match. Invented by Pat Patterson; the variation of a battle royal that is the Rumble match has gone on the become one of the most iconic matches in wrestling history. 30 Wrestlers entering at 2 minute intervals, everyman for himself, over the top rope elimination (where both feet must touch the floor) and the winner's prize being the right to challenge for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in the main event of Wrestlemania will become almost a mantra for us on Sunday; the match is a unique experience and has often provided opportunities to see guys who wouldn't usually be matched up wrestle each other. The Rumble match is one of the few things that still feels special in modern wrestling; and is the top match for making new stars in WWE's history. A wrestler may never have won the match but still be a legendary Rumble participant; but who, of all the men whom have taken part over the last 27 years, are the Rumble match's top performers? Following a statistical analysis, much comparison and the implementation of a points system; the following list tries to answer that question. All statistics come from WWE, Wikipedia and prowrestlingwikia.com. Points System: Holding a Rumble match Record (such as Most Wins) is worth 50 Points. Winning a Rumble match is worth 30 Points. Winning an Award for a single Rumble match is worth 15 points; an award is either having the Most Eliminations or the longest time in the match (Iron Man). The remaining points are awarded by basically ranking them against each other in a selection of key statistics (Entries, Career Eliminations, Personal Best Eliminations, Average Eliminations and Career, Personal Best and Average Time spent in Rumble matches); number one position receives 10 points and a descending scale of points are awarded to each place going down the list (so 2nd place would get 9 points, 5th would get 6 points 10th gets 1 point etc. Tied places are awarded as an average of the two or more places; so two coming joint 2nd would be 9 + 8 divided by 2 resulting in 8.5 Points each). The Total Points are then added up and dictate a wrestlers position in the list; their ranking is based on this statistical analysis and nothing else to keep the system pure. The Top Ten were initially identified by the same points system applied to a statistical analysis of a larger pool of wrestlers; then they were pitted against each other again to further define the Top Ten.
John is a hippie, Buddhist musician and writer from East London.
When he's not pondering about Wrestling, films, TV, video games, comics or music he can occasionally be found refereeing Dodgeball games around London and the South of England or wandering off into traffic muttering to himself...
