10 Biggest WWE Royal Rumble Disasters
8. Mil Mascaras Eliminated By His Own Ego - 1997
Of course, you could argue that Savage’s was-he-or-wasn’t-he self-elimination of 1992 wasn’t the most shambolic we’ve seen at the Rumble. That honour should instead be reserved for Mil Mascaras who, in 1997, eliminated himself so that nobody else would have the privilege of doing so.
In practice, the incident seemed similar to that of Savage’s in ’92. Mascaras took to the top rope, before diving to the outside with a flying crossbody, which commentary put down to his "daring luchador style" as opposed to the display of egomania that it really was.
Admittedly, there’s an argument that Mascaras was simply a victim of constantly-changing Rumble rules which, as we saw in the previous slide, had previously stipulated that you had to be physically thrown out to be eliminated.
Still, given the pervading stories of him being difficult to work with, including a tale from Clash of the Champions X that prompted Mick Foley to compare Mascaras’ selling to that of a "Swedish massage recipient," I’d be inclined to believe this was a matter of ego rather than a misunderstanding of the rules.