10 Biggest WWE Royal Rumble Innovators

2. First To Go From #1 To The End (Shawn Michaels)

Before we get to Shawn Michaels' happy mug as he celebrated winning the 1995 Rumble with Pamela Anderson, it'd be remiss not to point out that the entire match only lasted 38:41. That was around 20 minutes shorter than the previous year's Rumble and almost 30 mins shorter than the 1993 version.

It was the "most exciting Rumble ever" according to Vince McMahon. Not quite.

In fact, the only thing notable about this jobber-filled snore with 60-second intervals was that Michaels had gone from #1 right to the end. That had never been done before in Rumble history, and it made him the original pace-setter for that particular achievement; Shawn's work would later be matched and bettered when Chris Benoit went 1:01:35 in the 2004 match.

Still, ol' HBK got there first, and he even bagged a hug from Baywatch babe Pam for his troubles. Plus, all the kids who bought that oversized, poorly-printed official Royal Rumble '95 t-shirt had a rocking good time with their soon-to-be hero.