10 Incredible Wrestling Stats You Won't Believe
7. The Longest Royal Rumble Ever Lasted 70 Minutes And Wasn't Even Televised
While the Royal Rumble match has become a huge attraction over the years, it hasn't always been reserved strictly for TV. In fact, the WWF ran a warm-up match on a house show in 1994, just days ahead of the big Royal Rumble PPV event the following weekend.
Nicknamed "The Lost Rumble", the over-the-top-rope bout took place at Madison Square garden on 17 January 1994. With Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Shawn Michaels and Fatu (AKA Rikishi) as the final four, the match was eventually won by the younger Hart sibling. He would turn heel on his brother at the real Rumble event later that week.
The WWF would run one more untelevised Rumble in 1994 on 9 May in Osaka, Japan. On that occasion, The Undertaker walked away victorious. Since then, there have been a small number of non-PPV Rumble matches, including the Corporate Rumble on Raw in '99 and the SmackDown Rumble in '04.
At over 70 minutes long, the MSG bout went longer than any other Royal Rumble in history. The longest televised Rumble was the 2011 edition, which lasted 69 minutes; however, this version of the match did feature 40 superstars for the first and only time in WWE history.