10 Most Obscure WWE Royal Rumble Records

2. Winning Numbers

Batista Royal Rumble
WWE.com

Recordholders: Batista, #28 (2005, 2014); Edge, #29 (2010), #1 (2021)

The myth of the Royal Rumble is that any wrestler can conceivably win the big match, outlasting 29 other superstars, and chart their course for a World title match at WrestleMania.

In reality, only a very small, select group of superstars have the proverbial snowball’s chance in hell of winning the Rumble. Look no further than the men’s Rumble, where 10 men have won 21 of the 37 Rumbles to date.

But it’s the entry numbers for these multiple winners that are critical to these two obscure records.

Batista is the only person to win the Rumble twice from the same number, lucky #28. He drew this number in 2005 when he was blazing a path to the main event and breaking out of Evolution. He then entered and won from the same spot upon his big return in 2014, when the fans quickly turned on Big Dave in favor of Daniel Bryan.

And then there’s Edge, who is the only wrestler to win a Rumble from the first two entries (#1 in 2021) and the last two entries (#29 in 2010). Nearly everyone else who has won twice has entered late (think Brock Lesnar at #29 in 2003 and #30 in 2022). “Stone Cold” Steve Austin came the closest to this mark, winning the 1997 Rumble from #5 and the 2001 Rumble from #27.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.