11 Head-Scratchingly Long WWE Royal Rumble Performances

7. Jonathan Coachman - 13:48 (2005)

'Joke characters' have been a semi-regular fixture of the Royal Rumble match since its inception, usually serving to make upper-tier performers look dominant by getting eliminated by them almost instantaneously (An example being Santino Marella's 1.9 second demolition at the hands of Kane in 2009). Others instead function as comic relief for a short while whilst other participants destined for longer runs in the match take a quick breather (An example being Ernest 'The Cat' Miller's bizarre dance routine whilst both Randy Orton and Chris Benoit were both downed in 2004). Either way, the character should never be present for long given that the novelty of their act quickly wears off. Jonathan Coachman was a member of the WWE roster as an interviewer and announcer for nine years between 1999 and 2008. The length of this tenure and his subsequent employment with ESPN means that his career in general hasn't been a joke by any means. Like any other announcer without a background as an actual wrestler, however, any forays he made into the ring itself were treated in a comedic fashion, usually ending with him being humiliated in some shape or form. The decision to give him a thirteen minute run in the Rumble in 2005 was therefore a baffling one, as whilst thirteen minutes wouldn't constitute a particularly lengthy Rumble run for anyone else, it was at least ten minutes too long for somebody that was only in the ring to elicit a few laughs from the audience.