11 Ups And 8 Downs From WWE Royal Rumble 2018

6. Bad Luck Slater

Big E Heath Slater
WWE

Sometimes a running gag during the Royal Rumble is horribly unfunny. And sometimes it hits just the right notes.

Kudos to WWE for a great ongoing joke during the early stages of the Rumble, with Heath Slater drawing #5 and taking about 10 minutes to enter the ring. Baron Corbin leveled him on the entrance ramp, where he laid until Elias kicked him at #6. That started a trend, as everyone got in on the gag and took swings (or in Big E’s case, offered pancakes) at Heath on the floor.

The payoff was perfect, with Sheamus coming in at #11 and tossing Slater into the ring, only to enter himself and immediately get clotheslined out by Heath. Of course, Slater was quickly tossed by Bray Wyatt, but it was a perfectly amusing joke for fans that didn’t distract from the match itself.

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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.