15 Best Matches To Ever Take Place At Royal Rumble
11. Edge Vs. Jeff Hardy (Royal Rumble '09)
It is a rarity to see matches that excelled in the mid-card advance to the main-event with opportunities to recreate the magic. Edge vs. Jeff Hardy was one of them. They took their rivalry from the TLC Era in the tag team division and eventually turned it into a feud over the WWE title. Good for them. Good for us. They had a good run in 2009, never quite producing a match that gets talked about in conversations regarding awesome matches, but offering up several noteworthy efforts, including the match from the '09 Rumble that saw Matt Hardy turn on Jeff to set-up a WrestleMania match. One thing that often worked to the advantage of Jeff Hardy's matches was that he always seemed like he was one risk away from losing. WWE often tries to manufacture that feeling in other wrestlers, but Jeff had it naturally. He could take a home run shot that took him to the Promised Land or he could swing and miss so badly that it cost him everything. Edge, the Ultimate Opportunist, was an ideal opponent to take advantage of that. He seemed like he would be the wrestler that could psychologically target those moments of daredevil heroics, like a snake in the grass waiting for the right time to strike. It made Hardy vs. Edge an organically engaging viewing experience. It would have been awfully easy to slot this match into the top 10 if there was more wiggle room available, but after last year's unexpected classic curtain-jerker, there no longer remains any space for a match such as this. Nevertheless, it was a borderline classic worthy of praise and a re-watch.
"The Doc" Chad Matthews has written wrestling columns for over a decade. A physician by trade, Matthews began writing about wrestling as a hobby, but it became a passion. After 30 years as a wrestling fan, "The Doc" gives an unmatched analytical perspective on pro wrestling in the modern era. He is a long-time columnist for Lordsofpain.net and hosts a weekly podcast on the LOP Radio Network called "The Doc Says." His first book - The WrestleMania Era: The Book of Sports Entertainment - ranks the Top 90 wrestlers from 1983 to present day, was originally published in December 2013, and is now in its third edition.
Matthews lives in North Carolina with his wife, two kids, and two dogs.
