20 Most RANDOM WWE Royal Rumble Entrants

Booking the massive Alamodome during a downturn in WWF business and trying to forge some sort of connection with Mexican promotion AAA at the same time was certainly bold. That's what the company did before 1997's Royal Rumble, and they touted that a load of AAA favourites would be appearing in the titular match itself and in pre-show dark bouts to warm up the live crowd in San Antonio.

No less than three dark matches happened before Goldust and Triple H hit the ring for the pay-per-view's actual opener. Then, in the Rumble, names like Pierroth, Cybernetico, Latin Lover and Mil Máscaras entered (admittedly to crickets). It was a trip, and it all feels so, so random looking back on the show now. How on earth did this one attract some 60,000+?! Yes, hometown boy Shawn Michaels was going for gold in the main event, but the WWF was hardly on fire and the AAA stuff was so strange.

Vince McMahon roundly ignored other wrestling companies for the most part. Only Jim Cornette's Smoky Mountain outfit had earned any kind of house room on federation screens since the mid-1980s expansion, so hearing McMahon and other WWF announcers gush about AAA was rather funky. Infamously, Máscaras wouldn't accept losing in the Rumble either.

Unless he eliminated himself, that is.

Exactly zero of the masked stars felt at home amongst WWF regulars like Ahmed Johnson, Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Bret Hart and more. In fact, they stood out as random strangers who'd wandered in to plug a few holes in the 30-man lineup. Maybe that's more accurate than McMahon wanted to admit.