50 Things You Learn Binge-Watching Every WWE Royal Rumble
44. Seeing Shane Douglas In 1991 Feels Strange
Remember how strange it was to see a past his prime Dick Murdoch jog into the 1995 Rumble like he was a regular on episodes of Superstars? Same with Dory Funk Jr showing up in '96. Neither or those are as trippy as revisiting the time Shane Douglas brought his long locks and Sunny Delight orange trunks to the 1991 match. This caught your writer off-guard all over again when binge watching.
Shane stuck out like a sore thumb amongst WWF stalwarts like Bret Hart, Jake Roberts, The Undertaker, Demolition (the Crush version), Jim Duggan, Hulk Hogan and more. They were all involved in the bout, and then there was Douglas. Dunno, it just feels like he belongs to a different era than this one, but the future ECW man got a respectable 26 minutes in the match without eliminating anybody before Nasty Boys member Brian Knobbs chucked him out.
It’s honestly so strange to look back on this knowing he’d reshape wrestling history by tossing down the NWA belt and ushering in a new era of Extreme Championship Wrestling just a few years later. In '91, Douglas wasn't a spitfire who wanted to revolutionise the industry - he was just a young hopeful struggling to connect with the WWF's casual fanbase, and he'd suffer a repeat of this fate in 1995.
Shane was only in the Rumble to make up the numbers, but somebody liked him enough backstage to put "26 mins" next to his name on the booking sheets. Douglas being sandwiched between Hawk and Randy Savage at #17 is like the answer to some obscure trivia question about Rumbles of yesteryear.