7 Early DISASTERS From WWE In Saudi Arabia

7. A Star-Studded Rumble (Greatest Royal Rumble, 2018)

Greatest Royal Rumble Hiroki Sumo Mark Henry
WWE

WWE’s first venture into this strange partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia boasted of a WrestleMania-sized show, which really was only true in terms of the stage size and the amount of pyro they shot off throughout the course of the night. Otherwise, this was definitionally an Madison Square Garden-level house show.

However, the main attraction of the show was the eponymous match, a 50-man Royal Rumble. Nevermind that nearly everyone agrees that the 40-man Rumble in 2011 was overly long, dull and a failed experiment – the GREATEST Royal Rumble needed more bodies!

Despite having 50 men across Raw, SmackDown, NXT, legends and complete randos thrown in, there were only about three legit superstars who had any credibility in winning an actual Royal Rumble (at that point in 2018): Daniel Bryan, Randy Orton, and Braun Strowman (who won the match). The remainder was mid-carders, jobbers, and complete no-names (Dan Matha? Babatunde? Hiroki Sumi?) just filling out the field and taking up space.

Sumi is a bit of a curiosity, though given that the Saudi officials requested that WWE exhume Yokozuna for the show, it’s easy to see the throughline of the company bringing in a former sumo wrestler to enter the Royal Rumble.

Regardless, the Greatest Royal Rumble was almost never mentioned again. Its records were largely ignored when WWE would talk about the Rumble in January, and Braun’s green championship belt that he won was never seen on WWE television again.

Contributor
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.