7 Things You Should Know About WWE Royal Rumble 1997

4. A Rookie Named Rocky Maivia Made His Royal Rumble Debut

Whenever a significant rookie makes a debut in a Rumble match it's an important thing just because we can look back at that time to see how much that guy has grown. Rocky Maivia debuted at Survivor Series two months earlier. He was the typical smiling babyface wrestler that the fans were supposed to love. Rocky entered the match at #25, eliminated nobody and lasted 13:01 in the match. Looking back on it, if they had such big plans for him they really should have had him eliminate a few people just to give him some credibility off the bat. The announcers tried to put him over right away, but he needed to do more than that. As we all know, this gimmick didn't really work for him. They figured it out later in the year and that's when he really started to take off as The Rock. It's pretty interesting that Mankind was the one that eliminated Rocky considering they went to have a massive rivalry including a vicious match at the Rumble PPV two years later.
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