7 Times WWE Changed The Rules To The Royal Rumble Match

Back in 1990, The Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan cleared house during the Royal Rumble match so much so, that, there was an awkward moment where they both sort of just laid flat in the ring. Someone must have realized what a snoozefest the contest was becoming, for an entire minute early, Rick Rude was sent to the ring. Although the buzzer never went off, Rude still remained a legal participant.

In 2001, nearly every Rumble match entrant hit another with some kind of foreign object. Also in the same bout, Al Snow entered prematurely but wasn’t penalized.

In 2002, the number of weapons was toned down, but hitting someone with a chair was still fair game.

Yet somehow in 2008, Finlay managed to get disqualified from the Royal Rumble match.

Hornswoggle struggled with Mark Henry and things started looking grim for the resident leprechaun. To save the day, Finlay entered ahead of his designated number and began taking out the competition with his signature shillelagh. Both he and Hornswoggle slid under the ropes and exited the match, but later, Finlay was disqualified. At first it was because he used a foreign object in the match, and later it was because he entered the match too early.

It seemed as though DQ was applied this one time to help wrap up loose ends, only the Irishman had no other importance in the Rumble match and there was never an explanation as to what happened to Hornswoggle.