8 New Records Set At WWE Royal Rumble 2023

6. Longest Run For #30 Winner

WWE Royal Rumble 2023 Cody Rhodes
WWE.com

Previous Record: 13:15, Undertaker, 2007 New Record: 15:08, Cody Rhodes, 2023

A person who enters the Royal Rumble at the #30 spot has the theoretical shortest path to victory, needing to only outlast the other superstars remaining who entered before him/her.

Five men have entered the Rumble last and gone on to win, but not all of them have had a quick and painless route to punching their ticket to WrestleMania. In 2007, Undertaker had to endure more than 13 minutes to finally win his first Rumble, with much of that including a mini-match against Shawn Michaels.

We ran that back a bit on Saturday when Cody Rhodes entered last and took more than 15 minutes to finally eliminate Gunther to earn his WrestleMania world title shot. It was a dramatic battle that saw the Intercontinental Champion chop Rhodes’ surgically repaired chest raw but still was unable to toss the American Nightmare.

Honestly, this is a nice touch that makes it feel like Rhodes earned his win rather than just lucking out by drawing #30, unlike Brock Lesnar, who won from #30 last year in just 2:32.

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.