8 Times The Wrong Wrestler Won The Royal Rumble

4. Stone Cold Steve Austin (1997)

Stone Cold Steve Austin Royal Rumble 1997
WWE.com

Another year, another controversial Rumble match, and another messy finish that led to a convoluted road to WrestleMania. Stone Cold Steve Austin won his first Royal Rumble match in 1997, although he did so after being eliminated from the match. Austin was tossed out by Bret Hart but the referees didn't manage to see it, and thus Stone Cold was able to head back into the ring to pick up the win.

It was a somewhat creative finish, but if the company wasn't planning on going ahead with Austin challenging for the title at WrestleMania 13 then why give him the win here? Stone Cold could still easily have come back into the ring to toss Bret over, continuing the build to their inevitable battle at the Showcase of the Immortals.

Why did company officials wait an entire day to decide Austin's victory wasn't going to stand? You would assume that all high-ranking officials would be in the arena for one of the biggest shows of the year, so there is no reason why it couldn't have been overturned that night. Failing that, The Undertaker winning the Rumble clearly made the most sense.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.