8 Times Wrestlers Eliminated Themselves From The Royal Rumble

8. Andre The Giant - 1989

Andre The Giant
WWE.com

Way back in 1989, the idea that the biggest men in the match were the favourites was still widely believed. The battle royal concept was still fairly fresh to new viewers, so it is understandable that they would see men like Andre the Giant, Earthquake and Akeem and wonder just how anyone would be able to get these behemoths up and over the top rope. The early years of the Royal Rumble was a time when big men were legitimate threats to win, as opposed to a running joke.

Jake 'The Snake' Roberts came up with a fairly novel way of eliminating Andre the Giant in 1989 however; get the big man to eliminate himself. At the second ever Royal Rumble, Andre became the first man to eliminate himself from the match when Jake decided to bring his snake into the ring. Of course, the feud between the two was all about Andre's fear of snakes, so the Eighth Wonder of the World wasn't sticking around for anyone.

Jake had already been eliminated by Andre, but decided to come back for revenge. Andre saw the snake, hightailed it over the top rope and right to the back.

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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.