Every WWE Royal Rumble Match - From Worst To Best

19. 1995

As a British (well, Welsh) nine-year old, this was one of the most heartbreaking moments of my burgeoning wrestling fandom. I would also pinpoint this as the exact moment Shawn Michaels died in my heart, despite his incredible performances in the second coming of his career. Michaels and the British Bulldog entered and #2 and #1 respectively and ran through the field to make the final two. The early Rumble days were all about novelty, and at the time this was seen as being genuinely impressive. Bulldog tossed Michaels over and seemingly won the match, even to the point where his music played as he celebrated on the turnbuckles. Setting a new precedent however, only one of Michaels' feet touched the floor. This allowed him to re-enter the match, knock Bulldog over the ropes and pick up the win. I was a very confused and depressed nine-year-old at this point. This moment aside, this Rumble was pretty poor generally. The time between entries was cut down to 60-seconds, giving the entire match a rushed feeling. As it was all about getting one and two to the very end, this make sense in hindsight.
Contributor
Contributor

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.