Ranking All 30 WWE Royal Rumble Winners

23. Alberto Del Rio – 2011

steve austin 2001 royal rumble
WWE.com

WrestleMania title shot: Lost to Edge at WrestleMania XXVII

You would think the winner of the biggest Royal Rumble match in history – as WWE likes to bill the only 40-man Rumble ever – would have been treated as a big deal. But for Alberto Del Rio, his victory serves more as a footnote in WWE history.

Del Rio entered at #38 and would win the Rumble after overcoming a last-minute surprise attack from Santino Marella of all people. If you go back in history, Marella is by far the most lackluster runner-up ever, which made Del Rio’s victory pretty anti-climactic. He would go on to lose at WrestleMania to World Heavyweight Champion Edge.

Edge would then retire a week later and his best friend Christian would defeat Del Rio in a ladder match for the title a month later. Del Rio’s destiny would have to wait, and the wind would effectively be taken out of his sails.

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.