Ranking EVERY WWE Royal Rumble Match - From Worst To Best

18. 2018 Men's

WWE Royal Rumble 2018 Shinsuke Nakamura Roman Reigns
WWE

Admit it, you saw "2018 Royal Rumble" and Shinsuke Nakamura's violin riff immediately started repeating in your head! That's fine. A capacity crowd in Philadelphia was right there with you. Those people were singing that lick over and over and over and over and... well, you get the point. Shinsuke winning the men's Rumble went down well.

The rest of the match raced along neatly, too.

The Hurricane was a nice legendary cameo, but he lasted all of 45 seconds before being dumped out by John Cena. Eventual victor Nakamura avenged everyone's favourite bogus superhero by tossing Super Cena out of the match. Shin would also eliminate Sami Zayn (who was replacing Tye Dillinger following an angle backstage) and none other than Roman Reigns en route to his landmark win.

Comeback king Rey Mysterio marked his surprise return by staging a superior masked invasion. It was legit great to see Rey-Rey back in WWE and looking healthier than he had in years.

Admittedly, the closing stretch of entries sagged a little. Goldust and Dolph Ziggler felt a little mediocre as numbers 29 and 30. That couldn't kill off Shinsuke's wave of momentum, though, or the live audience's zest for seeing him arrive as a main eventer. As it turned out, this would be Naka's apex on WWE's main roster. Hardly a bad apex, right enough.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks/Saints, Jamie Hayter, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.