Ranking EVERY WWE Royal Rumble Pay-Per-View From Worst To Best

30. 1988

Royal Rumble
WWE.com

The Good: There had to be a first edition of the show, but it didn't exactly race out of the blocks. A contract signing between Hulk Hogan and Andre The Giant and a superb Jumping Bomb Angels/Glamour Girls tag team encounter were the only things worthy of the elevated status, but WWE's free TV experiment was successful - NWA's competing pay-per-view Bunkhouse Stampede fell short with something almost as good offered for free.

The Bad: The Rumble itself wasn't much to much, nor was the bulk of the card either side of the 20-man proving ground for the future January classic. Like a lot of supershows from the era, what it lacks in quality it just about makes up for in nostalgic charm.

The Ugly: The inaugural televised Royal Rumble (it didn't debut on pay-per-view until 1989) will always be an invention rooted in competitive cynicism, but the brave undertaking alone was legitimately impressive.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett