WWE Royal Rumble Debut Wrestlers: Where Are They Now?

The 1988 Royal Rumble took place less than two years into Jake "The Snake" Roberts' notable WWE run. He had already developed a reputation as one of the company's best talkers, and entered the inaugural Rumble as a babyface. Roberts was considered one of the early favourites, and the fans' choice to win, but while Jake was able to eliminate Butch Reed and Boris Zhukov in his 22-minute run, he was eventually thrown out by the One Man Gang.

Few wrestlers have had a more eventful life than Jake. He left WWE for WCW in 1992 but never really got off the ground there, and eventually returned to help jump start WWE's Attitude Era by putting Steve Austin over in the 1996 King of the Ring finals. His old vices soon reared their ugly head again, however, and Jake was out of the company by spring 1997.

Jake's addictions worsened, and fans were genuinely worried for his life for a number of years. He became estranged from close friends and family, and endured decades of self-induced torment before eventually meeting Diamond Dallas Page in 2012. Now clean and sober, Jake has successfully turned his life around, and gives DDP full credit for saving him from himself.

Roberts' time with Page was documented in the critically-acclaimed Resurrection of Jake the Snake documentary in 2015, and his last WWE appearances came as cameos in 2014. He was inducted to the Hall of Fame that year, and stays active with regular spoken word tours across America.