12 Wrestlers Who Had ABSOLUTELY NO BUSINESS Being In WWE Royal Rumble

4. Dick Murdoch (1995)

Dick Murdoch
WWE

Dick Murdoch was a hugely well known wrestler if not a hugely well known WWE Superstar when he appeared as an out-of-time outlier in the most New Generation-heavy Royal Rumble of all time in 1995.

The market leader could barely lay claim to leading the market at the time, and if it did, the victory was pyrrhic thanks to the commercial state of North American wrestling writ large. With a lack of funds and interest came a profound lack of full-timers for the annual battle royal. Vince McMahon's solution was to shave the intervals down to a minute and put Shawn Michaels and Davey Boy Smith out there for the duration. With only select exceptions, this allowed for nearly all of the remaining 28 to not really matter that much, instead filling time battling with the two iron men and each other before taking tumbles in short order.

For that purpose, Murdoch was as available as anybody else, but men of his ilk weren't too far from getting less and less bookings as even pro wrestling caught up with pop culture in the 1990s. "His ilk" in this case? Being hate-filled and racist, and - per multiple wrestler accounts - a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Alas, wrestling was still mostly just wrestling in more barren times, and he took a break from his spots in NWA Dallas and IWA and WAR in Japan for this and a few select TV taping spots in Stamford.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 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. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, 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