I know I should have had the Royal Rumble Week: Day 7 thing up today, but I just didn’t have the time to finish what with, you know, the Royal Rumble being tonight. Don’t fret, I’ll have it up sometime Monday night.
In the meantime, please enjoy the best current WWE theme.
MVP was robbed, by the way.
Here’s a pointless little experiment. During the 2007 Rumble, they made a big deal about it being the most star-studded Rumble yet. That got me thinking about the different Rumble rosters and which one had the best pedigree to it. So I scoured each list and counted how many world champions it featured. I counted the top titles for WWF, WCW, both WWE titles, ECW, TNA and NWA.
88: 3
89: 6
90: 8
91: 6
92: 10
93: 7
94: 9
95: 4
96: 10
97: 10
98: 10
99: 9
00: 9
01: 12
02: 14
03: 17
04: 17
05: 13
06: 14
07: 17
08: 13
Hm. Well, I guess they were onto something after all. Speaking of that match…
7) Royal Rumble 2007
“Everyone back in the pile!”
“DEY TUK OUR JEORBS!”
“DE TUKRJRBS!!”
My apologies for the slight lateness. I blame sickness and temporary lack of internet connection.
If I were to come up with a list of the best use of the Royal Rumble in a videogame, it wouldn’t even be fair. We all know that WWF Wrestlefest would be #1. That’s as good excuse to post these gifs I made. Feel free to use them as avatars on your favorite message board.
Damn. 5 of those guys are dead.
I do recall having fun in WWE Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain and the way they used the Royal Rumble in career mode. They base it on the Rock/Big Show feud so that whoever you eliminate last has proof that your feet have touched the floor and that he deserves the Wrestlemania title shot. This leads to a match at No Way Out where you wrestle for the title shot. I remember fixing it up so that D-Von Dudley was my last victim, leading to an incredibly easy No Way Out match.
Then again, neither of the two main Dudleys have been in the Royal Rumble. Maybe I’m selling him short.
Let’s get to the top ten. So far the Rumble matches have been from okay to pretty good. The following ten are very much awesome. They’re just in different degrees of awesome.
As a goof, I was initially going to keep track of how many times the commentators bring up how the Royal Rumble is “every man for yourself”. That lasted about ten minutes. When you see D’Lo Brown attacking Rikishi and the commentators say it’s because it’s every man for himself, you have to realize you might as well be marking down every punch.
13) Royal Rumble 2006
I bet there are so many confused non-wrestling fans visiting 4th Letter right now.
The set-up: Vince McMahon had been getting on Shawn Michaels’ case for a while for little reason, going so far as to say that he has no chance at winning the Royal Rumble. Meanwhile, the WWE was still reeling from the death of Eddie Guerrero, prompting his friend Rey Mysterio to dedicate the match to him. Other than that… nothing.
The other night on Monday Night Raw, they started showing a video reel about all the statistics in the Royal Rumble. Most eliminations in total, most eliminations in one Rumble, longest time in the ring, shortest time in the ring, etc. It’s funny how they sidestep some of the information. Like how they say that as many people have won after drawing #1 as those who have drawn #30. They show Michaels, Undertaker and John Cena but seem to ignore a certain murderer. Heh…
They also don’t talk about who’s been in the most Rumble matches. Why? Because Kane has the record and including him on the list would likely bring attention to his old gimmicks of Isaac Yankem and Fake Diesel.
Now back to the list, starting with what I feel isn’t going to be a popular choice.
16) Royal Rumble 2000
I don’t know what strikes me as stranger. Undertaker being on there despite having nothing to do with the show or Big Boss Man being featured along with all those main eventers.
You may have noticed that there are 22 spots on this list and – at the time of this writing – 21 Royal Rumble shows. That’s because there was an extra Rumble match that was so good that I couldn’t help but include it.
I was going to include the Corporate Royal Rumble for the hell of it, but that would have been #23 and that would’ve been pointless. There was a Royal Rumble match in ECW back in late 1996 that I remember, but unfortunately I’m unable to track down footage of it for my rewatching pleasure. The same could be said for a Rumble match they had on WCW Nitro years back, but that one was an epic failure. I recall intervals of about 30 seconds with order that didn’t come close to looking random.
Back to the list.
19) Royal Rumble 1993
Heh. Ultimate Warrior and Nailz were long gone by the time this show happened. Kamala wasn’t at the show either.
I’m going to go in a different direction for the next week.
Since I was a kid, long before I even got into comics in the first place, I was into professional wrestling. The flashiness, the controlled violence, the good vs. evil and so on caught my eye. As I got older, I grew to appreciate more about it. I was able to tell that, wow, the Ultimate Warrior wasn’t very good and that someone like Tito Santana or Ted Dibiase was more worth my time. Even at its worst over the years, I’ve still followed it on some level. They always have at least a couple things worth watching for.
I started watching in early 1991. I remember this because on the episode of WWF Superstars, they kept going over the upcoming Royal Rumble pay-per-view. I ended up ordering the show and having a bunch of friends over to watch it. I was hooked. Fast-forward to the present. It’s a week away from the 2009 Royal Rumble and I have in my collection the ridiculous 20-disc set of the first 20 shows, as well as the DVD for last year’s event.
I’ve decided to rank them. Why? Because that set was fucking expensive and I want to get as much mileage out of it as I can. Even at its worst, it’s always a fun match and tends to be as unpredictable as you can get.
The rules of the Royal Rumble are simple. Thirty men draw a number from #1 to #30. The men who drew #1 and #2 enter first. Every minute or two later, another guy comes out. The way to eliminate someone else is to throw them over the top rope so that both feet hit the floor. The last man standing is considered the winner. In the early days, the winner would get bragging rights. Later, the winner would get a guaranteed title shot at Wrestlemania. And of course, there was the one time where the match itself was for the championship.
I’m only counting the Rumble matches themselves here, not the shows. Nobody cares about the Hogan/Andre contract signing or Razor Ramon vs. IRS.
Between enduring the holidays and following it up with Ultimatum Edit, I’ve been a bit exhausted. That’s why I haven’t been doing any updates. Luckily, hermanos has been doing well enough. Esther too, though hermanos has to overshadow her posts with comments that are twice as long. Jerk.
Oh, hey! The new What If issues came out over the past month. Not a great batch this year, but there were two really good issues in there. One is What If: Newer Fantastic Four, which is a sequel to the Mike Wieringo tribute, also featuring the Mini-Marvels conclusion to World War Hulk. Even better is the issue that came out last week, based on Doctor Doom holding onto the Beyonder’s power from Secret Wars. Beautiful art and a perfect ending.
When I finish the We Care a Lot series, I think I’m going to redo the Top 100 What If Countdown. Enough has come out since then to justify it.
We Care a Lot is on a slight hiatus. Nothing too drastic. After all, I need to get my installment about Hybrid up for Black History Month. It’s just that I’ve been spending the past week or so getting ready for another series of articles.
You see, hermanos just did his whole rap countdown. It wasn’t comic-related. So if he’s doing his series of non-comic countdown articles, then damn it, so will I!
It’s coming.
One last thing, I’m going to be checking out all three days of New York Comic Con. Which of yous guys can I expect to see there?
This has been a rather bad week for me, especially on the writing front. I haven’t been able to post much due to a variety of things, but one of them is that I’m writing like 50 projects at once. A new Deadshot’s Tophat installment, a thing on Booster Gold, a thing on Two-Face, a new Ruin the Moment compilation, another compilation of CHIKARA covers based on comics, something on Dark Knight and a bunch of other things I won’t mention in fear of being incriminated when I don’t get around to finishing them.
When my indecision was driving me absolutely cross-eyed, CHIKARA’s own Tim Donst showed up to slap some sense into me. He was interested in an interview. God bless him.
Now, you may be saying, “Say, didn’t you interview Tim Donst already?” Well, yes and no. Months back, I tried, but young Timothy was in a rather unique situation. Due to a knock on the head and some brainwashing, Tim had become a member of UltraMantis Black’s sinister group, the Order of the Neo-Solar Temple. That worked out in regards to how the abbreviation “ONST” makes up most of his name, but it kind of soured my interview. Rather than getting any real answers, I just had UltraMantis Black answering on Tim’s behalf. The scoundrel.
Ah! But it was merely a ruse. Tim Donst wasn’t brainwashed after all. He was just a spy, working to gain UltraMantis’ trust and exploit it for information. With his work done, he escaped the Order’s clutches unscathed and went back to his patriotic and wholesome ways.
Only, while a member of the Order, Tim struck up a bizarre friendship with Hydra, the Starscream/Beast Man to UltraMantis’ Megatron/Skeletor. The two of them acquired the three consecutive wins necessary to garner a title shot against the tag champs. But after the truth about Tim’s behavior was revealed, UltraMantis was less than pleased.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Hydra to turn against UltraMantis and form a level of BFFitude between an American icon and a sea creature unseen since Captain America and Namor! In fact, all we need is Fire Ant and we have the CHIKARA version of the Invaders!
On to the interview!
Today I went to yet another CHIKARA show. When all the fun was over, I walked outside to find an ice cream truck. Since it was hot as hell in the arena, I indulged in a vanilla cone with sprinkles. As I’m enjoying it, I find wrestler Vin Gerard just lounging around by the entrance.
Gerard’s story is this: he used to be Equinox, a masked luchador with sloppy high-flying skills that hung around the undercard until being unmasked. He was exposed as being Vin Gerard, a drop-out of the CHIKARA Wrestlefactory who decided to sneak onto the roster by pretending to be a Mexican export. He was ostracized by his peers and fell down a downward spiral of anger and black eyeshadow. Basically, he’s emo.
The thing is, he uses this twist to give what may be one of the most genius pieces of wrestling merchandise I have ever seen. Sometimes wrestlers will give you a signed 8-by-10 of themselves for a couple bucks. Not Vin. No, for a couple bucks, you get a H8-by-10. He will sign a picture of himself, make it out to you and list just why he hates you.
I couldn’t pass this up and paid him with my free hand. By this point, the sun has already melted my ice cream to the point that it’s covered my hand and is dripping on the sidewalk. Ergo…
What a guy.
And on another note, during intermission, me and CHIKARA newcomer Steve “The Turtle” Weiner (whose theme is that awful/awesome song from the TMNT Coming Out of Our Shells Tour) did a happening duet of one of Coach Z’s greatest hits. Truly, this man is my kindred spirit.
