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.

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