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The 411 Wrestling Top 5 1.18.12: Week 157 – The Worst Royal Rumble Matches

January 18, 2012 | Posted by Larry Csonka

Hello everyone and welcome to 411 Wrestling’s Top 5 List. What we are going to is take a topic each week and all the writers here on 411 wrestling will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic, plus up to three honorable mentions. Most of our topics will be based on recent events in the Wrestling World, looking at those events that make us think of times past.

So, on to this week’s topic…

TOP 5 WORST ROYAL RUMBLE MATCHES

TJ Hawke
HMDawn Marie vs. Torrie Wilson from 2003: Two of the worse wrestling Divas had a match. It was bad.
HMRon Simmons vs. Ahmed Johnson from 1997: This a random match, but I will always remember watching it and being bored out of my mind
HMRumble Match from 1996: This was one of those rumbles where so many people were left after the last man entered, that the match felt much more like a battle royal. And battle royals are terrible.

5. Kurt Angle vs. Mark Henry from 2006 – Mark Henry found some magic in 2011, but he is responsible for what is probably Kurt Angle’s worst WWE PPV match after 1999. On top of that, it was booked as the main event when John Cena and Edge were in a hot angle and Rey Mysterio was about to win the Royal Rumble in honor of Eddie Guerrero. Bad match and bad booking is enough to get a spot here from me.

4. Bobby Lashley vs. Test from 2007 – Neither of these men were as bad on ECW as most people probably remember them, but the idea that these two were supposed to represent ECW on PPV was a terrible idea. They had a terrible match, and they were clogging up the C Show’s main event scene that should have been occupied by upstarts like CM Punk, Elijah Burke, etc.

3. Undertaker vs. Yokozuna from 1994 – Casket matches are just the worst. I can’t stand them. I’m sure someone is capable of doing it well (HBK/Taker was pretty good in spite of the casket), but most of them suck. This is one of the casket matches that sucked. Not to mention all the urn goofiness at the end, and this match leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

2. Rumble Match from 1999 – Besides Austin, the final four were D’Lo Brown, Bossman & Vince McMahon. Need I say more? Ok, fine it was one of the more boring rumbles and Vince McMahon won it. McMahon booked himself to win the Rumble, and then switched it later and Austin got the Wrestlemania title shot anyway. I hate the idea of the winner of the Rumble match not getting the Mania title shot. It’s the one gimmick that WWE has had for a long time, and any damage against done against the gimmick is a terrible idea.

1. Triple H vs. Scott Steiner from 2003 – This was probably one of the worst World Title matches in the WWE during the 2000’s and it completely killed Steiner as a potential main eventer. Whatever magic Hunter had before the first quad tear was completely gone by this point, because I can’t believe how bad this match was. This match is so bad that it’s actually worth checking out.


Wes Kirk
HMVince McMahon vs. Ric Flair, RR 2002: Flair was definitely not ready to return and this showed it.
HMMichelle McCool vs. Mickie James, RR 2010: This should have been the end of the feud, but it wasn’t!
HMBrock Lesnar vs. Hardcore Holly, RR 2004: Proof positive Holly should never have gotten a title shot, EVER.

5. Yokozuna vs. Undertaker, RR 1994 – This was the infamous match in which the Undertaker ended up losing to the over six-hundred pound Yokozuna thanks to the assistance of ten guys helping to dump him in a casket to close the lid and win the match. Of course, what also happened was that Undertaker mysteriously appeared on the TitanTron and spoke about how his spirit dwells within the souls of all mankind and then the casket seemed to release smoke and Undertaker vowed he wouldn’t rest in peace as it was revealed he was not in the casket. Just nothing we couldn’t have seen on RAW as an acceptable TV match.

4. Dawn Marie vs. Torrie Wilson, RR 2003 – This was the so-called “stepmother vs. stepdaughter” match as Dawn had married Torrie’s father Al and supposedly killed him due to her insatiable sex drive. This horrid atrocity of a storyline was only saved a bit from Torrie and Dawn’s kiss one single time, but this match made everybody remember why they hated it. Neither girl was known for her wrestling skills and it showed, this was just like one of the RAW Diva matches these days except they gave it too much time and it was on PPV.

3. Bobby Lashley vs. Test, RR 2007 – ECW was always a pile of disgusting garbage whether it was promoted by ol’ Paul “Check In The Mail” Heyman or as a C-show for the WWE. After a disastrous PPV the month before that set the lowest buyrate in WWE history, ECW decided the best way to overcome the bad press was to put these two guys in the ring for a singles match at the Royal Rumble. Needless to say, things were absolutely awful and this match ended up confirming that ECW was headed for a final death soon, which it did a bit over three years later.

2. John Cena vs. JBL, Royal Rumble 2009 – This was basically absolute shit and the only reason it was saved at all was the fact Shawn Michaels was involved in a storyline with JBL as far as losing all his money in the 2008 financial crisis and requiring JBL’s help to get back on his feet. The match itself was boring and absolutely horrid except for the part where HBK Superkicked JBL and Cena, leaving JBL on top of Cena but of course, Cena kicked out. Cena would hit the AA for the predictable pinfall and HBK would go on to a much better feud later with Chris Jericho.

1. Triple H vs. Scott Steiner, RR 2003 – A lot of people like to go after Scott Steiner as being the main culprit for why this match sucked so badly, but the truth of the matter is the blame goes equally on both men. Steiner had been sitting out since WCW was purchased and came back as a face to fight against HHH and hopefully finally dethrone him. The fans turned against Steiner, Hunter ended up needing the sledgehammer shot to get a disqualification, and all of us watching that night just hoped the Royal Rumble match itself made up for the abortion we just witnessed. It didn’t.


SCOTT RUTHEFORD
HMIntercontinental Title: Razor Ramon vs. Golddust – ‘96: What do you get when you have Dustin Rhodes fondling himself and Scott Hall?
HMBam Bam Bigelow vs. The Big Bossman – ‘93: Two fat wrestlers, past their prime and in no mood to work. FEEL THE BOREDOM!
HMCruiserweight Championship: Rey Mysterio vs. Jamie Noble – 2004 : Take one of the greatest wrestlers of the past 15 years, give him an insanely good opponent and then give them 3 minutes…WTF?

5. Royal Rumble Match – ‘99 – Believe it or not I have no problem with Vince McMahon winning this because he won by total fluke of circumstance and it lead to his match at the next PPV with Steve Austin. What I hate was that the whole Vince/Austin storyline completely dominated the whole match rendering the rest of it essentially useless. We spent large amounts of time away from the rumble itself as most of the action with Austin was done backstage which must have been thrilling for the guys in the ring because they crowd would have been watching the video screens rather than them. Taking place during 1999 and being booked by Russo meant you have a billion storylines to help to a Rumble story but they went largely untouched. They prevailing wisdom is that the Royal Rumble match itself is really hard to fuck up. In 1999 they managed to do the near impossible.

4. WWE Women’s Title: Ivory (w/Steven Richards) vs. Chyna – 2001 – The match itself is meh and was a total squash but the angle that came from this earns my disgust. Not so much the angle even but how the WWF instructed everyone to act. Having Chyna go down was fine but then having everyone go the sombre route and pretend like she was near death in the same tone as when Own Hart died at Over The Edge in 1999…it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The stupidest thing about this whole mess is that it was all to build heat for and Ivory/Chyna match at WM17 but Chyna hurt herself so no heat to put on Ivory for this. All she did was pin a hurt opponent and then leave. If she had taken a chair and whacked Chyna in the back 10 times with it to earn a DQ defeat and further hurt her opponent…that would have been good.

3. WWF Tag Team Titles: New Age Outlaws vs. the Legion of Doom – ‘98 – L.O.D’s run of credibility ended with a thud this night. Already going down a very slippery slop, this match brutally showed that time hadn’t just blown them by but had left them eating its dust. The magic was gone. This match is fascinating to watch as you known that Hawk & Animal have likely be told to put the NOA over hard but the no-sell instinct of these two when they are made to do something they don’t like is never far away. The champs went over but were never made to look any good. Everything changed after this as LOD were repackaged with Sunny and Droz not long after and were gone from the WWF by years end after Hawk and his demons turned them into locker room punch lines.

2. Fuerza Guerrera, Heavy Metal & Jerry Estrada vs. Perro Aguayo, El Canek & Hector Garza – ‘97 – So Vince wants to run a ‘Dome show and sell that bad boy out at a time when the WWF couldn’t draw flies to crap and their future was less than assured. So he puts Shawn Michaels in the main event and brings in some Lucha dudes to appeal to the Mexican fans. Okay except that most of the Lucha’s in this match are older than time itself. I have no idea if they ever draw a single fan to the arena but they managed to put on one of the all time horrible Royal Rumble undercard matches. Slow, boring and don’t bother asking these guys to bump because they will not. At all. To be fair Garxa and Heavy Metal tried but ultimately the lack of ability from the other four made this the drizzling shits.

1. WWF Title Casket Match: Yokozuna vs. The Undertaker – ‘94 – Anyone that thinks there was any one worse match than this at a Royal Rumble has got to be kidding themselves. People talk today about Super Cena and how terrible it is, let me present to you Super ‘Taker! It took the interference of NINE WRESTLERS…count it NINE WRESTLERS to get UT so badly incapacitated so they could load him into a casket. Then we get into the goofiness of his soul rising from the casket and his promo from INSIDE the casket itself. OH. MY. GOD. Anyone that calls today’s booking shitty needs to go back and have a look at this jewel in the crown of rubbish.


Robert S. Leighty Jr
HMECW Title: Bobby Lashley (c) vs. Test: Bad match with a horrible ending but WWE never really cared about ECW Title so in grand scheme of things not as historically atrocious as my top 5.

HMWWF Woman’s Title: Ivory (c) vs. Chyna: Mainly for the stupid angle finish of Chyna apparently getting paralyzed from doing a hand spring elbow that even Snooki pulled off with relative ease.

HMFuerza Guerrera, Heavy Metal, Jerry Estrada vs. Perro Aguayo, El Canek, and Hector Garza: WWF was in such a bad place at start of 97 that they had to pad the Rumble with stars from AAA and in this case tried to capitalize off WCW’s cruiserweight success and what we got was the opposite of WCW’s division: namely, fucking boring.

5. WWE Title: Sheamus (c) vs. Randy Orton – Sheamus was pushed to the WWE Title a PPV earlier, and then booked against a still heel Orton at the Rumble. The problem was that Sheamus wasn’t ready for this spot and he sure wasn’t on Orton’s level. That left us the fans to suffer through a heatless match that bored most people to tears and did nothing at all for the new champion.

4. The 1999 Royal Rumble – The worst Rumble in history as the winner and runner-up entered at #1 and #2 and then spent the majority of the match doing nothing. I understand that this Rumble was all about the story telling, but still doesn’t mean the actual match didn’t suck. With Vince and Austin being the main draw and neither really being involved everything in between the start and end was boring and just padding for a bad match.

3. World Title: Kurt Angle (c) vs. Mark Henry – This makes the list because they opted to close the PPV with this match instead of the Rumble (which I never like) and only reason was so Undertaker could return and destroy the ring with his mystic powers. Now I do think the current kick ass Mark Henry could do much better in this position against Angle, but he just wasn’t ready back then.

2. Casket Match: WWF Title: Yokozuna (c) vs. The Undertaker – The match itself was all kinds of awful but it’s the stuff after the match that left people wondering what drugs those in power in the WWF at the time were using. It took a small army for Yoko to get Taker in the casket then we get a live feed from inside the casket as Taker offers his last words before ascending to the heavens. Just brutal but in kind of a funny way even if it wasn’t intended that way.

1. World Title: HHH (c) vs. Scott Steiner – Steiner came into the WWF with a great buzz and off a dominant heel run in WCW that kicked all kinds of ass even if the promotion was dying. Sadly he didn’t show up in the WWE in the best shape cardio wise and he turned in this dog of a match with HHH. The crowd shit all over this as Steiner was sucking gas and could do nothing but throw suplexes. The man couldn’t even do his push-up properly without sucking the oxygen out of the lungs of those in the first 3 rows. The bullshit ending also didn’t help things and what you had was a horrible match that was the perfect juxtaposition to the fantastic WWE Title match between Angle and Benoit.


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Larry Csonka