Royal Rumble is one of the most iconic concepts that has ever been tabled. Since 1988, WWE has been organizing Royal Rumble in the form of a pay per view and the biggest attraction of the show is definitely the Rumble match with 30 wrestlers fighting for one price, the main event of WrestleMania.
This year, WWE will be hosting the 38th annual Royal Rumble event with two Rumble matches; one for men and the other one for women. Despite being one of the fan favorite gimmick match types, not every year WWE could produce the best Rumble matches. In this story, we will be looking at the worst 5 Rumble matches in the history.
Top 5 Worst Royal Rumble Matches of All Time
Check out the top 5 Best Royal Rumble matches here
V) 1999 – Despite being an Attitude Era Rumble, 1999 Rumble match is one of the worst for sure, and that is for several different reasons. Firstly, there was not enough star power apart from Steve Austin, Kane, and Triple H. Of course there was Edge, but he was only a mid card back then. It was a complete mid card filled Rumble match.
Plus, the match did not focus on anything else rather than Steve Austin’s story, and even if Austin would have gone on to win the Rumble match, it may not be considered one of the worst, but the match was won by Vince McMahon. Dedicated wrestlers like Chris Jericho and Kane could never win a Rumble match, but Vince McMahon here decided to take this achievement listed by his name, which is not forgivable at all.
IV) 1995 – WWE was on their lowest point during this period of time and this Rumble match was a great example of the recession the promotion went through in 1994 and 1995. This was the shortest Rumble match in the history as it did not even last for 40 minutes.
The lineup for the match was also the worst in the history. Present fans can’t even recognize half of the names that participated in this match. There were names like Eli Blu, Jimmy Del Rey, Sione, Tom Prichard, Timothy Well, Jacob Blu, Aldo Montoya… alright, it should stop here. What, you don’t recognize them? Yeah, me neither.
Hulk Hogan was the first wrestler to win multiple and back to back Royal Rumble matches
The match is remembered for only one big thing that this Rumble did well; Shawn Micahels became the first ever wrestler to enter a Royal Rumble match by entering no. 1 which went on to history books, and the rest of the match… let’s not talk about it.
III) 2014 – On paper, the match was really not that bad. It had some great moments like Roman Reigns beating Kane’s record of highest elimination. But Batista being a part timer winning the Rumble was a terrible decision and the fans were not ready to accept it at all. Plus, the fan favorite Daniel Bryan did not even participate in the Rumble, which also angered the fans.
II) 2015 – A lot of fans and pundits still consider it the worst Rumble match in the history, and there are loads of reasons for it. Vince McMahon forcing Roman Reigns into the throats of the fans was absolutely unacceptable at that time.
Just because Vince did not want to compromise with Roman’s fan reaction, he decided to have Daniel Bryan eliminated early. But the fans booed Roman from the very first minute as it was totally clear that Roman was winning. Presenting Big Show and Kane as unstoppable was not well accepted by the fans either since both of them were pretty much out of their prime.
By the end of this match, the fans in the arena were so angry that they even booed The Rock who came in support of Roman Reigns. But Vince did not learn his lesion even after the failure of Roman to connect with the fans, he continuously pushed Roman as the face of WWE. Thankfully, Roman’s heel turn in 2020 and the Tribal Chief gimmick saved his career.
Shawn Michaels was the first wrestler to win a Royal Rumble being the no. 1 entry
Honorable Mention – There are more terrible Rumble matches that just missed the list. 2011 was the only Rumble to feature 40 man but it was a quite a bad Rumble match. 2013 was also really bad for various reasons. 2021 was a weak Royal Rumble too, Edge did not really need that success when his main goal was just to put over Roman Reigns.
I) 2022 – Yes, we are considering the men’s Royal Rumble match of 2022 the worst Rumble match ever, even worse than Rumble 2015. Can you imagine Bad Bunny wrestling in the top 5 of a Rumble match? And a 53 year old Shane McMahon in the top 3? This match did this abnormal unthinkable thing real.
The worst thing about this match, Brock Lesnar entered the Rumble match no. 30 and it took him only 2:32 minutes to win the match. He absolutely buried everyone who were in front of him, even Drew McIntyre. He even buried everyone at Elimination Chamber, and everything was just to job to Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 38.
This is really difficult to imagine how much Vince McMahon over pushed and overrated Roman Reigns. Despite Roman did a great job in his long title reign, the over pushing in this time was abnormal.
