LogFAQs > #871664638

Royal Rumble 1993

I've been pretty vocal about hating this in the past, putting in the discussion of worst Rumble ever.

Well, on a rewatch, it turns out, I was wrong. Now don't get me wrong, this thing is still pretty bad. And you need only look at the order of guys coming out and the elimination list to get the gist of why.

In numbers 17-26, you've got the following entries: Damien Demento, Irwin R Schyster, Tatanka, Jerry Sags, Typhoon, Fatu, Earthquake, Carlos Colon, Tito Santana, Rick Martel. Now I like Martel, and I even said "Earthquake feels like a bigger deal than I remembered" but keep in mind that those thoughts were from 2-3 years ago when the guys were more relevant, and that even when they were more relevant they couldn't exactly carry a match like this alone.

Now that would be bad enough, but to lead into this string of jobbers, you have Undertaker clearing out the ring, then subsequently being eliminated by a guy who wasn't even in the match, the ridiculous Giant Gonzales (and the beatdown dragged). So you were basically seeing a bunch of jobbers brawl for like 20-25 minutes, with none of those jobbers having eliminated any stars to be here. It's really really hard to care, and it's towards the end, so it's the thing you're remembering most coming off watching it. Eventually you've got Savage vs Yoko to finish which is at least okay, but the wind is out of the sails.

Also the finish is ridiculous and makes Savage look like a total dumbass-- he knocks Yokozuna down, hits the Flying Elbow Drop, tries to PIN him, Yokozuna kicks out with such force it throws Macho right out of the ring.

But, in spite of this, there are things it does well. The first half an hour or so of this Rumble is actually pretty good. 1993 wasn't a total void of talent-- just most all the names worth caring about were in the first half. (or the undercard. double booking could've helped this Rumble a lot). There were also some cool moments after Giant Gonzales and Taker ruined everything. Like Earthquake has a faceoff with Yokozuna that's pretty fun, Savage vs Yoko is fairly exciting till the end, and a returning Bob Backlund, who drew #1, is unconscious outside during the ring clearing so he gets to continue his ironman run after the ring is wiped out. And at least the winner was fresh.

The undercard was actually pretty good. Bret vs Razor was fun (though internally I always remembered this as an IC title match-- Bret definitely shouldn't have had the WHC just yet) and Michaels vs Jannetty was actually really good. Probably my favorite match of their feud. (which, is going on 1 years and counting as of now, as we get the Barber Shop highlight package for the second Rumble in a row. I bet they've had a fraction of the matches of Sasha and Charlotte in spite of this.). Even the opening throwaway tag of the Steiners/Beverly Brothers was decent.

Bad Rumble, decent show.

Royal Rumble Ranking:
1992 > 1990 > 1989 > 1988 > 1993 > 1991

(You'll also note I moved 1989 up one. I feel like internally that's the one I'm comparing with when thinking "is this good or bad" rather than 1988, so that should probably be the neutral one. It's kinda splitting hairs either way though.)
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