WWE Royal Rumble 2017: Ranking All 30 Match Winners
Who goes down as the greatest WWE Royal Rumble match winner ever?
The WWE Royal Rumble match is always one of the most anticipated parts of the year. It occurs in January, about 10 weeks before the upcoming WrestleMania event. The winner of this goes on to the Show of Shows to wrestle a World title match. This used to be a guaranteed main event spot in past years, until the brand split got announced in the summer of 2016.
Some of the greatest WWE stars of all time have won the Royal Rumble match, including Stone Cold Steve Austin, Ric Flair, John Cena, and the Rock. Some of their victories were historic, while others had unappealing fallout booking decisions.
Through 29 Royal Rumble matches, there have been 30 winners. Who ranks first? How about last? Which Superstars appear on here multiple times?
Credit: WWE.com
30. Roman Reigns – 2015
Roman Reigns winning the Royal Rumble in 2015 is still fresh in fan’s minds and likely will be for the next handful of years.
There isn’t a big issue here with Reigns being the overall winner because WWE was booking a young star into a main event role, something fans had looked for the company to do throughout the John Cena era. The problem is with everything else.
The road seemed clear for Reigns to win coming into the match. However, the booking of it may have been the worst of them all. He entered in the middle of the bout, which had already seen the Philadelphia crowd implode over Daniel Bryan being eliminated early. Then the Big Dog proceeded to get booed throughout for any little thing he did, until we got to the final four.
In one of the most anticlimactic moments in Royal Rumble history, Reigns stood in the ring with Big Show and Kane, two stars well past their prime, for the chance at headlining WrestleMania 31. He ended up tossing both men over the top rope, spearing Rusev, dumping him, and then celebrating as the audience gave potentially the most negative reaction you will hear anything on WWE programming receive.
Worst of all, WWE found a way to get the Rock booed when he made the save as Show and Kane beat down Reigns. Rusev got more cheers than these two, which should say something about how the fans felt.
It was one of the most poorly booked and bizarre Royal Rumble matches you will ever see. The only thing that slightly holds him up is the WrestleMania 31 match he had with Brock Lesnar.