Listing 5 wrestlers who should have won a Royal Rumble match

5. “Mr. Perfect” Curt Hennig (1990)

At the start of Curt Hennig’s second WWE stint, the promotion got a lot of things right with him. After hyping him up with numerous vignettes designed to get over his “Mr. Perfect” persona, Hennig went undefeated for over a year and would eventually enter a feud with world champion Hulk Hogan that included the moment where Hennig destroyed the WWF Championship belt at Saturday Night’s Main Event. He even got a televised win over Hogan, albeit via disqualification.

This culminated at the 1990 Royal Rumble in the titular match, where it came down to Hennig and Hogan. Apparently, WWE planned to keep Hennig’s momentum going with a win, but Vince McMahon changed his mind and went with Hogan as the winner instead.

It’s not hard to understand the possible rationale for giving Hogan the win; he was the world champ at the time and on a collision course with the Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania VI, so it made sense to build Hogan up as much as possible before he put over the next top babyface.

However, Hogan — the well-established face of the company — did not need the win as much as Hennig did. The Rumble win would’ve cemented “Mr. Perfect” as one of the top heels in the WWF at a time when the company desperately needed those. Instead, Hennig settled in as a dependable upper midcarder, winning the Intercontinental Championship twice.

Plus, it would’ve kept racist Terry from winning multiple Rumbles.