Over the years, there have been many “gimmick match themed” PPVs in professional wrestling. Matches like Hell in a Cell, Money in the Bank, Scaffold Matche, Spin the Wheel make the Deal matches, Elimination Chambers, Barb Wire matches, the list goes on and on. One of the earliest gimmick matches used to sell PPV buy rates, one that is still going strong after over 20 years of annual contests, is the Royal Rumble. This is usually a very entertaining match, one with a lot of importance in regards to upcoming story lines. One of the best Rumbles ever, and arguably the first one that was “important,” was the one held in 1992.
Before the 1992 Rumble, the winner of the match basically only had bragging rights. Yeah, it was impressive to have won a Rumble match, but the winner didn’t get a reward. That all changed in 1992.
After a series of screwjob finishes, then WWF Champion Hulk Hogan was stripped of the title and it was declared that the winner of the Royal Rumble match would be declared the new WWF Champion.
The 1992 edition of the match had a fantastic line-up of talent, many of whom would be excellent champions. Former champion Hulk Hogan was in the match, as was The Undertaker, Ted Dibiase, Kerry Von Erich, Jake Roberts, Roddy Piper, Sgt. Slaughter, Shawn Michaels, newcomer Sid Justice, and the man who many felt was the favorite to win the match, “Nature Boy’ Ric Flair.
A lot was made at the time of the order of entry of the participants on the match. In the three previous Pay per View Editions of the match, the winner had always had a late number. Hulk Hogan had won the previous two matches, drawing entry number 24 and 25 out of 30. The year before, Big John Studd had won after entering at number 27. The first ever Rumble had been won by “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, who had drawn #13. however, that year, there were only 20 participants, unlike the 30 that were in subsequent years.
The first two entrants into the match were Davey Boy Smith and Ted Dibiase. Dibiase was almost immediately eliminated by Smith, who then stood in the middle of the ring and waited for his next challenger. The man who drew #3 was a shock to everyone: Ric Flair. Nobody with a number that low had ever before lasted to the end. It was assumed that while Flair would last for a while and have a strong showing, everyone felt that a wrestler with a much higher number would be the eventual winner. Many felt that Sid Justice was being groomed as the new Hulk Hogan, so with a later number into the match, justice was now the favorite to win the match.
What followed was one of Ric Flair’s greatest performances. Time and time again, Flair seemed to be on the brink of elimination, only to somehow find a way to avoid elimination. Each time it looked like Flair would be sent over the top, the crowd would start to buzz, and each time he would escape defeat.
As the match progressed, the Royal Rumble became more and more about Ric Flair. The match is always billed as “every man for himself,” yet as time went on, the only man people started to care about was Flair. he became the focal point of the match and seemingly everyone who was in the match wanted to be the one to take Flair out of the match. Eliminating Flair became almost as important as winning the WWF Championship.
Usually in Royal Rumble matches, there isn’t a lot of storytelling or ring psychology. it’s mostly a free for all with a lot of guys just hitting whoever is next to them. This particular year, a few competitors broke that tradition. Obviously, Flair had a masterpiece of a match. However, an often over-looked performance in this match is the one put on by Jake “The Snake” Roberts.
After almost 30 minutes of action, all of the wrestlers who had entered the match were eliminated with the exception of Flair. Battered and beaten, gasping for air, Flair kneeled in the middle of the ring, trying to get ready for whatever came next. In a great bit of match writing, the man to come down to challenge Flair was Roddy Piper, the man Flair had initially feuded with upon entering the WWF. The two men went back and forth until Piper caught Flair in his signature move, the sleeper hold.
With Flair fading fast and piper with the move locked in tight, jake Roberts entered the match. Sliding under the rope, Jake and Piper locked eyes. Jake motioned to piper to go about his business, and jake took a seat in the corner, letting the two men continue to battle. When Piper was convinced Roberts wasn’t going to interfere, Jake attacked Piper from behind, showing everyone why he was not to be trusted.
Roberts did another thing that is almost ever done in a Rumble match, but should be done by everyone. Whenever the buzzer went off signaling a new man entering the match, Jake would stop and look to the ramp to see who was entering. The story line reason for this was that Jake was involved in a heated feud with Randy Savage at the time, and Jake was waiting for Savage to enter. however, most wrestlers in the match were involved with some type of feud, but they never bother to see who is coming to the ring. it should be pretty standard psychology in this type of match, yet Jake Roberts is one of the only ones who has ever done it.
After almost an hour of action and 30 men having entered, with 26 of them being eliminated, only 4 men remained. Sid Justice, who entered at #29, Hulk Hogan, who was entrant #26, Randy Savage, the #21 man in the match and amazingly, against all odds, Ric Flair, who had been in the ring for almost an hour after being the #3 man in the match.
Sid quickly eliminated Savage, leaving him to face Hogan and Flair. Nobody who had drawn a number so low had ever won the match, so it looked as if Hogan would then dispatch Flair, and Hogan and Sid would have their much anticipated showdown, with the winner being crowned WWF Champion. Since Hogan had just been stripped of the title, and Sid was thought of as the “next Hogan” at the time, it looked like Sid was moments away from being crowned WWF Champion.
But it was not to be.
Hogan had tossed Flair over the top rope, but Flair hooked on to bottom rope and saved himself for elimination yet again. Hogan was putting the boots to Flair, seconds away from sending him to the floor and out. Sid, seeing this, ran over and pushed Hogan from behind, eliminating him and allowing Flair to roll back into the ring. A shocked Hogan looked on from the floor, as Sid informed him it was “every man for himself.” Hogan, in a display of horrible sportsmanship, grabbed a hold of Sid’s arm, allowing an exhausted Flair the opportunity to grab Sid from behind and throw him over the top.
Hulk Hogan ahd robbed the man he was seemingly on the verge of passing the torch to, while Ric Flair, the man who was synonymous with the WWF’s biggest rival, NWA/WCW, was the new WWF World Champion.
This was the Royal Rumble match that forever changed the event. It ws the first time the match ahd truly meant something, as Flair won the World Title when he won the match. From then on, the winner of the Royal Rumble match would get a World title shot at the upcoming Wrestlemania. It made the Rumble match important and it was often the start to several important angles in the year ahead.
it was also the first time somebody who had drawn such an early number had won the event. It proved that nobody could be counted out as the eventual winner, no matter when they entered the actual match.
There have been many Royal Rumble matches, with no sign of them ever ending. it has been a yearly tradition in the WWE for over 20 years. I expect it will go on for the next 20 as well. But in my mind, there has never been a better Royal Rumble match than the 1992 edition of the event.
