Royal Rumble Preview

The Spotlight On The History of The Royal Rumble- 1988

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I can’t believe that we are less than one week away from the 2016 Royal Rumble which is actually the 25th anniversary of when I started to watch WWF Pay Per Views live.  The Royal Rumble 1991 was the first pay per view I remembered ordering at the ripe old age of just four years old.  From that moment the Royal Rumble has always been my favorite WWE pay per view and I’ve always enjoyed going back and watching all of the old Rumbles.  For me, a good rumble is the one match that any non wrestling can sit back and watch while being thoroughly entertained.

With us being just a little over one week away from the Royal Rumble, i thought it might be fun to take a look back through time and review a number of the different Royal Rumbles from years past, similar to what we did here on the site with the Survivor Series.  This is going to a unique perspective on the different shows in that I may talk about some moments or some matches but i’m mainly going to review each show as I remember watching them as a fan over time.  A number of these shows I attended live and so those will obviously be longer entries but I’ll try and offer you the best coverage of each Royal Rumble and hopefully get you excited for the big show on January 24th.  Without any further ado let’s kick this off with a look back at the Royal Rumble 1988, the inaugural edition of the show.

When looking back at the first Royal Rumble, it’s important to remember that this was just a television special.  WWF decided to put the rumble up against the NWA Bunkhouse Stampede pay per view with the idea that if people could get a free show on cable, they would prefer to watch that show over a show they had to pay for.  Thus, the Rumble was much less extravagant than it is today.  The television special was actually much more centered around a Hulk Hogan/ Andre The Giant rematch for Saturday Night’s Main Event a few weeks later than it was around the actual Rumble match.  Of course the Hogan/Andre rematch would be the infamous match in Andre won the title and sold it to The Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase, leading to the tournament for the title at Wrestlemania 4.

Photo Credit: What Culture

The other part of this Rumble that I always found funny was the weight lifting challenge in which Dino Bravo was attempting to break the bench press record at the time.  The challenge seemed to have gone on forever as they continued to add more weight piece by piece in 5-10 lb intervals.  Aside from that, the Royal Rumble wasn’t even the main event of the show.  Instead, it was placed in the middle of the show and a random 2 out of 3 falls match took place between the Islanders and the Young Stallions in the main event of the evening.  It was a largely forgettable main event as I couldn’t even tell you who won off the top of my head, just that it was much more about how the Islanders had stolen Matilda, the dog of the British Bulldogs, then the match itself.
Photo Credit: WWE Network
As for the Rumble match itself, the Rumble only had 20 participants as opposed to traditional 30.  The match was won by Hacksaw Jim Duggan who won…well, nothing because they hadn’t established the match being for a title shot at Wrestlemania yet.  Looking back and looking at the participants, I was surprised to see that Duggan was the guy chosen to win the match because there were bigger names in there like Jake Roberts and The Ultimate Warrior.  Speaking of Warrior, he would only last a little under 4 minutes in the match so this was very early on in his WWE tenure, perhaps before big plans were even thought of for him.  The iron man of the match, was Bret Hart who would go on to last over 25 minutes after drawing number one.
Image result for royal rumble 1988 hacksaw jim duggan
Photo Credit: Top Rope Press
In the end this was good to go back and watch this show for nostalgic purposes and to see how the Rumble got it’s start. When I was a kid, I was raised on the fact that the 1989 Royal Rumble event was the first one ever so I was actually a bit surprised to see this show on my Royal Rumble DVD Anthology when I purchased that in 2007.  Of course nowadays, the Rumble 1988 can be found in the on demand section of the WWE Network.
That’s going to do it for now but be sure to keep your eyes peeled as we continued to take a look back at Royal Rumbles past.

 

The Spotlight On The Week Ahead For WWE- 1/18-1/24

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It’s a new week and with that, another packed week for WWE.  Let’s get right into some of the highlights that you can expect to see and look forward to this week in World Wrestling Entertainment.

– Raw Invades Columbus- The week starts later on tonight as WWE Raw emanates live from Columbus, Ohio. This will be the final stop on the road to the 2016 Royal Rumble (other than Smackdown) and so it will likely be a stacked show designed to introduce a number of the competitors in the Rumble match itself, as there are only 13 superstars officially announced for the match according to WWE.com.  It’s been announced that Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman will appear on Chris Jericho’s Highlight Reel which should be interesting considering that both men are in this year’s Rumble.  I wouldn’t be shocked to see the McMahons further stack the odds against Roman Reigns, maybe make him the number one entrant in the Rumble?  Again only speculation.

–Legends With The Road Dogg- Following Monday Night Raw (the premier spot for new Network programming), the latest episode of Legends with JBL will air on the WWE Network featuring a sit down discussion with The Road Dogg.  If you haven’t seen the first couple episodes of the Legends series, I’ve felt that they were quite enjoyable, featuring discussions with Eric Bischoff about the Monday Night War and about the Undertaker with Triple H, Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels.  Like Austin, JBL does a good job of keeping the discussion light hearted enough to where the subject lets their guard down and so he’s able to ask some tough questions.  If you check out Legends let me know what you think.

–Total Divas Season 5- Total Divas returns to the E! Network tomorrow night for the premiere of Season 5.  There are some changes to the cast as Trinity (Naomi) is no longer a permanent cast member on the show and instead has been replaced by Rosa Mendes, who was a full time cast member for Season 3 but took off last season.  Her return to the show is likely due to her new relationship and progressions she’s made with that ( I don’t want to give away any spoilers if you don’t follow Mendes on twitter).  Also this season, former Tough Enough contestant Amanda Saccamano joins the cast of Total Divas as she begins training with WWE.  As always The Bellas, Eva Marie, Paige, Natalya and Alicia Fox will all be returning to the show.  Say what you will about Total Divas, I will always be greatful to the show for turning my girlfriend from a casual fan into someone who follows the business regularly and looks forward to attending WrestleMania each year.  Aside from that Total Divas also does a good job in following the personal lives of some of my favorite superstars such as Daniel Bryan, Tyson Kidd, John Cena and Jimmy Uso (The Usos really benefited for there exposure on the show) so I find that, coupled with the behind the scenes aspects of the show to be quite enjoyable.

– The Royal Rumble- Of course this all leads up to next Sunday night, the 29th annual WWE Royal Rumble will take place live from Orlando, Florida.  I was closer than close to attending this show live but starting a new job and already taking off so much because of my father, I decided against it.  That said, it should be a fun weekend for all of those who are attending and I’d love to hear about your experiences.  The WWE big four events continue to become a vacation destination and an all encompassing experience for all wrestling fans in attendance.  I know there’s an NXT TV Taping in town, a few Evolve shows (featuring NXT talents) and a Jim Ross one man show, to name a few.  As for the Royal Rumble itself, this year seems to be one of the most anticipated Rumbles in quite some time with the Rumble being for the actual World Title and with so many names being rumored to returning or debuting as surprise entrants in the Rumble.  I also expect that there will be a number of title matches on the show.  Already announced is a Last Man Standing Match for the intercontinental title between Kevin Owens and Dean Ambrose.  From there, Becky Lynch has issued a challenge to Charlotte for the Divas Championship and I expect that to be added to the show as well as they continue their great feud.  I also wouldn’t be shocked to see a US Title match between Kalisto and Alberto Del Rio to be added as well as a Tag Title Match with the New Day and the Usos.  The Rumble remains my favorite show of the year.

– Contest Time-  Alright I had mentioned this last week and so I figure I’ll reveal our first ever contest here on the daily spotlight.  Next Sunday, in honor of the Royal Rumble, we’re going to be giving away the brand new Sasha Banks figure as a part of the Mattel Basics Series 59 that won’t be released to stores until March of this year! Here’s what you have to do to enter into the contest.  Subscribe to thedailyspotlight.com which you can easily do to the left on the desktop site and by scrolling down below the posts on the mobile version of the site.  You do not need a wordpress site to subscribe, you can do so with any email address.  From there follow along with the dailyspotlight.com @Daily_Spotlight.  That’s it!  Once you subscribe to the site and follow us on twitter, you’re entered to win the first ever Sasha Banks figure brand new in box!  We’ll be doing the random draw on Sunday afternoon prior to the AFC Championship Game at 2:00 PM EST.  Of course, if you have any questions, feel free to inquire in the comments section below, on twitter or on our official email at dailyspotlight2@gmail.com!  If all goes well, we’ll do more contests and giveaways in the future!

That’s going to do it for now but be sure to subscribe to make sure you’re entered into our contest! Until next time, take care!