Ranking every WWE Royal Rumble PPV in history

25. WWE Royal Rumble 1988

Match card & results

• Ricky Steamboat def. Rick Rude
• 2-out-of-3 Falls WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship Match: The Jumping Bomb Angels def. The Glamour Girls (c)
• Hacksaw Jim Duggan wins 20-Man Royal Rumble Match
• 2-out-of-3 Falls Match: The Islanders def. The Young Stallions

Okay, so here’s the Royal Rumble event that wasn’t actually a pay-per-view but we’re going to go ahead and throw it in here anyway. Perhaps it’s nostalgia or the fact that this was the first Royal Rumble but I thought it deserved a spot in the top 25.

Outside of the matches, there were also a few non-match segments on the show, including the contract signing with Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant for their WWE Championship match at The Main Event, back when that show actually meant something. This particular episode would go on to become the highest-rated wrestling show in history. The signing went down like you think it would as Hogan was beaten down. Also on the telecast was Dino Bravo attempting to break the bench press record and you can imagine how stimulating that is. But he was really strong.

As for the non-Rumble matches, Ricky Steamboat and Rick Rude, who was fairly new to WWE at the time, put on a match that should have been better. They were followed by a women’s tag team title match, which was and still is quite the rare thing and something that should be revisited at some point. However, this ended up being a very solid match with some moves that weren’t really being done too much at the time. It’s a pleasant surprise if you want to go back and take a look. Following the Rumble match, The Islanders and The Young Stallions had an average match that felt out of place.

As for the inaugural Royal Rumble match, it was by far the shortest in history, which it should have been given there were only 20 participants as opposed to the 30 we’ve gotten used to. However, as it happens in many Rumble matches, the time didn’t add up. If you start with two men and then 18 more are supposed to come in at two-minute intervals, the match should be at least 36 minutes, right? Add on a couple of minutes for the finish and you’re looking at at least 40. The match clocks in at exactly 33:00 but I guess they were still working out the kinks. This was probably the biggest win in Hacksaw Jim Duggan’s career and started a tradition that has become one of the biggest shows on the WWE calendar. So there’s that.