Royal Rumble 1989
01/15/1989
Amidst all the big and ballsy things Vince McMahon did to build WWF/E into the global monolith it would become, there are smaller touches that get lost in the ether somewhat. Decisions that whilst at the time might have seemed small and insignificant, but set in motion a chain of events that continued to help the McMahon family dominate the wrestling world.
Having Ax and Smash as the first two entrants in the Royal Rumble 1989 is one of those things.
This may seem hyperbolic, or overstating the importance of this moment, but this was the decision that truly showed the WWF wrestling fan that this match was every man for himself. Not only did we have two members of one of the most dominant teams in recent memory entering the ring to face off against one another, neither man gave an inch as they used their trademark battering ram-like offense with no second guessing.
Whilst this was actually the second Royal Rumble contest, the first one had seemed like a prototype, an experiment to see if the concept worked before developing the idea and fleshing it out. Thus, we had only twenty men, a large selection of midcard talent and jobbers to the starts, and Jim Duggan victory. Clearly, the WWF were on to something – they just needed to add the sizzle to the steak.
In many ways, Royal Rumble 1989 shows not only how far the idea had come within only a year in terms of execution, but also how ubiquitous some of the roles that were played in the match would become. As well as Ax and Smash showing the fans that anything could happen within the confines of a Royal Rumble, we saw several over archetypal performances that would be repeated over many years to come.
Mr Perfect lasted just under thirty minutes, further cementing the idea of the ‘marathon man’ type that was needed to hold the Rumble together (a role played by Bret Hart in the debut contest). As this was during the era of Hulkamania, Hulk Hogan ended up being the wrestler who cleaned house and removed a lot of the lesser guys who had started to clog up the ring and allow the Rumble to almost reset itself.
It doesn’t end there. Jake Roberts, with the help of his snake, eliminated Andre the Giant after being eliminated himself; the first in a long line of wrestlers who didn’t take too kindly to finding themselves dumped from the ring and sought almost instantaneous revenge. We even got the first ‘comedy elimination’ as The Warlord was knocked out of the ring by Hulk Hogan in two seconds, a clip that would grace many a Silver Vision VHS montage.
Most importantly, an initial trend of the winner entering in the final ten contestants started, as Big John Studd would win the match entering at number 27. A miscommunication between Ted Dibiase and Akeem saw Studd eliminate the African Dream before depositing Dibiase to the floor moments later. This skewing of victories towards the latter end of the contest in the initial Rumble matches reaped dividends in 1992, only serving to emphasise the impressive nature of Ric Flair’s victory.
The only real question mark was why Studd was chosen to be the winner. Though it seemed that this was being used primarily in an attempt to rehabilitate his character after a two year retirement had ended at the tail end of 1988. However, Studd would be gone five months later due to perceived poor payoffs. Clearly, the Rumble did little to help Studd in the long run, but built a formula that could be manipulated and altered to create some of the most engaging in-ring action of the next thirty years.
