Rumble Memories

As may be evidenced in my column on OO tomorrow, the Royal Rumble is my favorite event of the year, bar none. I can't remember a year where the Rumble match itself hasn't been entertaining. Was going through some videos tonight, and some of my favorite moments:

- Ax and Smash entering as # 1 and # 2 respectively (and all the other times tag teams, brothers and stablemates have faced off). It was a fun, creative two minutes of the match, and can be a surreal thing when they pull that angle sparingly. I give them credit that since 1989, they've never gone back to tag team partners being # 1 and # 2 or anything.
- Giant Gonzales debuts. Sure, he was an untalented lump of shit, but NO ONE was expecting his appearance at the time. It was another crazy, unexpected angle.
- Ric Flair wins the whole damn thing. Just watched that again on the Flair DVD, and it really was an amazing performance. Aside from a couple of minutes to rest, he really did wrestle the entire hour plus. Woooo!
- Yokozuna wins in 93. Only because it was totally unexpected. I was thinking they were going to set up Owen Hart to win it, being as he was in there until almost the end and they could have done Bret vs. Owen at WM9 (okay, so I was a year early there). Still, a real shocker.
- The yearly longevity push: I liked it better when it was a guy like Bob Backlund quietly hanging in almost an hour, rather than someone who was going to win the whole thing anyways. In fact, I think that's what they should do with Benoit. He goes in at number one, and stays till the end, but loses anyways. I know that would piss off a lot of Benoit fans, but it would be a cool thing to try to pull off.

I still say Goldberg should win this year, but now that he's at # 30, no way it's going to happen. Maybe Benoit after all....