Alright, so I got this idea the other day. I was chatting with a buddy about old wrestling stuff, specifically the Royal Rumble, you know? And we got into this whole back-and-forth about who won which year, especially some of the earlier ones. It got kinda fuzzy. So, I thought, heck, I should just sit down and actually compile a proper list myself. Just for my own reference, something solid I could look back on.
First thing I did was just grab a notepad, well, opened up a text file on my computer, same difference. I started just jotting down the years I could remember off the top of my head, along with the winners. Stuff like Hogan in the early days, Austin’s run, Cena, Batista – the big names came pretty easily. But then I hit these gaps, like the mid-90s or some of the more recent years where things felt a bit jumbled in my memory.
So, the next step was hitting the web. Didn’t go anywhere fancy, just started searching for “Royal Rumble winners year by year”. Man, you get a lot of results. Some fan sites, some news articles listing them out. I started pulling the info together, year by year, trying to be methodical. I decided early on just to keep it simple: Year, Winner. That’s it. Didn’t want to clutter it up too much initially.
Digging Through the Years
It was kinda fun, actually. Like digging through old boxes. Seeing names like “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan for the first one, Big John Studd… brings back memories. Then you get to the real glory years, for me anyway. Bret Hart and Lex Luger as co-winners? Yeah, had to double-check that one, seemed weird, but sure enough, that happened.
I made sure to cross-reference a bit. Looked at maybe two or three different pages just to make sure the names matched the years. You’d be surprised, sometimes you find little discrepancies on fan pages, maybe they got a year wrong or something. Found a couple of those, had to figure out which one was right. Usually, checking what looked like more official sources helped clear things up.
Once I had the raw list, year and winner, down in my text file, I started cleaning it up. Decided to put it into a simple list format, makes it easier to read.
- 1988 – Jim Duggan
- 1989 – Big John Studd
- 1990 – Hulk Hogan
- 1991 – Hulk Hogan
- 1992 – Ric Flair
- 1993 – Yokozuna
- 1994 – Bret Hart & Lex Luger (Co-winners, still feels odd)
- 1995 – Shawn Michaels
- 1996 – Shawn Michaels
- 1997 – Stone Cold Steve Austin
- 1998 – Stone Cold Steve Austin
- 1999 – Vince McMahon (Yeah, that happened.)
- 2000 – The Rock
- 2001 – Stone Cold Steve Austin (Third time!)
- 2002 – Triple H
- 2003 – Brock Lesnar
- 2004 – Chris Benoit
- 2005 – Batista
- 2006 – Rey Mysterio
- 2007 – The Undertaker
- 2008 – John Cena
- 2009 – Randy Orton
- 2010 – Edge
- 2011 – Alberto Del Rio (Remember the 40-man Rumble? Wild.)
- 2012 – Sheamus
- 2013 – John Cena
- 2014 – Batista
- 2015 – Roman Reigns
- 2016 – Triple H (Won the title in the Rumble)
- 2017 – Randy Orton
- 2018 – Shinsuke Nakamura
- 2018 – Asuka (First Women’s Rumble!)
- 2019 – Seth Rollins
- 2019 – Becky Lynch
- 2020 – Drew McIntyre
- 2020 – Charlotte Flair
- 2021 – Edge
- 2021 – Bianca Belair
- 2022 – Brock Lesnar
- 2022 – Ronda Rousey
- 2023 – Cody Rhodes
- 2023 – Rhea Ripley
- 2024 – Cody Rhodes
- 2024 – Bayley
You see, I decided to add the Women’s Rumble winners too once they started that. Makes sense to have them both. Had to make sure I got those years right and matched them up.
Finalizing the Thing
So yeah, went through, checked everything again. Made sure the formatting was clean. It’s nothing fancy, just a straightforward list. But it’s accurate, pulled together from checking a few places and organizing it simply. Took a little bit of time, more than just a quick search, because I wanted to be sure it was right. Now I’ve got this list saved, ready for the next time me and my buddy start arguing about who won the ’97 Rumble or something. It’s kind of satisfying having gone through the process and put it together myself.
