Eddie Guerrero
I’m sure many of you won’t remember Eddie winning a Royal Rumble, and that’s because it’s barely mentioned. This was the first and only time a Royal Rumble has taken place on Smackdown and with only 15 opponents in it, it was the smallest Rumble to date. Despite the WWE not really highlighting this Rumble, it’s legacy live son as it gave Guerrero the title shot at Brock Lesnar for Eddie to become WWE Champion.
Batista
Batista is a two time Rumble winner, and the lowest ranked of any man who has one more than once. The reason for this is two fold. His first Rumble win saw the notorious botched ending when both Batista and John Cena were eliminated at the same time…when they weren’t supposed to be!
Unlike the Bret-Luger 1994 tie, this draw was unintended as Batista was supposed to win. This lead to confusion and Vince McMahon rushing down to the ring legitimately annoyed. As he dove in the ring he tore both his quads and then sat on the mat giving instructions to referees. With the match restarted Batista eliminated Cena for the win and headed to WrestleMania to pick up his first World Title. Many would say that Cena should have been the winner here as although both men were big stars, it was clear that WWE was banking more on the Animal than they were Cena.
Batista’s second Rumble win came after Dave had left the WWE for a period of time. He then returned just in time for a Rumble and picked up the win when the fans were desperate for Daniel Bryan to win it. They hated it when Bryan wasn’t even in the match and were super underwhelmed for Batista to pick up the win.
The legacy of this match was that by WrestleMania Bryan was added to the main event and won the title. Batista was soon in his Bluetista phase and would shortly leave the WWE again.
Roman Reigns
So, as a direct follow up to saying the fans didn’t want to see Batista win, the very next year they really didn’t want to see Roman Reigns win. The irony of this is that the year earlier Roman was getting huge cheers to be the winner when the fans realised that Daniel Bryan wasn’t going to be in the match. They therefore just wanted Roman to eliminate Batista.
It seemed at the time that the WWE interpreted this as the fans actually wanting Roman to win, but it was in reality that they just didn’t want Batista to win. So by the next year it was clear that the WWE were going all in on Roman and since the fans could pick up on this they rebelled against Roman. Roman was then treated to the Cena like hate from fans even though he was a face at the time. With it clearly not working right, Roman failed to beat Brock for the World title at this stage and it was Seth Rollins who would leave the Mania main event as WWE Champion from the famous mid-match Money in the Bank contract cash in.
Seth Rollins
Seth Rollins won the Royal Rumble in 2019 and was in many ways the winner as he was the safest bet and best option for WWE in a time when Roman had been away to take care of health issues and we were firmly in a post John Cena world.
His win would take him to WrestleMania where his shot would go on first and he’d pick up the victory in under 3 minutes.
