Royal Rumble (1992)


Royal Rumble was the fifth annual Royal Rumble professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by the World Wrestling Federation. It took place on January 19, 1992, at the Knickerbocker Arena in Albany, New York.
The main event, as in past Royal Rumble events, was the event's namesake match. It is historic because for the first time in the WWF, the last man standing would win the WWF World Heavyweight Championship, which had been vacated in December 1991. This man was Ric Flair, who eliminated Sid Justice with the help of Hulk Hogan from the outside. Featured matches on the undercard were The Natural Disasters versus The Legion of Doom for the WWF Tag Team Championship, The Beverly Brothers versus The Bushwhackers and Roddy Piper versus The Mountie for the WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship.

Production

Background

The Royal Rumble is an annual gimmick pay-per-view, produced every January by the World Wrestling Federation since 1988. It is one of the promotion's original four pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, later dubbed the "Big Four". It is named after the Royal Rumble match, a modified battle royal in which the participants enter at timed intervals instead of all beginning in the ring at the same time. The match generally features 30 wrestlers. As the WWF World Heavyweight Championship had been vacated, the vacant title became the prize of the 1992 Royal Rumble match. 1992 was the fifth event in the Royal Rumble chronology. It was the first of only two times in which the promotion's world championship was the prize of the Royal Rumble match—the second occurred at the 2016 event.

Event

The card consisted of five matches. The matches resulted from scripted storylines, where wrestlers portrayed heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters to build tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches. Results were predetermined by WWF's writers, with storylines produced on their weekly television shows, Superstars, Wrestling Challenge, and Prime Time Wrestling.
Prior to the event, it was announced the winner of the Royal Rumble would win the vacant WWF World Heavyweight Championship, which had been stripped from Hulk Hogan after two controversial title switches between Hogan and the Undertaker, first at the 1991 Survivor Series and later at the Tuesday in Texas pay-per-view event. Hogan and Undertaker were among the 30 entrants in the event. WWF President Jack Tunney gave Hogan and Undertaker an advantage in the random draw to determine the order in which wrestlers would enter the ring, promising them numbers between 20 and 30.
The Royal Rumble match helped begin Justice's slow-building turn into a villain. Justice – who was returning from a recent injury – entered at No. 29 and was among the final four wrestlers, along with Hogan, Randy Savage and Flair. Justice eliminated Savage and then Hogan, leaving himself and Flair in the ring. During the initial live pay-per-view broadcast, Justice's elimination of Hogan was loudly cheered by the audience in attendance even though, as per storyline plans, Sid "sneaked up from behind" to throw Hogan out. As such, the original reaction was edited out of future television replays as well as the Coliseum home video release of the event, with play-by-play announcer Gorilla Monsoon adding new comments condemning Sid for his actions. Hogan, who was still at ringside after being eliminated, grabbed Sid's arm and distracted him long enough for Flair to eliminate him to win the match and become the new WWF World Heavyweight Champion. After the match, Sid and Hogan got into an argument in the ring and had to be separated by security.
In his book, To Be The Man, Ric Flair mentions not knowing he was going to be winning the Royal Rumble until arriving at the arena the day of the event, and also felt he was brought in at #3 in order to showcase his skills and endurance to the WWF audience, who may not have watched his work in JCP/WCW. Meanwhile, Bobby Heenan mentioned in his autobiography, Bobby The Brain, that it was his initial suggestion that Flair enter the Rumble at #1 for dramatic purposes, and that Vince McMahon changed it to #3 and claimed it as his own idea.

Aftermath

The confrontation between Hogan and Justice was played out over a series of future WWF television programs. On the Superstars program aired January 25, 1992, WWF President Jack Tunney held a press conference, where he announced that Hogan would face Flair for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania VIII. Justice, who was also in attendance and began standing up as if Tunney were about to proclaim him the top contender, was outraged and termed the announcement "the most bogus act Jack Tunney has ever pulled off." Sid later apologized and Hogan accepted, but on the February 8 Saturday Night's Main Event XXX'', Justice abandoned Hogan during a tag-team match against Flair and The Undertaker, completing his heel turn and leading to a match at WrestleMania VIII.
Flair, meanwhile, began feuding with Savage over the WWF World Heavyweight Championship. According to the storyline, Flair claimed that he had a previous relationship with Savage's wife, Miss Elizabeth, going as far as presenting pictures of Elizabeth in which Flair had himself superimposed. This culminated in a title match at WrestleMania VIII; Savage won the match and his second WWF World Heavyweight Championship.
This was the first Royal Rumble in which stakes were involved for the winner—the stipulation in which the winner would face the WWF/WWE World Heavyweight Champion at WrestleMania first took place at the following year's event. It would be 24 years before the Royal Rumble was again for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, and the first match in which the champion—Roman Reigns—defended his title in the Rumble match. That match was won by Triple H.

Results

Royal Rumble entrances and eliminations

A new entrant came out approximately every 2 minutes.
DrawEntrantOrderEliminated byTimeEliminations
The British BulldogRic Flair23:333
Ted DiBiaseThe British Bulldog01:180
'Ric Flair'Winner1:00:025
Jerry SagsThe British Bulldog01:060
HakuThe British Bulldog01:510
Shawn Michaels10Tito Santana15:461
Tito SantanaShawn Michaels13:551
The Barbarian11Hercules12:550
The Texas TornadoRic Flair09:200
10Repo ManBig Boss Man06:232
11Greg ValentineRepo Man04:120
12Nikolai VolkoffRepo Man01:030
13Big Boss Man13Ric Flair03:382
14Hercules12Big Boss Man00:561
15Roddy Piper26Sid Justice34:061
16Jake Roberts15Randy Savage10:550
17Jim Duggan19Virgil20:451
18Irwin R. Schyster23Roddy Piper27:010
19Jimmy Snuka14The Undertaker02:270
20The Undertaker17Hulk Hogan13:511
21Randy Savage27Ric Flair and Sid Justice22:262
22The Berzerker18Hulk Hogan09:000
23Virgil20Jim Duggan07:291
24Col. Mustafa16Randy Savage02:360
25Rick Martel25Sid Justice12:391
26Hulk Hogan28Sid Justice11:294
27Skinner21Rick Martel02:130
28Sgt. Slaughter22Sid Justice04:370
29Sid Justice29Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair05:556
30The Warlord24Hulk Hogan and Sid Justice01:430

Randy Savage eliminated himself shortly after eliminating Jake Roberts by jumping to Roberts over the top rope. However, he returned to the ring and resumed his participation.
Hulk Hogan was already eliminated and grabbed onto Sid's arm while Flair snuck up behind and lifted Sid over the ropes.