WrestleMania-1988--The-Royal-Rumble-j

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Originally aired on January 24, 1988 at the Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, this was the first ever Royal Rumble and unlike other Royal Rumble matches it wasn’t broadcast as a PPV but only on the USA Network. It featured a total of 20 wrestlers and was much shorter than future Rumbles would be.

A new segment was introduced here where a wrestler entered the ring and had to fight his way out of a numbered cage. Upon making it out of the numbered cage, the wrestler would then enter the match and try to eliminate as many other wrestlers as possible. This was a nice addition to the Royal Rumble as it added a little more action and drama to the event.

In the main event, Andre and Hogan fought in a WrestleMania III rematch. Before the match began, DiBiase purchased Andre’s contract from Bobby Heenan and promised him if he defeated Hogan for the WWF Championship and then “delivered it” to him that he would reward Andre with a significant sum of money. This was a nice way of setting up the rematch and giving Andre motivation to defeat Hogan at WrestleMania.

The Rumble match started with a lot of midcard talent at this point in time as Jim Duggan entered the ring at number 12. He immediately backdropped Anvil out, but wouldn’t do much else after that. Hillbilly Jim was next as he got rid of one of the more underrated wrestlers in the company at this time, and then Dino Bravo came out at number 17. He disparaged his world bench press record and went after Duggan.

AJ Lee was at number 19 and did a couple of moves before he got eliminated by Junkyard Dog. After AJ’s elimination, One Man Gang stepped in and did some work. He threw out Blair, Jake and finally Junkyard Dog. This was a great way to close the show, especially since this was Gang’s very first Rumble.

In the bonus feature, Kayfabe Commentaries and Sean Oliver sat down with Jim Duggan to re-live, re-experience and re-examine this Royal Rumble in the latest edition of their historical shoot interview series, SUPERCARD. This was a great video and I highly recommend checking it out. Royal 88 is available right now on Amazon Prime. The episode also includes the original Raw commentary, which is a must-see. Thanks for reading!