Tomorrow’s Royal Rumble is one of the year’s most popular events for fans. Pre-pandemic, fans would gather at bars or houses and add a little more excitement to the shows by guessing certain things like who would be a surprise entrant, who would have the most eliminations, or one of the most popular guesses: who would last the longest.
The “iron man” of the Royal Rumble has always been an interesting aspect of the match, and WWE Legends like Bob Backlund, Rick Martel, Ted DiBiase, and others have all had their chance to not only hold the record for longest participation in the match, but to add another dimension of their character. For the Greatest Royal Rumble in Saudi Arabia, many people still talk about how long Daniel Bryan lasted in the match. There’s a little bit of thinking that goes into who gets that honor, and former WWE writer and head of MLW Court Bauer revealed to Fightful the kind of thinking that goes into it.
“They’ll go through it, a lot of it is very impressive. There will be some red flags, some fine-tuning, Vince might say, ‘Hey, hold on for a second.’ They’ll go through that whole process and you’ll know what they’re going to showcase in a guy and tell a story and he’s the iron man guy. He’ll go the distance. Then you’ll go out and ask if he’s going to break any records? What records are there? You fire up Google and you go ‘hey!’ because there is no in-house system that has all the records except for Howard Finkel. He’s the in-house Google that can tell you everything about anyone.”
Sometimes another Rumble accolade will do something to serve a participant for a year besides winning. Roman Reigns earning the most eliminations in a single Rumble helped get him over one year, while many people talked about Sasha Banks’ endurance despite not winning. It’s all how the story is framed, and you have to think that for some guys in the locker room being the iron man is just as important as winning.
Check out our official store at PRO WRESTLING TEES, show us your support and buy a shirt. You can visit our store by clicking here.
Make sure to follow us on Twitter @BodySlamNet and on Instagram @BodySlamDotNet
Also check us out on Facebook and give us a like and share by clicking HERE.
