Royal Rumble Rewind: 2008

Madison Square Garden was once again the setting for the Rumble in 2008 and as usual, the New York crowd was as boisterous as ever. Thankfully the WWE gave them plenty to respond as a result of several surprises sprinkled throughout the match including a major one at the very end.

2008 Royal Rumble

Emanating from Madison Square Garden in New York City, NY

In the ‘why haven’t they thought about doing this sooner’ category, Mr. ‘Let’s Get Ready to Rumble’, Michael Buffer does the ring announcements to open the match. Things get off to a very interesting start as our first two entrants this year, are the same as last year’s final two entrants – The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels. Michaels attempts to use his speed to his advantage, but Taker quickly overtakes him with his power. Taker goes for a running boot, but Michaels avoids it. #3 is Santino Marella and I don’t like his chances. He tries to prove he can hang with the two future hall of famers, but Michaels quickly superkicks him. Taker then dumps his limp body out. Michaels tries to come up behind Taker and dump him as well, but Taker hangs on. Taker goes for Old School, but Michaels pulls him down. As Michaels hits a flying forearm, The Great Khali enters at #4. Taker chokeslams Michaels and then goes right for Khali. As Khali kicks away at Taker, the crowd begins a ‘You can’t wrestle’ chant. Gotta love the NY fans. Khali goes for his chop, but Taker ducks it and throws him out. Taker and Michaels resume their battle as Hardcore Holly comes out at #5. Taker shifts his focus to Holly and goes after his arm. Taker grabs Michaels and attempts to throw him out again, but Holly breaks up that attempt. #6 is John Morrison and he goes after everyone. Michaels throws Morrison over the top rope, but he manages to hang on. After hitting a flying elbow, Michaels goes for Sweet Chin Music, but Morrison blocks it and delivers a kick of his own. New York’s own Tommy Dreamer enters at #7. He comes in as a house of fire, punching everyone in sight. A ‘Tommy Dreamer’ chant breaks out. This is apparently going to be a front loaded Rumble as #8 is Batista. He takes down everyone and then has a staredown with the Undertaker, who he fought at Wrestlemania last year. Before they can go at it, Dreamer interrupts. Batista pitches him out for that. Crowd doesn’t like that. #9 is nobody…oh wait nevermind, I just had to look closer because it’s Hornswoggle. He sizes up the humanity that’s currently in the ring and decides to immediately hide underneath the ring instead of try to compete. The action resumes in the ring with Batista spearing Taker. Holly clotheslines Michaels over the top rope, but he hangs on. Chuck Palumbo is out at #10 as the world asks ‘Why?’. The pairs squaring off right now include Taker/Palumbo, Michaels/Morrison, and Holly/Batista.

The #11 entrant is Jamie Noble, who was feuding with Palumbo at the time. He naturally goes right after him. Palumbo gets Noble over the top rope and boots him to the floor with relative ease. Michaels throws Morrison over, but he again does an impressive job of holding on. #12 is Punk who delivers running knee strikes to everyone until he gets dropped by a Taker clothesline. Palumbo gets Punk up on his shoulders, but Punk escapes and throws Palumbo over. He hangs on, but a running knee by Punk is enough to knock him to the floor. Michaels and Punk go at it as Cody Rhodes comes out at #13. Rhodes was a ‘wet behind the ears’ rookie at this point, but that doesn’t stop him from deciding to go after Taker. We might get some ring clearing now as Umaga is out at #14. He hits Holly with the Samoan Spike, which sends him out to the floor. He now begins to hammer down Batista. #15 is Snitsky and he attacks both Rhodes and Morrison. Rhodes hops on Snitsky’s back and nearly falls out of the ring in the process. Punk attempts to hit Morrison with the GTS when Morrison’s partner, The Miz, comes out at #16. Taker is trying his darndest to get Umaga out, but the big man won’t go. #17 is Shelton Benjamin, who immediately hops onto the top rope and delivers a double noggin knocker to Morrison and the Miz. Both men manage to stay on the apron, however. He knocks down Punk only to be hit with a superkick by Michaels that eliminates him from the match. Once again Michaels is Benjamin’s Achilles heel. A big surprise at #18 as it’s the Superfly, Jimmy Snuka. He comes in and takes it to everyone who comes after him. Then it’s our second surprise in a row as Rowdy Roddy Piper is out at #19. He quickly locks eyes with Snuka and they renew their decades old rivalry. Everyone else in the ring stop to watch these two go at. #20 is Kane who brings us back to reality by immediately eliminating both Snuka and Piper. Taker looks to chokeslam Kane, but changes course midstream and delivers it to Michaels instead.

Carlito is out at #21 and spits some apple in Rhodes’ face. Another NY native, Mick Foley in the #22 entrant. He attacks everyone as Taker powerbombs Batista. We really could use to thin the herd out at this point. #23 is Mr. Kennedy and he opts to go after Rhodes. He then hits his finisher on both the Miz and Punk. He jaws at the Undertaker, which earns him a chokeslam. Taker starts to catch a second wind knocking down everyone in his sight. As Big Daddy V comes out at #24, Taker grabs Snitsky by the throat and shoves him out of the ring. Taker turns around only to be superkicked out of the match by Michaels. Taker is stunned by that. Michaels has no time to gloat because Kennedy comes up behind him and throws him out. When I wanted some eliminations, I did not have those two in mind. Frustrated, Taker legdrops Snitsky on the announce table. Kennedy throws Rhodes over the top rope, but he hangs on. As he tries to skin the cat, he also tries pulling Kennedy out. Both manage to hang on though. Nice spot. More beef fills up the ring as the #25 entrant is Mark Henry. Hornswoggle emerges from under the ring long enough to pull The Miz, who was teetering on elimination out of the ring. If he keeps doing that, he’ll break Kane’s elimination record with ease. #26 is Chavo Guerrero, who was the ECW Champion at the time, which goes to show you how little they thought of that title if he’s competing in this match. He and Punk, who were feuding at the time go right at each other. After several close calls, Kane finally eliminates Morrison with a boot. Hornswoggle tries his elimination technique again, but foolishly tries it on Mark Henry, who pulls him into the ring instead. Both Henry and Big Daddy V surround Hornswoggle, but before they can do anything, Finlay runs out and attacks both of them with the shillelagh. Finlay then grabs Hornswoggle and takes him to the back thus eliminating both of them despite neither going over the top rope. A major disappointment there. Elijah Burke is the #28 entrant and I frankly had forgotten that he was still in the company at this point. Punk and Guerrero to go at it and Chavo manages to pull Punk over the top rope from the apron and throw him to the floor. A disappointing finish for Punk, but he’s certainly in a better place today. Getting a very good draw is Triple H out at #29. He makes an immediate impact by throwing out Rhodes and Big Daddy V. Now he and Foley go at it, which makes us nostalgic for their classic Rumble match at MSG back in 2000. He whips Foley into Burke and both of them fall over the top rope and to the floor. Umaga misses a charge, which allows HHH to hit him with a Pedigree. #30 is…I don’t believe it…it can’t be..it is..John Cena. This was a MAJOR shock at the time. Cena was out at the time with an injury and still wasn’t due back for several months. The NYC crowd pops huge for this surprise while HHH looks on in disbelief. Cena comes in and takes it to Henry. Cena then pitches out Carlito and Guerrero. Henry gets dumped out by him also shortly thereafter. Cena and HHH have a big staredown and then slug it out. HHH hits a spinebuster on Cena but then gets knocked down by an Umaga uppercut. As Umaga goes for the Spike, Batista spears him. Batista then throws out Kennedy. Batista then clotheslines Umaga out of the ring.

Our final four is Kane, HHH, Batista and Cena. It’s a strong foursome, but it doesn’t last long as HHH and Batista team up to hurl Kane out of the ring. The three guys left stare at each other as the crowd cheers them on. They then do some taunting to fire up the crowd further. There are no alliances here as they all go after each other. Batista manages to connect with spinebusters on both Cena and HHH. Batista goes for a Batista Bomb on Cena, but he blocks it and backdrops him. HHH then clotheslines Batista out to eliminate him. HHH points to the Wrestlemania sign and says that’s what it’s all about while Cena reminds HHH that he made him tap out at a previous Wrestlemania. Now they go back to fighting as they slug it out. Crowd now seems to be behind HHH as they boo Cena’s punches and cheers HHH’s. Cena connects with the five knuckle shuffle. Cena gets HHH up for the FU, but HHH escapes. HHH attempts the Pedigree, but Cena fights out of that. Both men are down after they clothesline each other. Cena boots a charging HHH, but HHH comes back with a DDT. As HHH tries to put Cena out, he blocks it by grabbing the top rope. HHH goes for the Pedigree again, but Cena escapes and back drops HHH out of the ring to score the victory.

Bottom Line: Cena’s return and subsequent victory were a huge surprise and made for a buzzworthy finish to the match. Prior to that, the match had sufficient star power to keep the match entertaining. While it at times had too many guys in there, one thing they did differently this year was they left the middle of the ring open so that two guys could do some more innovative or high impact moves instead of everyone doing the typical punching and kicking near the ropes. There were some aspects of the match that could have been booked better, but they are minor quibbles. This set up some Wrestlemania feuds and kept the lulls to a minimum which makes this a solid Rumble. ****