Top 5 Worst Royal Rumble Winners

WWE Royal Rumble is one of the most anticipated pay per view event beside WrestleMania. For a lot of fans, it is even more interesting than Wrestlemania. And that is all because of the Royal Rumble match. Throughout the years, WWE has made new faces through this match, it has created so many legends.

But not every time a Rumble match winner could be as impactful as fans expect the winner to be. Sometimes, the winners have no impact at all. Some of the winners of the Rumble matches completely unnecessary who had no reason to win. This time, we will be looking at the worst 5 Royal Rumble winners in the history of WWE who had no reason to win. Note* This list is completely based on personal opinions.

Top 5 Worst Royal Rumble Winners

5. Batista (2014) – Batista winning Rumble 2005 was one of the most important Rumble wins ever. This is what Rumble match is all about; crowning new stars. By winning the Rumble 2005, Batista officially cemented his name as a main event star in WWE. It was one of the most important wins of his career, if not the most important.

But Batista winning the Rumble match of 2014 is all also considered to be one of the worst wins of his career. He seriously did not need to win the match. The original plan was to book a match between Batista and Randy Orton for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at Wrestlemania XXX. But fans was not interested to see Batista on the main event at all. It was totally forced on the fans that WWE had to change later on as they had to add Daniel Bryan into the match to save Wrestlemania XXX main event.

4. Sheamus (2012) – Sheamus was a star from the very first day of his main roster debut. So how can Sheamus winning the Rumble match be one of the worst things ever in Rumble history? Once again we need to clarify it is not the winner, it is the way they booked him afterwards.

The Celtic Warrior had a dominant run through out the Royal Rumble 2012 event and won the match dominantly. But the thing is, he did not need to win the match at all. He went on to face Daniel Bryan for the World Heavyweight Championship and he defeated Bryan in only 19 seconds, it was not even the main event of the night but the opener.

If somebody had to win the Rumble match of 2012, it was Chris Jericho. If Jericho won the Rumble of 2012 he would have been the perfect winner. He was booked excellently against WWE champion CM Punk for WrestleMania XXVII. Once again it was a missed opportunity and the wrong man won.

3. Roman Reigns (2015) – Roman Reigns is definitely one of the biggest names not only in WWE but in the world of professional wrestling as well. But his only Royal Rumble win was definitely one of the worst wins of his career. When he won the Royal Rumble he was being forced on the fans as a top star and in that time fans was not wanting to see him as the face of the promotion.

Fans wanted to see Daniel Bryan as the consistent face of the promotion. But WWE was determined. To make Roman more of a fan favourite, WWE eliminated Daniel Bryan early, so that the fans had no other choice but to support Roman. But that did not happen, instead the fans backed Dean Ambrose and Dolph Ziggler. Fans were so unhappy with the victory of Roman Reigns that year, even an appearance of The Rock could not save it.

Roman went on to face Brock Lesnar for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at the main event of WrestleMania 31 but Mr Money in the Bank Seth Rollins cashed in his contract during the match and won the Championship. It made Roman’s Rumble victory even less impactful.

2. Vince McMahon (1999) – Vince McMahon is the only Rumble match winner in this list who did not even go on to challenge for the title at Wrestlemania, even did not battle a match at the event. Everyone was expecting to see Stone Cold Steve Austin winning back to back three Rumble matches, but that did not happen.

The whole point was to book a storyline of screwing Stone Cold Steve Austin. But no such thing happened, Austin ultimately went on to challenge the Rock for the WWE Championship at Wrestlemania XV to the whole point of Mr McMahon winning the Rumble match of that year became completely unnecessary.

Beside of that, when you hear the names like Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, Shawn Michaels, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, Brock Lesnar or John Cena who were the winners of Royal Rumble matches, can you imagine a name like Vince McMahon decide them? It was a terrible choice.

1. Charlotte Flair (2019) – The question will always remain, why did Charlotte Flair win the Royal Rumble match of 2019? WWE at least had plans for the names you saw throughout this list. But when Charlotte Flair won the Rumble match of 2019, WWE had absolutely nothing in mind about what would they do with her.

Shayna Baszler was already planned to face Becky Lynch for the WWE Raw women’s Championship and a fatal 5 way match for The Smackdown Women’s championship was also planned. So what was the point of Charlotte Flair winning the match? Even the writers did not have any idea on what to do with her after her Rumble match win.

So WWE had no other option but to book her against Rhea Ripley for the NXT Women’s Championship. Charlotte Flair’s Rumble win showed how much overpushed she is. Therefore, she is the worst Royal Rumble winner in our list.