The five worst Royal Rumble matches ever

Our first modern example is the 2013 match, which featured John Cena winning — a result no one wanted — to set up Cena vs. Rock II — a rematch everyone knew was coming. It kind of gave the whole thing a resigned boredom rather than a particular hatred.

The pattern of bad Rumbles was really solidified here, with too much downtime between big stars and too many instances of the ring getting clogged up. Some of the best spots in the Rumble have come from putting 8-10 midcarders in the ring and then bringing in one big star to clear them out single-handedly, but this one neglected the second part of that formula.

Plus the finish was very lazy and predictable, with Cena eliminating Ryback to win his second Rumble. 

This one is a tad unfair in some ways, since it was the first real attempt at the match. There had been previous Rumbles on house shows and of course decades of battle royals to draw from, but here they were still learning what worked and what didn't.

A larger problem was that there was a serious lack of star power in the match in general, with the only real stars being guys like Junkyard Dog and eventual winner "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan. The 1989 match, which marked the show's debut on PPV, would hone the formula much better, but this first one was kind of a bore.

It did, however, showcase the eventual solo career of a young Bret Hart.

This was a particularly low time for WWE, with ratings hitting the basement during the war with WCW and then somehow finding a level BELOW the basement.

The biggest issue was lack of wrestlers that people cared about, aside from guys like Bret Hart and Steve Austin who made everyone else seem like indy geeks by comparison. In turn, this gave us a Rumble filled with stupid characters like Fake Diesel and Henry Godwinn.

They were so desperate for bodies that even Terry Funk got a payday, a full year before getting a full-time contract again as Chainsaw Charlie. It was the worst lazy booking of the Rumble, with guys just doing a lot of kicking and punching and no memorable spots to speak of.

Austin won his first Rumble (of three) but didn't get the title shot at WrestleMania.  Bret Hart was booked as the original winner, but new WWE writer Vince Russo went on TV and predicted that Hart would win in order to make himself look smart, so Austin got the nod instead.

But this wouldn't be the last Rumble that Russo would ruin, of course...

While other Rumbles might just be boring or badly booked, this was a full-on trainwreck of epic proportions, the worst instincts of Vince Russo all put together into one hour-long nightmare.

The storyline was that Vince McMahon wanted anyone but Steve Austin to win the match, so he entered Austin at No. 1 and himself at No. 2, and put a bounty on Austin as well. An interesting idea, but both Austin and McMahon brawled out of the ring and stayed out of the entire match. McMahon himself ended up returning to do commentary for half an hour while he supposed to be an active competitor.

The field was beyond pathetic, featuring all of the ridiculous characters that Russo loved to showcase but very little real star power, and there were extended periods where someone would clear out the ring — like Big Boss Man — and then literally stand around for minutes at a time waiting for the next guy.

Bad pacing, bad booking, badly worked — this one hit the trifecta of suck and set the standard for terrible Rumble matches for years to come. Until it was beaten in 2015.

The dubious honor of "Worst Royal Rumble Match Ever" goes to the 2015 edition, a match so bad that it caused the arena nearly to riot in disgust and almost derailed the push of WWE's new golden boy Roman Reigns before it really started.

While this one hits the usual hallmarks of terrible Rumbles (boring match, bad booking, too busy), it found a new level of awful by trolling the fans twice.

Fan-favorite Daniel Bryan entered early and was unceremoniously eliminated by Bray Wyatt so as not to interfere with the Reigns push later in the match, but that completely backfired and the angry crowd only booed the supposed superhero babyface even louder in protest.

Then, after subjecting the fans to extended periods of Kane and Big Show dominating the match while Reigns laid around in the corner, we were teased with Rusev returning from an earlier non-elimination — then he was dumped by Reigns anyway. This match was so terrible that the crowd even booed The Rock. Everyone loves The Rock!

In any case, watch at your own risk.