Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Pulp Wrestling , the column that has been bringing you the goods since 2006, sporadically as they have come. Our topic this evening (or whenever the hell you read this) is unused Royal Rumble finishes. With the Royal Rumble coming up, the road to Wrestlemania is almost upon us. Since 1993 the Rumble has been the go to set up event for the main event at Wrestlemania. The Rumble itself has been going since 1988, with the first Rumble hitting PPV in 1989.  Over the years there have been some great Rumble finishes, such as Shawn Michaels winning from the number one spot, Bret and Luger co-winning the Rumble in 1995.  However there have also been some finishes that have become kind of cliché, such as (insert whatever wrestling) making a surprise return from injury/prolonged absence and getting a token win, or as with all things in WWE, “Spoiler: Cena wins” or this year “Spoiler: Roman Reigns wins…” The topic of this column however is not to discuss the great finishes of yesterday or the head scratching ones such as Vince McMahon winning the RR in 1999, but instead to look into the future with five prospective finishes the Rumble which, as of yet, have never (to my knowledge) been done before. Anyway, as The Stranger said in The Big Lebowski, “I done introduced him (or ‘it’ in this case) enough….”

(Free ideas alert!)

Top Five Unused Royal Rumble Finishes

5. Faction works together and actually wins.

First off, because I know it will come whether I write this or not, the pictures here are merely for joke value, I fully realize the Bullet Club is a NJPW stable, but anyway…. Here’s one that is teased almost every year, or at least every year there has been a big faction going in some form or fashion. For this finish to work I would have said faction, let’s just say it is 2004 era Evolution before the split, for instance, work together to dominate the match. They eliminate everybody else, and wind up as the final four participants in the match. Now comes the interesting part, as this is when the leader of the faction would expect everyone else to kindly eliminate themselves so he could go on to Wrestlemania main event glory. But let’s just say that one, or more, of said faction members doesn’t feel so obliging.

I imagine you could get a pretty big pop if it was done at the right time and you had the right guy in said stable, like Reigns earlier or this year, or Batista when he was starting to catch fire in Evolution.  This could have been done last year in 2014 with either the Shield or the Wyatt Family. The Shield had even been teasing a break up at the time so it would have made sense in that regard. Another variation of this idea for a Royal Rumble finish is to have a stable or a tag team do the same thing I just outlined above but then come the end of the match everyone voluntarily goes over the top at the same time making the entire stable or tag team the co-winners of the match and throwing the Wrestlemania main event plans into kayfabe chaos for the time being, or for some good heel heat, have the stable actually do their leader’s bidding and bow out allowing their winner to take all the tainted glory, which would have been perfect for Bray Wyatt least year as well.

4. Wrestler.. Ahem… Superstar wins Royal Rumble in his debut match.

Here’s an idea that I cannot claim I originated (heck, most of these have probably been thought of by others at various times as well) as Vortex Effect chief editor Gary Smith wrote about this in an old edition of his Deadly Venom series back a few years ago where he had an alternative history deal where Vader defected to the WWE in 1993 and began his monster run by winning the 93 Royal Rumble. It would have had a similar impact to the way Vader made his debut in Japan by getting the shock and awe victory of Antonio Inoki, who for the uninitiated is like a mix between Hulk Hogan, Vince McMahon, and God in Japan. The idea behind this finish is to find a guy who, as a rule, would have to be one of those can’t miss type prospects, like a young Brock Lesnar, or Goldberg etc… and then strap the rocket to their back by having them establish themselves as main event talent out of the gate.

They accomplish this by coming literally out of nowhere and winning the Royal Rumble and then going on to Wrestlemania where they would win the title in the same manner that Brock Lesnar did at Summerslam 2014 from John Cena. Having guys come out of nowhere and becoming instant world beaters happens rarely, but of course, always very memorably in real sports such as Mike Tyson in the 80s boxing scene. Having badass characters like this in the right time and place is always good for business, and makes championships more prestigious when the guy holding it has that untarnished vibe about him. When Rusev was a surprise entrant in the 2014 Rumble, having yet to make his TV debut I might add, I was hopeful that’s what they were going to do then. It is too late for him to do this now, but I am hopeful, should the right talent come along, that this still might come to fruition sometime in my lifetime.

3. La Parka Memorial Finish

First, I feel the need to explain the title of this one to those who might not have been watching quite as long as the rest of us. There was a match in WCW back in the late 90s between long suffering Luchadore jobber La Parka and legendary main eventer and 2015 HOF inductee Randy “Macho Man” Savage. This was your typical squash that typified the era, until near the end La Parka comes out of nowhere with a Diamond Cutter and pins Randy Savage clean in the middle of the ring. Gadzooks! Now not only has La Parka just shook the wrestling world with this, but he has just done the ultimate taboo by using someone else’s finisher, until after the referee raises his hand, the mask comes off and surprise of all surprises, it is in fact Diamond Dallas Page, who had recently been feuding with Savage.

To tie this into the Rumble, I would have Dolph Ziggler accomplish this same feat while wearing the outfit of Sin Cara, which for those who’ve been watching a while will recall he has in fact done before. Now the current incarnation of Sin Cara has a very noticeable arm tattoo that might be a bit of a pain to duplicate on Dolph’s arm, but it is certainly not undoable for dramatic effect, or just leave it as is and those who notice can clap themselves on the back for noticing. This would not be a wholly original finish either, as I do recall none other than Dean Malenko won a WCW cruiserweight battle royal for a shot at Chris Jericho while he was dressed up as Ciclope. Once again, recent WWE booking has thrown a wrench into my fantasy plans (which I’m sure was their entire motivation for doing so) but if Ziggler had done this while still technically being “fired” it would have made for a very intriguing storyline on the episode of Raw following the Rumble.

2. What!?! Virgil (Or insert your favorite jobber) wins! Virgil wins!

No, I’m not suggesting that Virgil (or Ryder even) return and win the 2015 Royal Rumble, although that certainly would qualify as a shocking scenario. What I am suggesting here is for WWE to finally live up to the old adage that “Anything can happen in the world wrestling federation!”…. I remember part of the excitement as a kid watching the Royal Rumble was the far away distant hope that say, Barry Horowitz might finally pull off the impossible and get to main event Wrestlemania. Of course after a decade or so of nothing but solid main eventers (Hogan, Flair etc…) or at the very least very high upper mid carders (HBK in 95, Austin in 97) I realized this was probably not going to occur. Now there is a natural reason a random jobber is not going to win the Royal Rumble. He’s a damn jobber, and well, that’s just not his job. But done correctly this could be a very memorable and creatively rewarding storyline for WWE. It would take a year, or ideally two of some supportive booking in advance though.

Again, in this ideal scenario WWE would pick a guy they thought was another “can’t miss” kind of prospect, like in the aforementioned scenario where the debuting guy wins the Rumble, only in this case instead of lighting a fire under his ass, you just lay a whooping on his ass every single week until the fans are conditioned to seeing him in that aforementioned Virgil or Barry Horowitz kind of light. Then around the time of the Royal Rumble, give the guy some kind of motivation or a small storyline reason for him to finally up his game. Don’t make it too obvious, lest you lose the shock value, but for the sake of logic, there ought to be a reason why said jobber just turned into a world beater overnight, like when Buster Douglas KO’d Mike Tyson after the death of his mother inspired him to finally train like the beast he could have always been. Then after this jobber wins the Rumble you can do the full on Rocky Balboa storyline all the way to Wrestlemania, and win or lose, if done right, and with the right person, would be absolutely awesome.

1. Number 30 wins by default…

Image of tumbler, found on Tumblr.

Here’s an idea I have had literally forever and one which I am literally begging WWE to do before I die. For this one to work, it absolutely has to be a heel in that number 30 position, and a very effective cocky heel such as Edge in 2006 or Seth Rollins presently. And it has to be a good smarmy, chicken shit type of heel on top of that. Someone the fans would be all riled up to see them backdoor their way into the biggest match of the year for the WWE title. The idea is simply that, before the final entrant in the Royal Rumble makes it out to the ring, by fluke luck, the final two other men in the ring both eliminate each other, meaning that whoever number 30 is will be the winner by default. For this to be most effective I would have this happen with as much time as possible remaining on the clock until that final  Royal Rumble entrant would come out so that you would have that full minute or more of just awkward “holy shit” silence where it would register with people, and with the announcers just what has happened here.

They could sell hard the fact that whoever the next man out, by sheer luck of the draw would find himself with a free ride to the main event of Wrestlemania. People would be whispering back and forth debating on who would be the guy coming out in this once and a lifetime spot. This finish also gets over the idea of the number 30 being a big deal, which has been kind of overlooked at different times, and for years after this you can use this as a selling point for why that number 30 is such a sought after position in this match. I for one, think it could be a hell of a moment. And with the right heel to play it up afterwards, it could be a hell of a heat getter as well.

That’s all for now. As always, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time in the ever palpitating pool of Pulp Wrestling.