This year’s Royal Rumble might be in the books with Randy Orton walking away as the unexpected winner despite being advertised for the show. Another unexpected but unadvertised Rumble win happened seven years ago at the Philip’s Arena in Atlanta, Georgia.
The man who won that Rumble was Edge and the Toronto native was unadvertised for the Rumble, having missed the past five months of action due to injury. This edition of ‘This day..’ takes a look at the Ultimate Opportunist’s road to Wrestlemania in 2010.
Also on this day, former WCW stars debuted in the WWE as the Radicalz and Ted Turner’s company produced yet another PPL (Pay per listen).
#1 Edge wins the Rumble – 31st January 2010
Edge had been in the main event of either Raw or SmackDown for nearly two years and had cemented himself as a top drawing star in the WWE when the summer of 2009 came calling. WWE Creative decided to move Edge from singles competition and give his character another shade by entering him in the tag team division alongside Chris Jericho.
The duo would win the Unified tag team titles as a surprise entry and the plan was to have them dominate the WWE and form an opposition to the soon-to-be-reformed DX. However, tragedy struck and Edge got injured, leading to the WWE substituting The Bigshow as Jericho’s partner.
When the Royal Rumble came five months later, nobody really thought about Edge. The main angle going into the Rumble was Shawn Michael’s quest to win the match in order to gain his Wrestlemania rematch against the World Heavyweight Champion The Undertaker.
But the Rated R Superstar would make his presence known, entering the Rumble at # 29 – one spot after his former tag team partner-turned-foe Jericho. Edge would eliminate a shell-shocked Y2J in under three minutes, setting up a clash at Wrestlemania.
The final four would turn out to be Edge, Michaels, Batista and John Cena. Batista would end Michaels’ dream of main eventing Wrestlemania only to be thrown out of the ring by Cena. The booing Atlanta crowd would let out a thunderous applause when Edge foiled Cena’s bid to eliminate him and sent him over the top rope to win the match.
The Rated R Superstar was truly back!!
#2 The Radicalz debuts in the WWE: 31st January 2000
It was on an episode of Monday Night Raw that aired on 31st January 2000 that former WCW wrestlers Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko and Perry Saturn debuted in the WWE. They would have ringside seats during a tag team match involving the New Age Outlaws and Headcheese, only to run interference.
In a twist of fate, Eddie would injure his elbow hitting the frog splash on Billy Gunn. The Radicalz – as they were dubbed by Jim Ross – would start out as baby faces aligned with Mick Foley, but would betray him and turn heels.
Benoit was a former WCW Champion when he left for WWE and he and Eddie would win World titles in the WWE four years later.
#3 WCW presents Boston Brawl PPL: 31st January 1998
WCW presented a time-tested concept on 31st January 19 years ago – a Pay Per Listen called Boston Brawl. The event would be streamed live on the WCW website, but only the audio would be present.
WCW announcer Tony Schiavone would call the play by play action – it was basically a radio show.
The card for the Boston Brawl was not a mediocre one, though. It involved the likes of Goldberg, Booker T, Chris Jericho, DDP, nWo, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Bret Hart and Ric Flair with a Steel cage match between Sting and Hulk Hogan headlining the show.
Ah, those times!!!!
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