Ranking Every Men's WWE Royal Rumble Match from the Last Decade

The Royal Rumble is second only to WrestleMania when it comes to WWE institutions. It is one of the most popular and important pay-per-views of the year.

The reason people love this event so much is that the Royal Rumble matches produce memorable moments every year. Whether it's a return, reunion or shocking elimination, there is always something for the highlight reel.

The format of the match is simple. Thirty Superstars enter the ring at regular intervals and attempt to throw each other over the top rope. The last person standing is declared the winner and awarded a title shot at WrestleMania.

Several wrestlers have made the Rumble special over the years like Kofi Kingston with his epic saves and Kane with his record number of eliminations.

This year will mark the 34th Rumble PPV if you don't count The Greatest Royal Rumble in 2018. The past decade has seen a lot of future Hall of Fame candidates win the titular Battle Royal. Let's take a walk down memory lane and rank the last 10 years of men's Royal Rumble matches.

Winner: Alberto Del Rio

Notable Stats and Moments

• The only Rumble in history with 40 Superstars.
• CM Punk and John Cena tied for most eliminations with seven each.
• Punk lasted the longest at 35:21.
• Diesel and Booker T were the only legends to appear.

The 2011 men's Royal Rumble match was the most overstuffed in history with a staggering 40 participants. WWE had a huge roster at the time, but it still seemed excessive.

Not only was Del Rio not the greatest choice to win, but the match itself wasn't that exciting. It seemed to move along almost too quickly because there were more people to eliminate.

For being the biggest Rumble bout in history save for the Greatest Royal Rumble, this also ended up being one of the most forgettable.

Winner: Sheamus

Notable Stats and Moments

• Big Show and Cody Rhodes tied for the most eliminations with four each.
• The Miz lasted the longest at 45:39.
• Legend appearances included Jerry Lawler, Booker T, Jim Duggan, Mick Foley, Road Dogg and Michael Cole.
• Kharma was the only woman in the match.
• Epico was eliminated by Foley in 12 seconds.

Sheamus' Royal Rumble victory is almost as forgettable as Del Rio's because The Celtic Warrior hasn't been booked as a main event star in years.

This win led to the infamous 18-second match with Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania XXVII that saw Sheamus win the World Heavyweight Championship.

This bout had its moments but was one of the least exciting Rumble matches in recent history. It felt like everybody was just going through the motions.

Winner: Triple H

Notable Stats and Moments

• This was for the WWE Championship instead of a title shot.
• The debut of AJ Styles.
• Roman Reigns lasted the longest at 59:48.
• Reigns also had the most eliminations with five.
• Jack Swagger was eliminated in 15 seconds.

Triple H entering the match at No. 30 and winning the whole thing was designed to help get heat on The Authority, but it ended up looking like he booked himself to win his 14th world title to boost his ego.

This event was enjoyable and had some other great matches, but the Rumble was nothing to write home about. There were no legends, and the only notable participant was the debuting Styles.

Reigns' performance was a highlight, but there wasn't anything else to make this memorable. The fact that there was no WrestleMania spot on the line almost made it anticlimactic.

Winner: Batista

Notable Stats and Moments

• CM Punk entered first and lasted the longest at 49:12.
• Reigns set a new record for most eliminations with 12.
• R-Truth only lasted 28 seconds.
• Kevin Nash and JBL were the only legends to appear.
• Rusev's main-roster debut.

Remember the year Batista came back at the Royal Rumble and people reacted so negatively to the decision that WWE decided to put the world heavyweight title on Daniel Bryan instead? Those were good times.

The crowd clearly wanted Bryan to win, so WWE was right to correct its course, but this Rumble match still stands out because it was so poorly received.

The Rumble itself wasn't bad. Punk's and Reigns' performances were major highlights. El Torito eliminating Fandango was also memorable, but whether it counts as a highlight is up for debate.

Winner: Drew McIntyre

Notable Stats and Moments

• McIntyre lasted the longest a 34:11.
• Brock Lesnar tied the record for the most eliminations with 13.
• Keith Lee's and Matt Riddle's first appearances on the main roster.
• MVP and Edge returned to WWE during the match.
• Erick Rowan was eliminated in eight seconds.

For some reason, WWE decided to have Brock Lesnar enter the Royal Rumble despite the fact that he was the WWE champion instead of giving the spot to a Superstar who would have benefitted from the appearance.

McIntyre's win was predictable, but it was also the right call. He was starting to pick up steam as a babyface, and this victory helped cement him as WWE's next big star.

Edge's triumphant in-ring return after nine years on the shelf was the biggest highlight of the show. It's hard to describe how awesome it was to not only see him but to also be surprised by his arrival.

WWE can barely manage to keep things like this a secret in the age of social media, so the moment was both rare and special.

Winner: John Cena

Notable Stats and Moments

• Dolph Ziggler entered first and lasted 49:47. 
• Sheamus and Ryback tied for most eliminations with five.
• Bo Dallas made his first appearance on the main roster.
• The Godfather was the only legend to appear and only lasted five seconds.

The 2013 Royal Rumble might be one of the most underrated Rumble matches of the past decade. If you rewatch it, you might enjoy it more than you did eight years ago.

Since The Rock won the WWE title at the same event from CM Punk and he had an ongoing feud with Cena, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that they would end up back in the ring at WrestleMania 29.

Even though it was predictable, Cena's victory was the right decision at the time. The match was paced well and had some fun moments, but it's unlikely to top anyone's list of the best Rumbles. It just didn't have that special moment that will live forever.

Winner: Randy Orton

Notable Stats and Moments

• Chris Jericho entered at No. 2 and lasted more than an hour.
• Braun Strowman had the most eliminations with 11.
• The Undertaker and Goldberg were the only special appearances.
• This was Tye Dillinger's first appearance on the main roster.
• James Ellsworth was eliminated in 15 seconds.

Randy Orton's second Royal Rumble victory came in 2017, but even though he won, he had one of the least impressive showings with only one elimination.

This match had a lot to like and might go down as one of the last great WWE performances by Jericho before he left the company.

Seven Superstars lasted more than 20 minutes, but Strowman taking out 11 people was possibly the biggest highlight of the night.

The crowd came alive the moment Orton hit the ring and started hitting RKOs on everybody he could find. When he won at the end by eliminating Reigns, the pop he received was deafening. If you don't have fun watching this one, you are hard to please.

Winner: Roman Reigns

Notable Stats and Moments

• Bray Wyatt lasted the longest at 46:50.
• Wyatt also had the most eliminations with seven.
• The Boogeyman, Bubba Ray Dudley and DDP made appearances.
• Titus O'Neil was eliminated in four seconds.

At the time, the 2015 Royal Rumble match was the most controversial in WWE history because Reigns was being pushed as a babyface while the crowd was booing him out of every arena in the country.

Looking back at it six years later, The Big Dog's win was the right way to go. Not only was this moment important for his ascension, but it also illustrates how the WWE Universe can hate somebody and grow to love them later.

These days, Reigns is looked at as one of the best WWE has to offer, and a lot of it has to do with his epic run as a heel.

While this bout was heavily criticized at the time, it had a lot of enjoyable performances and pushed several storylines at the same time.

The Rock's appearance to congratulate his cousin at the end didn't help Reigns' reception, but it is still one of those moments that will end up on The Tribal Chief's Hall of Fame video package.

Winner: Seth Rollins

Notable Stats and Moments

• Rollins lasted the longest at 43 minutes.
• Strowman had the most eliminations with six.
• This saw the first main-roster appearances for Aleister Black, Johnny Gargano and Pete Dunne.
• Jeff Jarrett and Kurt Angle were the only legends to appear.
• Nia Jax became the fourth woman to enter a Rumble match.
• Xavier Woods was eliminated in three seconds.

The 2019 men's Royal Rumble bout featured a series of memorable moments with some great eliminations and a handful of standout performances.

Jax taking out R-Truth to enter the match after she came up short in the women's Rumble led to a fun sequence that saw her take a 619, superkick and RKO before being thrown out of the ring. It took three former world champions to eliminate her from contention.

Rollins was still a babyface at the time, so his win was lauded as the right decision. Interestingly, he and the winner of the women's Rumble, Becky Lynch, are now engaged with a child.

In addition to The Messiah's great showing, we also saw standout performances by Samoa Joe and Mustafa Ali. This match was engaging from start to finish, which is hard to do when it's roughly an hour long.

Winner: Shinsuke Nakamura

Notable Stats and Moments

• Finn Balor lasted the longest at 57:38.
• Balor and Reigns tied for the most eliminations with four each.
• Sheamus only lasted two seconds before being eliminated.
• Andrade and Adam Cole made their first appearances on the main roster.
• John Cena and The Hurricane made special appearances.

Everything that comes before the top spot in a ranked list is up for debate, but the No. 1 pick has to stand out above the rest. It's hard to pick a more satisfying victory than Nakamura's in 2018.

Not only did he take out Reigns to win, but he did it after lasting almost 45 minutes in the match. The ovation he received when he threw The Big Dog out of the ring likely shook the arena's foundations.

This bout also featured several great performances. Eight Superstars lasted more than 20 minutes, including Matt Hardy, Rusev, Elias and Cena.

While he did not go on to defeat AJ Styles at WrestleMania 34, winning the Rumble puts Nakamura in a very exclusive club in WWE and gives hope that the company will book him as a main event talent again in the future.

With Asuka winning the women's Rumble match, WWE gave two fan-favorite characters the biggest pushes of their careers in the promotion on the same night. For that reason and many more, 2018 stands above the rest as the best men's Royal Rumble of the past decade.

What is your favorite men's Royal Rumble match from the past 10 years?