Tag: wrestling

This week one of the guys that I’ve followed since the very beginning of his career retired from professional wrestling, and in a lot of ways it kind of closed the chapter on a period of my life. WWE’s Edge has retired from active duty as a WWE wrestler after an amazing 14 year career.

There was a time where I was TSN.ca’s defacto wrestling guy, and my columns “Tales from the Darkside” regularly brought in a couple hundred thousand page views.

The Royal Rumble is by far my favourite WWE PPV of the year, I love the whole concept of the Rumble.

For the last couple of years, my friends and I have got together and made a few bets on the outcome. We all throw in five bucks, and draw numbers from a hat, the numbers correspond to a guy. This year there were four prizes.

1st prize: The Winner of the Rumble

2nd prize: The guy who lasts longest

3rd prize: The guy who eliminates the most wrestlers

4th prize: The team with the most jobbers.

Larry Woo won the first and third prizes by having Brock Lesnar, the winner of the Rumble, and third prize for guy who eliminates the most wrestlers by having Chris Jericho.

Jeff Styga won the guy who lasts longest with RVD who came in 12th, and left 26th, 14 spots later. The closest guy was Chris Jericho who came in at number 2, and left at number 14.

Yours truly won the crappiest team, with the stellar grouping of Nowinski, Dreamer, Cena, Booker T, and Maven. I managed exactly 1 elimination when Booker T managed to eliminate Eddie Guerrerro. Jeff had the nerve to argue that his team was worse, but the stats back up my argument, come on, tell me how a team could be crappier than mine?!?

Here’s all the Rumble stats:

Order of entry: 1: Shawn Michaels, 2: Chris Jericho, 3: Chris Nowinski, 4: Rey Mysterio, 5: Edge, 6: Christian, 7: Chavo, 8: Tajiri, 9: Bill Demott, 10: Tommy Dreamer, 11: RVD, 13: Matt Hardy, 14: Eddie Guerrerro, 15: Jeff Hardy, 16: Rosey, 17: Test, 18: Cena, 19: Charlie Haas, 20: Rikishi, 21: Jamal, 22: Kane, 23: Sheldon Benjamin, 24: Booker T, 25: A-Train, 26: Maven, 27: Goldust, 28: Batista, 29: Lesnar, 30: Taker.

Order of elimination: 1: Shawn Michaels (by Jericho), 2: Christopher Nowinski (by Mysterio), 3: Mysterio (by Jericho), 4: Demott (by Edge), 5: Dreamer (by Jericho and Christian), 6: Tajiri (by Jericho), 7: B2 (by Edge), 8: Chavo (by Edge), 9: Christian (by Jericho), 10: Edge (by Edge), 11: Jeff Hardy (by RVD), 12: Rosey (by Kane), 13: Eddie (by Booker T), 14: Jericho (by Test), 15: Goldust (by Charlie Haas), 16: Booker T (by Benjamin), 17: Test (by Batista), 18: Rikishi (by Batista), 19: Haas (by Lesnar), 20: Benjamin (by Lesnar), 21: Matt Hardy (by Lesnar), 22: Cena (by Taker), 23: Jamal (by Taker), 24: Maven (by Taker), 25: A-Train (by Kane and RVD), 26: RVD (by Kane), 27 Batista (by Taker), 28: Kane (by Taker), 29: Taker (by Lesnar).

Most Outs:

Jericho: 6

Taker: 5

Lesnar: 4

Kane: 3

Batista: 3

Edge: 3

RVD: 2

Booker T: 1

Test: 1

Haas: 1

Benjamin: 1

Rey: 1

Christian 1

Teams:

Team Benson: Chavo, Test, Jamal, Benjamin, Taker

Eliminations: 7

Team Curtis: Edge, Christian, Tajiri, Eddie G, A-Train

Eliminations: 4

Team Darkside: Chris Nowinski, Tommy Dreamer, John Cena, Booker T, Maven

Eliminations: 1

Team Josh: Rey Mysterio, Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy, Charlie Haas, Batista

Eliminations: 5

Team Jeffro: Bill Demott, RVD, Rosey, Rikishi, Kane

Eliminations: 5

Team Woo Tang: Michaels, Jericho, B2, Goldust, Lesnar

Eliminations: 10

The Royal Rumble Pool was a ton of fun, but it didn’t exactly turn out as I had hoped. Why not? Take a look at the much vaunted “Team Darkside”, and then compare it to that of my competitors.

The winner: Benson’s Brigade (along with the order in which the wrestler emerged):

2 – Goldust

13 – Christian

16 – Godfather

22 – Triple H

25 – Mr. Perfect

29 – RVD

First Runner Up: Larry’s Wooriors

4 – Bradshaw

8 – Undertaker

12 – Scotty Too Hotty

18 – Saturn

23 – Hurricane

26 – Kurt Angle

The Losers:

Team Darkside:

6 – Al Snow

10 – Jeff Hardy

17 – Albert

21 – Test

24 – Faarooq

27 – The Big Show

The Enraged Puffins

1 – Rikishi

3 – Bossman

7 – Billy

11 – Maven

19 – Steve Austin

30 – Booker T

Jeff’s Jobbers

5 – Lance Storm

9 – Matt Hardy

14 – DDP

15 – Chucky

20 – Val Venis

28 – Kane

Order of Entrance:

1 Rikishi, 2 Goldust, 3 Bossman, 4 Bradshaw, 5 Lance Storm, 6 Al Snow, 7 Billy, 8 Undertaker, 9 Matt Hardy, 10 Jeff Hardy, 11 Maven, 12 Scotty 2 Hotty, 13 Christian, 14 DDP, 15 Chucky, 16 Godfather, 17 Albert, 18 Saturn, 19 Stone Cold Steve Austin, 20 Val Venis, 21 Test, 22 HHH, 23 Hurricane, 24 Faarooq, 25 Mr. Perfect, 26 Kurt Angle, 27 The Big Show, 28 Kane, 29 RVD, 30 Booker T.

Elimination:

1 Bossman, 2 Lance Storm, 3 Bradshaw, 4 Goldust, 5 Al Snow, 6 Rikishi, 7 Billy, 8 Jeff, 9 Matt, 10 Undertaker (thrown out by Maven!), 11 Scotty 2 Hotty, 12 DDP (who’s exit wasn’t even shown on the monitors because the cameras were too busy catching Godfather’s 24 minute, 3 ho-train entrance), 13 Albert, 14 Godfather, 15 Christian, 16 Chucky, 17 Saturn, 18 Val Venis, 19 Test, 20 Hurricane, 21 Faarooq, 22 The Big Show, 23 Kane, 24 RVD, 25 Booker T, 26 Stone Cold Steve Austin, 27 Mr. Perfect, 28 Kurt Angle. The winner: Triple H.

It’s important to note that there was some chicanery going on in that the reason there were 30 entrants, but ony 28 exits is because technically Maven was never eliminated. Undertaker went back into the ring and hurled Maven out over the top rope and then took him to school in the back before munching on some popcorn to seal Maven’s fate. In my humble opinion, the real loser here is Curtis who had the $20.00 pot STOLEN out from under his nose! Very weak indeed.

Thirty men enter. One man leaves.

Here are the official Royal Rumble Pool Rules:

Thirty numbers will be placed in a recepticle (be it hat, or popcorn bucket), and each person will take a turn drawing a number until all numbers are taken.

The number will represent the wrestler who arrives in the ring in accordance with the number. I.E. number one will represent the first wrestler who arrives in the ring. Number 30 will be the last person to arrive in the ring.

The person with the number corresponding to the second last wrestler to leave the ring will win 20% of the pool, while the person with the number corresponding to the last wrestler to leave the ring will win the remaining 80%.

In the case of a tie, the portion of the pool which the participants would have won will be split. I.E. if three people are sent out of the ring simutaneously at the end, all three people will split the 80% pool.

Those are the rules. I didn’t make them…oh wait, yes I did.