The 1989 Royal Rumble was the first official one after the experimental one from 1988. From now on, it was going to be 30 participants and the main event would last longer. Only one match from the card was any good for me. The six man tag team match was simply magnificent. The Hart Foundation and Hacksaw Jim Duggan squared off against The Rougeau Brothers and Dino Bravo in a two out of three falls match up. The choreography and twists and turns built up the excitement right to the end. The women's title match was rubbish and I've seen far better women's wrestling where they can duke it out, just like the men. The silly posedown between The Ultimate Warrior and Ravishing Rick Rude was a complete waste of time as nothing happened. It did create the feud that would result and it was a very good one. Haku and Harley Race battled it out to see who would be crowned the King of the WWE. This was actually not too bad. The Rumble event was a brief return appearance for Big John Studd, now a babyface. The likes of Rugged Ronnie Garvin, The Bushwhackers, The Brain Busters and the Big Boss Man all made their debuts on the Royal Rumble P.P.V. The heat was building between the current heavyweight champion Macho Man Randy Savage and his tag team partner Hulk Hogan. A sign of things to come..... I thought the main event compensated for the disappointment of how the matches panned out.

1. Dick Bruno/The Rougeau Brothers Vs. The Hart Foundation/"Ridiculous" Jim Duggan 6/10 2. The Ultimate Warrior Vs. Rick Rude - WTF taunting match 2/10 3. Judy Martin Vs. Rockin' Robin 6.5/10 4. King Haku Vs. Harley Race 5. Royal Rumble 6/10 Hey Macho and Hogan have disagreement. Big deal!!! Who cares?? :) Thanks God, that Beefcake didn't win the Rumble. He is Mega idiot. Same pays for Big Boss Man. Really useless like a wrestler. I almost forgot Hacksaw Jim Duggan and The Ultimate Warrior...

*SPOILERS*Rumbles started getting really good in '90, but this one wasn't bad.The opening six-man match was very good. Listen closely after the second fall and you'll hear Jim Duggan say "Get off my (expletive)" to the ref. Remember, this was back in the day. Wrestlers never cussed. It was nice to see two major feuds settled in one match.Why was King Haku vs. Harley Race edited from the tape? In fact, the commentators never even mention this match. I know nothing about this apparent feud, and if either of them was a face in this match.The Rumble: Ax and Smash, the most dominant tag team in WWF history, did simply poorly here. Smash barely lasted till number 4, and Ax didn't do much better. And they never cross paths with the Powers of Pain. Usually, this was a great opportunity for all rivals to fight. Mr. Perfect and the Brain Busters did the best here before a fresh Hulk Hogan disposed of them. The Warlord proved his mediocrity by stepping in and right back out courtesy of a Hogan clothesline. The Barbarian fared surprisingly well, by eliminating Brutus Beefcake AND Hercules, two men who have defeated him several times. I liked seeing Butch eliminate the Honky Tonk Man.Hulk Hogan kind of shocked me by getting easily eliminated by the Towers, then just reaching in and pulling Bossman out. Did he even lose any popularity at all? This wasn't the best Rumble match, not even close; but it was much better than some of them, too. It was somewhere in the middle.It was also an interesting decision to put the previous year's winner, Duggan, and its iron man, Bret Hart, in an undercard match, but hey, it was actually a better match than the Rumble.

In its pre pay per view days the Royal Rumble was a less important event than it would later become. The 1989 event did however help start the trend of the Rumble setting the scene for Wrestlemania. The opening 3 fall six man was fairly entertaining but was followed by a turkey in the form of a ladies title match which had no business being part of such a major event. The super posedown predictably ended in Rick Rude attacking the ultimate warrior after the two contestants had traded poses to show off their chemically enhanced upper bodies. The Rumble match itself was entertaining but lacked tension because their was no Wrestlemania title shot at stake as there was in future years.