By Ian Hunter, PWTorch Specialist

Whatcha gonna do when we come for you? Ian Hunter here, being rocket propelled out from under the stage floor like a stuntman in a kung-fu flick. Not that I mind Rey's entrance, but is it politically correct for a Mexican wrestler to be coming out to a theme where the first lines of the song are the same as the chorus to the song from "COPS"? Oh well. It's January and that can only mean one major day ahead to look forward to. Martin Luther King Day. Oh, and that one event called The Royal Rumble. This year the event turns 20, and to celebrate we're going to do THREE WEEKS worth of trivia surrounding the past nineteen years of my personal favorite PPV. But first, we need to answer last week's questions.

1: E. D-Von was the partner. Transit was actually filling in for Axl Rotten. Footage can be found in various spots around the net for those of you interested in seeing the gore. As for Kulas, he died in May of 2002 due to complications from gastric bypass surgery.

2: B. Droz would later admit that it was half his fault for his own injury, citing that he was wearing a baggy shirt that left D-Lo little to hold onto during the powerbomb, and that on his way down he couldn't land it properly.

3: E. He decided it was time for him to quit pro-wrestling and head to the NFL. In fact, he had made up his mind the next day while recovering and spent the next few months planning how to get out. He didn't even have a plan of how to tell McMahon until SummerSlam, and even then didn't officially make the decision to leave until the following January. Lesnar still continued to cause injury to others before he took off, which made Goldberg hesitant to wrestle him at Wrestlemania XX.

4: B. While Vince McMahon does have final say over what happens, it was George Scott initially who pushed for the angle and convinced Ricky to do it in the first place. Jake would later recount having to lift Ricky up on the mat to end the match and get him medical help saying that "it was like lifting a dead body." A more detailed account of the events can be found on Jake Robert's DVD.

5. B. It was between Brian and Scott. When the injury occurred, they rushed El Gigante out (Sid was supposed to bomb Brian 3 times) and ended the match. Leaving the staff to grab Nick Patrick and improvise the reasoning for the end on camera. And while we'll never know what the end result would have been if Scott was in Brian's place, think about this for a moment. The injury forced Brian to change his wrestling style from then until the end of his career. If Scott had suffered the same injury Brian did, would Big Pappa Pump be the star he is today? Makes you think how history might have gone.

Sadly this week, we had no winners. A lot of people got four with one missed question all across the board. Let's see if we can get back on a winning streak. Answer the questions and email your answers to TorchTrivia@gmail.com. We’ll post the names of those who got ALL FIVE correct. Good luck to you all!

ROYAL RUMBLE TRIVIA

1. January 24th, 1988. The first Royal Rumble (at the time called the Rumble Royale) aired on the USA Network and started the tradition. A few differences between the event then compared to the one we know now. The first one only had 20 wrestlers, there were no main event wrestlers (at least none at that point in time) involved in the match, and the winner got a cash prize instead of a title shot. During the match, two men came out almost at the same time. The first, and legal man, was Don Muraco. The second was held back by the referees and told to wait until his number was up to join the match. Who was this man?

A. Dino Bravo
B. Nikolai Volkoff
C. Ron Bass
D. Danny Davis
E. Boris Zhukof

2. Not every Royal Rumble goes to plan. For years prior to having the kind of roster the WWE has today, all thirty wrestlers would be advertized to show who would be in the Rumble ahead of time. But as unpredictable as the business is, people suddenly become unavaliable and end up being replaced for one reason or another. The first person was Andre The Giant having to bail out due health issues in 1991. Which of these people did NOT get a replacement participant either due to storyline or real life reasons?

A. Randy "Macho Man" Savage
B. The Honky Tonk Man
C. Brian Knobbs
D. "Playboy" Buddy Rose
E. Marty Jannetty

3. After Jim Duggan won the first Rumble and the ratings came in, the WWF decided to make the event their 4th major PPV. They saw it as a chance for it to be a major catalist for feuds and a chance to start new ones with wrestlers who wouldn't have crossed paths before, and with that mindset it usually set the stage for events to come at Wrestlemania. To follow up the first one, they wanted an unpredictable winner at the end. Big John Studd was the eventual choice to win, giving him what many consider his last great victory before his retirement. But rumors went around for years that he was a last minute pick and that someone else was due to win. Who was it?

A. Rick Rude
B. Curt Henning
C. Hercules
D. Brutus Beefcake
E. Akeem

Every year Kane enters the Royal Rumble with Ross screaming about how the Big Red Monster is going to be a challenge, and every year he's screwed out of winning. It never fails. But to his credit Kane holds two records in the Rumble. The one the WWE loves to milk every year is that he has eliminated the most people in a single Rumble match, setting the record in 2001 with eleven people. The other record he holds is having the most Rumble appearances with nine so far (eleven if you count Glen Jacobs other appearances as Issac Yankem in 1996 and the fake Deisel in 1997). Who did Kane beat for this record?

A. The British Bulldog
B. Rikishi
C. Shawn Michaels
D. Tito Santana
E. Jake Roberts

5. Long before Shawn Michaels won the Rumble starting at #1, the WWF kept track of who stayed in the match the longest by unofficially giving them the Logevity Record. Which actually used to mean something back in the days when they waited two minutes for a new entry into the ring. But after setting the clock to 1:00 minute entry times, the company rarely bothered to keep track of the record or even announce it in commentary until recently with Rey Mysterio's 62 minute time. Our question to you, which of these men did NOT hold the Logevity Record at some point in time in the event's history?

A. Ric Flair
B. Rick Martel
C. Chris Benoit
D. Steve Austin
E. Ted DiBiase

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