Does Winning the WWE Royal Rumble in the Brand Split Era Matter?

The winner of the Royal Rumble earns a championship match at WrestleMania, but does it matter when there are two World titles?

The World Heavyweight Championship was introduced as WWE’s second World Championship as the RAW exclusive title. The “Big Gold” title lasted from September 2001 when it was awarded to Triple H to 2013 when John Cena faced Randy Orton to unify the WWE and World Heavyweight Champions at TLC.

In its 12 years of existence, 11 Royal Rumbles took place. The winner of this would earn a World championship match at WrestleMania for the championship of his choosing. But what about the last man eliminated from the Royal Rumble? From 2003-2013 the person who was eliminated last went on to have a World title match at WrestleMania 64 percent of the time (seven out of 11 Runner-Ups). Two of these instances came in the 2003 (Undertaker) and 2004 (Big Show) Royal Rumble matches.

The 2005 Royal Rumble started a streak of six straight matches where the last two men left went on to challenge for a World Championship at WrestleMania. The streak ended when Alberto Del Rio eliminated Santino Marella to win the 2011 Royal Rumble.

However, this only lasted for one year. In 2012, Sheamus and Chris Jericho were the last two men in the match and both received World title matches at WrestleMania. The 2013 Royal Rumble, which only saw the winner (John Cena) get a World Championship match, was the last before the two World Titles were unified.

When you look at the four men (Undertaker, Big Show, Santino Marella, and Ryback) who didn’t get a championship match at WrestleMania, the case can really only be made for Undertaker. The other seven runner-ups were, in order: John Cena, Randy Orton, Shawn Michaels, Triple H (twice), John Cena and Chris Jericho.

The World Heavyweight Championship was challenged for seven times by the winner and just once by a runner-up. The WWE Championship was only challenged by four Royal Rumble winners times but six times by the runner-up. When you take into account World Title matches that have included either of the last two men a new champion has been crowned almost 56% of the time. Runner-ups have won gold at WrestleMania 43% of the time (3 times out of 7).

Winners, on the other hand, have won 64% of the time (7 out of 11). So, while winning the Royal Rumble might not matter in terms of getting a World Championship match, it certainly does matter when it comes walking away with a title.

The list of Royal Rumble winners that haven’t won their championship opportunity is a rather interesting. In four consecutive years, starting in 2008, John Cena, Randy Orton, Edge and Alberto Del Rio won the Royal Rumble but failed to win at WrestleMania.

With the introduction of the WWE Universal Championship, it’s worth keeping an eye on what happens with this year’s runner-up.