5 Genius WWE ideas that didn't come from Vince McMahon

#2 The Royal Rumble

The Royal Rumble match was the brainchild of Pat Patterson

The Royal Rumble is one of the most popular PPV’s of the WWE calendar. The idea behind the Royal Rumble match didn’t come from Vince McMahon but instead came from WWE legend Pat Patterson.

Patterson explained how he came up with the idea for the Royal Rumble match in an interview with WWE.com:

“I was working in the office and my job was to be creative, and I always wanted to do something that’s never been done. It’s like, for example, a simple Steel Cage Match. Somebody, somehow, decided to have a Cage Match. Where that started, I have no idea, but somebody came up with the idea. I started thinking about the Battle Royal, but I had it in mind to simply start with two guys and then every two minutes a new guy comes out. When one guy is eliminated, he’s out, and so on and so forth. And I knew it was going to work.”

The first Royal Rumble in 1988 didn’t take place on PPV but was instead a special on the USA Network and was won by Hacksaw Jim Duggan.