WWE Royal Rumble Winner’s Circle: Yokozuna (1993)
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With the 2011 Royal Rumble approaching, we found it appropriate to pay homage to those who managed to go over in the 30 man over the top rope classic without their feet hitting the floor.
There are two types of super heavyweights that come through the ever revolving door of WWE history. There’s the unathletic type, who cannot work their way out of a paper bag or hold their own in a match long enough to keep your attention on their immense size as opposed to their shortcomings in the ring, and there’s the larger than life studs who are able to do just enough in the ring to fill the all important role as the big hoss that is always lucrative at the box office.
Then there’s Yokozuna.
Like a Dodge Ram in bright red spandex with taped ankles, Yokozuna was a one in a million freakish super heavyweight whose agility was nothing more than an athletic anomaly.
Similar to Batista and Brock Lesnar, two enormous athletes in their own right who were instantaneous successes in WWE, Yokozuna’s quick rise up the WWE ranks coincided with him winning a Royal Rumble. 1993′s Royal Rumble, in Sacramento, California, despite being the first Royal Rumble in history contested for a number one contendership for the WWF Championship at Wrestlemania, was quite boring as Yokozuna plodded his way through the field upon entering at number 27.
The ’93 Royal Rumble seemed like more of a coronation than anything else as WWE had heavily invested in making Yokozuna come off as an unstoppable badass leading up to the event.
The final elimination of Randy Savage was quite lame, as Yokozuna’s powerful kickout caused Savage to fly over the top ropes in one of those suspend-your-disbelief moments that comes with the territory of watching pro wrestling on a consistent basis.
Yokozuna would go on to capture the WWF Championship at Wrestlemania IX, only to lose it to Hulk Hogan minutes later in what could easily be considered one of the worst Wrestlemanias of all time. Yokozuna regained the WWF Championship two months later at the King of the Ring in Dayton, Ohio, as Hulk Hogan was on his way out of the WWF with his red and yellow flavor growing stale.
Yokozuna’s pro wrestling career, while promising, was compromised with prevailing health problems that lead to exponential weight gains for the Samoan super heavyweight in the mid 90′s. Yokozuna tragically lost his constant battle with weight when he died in from heart failure in 2000.
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Tags: Arco Arena, Dayton, Hoss, Hulk Hogan, King of the Ring, Ohio, Royal Rumble 1993, Sacramento, Winners, Wrestling, WWE, WWF, Yokozuna
