WWE Royal Rumble and its sinister connection with number 14
Iron Maiden told us 666 is the number of the devil, while Jason convinced us Friday the 13th was the day to fear. But when it comes to WWE Royal Rumble, the number 14 is the one wrestlers fear the most. Over the years, several number 14 entrants of the Royal Rumble have had bad luck befalling on them. Here we decode the connection.
In 1989, Marty Jannetty of The Rockers was the one to enter the Royal Rumble at 14th position. We all know how his career panned out after that, with his partner Shawn Michaels becoming the best in-ring performer of all time, and Jannetty fading into oblivion. In 1991, British Bulldog entered at number 14, and he died an early death in 2002.
In 1992, it was Hercules who entered the Royal Rumble at number 14, and in the same year, his career with the WWE was over. The same happened with the following year's entrant, Berserker, who also faded away from prominence after his Royal Rumble appearance. Jacob (1995) and Gilbert (1996) too saw their careers taking a wrong turn after being Royal Rumble's 14th entrant.
Bob Backlund (2000) was declared certifiably insane, as Diamond Dallas Page (2002) lost his career after his Undertaker debacle. The 2003 entrant Eddie Guerrero died two years later while Rikishi, 2004's entrant left WWE the very same year. Orlando Jordan (2005) and Finlay (2009) lost their WWE contracts, while Jeff Hardy (2007) fell to substance addiction and Umaga (2008) died the very next year.
2010 and 2011 entrants MVP and Chris Masters lost their careers soon, while 2012 entrant Jinder Mahal was released two years later, though he came back again. 2013 entrant Rey Mysterio was booed by the crowd while 2014 entrant Kevin Nash had a public physical altercation with his own son. Stardust (2016) left the company, while Kofi Kingston (2017) suffered an ankle injury.
WWE probably later realized that this is becoming a pattern, and thus made the 2018's 14th entrant Shinsuke Nakamura win the event. However, Nakamura, too, has been reduced to the mid-card currently. Questions are bound to arise whether WWE played on this deliberately, but doubts still remain. Let's explore them, shall we?
While it is possible that WWE deliberately began to assign the 14th number to wrestlers who would be released later. But what about the deaths, injuries and drug addictions? Well, wrestling in the 80s and 90s had a drug culture in effect, and the series of unfortunate events were just things which we, true to human nature, would want to fall into a pattern.
