The following is an excerpt from Fightful's Inside The Royal Rumble feature. For the full story an additional context, please visit the full article at this link, and when posting quotes from this piece, please link to the original article.
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Closing out the Royal Rumble is usually pretty straightforward. There isn't a big pin or a submission, and nobody comes out looking worse for getting chucked over the top rope, but someone does look better for doing it. Over the course of dozens of Royal Rumble matches, there have been three times where a "dual elimination" happened. 2000s with The Rock and The Big Show didn't quite go according to plan, with Rock hitting the floor before he should have. 2005's with Batista and John Cena wasn't. So of the three, only 1994 with the Lex Luger Bret Hart double elimination was planned and went off without a hitch.
Bret Hart claims it was one of the more difficult things he's ever pulled off in wrestling.
"I think my favorite Rumble was the one with [Lex Luger[, where we both went out at the same time," Hart told Fightful. "That was so hard to do if you really think about it. You can both go over the top rope, but you have to land exactly the same time on the ground. It has to be done perfect. There’s no way to guarantee that, there’s no way to ensure that. In fact, they filmed it and they didn’t show it ‘cause they didn’t want anyone to go, ‘Oh, Bret Hart hit the ground, he’s way ahead of Lex,’ or vice versa. But, I always give Lex credit for that. If you watch Lex, the way I go over the top, Lex grabs me and we just flip over the top rope. It's great athleticism that both of us landed exactly. I remember they showed the next day, Vince and Pat, ‘We didn’t want to show anyone the camera angle. But, in fact, we can show the camera angle, because you both landed at the same time.’ That’s the beauty of two guys that are good. Lex was always a great athlete. Just two consummate professionals in there.
Lex Luger isn't widely considered one of the most polished in-ring performers of his era, let alone all-time, but Hart is. However, according to Hart, the athleticism of Luger which he touted may have been the determining factor in what made the spot work.
Hart told Fightful "I give all the credit to Lex on that one. If you watch it, I just sort of grab him and he does the flip. I remember when I was falling over the rope and going to land I remember trying to pull my feet up, and I’m sure Lex is doing the same because I didn’t want my feet to be first. We both hit at the exact same time. It’s pretty much a fluke and impossible. If we had to do it twice, I don’t know that we would have done it twice the same way."
Times have changed in the last 25-plus years. The New Generation that Hart then-led is the one that paved the way, set the stage and created moments. They also ran the gamut creatively, making the finishes of the match more of a challenge to top year over year. The most recent was 2020, which saw Brock Lesnar dominate half the field. Well, until a Scottish Psychopath got in his way.
"When I found out I was winning didn’t believe it until it actually happened," WWE Champion Drew McIntyre told Fightful. "I've been around too long nothing is official until it’s official, which made it more real to me and hopefully came across to fans that when it happened. It was the realization that it actually happened. On top of that, they were cheering as loud as when I eliminated Brock (Lesnar) and could have turned on match considering Edge had just returned."
