This was the first Rumble match I watched, and remains my favorite.
The only real knocks against it are that the champion won, so it didn't help or push anybody (but like you said, it was probably the right choice at the right time) and that there was no reward for winning it save for bragging rights.
But other than that, it was a perfectly-booked Rumble. Basically every booking spot I like that's unique to the Rumble was touched on in this match:
*The guy in an empty ring that clears people out one-by-one and rests (DiBiase until number 4),
*the ebb and flow of building up to a full ring and having people make huge impacts to clean it out or nearly clean it out (Warrior and Hogan) and back,
*people fighting that you never get to see fight under normal booking stances (Earthquake/Haku, Hogan/Rude, etc. Even Heenan and Fuji, kind of),
*a showdown of epic proportions between two huge babyfaces (Hogan vs. Warrior, whose booking and win/loss records were so protected that everyone on the arena got on their feet and everyone watching at home leaned forward, mouths agape. Like you said, it was like a superhero clash--whole worlds just fucking colliding)
*The guy with impressive longevity (DiBiase)
*Mr. Irrelevant(s) (not lasting even one entrance period or being eliminated immediately upon entering, like Shawn Michaels)
*Comedy (DiBiase's karma and Perfect's incredible luck)
*Tag teams uniting (Demos, Colossal Connection)
*Tag teams that never unite because of the draw (Rockers, Powers of Pain, technically the Hart Foundation)
*The sore loser/non-participant elimination (Brown on Piper),
*Face on face or heel on heel fighting and eliminations (Andre/Warlord, Hogan/Snuka)
*The gang-up elimination of the Rumble monster that can't be stopped until he inspires everyone in the ring to put aside their differences and force him out (Earthquake)
*Bee-line for the feud! ...Sometimes with immediate elimination (Dusty/Savage, Warrior/Bravo, Warrior/Rude, Martel/Santana, Andre/Ax)
*Bee-line for the feud!, tag team edition (Demos/Colossal Connection)
*New feud creation and brawl to the back (Piper/Brown)
*Feud blow off (Hogan/Perfect)
*The "I can't believe A eliminated B!" effect--a.k.a. the Maven/Taker Award (Demos/Andre...not taking anything away from the Demos, just that it didn't take more than two people to do it)
*The "whoops!" elimination...well, kind of. (Typically someone unintentionally eliminated by their ally or tag partner when their intended target dodged the attack. Perfect's elimination of Rude and Hogan's elimination of Warrior could fit this bill, but they weren't obvious allies in any way so we don't know the intent.
Some of the only cliches we didn't get that I don't mind are:
*Collateral damage elimination (more than one person hits the floor in a scrum to eliminate someone specific, like Diesel in '94). You could say Warrior's elimination was a variant of this.
*The double-cross/opportunist ally (Hogan/Savage '89--which could be considered a Collateral damage elimination and was important to further the storyline, Taker/Kane '03, etc.)
*The double-cross fail karma variant of the above (Tugboat tries to dump Hogan, Hogan returns the favor in '91)
*Skinning the cat (as made famous by Michaels in '95, was in danger of being overused for a while)
*You Poor Bastard, You Had No Chance in Hell (jobber taking on a monster, main eventer, stable or tag team by himself with no other neutral party in the ring, with the expected result: Scotty 2 Hotty vs. Kane/Taker '01 (technically Rock was still in the match), Diesel/Virgil, etc.)
*Wait, is he outnumbered, or are we? (Monster/main eventer vs. allied wrestlers: Demos/Andre '89, Hardys/Taker '02)
Some of the tropes they didn't hit are actually the ones I don't really like. For example:
*The self-elimination (Kane in '99, though Andre in '89 was a cool spot)
*The coast-to-coasters (Shawn, Benoit, Mysterio...anyone who draws number 1 or 2 and wins the damn thing. Once or twice is fine, but they overdid it. to the point where going coast-to-coast no longer feels special)
*Savage Stupidity (covering for Savage's self elimination in '92, his '91 forfeit, his pinfall attempt in '93)
*Speaking of '92, any kind of bending the match rules to fit the booking (Savage in '92, Vader clearing the ring in the mid-'90s)
*The weak number 30 (Duke the Dumpster, the Warlord, Tugboat, Chyna). I know it should statistically happen, but it feels like an anti-climax for some reason.
*Being assigned a number in the weeks before the Rumble (Austin '99, Chyna '99, etc.)
*Not getting 30 superstars ('91, '94, that Rumble where Scotty got beat up on the ramp)
*Pulling double duty--guys in side matches also in the Rumble (I think '99 may have had the highest number of these with Billy Gunn, Shamrock, X-Pac, and Gangrel. Piper in '92 actually worked because he was a last minute sub for the match he was in and he wouldn't want to give up his chance at the World Title, either)
*Multi-dead spots (1999...notice a '99 pattern?)
*Empty ring following double-elimination or something like that (Austin/McMahon leaving in '99 right after number 3 hits the ring, leaving an empty ring for 2 minutes, number 4 to come out, and another 2 minutes for someone to fight)
*Out of the ring for a long time but not eliminated (Austin and McMahon '99, Rock '01). Exception: it was funny when Lawler hid under the ring that one year.
*Wasted spot in the Rumble on guest spots/comedy (Drew Carey '01. The Honky segment that same year is kind of funny, though. I'm not against comedy, just when it's super disruptive to the event. Carey's the one egregious example I can think of.)
*Really stretching to get 30 guys (that mid-'90s Rumble full of "Who the hell is that?" non-WWF talent)
*Tag teams fighting each other when the Rumble's far from over (Hardy's '01, New Age Outlaws '00). Different from the double-cross elimination in that it's strategically unsound when they did it. Demos '89 get a pass because it was their personality and it was a great moment.
*The "that guy has no business being in the final four" moment (some non-WWF guy in '94, Knobbs in '91, basically everyone but Austin in '99)
*"Who hit first?" ('94, and that Rumble with the botched ending that required a restart. '00 avoids this by becoming an issue a week or so later).
*Orgasm Like a Pig (When the climax of the Rumble lasts forever, i.e., when the final two have their own 8-minute match to the point that you forget you're watching a Rumble and not a singles match, for example, that year with the Cena/Batista botched ending, though the botch had much to do with it).
*Stable war overload ('97 Gang Wars...or was that '98? The Smackdown/Raw line in the sand had the same effect sometimes. The one time this would have been awesome and an overarching story with much on the line--the Invasion--they pulled the plug on the whole angle two months before.)
*The Obvious Choice (Lance Storm actually complained about this on his blog once. This is particular to Rumbles ever since the Wrestlemania stip. You can write off everyone save for the main eventers, or like 26 or so people, from winning the thing. Sometimes there's only 2 possible candidates, and in 2000 there was one (even though Big Show ended up in the WM main event, I didn't consider him a potential candidate at the time. To me, there was simply no one on that level in the match save for Rock).
*Sulkamania. Hogan participated in four Rumbles, I think. Because this is one of the two he won, we were spared the confusingly childish and heelish sore loser Hogan from '89 and '92. '89's tantrum is only understandable if Hogan knew or had an idea that shenanigans were involved in getting the Twin Towers back-to-back, but nothing seems to suggest that he did.
