Sean Mooney Exposes the Controversial 1989 WWE Royal Rumble Decisions

Prime Time with Sean Mooney

Sports News, Sports, News, Wrestling

4.7 • 797 Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2026

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sean Mooney breaks down the controversial booking decisions of the 1989 WWE Royal Rumble, offering behind-the-scenes insight into one of the most debated events of the Golden Era. From questionable eliminations to creative choices that shaped the early legacy of the Royal Rumble match, Mooney pulls back the curtain on what WWE was really thinking at the time.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the golden age of W.E.
0:04.0	Larger than life of fantasy.
0:08.0	Snap in the rainfield history.
0:11.0	Welcome to the golden W.E.
0:15.0	I'm going to go. Royal Rumble,
0:17.0	1989.
0:18.0	The first technically,
0:20.0	Royal Rumble is a pay-per-review.
0:22.5	And it begins this big four.
0:24.8	As years ago on,
0:25.9	people always talk about Royal Rumble,
0:27.4	WrestleMania,
0:28.1	SummerSlam, Survivor series.
0:29.6	This is the birth of the big four.
0:32.1	And for you,
0:33.2	while you were working in the WWF,
0:35.5	was it difficult for some people to wrap their heads around having
0:39.2	multiple pay-per-views in a year? Because WrestleMania was a success, but then slowly more keep
0:45.1	coming in. And are they all home runs? And that's why they're like, let's keep doing this.
0:50.3	Yeah, well, you have to think that this was, you know, paper views in their infancy.
0:55.3	I mean, you know, let's remember it wasn't too many years before that we'd seen, you know, closed circuit television.
1:03.6	Right.
	...

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