Backlund Rumble push in 93 Rumble
By Scott Keith on 18 March 2018
Scott,
I was wondering if you had any insight into the out-of-nowhere push Bob Backlund got in the 1993 Royal Rumble. He "debuted" on TV all the way back in the fall of 1992 but wasn't featured much on TV, house shows, or PPV's. Going into the Rumble, he appeared every bit the "1 of 30 guys" who often showed up randomly for the Rumble to fill out the match. Yet he draws a very early number in the match and goes onto break Ric Flair's famous record from just the year before.
The other weird thing is that this push went nowhere after the Rumble, as well. Backlund would go on to be a squash victim to Razor Ramon at WM IX and basically disappeared for the rest of 1993. Was there ever a plan to seriously push him at the Rumble? And if so, did the relative lack of reaction he received from the live audience slow the roll of that push? Or did they just need a guy with legit freaky stamina to go out there and break Flair's record since Flair was WCW bound?
They wanted to push Backlund, but he just wasn't drawing the reactions they wanted. That being said, yes, it's likely just the petty erasing of Flair that they were going for that year.