Last year, we bought you the sacred and secret mystery of the Royal Rumble’s cursed number: 14.
Since the birth of the Rumble, in 1988, of the twenty-five wrestlers to have entered fourteenth, fourteen were fired within a year, three are now dead, and one was Jeff Hardy. So, who got the unlucky number last year, and what has happened since?
Well, funnily enough, you’ll be pretty surprised. Looks like the curse is done with because last year, the fourteenth place fell to quite the superstar, with a bright career ahead of no, only joking, it was Jinder Mahal.
Since January of last year, Mahal has experienced such career highlights as losing a feud of The Great Khali, a man proven to be, scientifically, the worst wrestler who’s ever lived, losing a feud to Randy Orton which lasted about seven seconds and losing a handicap match against Kane and the Undertaker in which he successfully landed zero moves.
From there, however, things seemed to be looking up, as Mahal was booked into a winning steak… on NXT. As impressive as that feat must have been to the four people who watch NXT, it didn’t last long, and Mahal was soon back to doing what he does best, losing to people and looking like an idiot.
But 2012 wasn’t all bad for Mahal, he had a faction!
Actually, no, it was all bad, because his faction sucked, consisting as it did of fellow losers Drew “That Scottish Guy, I Think” McIntyre and Heath “Al Snow” Slater. Just to remove any possible hint of dignity, the WWE made sure the faction got a name as stupid as it deserved; The Three Man Band, a name which, you may be surprised to discover, means literally nothing.
In a really depressingly low standard-ed way, things actually started looking up, as Three Mega-Bytes started beating people who mattered, including Santino Marella, Zack Ryder and Brodus Clay, all of whom at least one person cares about, making them the most prestigious victories of Jinder Mahal’s post-number 14 career.
But that’s the cruelty of the curse, it lets you feel like you’re okay, it lets you feel you’ve sailed through the storm. But you haven’t. The curse builds you up to knock you down. Look at 2007’s number fourteen, Jeff Hardy. A year after being given the fateful number, Hardy was WWE Champion, but, three years after that, he was briefly homeless (due to a fire, rather than the Perry Saturn method of just leaving your house and forgetting where it is), a convicted drug trafficker and an international laughing-stock. The curse is cruel.
And the curse has been cruel to Jinder Mahal. On December the 16th, 2012, Jinder Mahal and the rest of the Three Bachelors of Medicine lost to a team involving none other than the Brooklyn Brawler. For anyone who didn’t watch wrestling in the 1980’s, the Brooklyn Brawler was the wrestling equivalent of Belgium, and, thus, losing to the Brooklyn Brawler is the wrestling equivalent of losing a war to Belgium. No one loses a war to Belgium. The entire point of Belgium is that you beat it, and then you fight other countries that matter.
But not this time. This time, eleven months after coming in to the Rumble at number 14, Jinder Mahal lost a match to the Brooklyn Brawler. Jinder Mahal lost a war to Belgium.
So, the curse appears to be strong after all. All we can ask now is; who’s next? Will it be an obvious, easy target like Ted DiBiase or Lord Tensai or Evan Bourne? Will it be the final nail in the coffin of someone previously invisible to WWE’s accountants, like JTG, Yoshi Tatsu or Curt Hawkins? Will it be the final straw for an out of favour star like Randy Orton, Sin Cara or The Great Khali?
Who can tell, who can know? The curse doesn’t advertise itself, the curse gives no warnings, no respite, and no forgiveness. On January 27th at the Royal Rumble, the number 14 is coming for someone, just hope it isn’t coming for your favourite super-star.
CLICK HERE TO READ: The Curse of the WWE Royal Rumble Revisited: 2013 Edition
CLICK HERE TO READ: The Curse of the Royal Rumble IV: How Kevin Nash ruined everything
