5 top surprise entries in the Men's Royal Rumble

The Royal Rumble match is one of the most, if not the most exciting match of the year, and one of the reasons is that you never know who is going to show up. Other than AJ Styles's WWE debut at the Royal Rumble in 2016, there have not been many surprise Rumble entries in recent years, having had no legends appear since 2015 and just about one NXT star in each of the 2016 and 2017 matches.

That is until the 2018 WWE Royal Rumble matches. I do mean matches as both the men's and women's matches had a pretty fair share of surprise entries that no one saw coming. First, let's take a look at the top five surprise entries in the men's Royal Rumble.

#5 Dolph Ziggler

No, this wasn't a legend's cameo, debut or call up, but a surprise entry nonetheless. At WWE's Night of Champions PPV last month, Dolph Ziggler defeated Bobby Roode and then Champion Baron Corbin for the WWE United States Championship. Just two days later, on the following SmackDown, Dolph bizarrely forfeited the Championship after saying that the fans did not deserve him and placed the title belt in the ring before leaving.

The following week, SmackDown General Manager Daniel Bryan claimed that Ziggler was nowhere to be found and had indeed vacated his title.

As of this writing, we have no idea where this angle is heading. Many fans actually speculated that Dolph may have legitimately walked out of WWE but that is obviously untrue as Dolph returned to WWE TV as the #30 entry in the Royal Rumble match. Unfortunately, he didn't last very long, so hopefully he will be able to further his angle in a more interesting way upon his return to SmackDown, presumably this Tuesday.