In 2024, Cigar Dojo launched its inaugural Royal Rumble competition, where four cigar media outlets competed to determine which had created the best year-end cigar list. Hosted during an episode of “Smoke Night LIVE,” Royal Rumble consisted of 10 rounds, with viewers voting on their favorite cigar during each round. Points were then awardedโfour to the winner, three to the second best, two to the third, and one to the lowestโeventually being tallied up after 10 rounds to determine the Royal Rumble champion. In 2024’s competition (evaluating 2023’s top cigars), the contenders included two magazine-based outlets (Cigar Aficionado and Cigar Snob) and two online-based outlets (Cigar Coop and Halfwheel). The competition was structured with a tag-team format for the first five rounds, followed by a free-for-all for the remaining rounds. After ten rounds, Cigar Snob emerged victorious.
This year, the competition continued, airing Royal Rumble II on Friday, Jan. 24th, 2025. Doing away with the tag-team approach of magazine vs online outlets, the 2025 edition pitted all four competitors against one another from start to finish. While Cigar Snob was allowed the chance to defend its title, the remaining three challengers made their Royal Rumble debuts, including: Cigar Press, How Bout That Cigar (HBTC), and Smokin Tabacco.
While the show streamed live on YouTube, Facebook, and X, only viewers from the former two participated in the voting process (Elon should really add a voting system to live streams). Votes from the two platforms were combined and averaged into a single score, providing the media outlets with four, three, two, and one points during each of the first five rounds. As an added twist, this year’s competition featured a point multiplier for rounds six through 10 (increasing 20 percent each round), giving more weight to cigars ranked closer to the coveted No. 1 Cigar of the Year position. Finally, differing from the inaugural Royal Rumble, competitors’ names were kept anonymous during the voting process, eliminating potential bias from viewers’ media outlet preferences.
ROYAL RUMBLE II CONTENDERS
ROUND 1
COTY #10 2024
ROUND 2
COTY #9 2024
ROUND 3
COTY #8 2024
ROUND 4
COTY #7 2024
ROUND 5
COTY #6 2024
ROUND 6
COTY #5 2024
ROUND 7
COTY #4 2024
ROUND 8
COTY #3 2024
ROUND 9
COTY #2 2024
ROUND 10
COTY #1 2024
STATS
Final List Rankings
Trajectory
Cigar Snob
Cigar Press
HBTC
Smokin Tabacco
Biggest Winners
Biggest Losers
Most Wins
Most Losses
As you may notice, the percentages of the contenders in each round do not always add up to 100 percent, with some rounds totaling a point higher or lower. This is due to the averaging process between YouTube and Facebook votes, as well as the results being rounded to the nearest whole number.
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