Royal Rumble Going from 30 to 40 Wrestlers

[shattered dreams]

Seems like a novelty effect that may do some extra business this year but will hamper quality. There is nothing significant about the extra guys over 30. Is one maybe two extra pops worth screwing with the formula? Not for me. It almost either has to be too crowded or too long now. Smarks will probably like it though once they see it. It does make a certain amount of sense because just about everything that can happen has happened in the 30 man rumble but I think this is just going to dilute the product.

 

[Little Jerry Lawler]

Yeah, I don't see the point of increasing to 40. Orton, Ziggler, Miz, and Edge are all in title matches and we don't know if Cena and HHH are going to return so that's around 5 or 6 main eventers so I believe this rumble is going to be midcard heavy with six or seven jobbers thrown around. There is usually a couple of spots open for returns or surprise entrants anyway so I don't see the necessity of adding 10 spots. I believe there are only four matches on the card so this could be a factor why they are increasing.

 

[cboedeker2]

Just found this...

http://www.wwe.com/shows/royalrumble/matches/16630520/preview/

Looks like the rumors are true. I think this will make the match infinitely more exciting. Bringing in more superstars brings in many more possibilities for inter-promotional matches at Mania. I think another reason why WWE is doing this is to give more talent who otherwise might not get a spot on the card (i.e. Daniel Bryan or Zack Ryder) a chance to get a decent payday at the PPV. I also don't think it changes the possibilities on who will win. Ultimately, no matter how many people are in the match, WWE will go forward with whatever plan they may have for WrestleMania. Either way though, I still look forward to, as I do every year.

 

[TheTruNoLimit]

I don't necessarily have a problem with it... especially with both versions of the Nexus likely being involved... Counting Punk's Nexus and Barret's Nexus we've got 8 superstars total. The way it was, Nexus would've represented a third of the field of competitors which could have been seen potentially as overkill with practically every other guy coming out at points representing one Nexus or the other.

So, from that standpoint, it's good.

The thing that I'm worried about is this...

Do we still get a good undercard?

We've got Edge and Ziggler who should be able to deliver a solid match for the World Championship and the Miz and Orton, who should be able to have an ok WWE Championship match. I've no doubts that Natalya vs. Melina will likely be added for the Divas Championship, but if that's all we get for the undercard because we're adding 10 superstars to the Royal Rumble then I'll be upset

I still think the undercard could deliver despite not featuring the bigger stars... Daniel Bryan and Tyson Kidd could have a very good United States Championship match and Kofi Kingston can also have a good Intercontinental Championship match with either Cody Rhodes or Jack Swagger, or heck, both.

I want a solid 4-5 matches, PLUS the Rumble.

And other than the main eventers, we've always seen the guys competing in the undercards competing in the Royal Rumble. So, we could see Bryan, Kidd, Kofi, Cody, Swagger on the undercard and then still show up in the Rumble.

Heck, due to his affiliation with Vickie Guerrero, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Vickie put Dolph in the Rumble if he loses to Edge. I guess that would theoretically leave space for Orton to appear in the Rumble if he loses to Miz since, if Orton and Dolph lose they technically don't get another shot. (Whereas, Miz would have a Championship rematch if he lost, so it'd look stupid for him to pop up in the Rumble if he loses).

All things considered, I think it could work.

For those wondering... here's a list of healthy/active superstars who could be competing... I didn't include injured guys or guys we haven't seen in ages and have no idea what the real status is...

CM Punk
Daniel Bryan
Darren Young
DH Smith
David Otunga
Goldust
Heath Slater
Husky Harris
Jimmy & Jey Uso
John Cena
John Morrison
Justin Gabriel
Mark Henry
Michael McGullicutty
Primo
R-Truth
Randy Orton
Santino
Sheamus
Ted Dibiase
Tyson Kidd
Vladimir Kozlov
William Regal
Yoshi Tatsu
Zack Ryder
Alberto Del Rio
Big Show
Chavo
Chris Masters
Cody Rhodes
Curt Hawkins
Dolph Ziggler
Drew McIntyre
Ezekial Jackson
Jack Swagger
JTG
Kane
Kofi Kingston
Rey Mysterio
Trent Beretta
Tyler Reks
Wade Barret

So there's 43... The only 2 not included are the 2 champions.

 

[Bobby B]

Yeah... I really don't understand this idea. Sure, as a gimmick it might work for some, but it won't actually help change the match. 30 superstars is already more than enough to start all of the feuds you could possibly want, and plus realistically only a select few can win the Rumble anyway, why would adding 10 people make this any different?

I guess it could be said that it will allow for some debutants - but 30 men already did anyway.

Sorry, can't see any benefit from this in all honesty.

 

[Shocky]

As long as the time in between wrestlers doesn't change, I really see no problem with this.

The Royal Rumble PPV is sold based on one match, the Rumble match. There is a reason guys like Test, Sparky Plugg, or Mark Henry receive world title matches on this pay per view. The world title matches are merely filler for the main event of the evening.

If I read correctly, the Royal Rumble is annually the 2nd biggest selling pay per view of the year. The match is unique. Common fans (those that don't watch programming regularly), make sure to tune into this pay per view match. I personally look forward to this pay per view almost as much as Mania. It's one of two pay per views I make sure to watch.

The WWE is creating a new audience, and the Royal Rumble provides exposure of a large portion of their roster to a huge audience. Why not expose more of that talent to a large audience? Throw enough shit against the wall, and something is bound to stick with someone.

Every year the Rumble has some sort of surprise entrant, now you can have these surprise or gag entrants, and still give younger talent much needed exposure.

 

[The Raven's Epitaph]

I agree with The Brain. I'm not a big fan of this. I'm not a huge fan of change. Adding another 10 superstars to the Royal Rumble, despite making the Rumble itself longer in the...well, long run might make it more entertaining, I don't see how it's going to make a difference.

Who are the 10 other superstars going to be? I don't like shitting on any of the WWE's talent roster, but who have they really got to add to the Rumble? Most of the lowercard guys normally come in really early, or late in as a joke and get eliminated quickly. I don't fancy seeing somebody like Primo or Yoshi Yatsu elevated to superstar stardom by winning the first ever 40 Man Royal Rumble.

I strongly believe that the Royal Rumble match should have been kept as a 30 Man match, not a 40 man. Why change it? It's been fine for over 20 years.

 

[onewayleeway69]

Yeah this is great news as long as its longer. I mean if its the same time with ten extra dudes it might seem a bit rushed wif someone being eliminated every second. I would Rather see just 2 matches then the Rumble rather then the normal 3.I mean the normal wwe championship matches before hand are normly boring imo and most people just want to see the Rumble.

 

[The Raven's Epitaph]

having 40-man-royal-rumble is a dumb idea because its just a 30-man + 8 members of nexus and maybe 2 surprises.

I don't like the idea of having a 40 man Royal Rumble, but I disagree with what you said. It isn't just 30 men and 8 members of Nexus. For starters, there are 2 Nexus' now and their both on opposite brands and probably already in the Rumble anyway.

The only thing I can think of is that WWE are going to go big. It's the first time in history that this event has been a 40 Man Rumble, and what better than to bring back some old faces for the entertainment and spectacular value? I could only see Chris Jericho, Christian and John Cena coming back if WWE are going for returning guys.

Triple H, The Undertaker and all the rumoured guys are ones down at the bottom of my list that I don't see making an appearance. Just because of the fact that I don't, personally, believe they need to return. Nor do I want them to. If there's anything I hate, then it's guys that have already done and proved everything, come back for no reason.

I guess it's going to be an event worth watching after all. I was completely skeptical at first because there weren't any big names in the Rumble, and while I agree with pushing some new and younger talent, having big names is always a good thing.

 

[TUFFY54]

Here's a little thread that I started two weeks ago. Many of you shit on it. I'm glade that at least Vince McMahon shares my thoughts!

The Royal Rumble has always been the match where guys we dont see on PPV a lot get a shot to compete. However, in the last few years we have seen fewer and fewer "undercard" guys get into the match. When the WWF first started their 30 man Rumbles they had probably half as many wrestlers as they have now. I believe that the Royal Rumble should start having 40 men involved. Here are a few reasons why:

There are so many wrestlers under contract The WWE has two full brands now. RAW and Smackdown both have about 5 "main event" guys. If both titles are defended at the Rumble, that takes up 6 spots of guys who are picks to win. Both shows have about 10 "midcard" guys who fight for the US/Intercontinental belts. If all those guys try to get a shot at the Mania main event you have about 25 spots total filled up. Every year the WWE brings in a few legends and has a couple of returns. That puts the total at 30 and no undercard guys are in the Rumble. I dont think all of the Nexus guys will even get into the match this year. Let alone anyone from NXT season two. We also probably wont see any guys just starting out get a chance to compete in it. Instead of using NXT so much, the WWE should take a few top talents from FCW and put them into the Rumble for 5 or 6 minutes to see if they get any reaction from the crowd. I'm not saying they should fill it with nobodys, but 3 or 4 great up and commers wouldn't be bad. Just have the anounce team at home say something like "this is a big young stud from FCW trying to get a chance at glory". Even if they don't want to use FCW guys, there are still a good number of main roster wrestlers that don't normally get to be in the Rumble.

The Ring Wouldn't Get Overcrowed I understand that WCW tried to do a bigger Rumble with World War 3, and it was terrible. Thats the beauty of the Rumble, the timed interviels make it so we never have so many guys in the ring that you can't see the action. Every year they have one or two moments where everyone but one or two superstars gets eliminated to set up an angle in the match. Having 10 more guys wouldn't change affect the flow of the match at all.

The Time Wont Change They always say that the Rumble is the most exciting hour of television in wrestling. However, most of the time it doesn't add up to that. Some years they claim people come out every two minutes, some years they claim people come out every minute and a half. Regardless, they always shave time off during the middle of the match. Say the 40 guys are comming out every minute thrity. They could still shave 5 or 10 seconds off each one and have about the same length Rumble they always do.

It Would Make It A Bigger Deal A 40 man Rumble has never been done before. They could spin it by saying that they have never had this many talented induviduals trying to get WWE glory. It would sound even more impressive to say that someone fought through 39 other superstars to make it to Wrestlemania.

So what do you think? I honestly can't think of any downsides to making the Rumble bigger.

 

[grantser10]

i'd say its just a way of getting all of the nexus members former ( Gabriel, slater, barrett) and current ( maguillaguddy, harris ,otunga) into the match while still maintaing the presence of the usual midcard people.

 

[Krobra]

I don't know how to feel about it. The Royal Rumble is one of my favorite matches of the year. I looked at the Roster and came up with the most likely entrants to participate in the Rumble:


Guarenteed Entrants:

1. Alberto Del Rio
2. Alex Riley
3. Big Show
4. Chavo Guerrero
5. Chris Masters
6. CM Punk
7. Cody Rhodes
8. Daniel Bryan
9. David Otunga
10. Drew McIntyre
11. Ezekiel Jackson
12. Heath Slater
13. Husky Harris
14. Jack Swagger
15. Jey Uso
16. Jimmy Uso
17. John Cena
18. John Morrison
19. Justin Gabriel
20. JTG
21. Kane
22. Kofi Kingston
23. Mark Henry
24. Michael McGillicutty
25. R-Truth
26. Rey Mysterio
27. Santino Marella
28. Sheamus
29. Tyler Reks
30. Tyson Kidd
31. Vladimir Kozlov
32. Wade Barrett
33. Yoshi Tatsu
34. Zack Ryder


Less Likely Entrants:

Curt Hawkins
Darren Young
David Hart Smith
Primo
Trent Barreta
William Regal


Possible Surprise/Return Entrants:

Christian
Evan Bourne
Finlay
Joey Mercury
Michael Tarver
Skip Sheffield
The Great Khali
Triple H
Undertaker


With the current WWE Roster, it can easily support a 40 man Royal Rumble. With 34 practically guaranteed WWE Superstars, there is room for six others. If the WWE is planning the return of a few WWE Superstars like Christian, Bourne, Tarver, Khali, Triple H, Taker, etc, then the stars under the Less Likely category would be replaced. I believe Evan Bourne is close to returning to the ring, as well as Christian, the highly anticipated return of Triple H and Taker are a likely entrant. With the past few Rumbles, we've seen the return of several WWE wrestlers such as Cena, Edge, RVD for a night, Triple H, and so on.

 

[AnthonyMango/NoFate007]

The more I think about this the more I don't like it. 30 guys every two minutes (approx.) equals about a one hour match; a little more given the action after the last guy comes in. I think that is long enough. Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. The Royal Rumble has lasted 22 years without ever getting stale. I've never heard anyone complain about the rumble. Think about that for a second. This is the IWC and we're talking about something that's lasted over 20 years without complaint. That's unheard of. Why mess with a winning formula? To make room for Primo and JTG? They should stick with 30.

Exactly. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". On top of that, things change from now on when you talk about "going all the way from #1" as now there are 10 more guys. You also need to compensate for the time on the ppv, which means they most likely won't have it be 90 seconds, but rather, 60 seconds...meaning they actually have LESS time on the match itself (30x90 vs. 40x60...do the math).

It just seems like an unnecessary change, and like the Brain says above, who does it really benefit? The ones that we already know aren't going to win the match? I'd rather not see Darren Young in it at all than have the whole tradition thrown out the window to shoehorn him in there.

 

[JDX]

I'm glad you posted TUFFY54. As soon as I heard it I tried to think who posted the idea a couple weeks ago. first off . Second, I still don't like this idea. What if it bombs and they go back to 30? Unlike a lot of things in WWE, the rumble is one of the few where "if its not broken don't fix it" aplies in spades. Third again to you TUFFY54 if it were me I'd be kinda pissed because there is a chance they literally stole your idea. Dude if you see someone from WWE in area, RUN! They're coming to get you.

 

[Theo Mays]

I'm back and forth on the idea of having 40 men. One minute I like it, the next minute I find myself questioning it. The Rumble is easily my favorite event of the year and I'll order it no matter what. The Rumble match itself has always been a blast to watch and as long as they don't speed up the entrants then it should be alright. I'm not gonna bash the idea or agree with it, but I'm interested in seeing how the WWE handles the 40 man Rumble. If it is filled with surprise returns or legends than the change is a nice idea, but if this is just a way to get the lower guys on the card I really don't see the point.

 

[mrbrownstone]

I have quite mixed feelings on this.

On the one hand I revert to the saying "if it aint broke why fix it?". I think this applies directly to this situation, coming off the back of one of the best rumble matches in history in 2010 then why change things? There is no need for change, they had a great match last year so why change the formula that has worked so well for them for 20+ years. I think WWE is working on the theory "if it is good like this then even more of it will be better", that is a dangerous theory to work with after all there is indeed such a thing as too much of a good thing.

There is also the possibility of the ring becoming very full, people will say this is being done to give some more guys time on a PPV, but I think it could work out to be quite the opposite. There are now going to be more quick eliminations I feel, just to make sure the ring doesn't get too full.

There is also the fact that this will make the Rumble go even longer. I am not sure where I stand on this one, on the one hand it could go too long and get boring. On the other hand though Rumble matches are known for non stop excitement, surprise returns and the like so more time could mean a better match.

On the positive side of this though the Rumble match is always fun to watch and it is one of the most exciting matches of the year, perhaps expanding it will make it even better.

Overall I am not really in favour of the idea, but I will reserve judgement until I see the 40 man rumble match.

 

[NoBloodEra]

For some reason in WWE they always think that bigger is better, but we all know that is a lie when it comes to Superstars ie. promoting the crap outta John Cena. I don't think they should have changed this format, it just doesn't make any sense to me. What are they gonna gain out of this, besides promoting that this will be the BIGGEST rumble ever, nothing will change...*sigh* this new era of the E is kinda annoying me, promote till they die...

 

[martymcfly]

Personally I don't see the point. I don't have a problem with 40, but I don't think the change is going to really have much of an impact. There's still only 2-3 guys who have any chance whatsoever of winning, and adding ten more folks with no chance in hell doesn't really change that.

The only difference is it makes the rumble last longer, and it lets someone break the record of the number of eliminations more easily...and that's about it.

 

[Hitman-HBK United Inc.]

Nothing is going to change, it won't be quite like a mess like WCW's World War 3 was, but there have been times in the Rumble match where the ring did fill up a bit much, and lets face it, WWE is going to want to protect a lot of guys, the tend to do that quite a bit in the Rumble.

I guess Vinny Mac has it in his head that since the Rumble is always a generally succesful PPV in the buys department, he figures, "My other PPV's are drawing shit, why not make my more succesful one even better". That may be the mind set he's in, but I just see it staying the same really in terms of buys and what not.

 

[SpoodBeest]

As for my thoughts on this, well I'm torn between liking the idea and completely questioning it. The reason I like it is because if the increase in superstars keeps the same time between entrants than the match itself needs more time. Which would leave the two world title matches and the Rumble itself on the actual card. Which to me is good because those are usually the only good matches on the pay-per-view and it eliminates any non-sensical low card matches that always seem out of place on such a major show and most of times never deliver. So basically the show getting more time towards the actual Rumble itself is a good thing and I'm sure a lot of others would agree as it is the main draw of the show.

But then there is still the slight thought in my mind that WWE could mess this concept right up. How could they do this? By having all entrants done in a quicker fashion, which would lead to many quick pointless eliminations and the epic factor of the Rumble will lower when all of these mid card talents just keep getting tossed out like a sack of potatoes. Also I'm not big on change, especially changes to something I'm so used to. It has always been 30-man Royal Rumbles and now all of a sudden it's going to increase to a 40-man bout and due to such a change I kind of feel a little uneasy about it, but than again the idea of the pay-per-view getting more time for the main event has me ecstatic.

So to wrap all this up I can say I feel both excited and uneasy about such a change. They can improve the show by having the main event run longer and take up more time of the show. It's why people order it, so why not cut the chase faster? But then there is always the feeling of WWE messing up a good idea and then everything goes to shit. We can all have our feelings on this change but until we actually finish watching that Rumble live we will not how such a change is going to work out. So let's all continue on our speculation brigade.

 

[Burnout]

I'm actually really looking foward to the Royal Rumble this year. It is always the most exciting thing IMO in the WWE calender, and how would you make it more exciting, yes, you make it bigger. I think it's going to add a really fun twist on it this year, with even more potential winners. It could be a ploy just to get a few extra jobbers into the mix, to feed to the big guys and keep them satisfied, or, there could be several suprise returns. Last year, besides Edge, which wasn't really a suprise, no big stars came back, which I hope changes this year, and we see some old faces..

Now, even though I'm really excited, a small part of me worries about a mess could ensue. 40 is alot to partake in an event, and there could end up being a ffair few quick eliminations, which will get pretty boring after awhile, but I really doubt WWE will try anything which would put the viewer off, so I see him going all out in making it a special occasion..

 

[Stephen11]

I feel like this could ruin the Royal Rumble and no,not because I'm mad about change but because it seems like it's just a way for the WWE to give the Rumble less attention & creativity. Since there are more people then it automatically gives all of the big superstars more leverage to look good by eliminating more people.

If all of the mid-carders are going to get squashed like usual and not have a chance then it would just make this RR worse. They need to utilize having more people by making more go on in the Rumble match, not by having the top faces just clean house to get more credit. I'm really hoping this Rumble match is more entertaining and longer than last years because it has seem to have been getting pushed aside and it's kind of the whole purpose of the PPV (plus it's the match that everyone buys the PPV for).