Weekend Plans Post: The Royal Rumble

The backstory is that Vince was getting older, HHH and Stephanie attempted a coup, HHH and Stephanie might be able to pull off a coup against someone from the real world but Vince is The Last Carny, Vince took the knife out of his back and stabbed Stephanie with it in the front, merged with the UFC, grew a pencil-thin mustache, and just this last week signed a kabillion dollar deal with Netflix.

Plus all of the really scandalous and horrible allegations about the various scandals in which he was *PERSONALLY* involved during the last four of five decades.

Seriously. I’m trying to imagine trying to explain this stuff to someone only tangentially aware that Pro Wrestling exists and I’m already exhausted trying to come up with new ways to change the subject.

But this weekend is The Royal Rumble. This is usually my favorite WWE PPV event of the year. The clip isn’t available online but the sitcom “Young Rock” explains how Pat Patterson came up with the idea of The Royal Rumble.

Once upon a time, you only had the “Battle Royale”. 20 (or however many) guys in the ring and you eliminated opponents *NOT* by pinning them but by throwing them over the top rope.

This was pretty good because, let’s face it, if you have 20 guys in the ring, 19 of them are going to lose. But if you don’t pin them or make them submit, they’re really not “the losers” of the match. They just didn’t win it. The problem with 20 guys in the ring is that SO MUCH IS GOING ON. Where do you watch? Everybody is in the way of everybody else and unless you’re lucky, the elimination will happen on a different side of the ring than the one you’re on.

BUT! If you have each contestant enter every 90 seconds, you can do storylines like “this guy drew #1” or “this guy drew #30”. You can have a storyline where a wrestler doesn’t win the Rumble but eliminates the most people. Or doesn’t win, but stays in the ring the longest. You can have a guy who is normally pretty invincible against opponents one-on-one but, as part of the chaos, gets tossed over the top rope by a midcarder (and you can get a storyline out of that for a month). You can have a famous wrestler from a decade ago show up and get a huge pop before being eliminated for another few years. You can have former enemies team up for a few moments. You can have allies realize “it’s every man for himself”.

One of my favorite openings comes from the very first Royal Rumble and it involved the tag team Demolition. Axe and Smash were the first two entrants in the Rumble and, seriously, they were one of the most intimidating tag teams around. The discussions all revolved around how this tag team will be able to beat the crap out of every single entrant after them. They’ll just do the tag team thing. They don’t have to pin the guy… they just have to throw him over the top rope! How will the rest of the roster compete?

And then when #2 got in the ring with #1… they JUST STARTED WAILING ON EACH OTHER.

The crowd went *NUTS*.

Back in 2001, there was a great scene where The Undertaker and Kane cleared out the ring and just stood looking at each other and waiting for the other to make a move… and then the countdown for the next wrestler to come in started and they both turned to face the entryway and… it was Scotty 2 Hottie (a consummate midcarder). The biggest laugh of the night. And, yeah, they beat the stuffing out of him.

Anyway, this weekend is this year’s Royal Rumble. There are a bunch of storylines going on… you’ve got Gunther, who has been the Intercontinental Champion even longer than the Honky Tonk Man. You’ve got CM Punk who is back because Hell froze over. You’ve got Cody Rhodes who wants to finish the story. You’ve got LA Knight (yeah). You’ve got Damien Priest who has the Money in the Bank suitcase… why bother? Just wait for the main event to take place and then just take the belt then! Ah, who books this stuff. And we’re going to see a handful of big surprises, some guys eliminating multiple opponents, a good storyline with the “in the ring the longest” (seriously, if he drew #23 instead of #4, he might have won!), and, with luck, it’ll be pretty good.

I’m hoping for Cody Rhodes to win and finish his story. Instead, I know that The Rock will come back and fight Roman at Wrestlemania. Sigh.

We’ll have the women’s Royal Rumble and all I am hoping for is for Liv to make a comeback and for AJ Lee to eliminate her.

We’ll also have Logan Paul (sigh) against Kevin Owens for the US Championship and I hope that KO will put us all out of our misery and carry a belt for a few months.

And a Fatal Four-Way Match with Roman Reigns vs. Randy Orton vs. AJ Styles vs. LA Knight that will be won by Roman Reigns due to some shenanigans.

And I think that’s it. In years past, we’ve had six or seven matches at this PPV. This year, we just have four… which tells me that the Rumbles will be good and long and so will the fight for the WWE Undisputed Championship.

I’m looking forward to it.

So… what’s on your docket?

(Featured image is “Rasslin”. Photo taken by Maribou.)