WWE Greatest Royal Rumble Match Confirms 30 Men Is The Sweet Spot
By Josh Raibick
Hats off to the 50 superstars that competed in the Greatest Royal Rumble match this past Friday. The 50 man Royal Rumble match was used as a way to showcase as much talent as possible to international markets not quite as familiar with the product, but it is a reminder why the annual Royal Rumble match in January is perfect the way it is.
The hype to a 50 superstar Royal Rumble match has great appeal on paper, but proved to be more sizzle than anything else. The number of superstars that competed in the match that did not have a chance at winning was higher than ever.
Even superstars who are not regularly seen on weekly television were featured, which watered down the product. Daniel Bryan was one of the bright spots of the night, as he set the record for the longest time in a Royal Rumble match.
In fact some of the most exciting moments in the match involved some early exchanges between Bryan and Dolph Ziggler. For the first 15 minutes of the match, it felt like only Ziggler and Bryan were in the ring.
This tends to happen when two high caliber superstars share a ring with other superstars who are just meant to be fillers. While Bryan lasted almost the entire length of the match, the rest of the final participants were later entries.
When a match is set to have 50 superstars, it makes the beginning and middle of the match less important because of the number of superstars that still must enter. A lot of the WWE Universe already knew this, thanks to the WWE Royal Rumble 2011.
2011 was the year where WWE tagged their Royal Rumble match as “The Biggest Royal Rumble in History”. Once again on paper it sounds bigger, and better than ever, unfortunately the extra ten spots were not used to add ten potential winners.
The 2011 edition of the Royal Rumble felt long, and that goes back to the original point that anything more than 30 is just watering down the match. At the Greatest Royal Rumble match this point was further proven as the main event dragged on for most of the middle of the match.
While other bright spots included the biggest win in Braun Strowman’s career after eliminating Big Cass. Speaking of Cass, he also was able to further his storyline with Bryan after his elimination of the fan favorite.
Another fun moment was Titus O’Neil having one of the greatest botches in wrestling history when he tripped at the end of the ramp and slid under the ring. This brought a great laugh and was one of the few highlights that the Greatest Royal Rumble match had.
The overall evaluation of the Royal Rumble match was not to insinuate that WWE should have never done a 50 man rendition of the match, but to point out why the current format of the 30 man Royal Rumble is perfect. For example a 20 superstar Royal Rumble does not showcase enough talent, and a 40 or 50 superstar Royal Rumble has too many superstars that are not true contenders to win.
Next: Was The Greatest Royal Rumble Worth It?
The Greatest Royal Rumble pay-per-view did a great job showcasing as much talent as possible to a growing market in Saudi Arabia. That said, only a similar future opportunity to grow WWE’s international following would justify another massive Royal Rumble match.