The Royal Rumble is Royally Rotten
I do not want to watch the 2026 Royal Rumble. I know better than to hold out hope for change. Instead, I will call out what to expect, so that when you do, you too will see how this potent exhibition will leave fans unfulfilled.
The ring will fill up with way too many people.
Get ready for the superstars to forget the name of the game is to eliminate their opponents over the top rope. Two moves in, they will be in the corner, catching a breather, priming the audience to anticipate a new, revolutionary entrant into the Rumble.
Prepare yourself to hear an endless barrage of length of time served in the ring though! Never mind that they didn’t do anything during that time. “It’s impressive that they served forty-six minutes and twenty-two seconds (and lost) while hugging the bottom rope! Buy their merchandise!”
Honestly, there’s no match that turns wrestlers into NPCs faster than the Royal Rumble.
And with more bodies in the ring, the likelihood of incidental interference in special moments only increases (See: Drew/ LA Knight).
Less people = more focus on what the story between them means, and it has a higher likelihood of being executed without accidentally bumping into other workers performances.
A total lack of in-ring action.
Hidden under the guise of ‘self-preservation’ a wrestler’s move-set reverts to ineffective hoisting near the ropes, and slow, angry stomps in the corner for 90% of their in-ring tenure. Yes, they are billed as some of, if not the, strongest competitors in the world, but not tonight. Here, they will struggle to lift their 200-some pound opponents more than a foot off the ground. Gravity will somehow triple, and their strength will be sapped.
Yawn.
Imagine the pandemonium that should ensue when five or, God forbid, ten of these world class wrestlers enter the ring together! Picture the cacophony of offense, reversals, saves, and eliminations that should come about when these lethal specimens enter the squared circle!
None of that will happen.
You will get what the wrestlers would look like wrestling in their 80s at a retirement home before they’ve had their morning nap, and you will like it.
No team work for eliminations
Spare me the “Every man for himself” spiel and unhook your mouth from WWE’s phallus.
THINK ABOUT IT. You’ve got your best mate in there. You work together until you’re both the final two. THEN you go after each other. Right?
Right????
No, you idiot.
This is NOT strategized by ANY team; teams who travel the roads together, bearing all of their personal lives and professional aspirations to one another…. except sharing a coherent strategy to earn a guaranteed main event spot at WrestleMania.
Just stupid.
Oh, I know! Best to get rid of your only ally behind his back at the BEGINNING, then face a ring full of your enemies alone. Brilliant!
Bragging about length of time in the rumble (while still losing)
Holding onto the bottom rope? Yep. Throwing endless shite punches with zero effect for throwing them over the top? Indeed!
Get ready to hear Cole talk about this statistic like it’s championship accolade worthy! Imagine hearing the combined amount of time stars have had in matches they’ve lost. You might ask yourself, ‘Why would this be important? And why are you reminding me of their losing effort?” Well, you’re going to be asking yourself that a lot this year. Get the mute button ready for after each entrance, it’s gonna be hell.
No surprise returns
We know the names to expect as surprises. So when you’re hoping for the glass to shatter and it doesn’t, or the If Ya Smellllll to blow the roof off, just lower your expectations.
Jericho, whether he comes back before, or as entrant 22, will be fun. Judas playing in a WWE ring with fans singing along is now an expectation, but it’s not a surprise, dear Dirt Sheet reader, is it? Aside from Jericho, we have Fatu, Orton, Lesnar, and Reigns coming back to the mix, but these are also not surprises. They’re part of the roster.
The stars of this business have aged out, or passed away. Those nostalgia hits fade further away each year. Generic DefRebel tunes are hear to stay.
The prototype for success
2020. Brock Lesnar is Number One, with a solid strategy to eliminate everyone one by one, and potentially remove a threat for his Wrestlemania card. If I’m treating this as legitimate, which is the air WWE wants to put on, it is credible, and Lesnar is just the man to do it. Lesnar doesn’t have to pin everyone. He just has to throw them over the top – an event that happens in every match, on every show.
The Teams work as a Team. Gasp! The New Day don’t immediately turn on one another for a stupid, momentary pop of confusion. They literally huddle outside the ring and make a plan together. Amazing! They come out looking smarter, more unified in spirit, and Lesnar comes out more threatening for how he dismantles them.
The in-ring work is high flying. The corner spot where Lesnar tosses Rey, then Kofi, plays out naturally, and shows the true threat of the risk and reward of that style of offense. I need no commentary to bash me over the head with what the story in the ring has already told me.
The match for me loses steam just after Lesnar is eliminated, returns for Edge’s return (good job all on keeping kayfabe!), and then peters out for the expected finish. What feels real at first: that one elite competitor should be able to lift and throw his competitor over the ropes in two full minutes, highlights that no one except Brock is actually smart enough to know what match they’re in. When Brock hits his finisher, the next move is, logically, tossing that person over the top. This feels like rocket science compared with the thought process of literally everyone else. Hit your finisher? Go to the Corner and angry stomp/ grab a hold. If the argument against 2020 is that you can’t do that every year, well then why can we do this stupid method of strategy every year? I’d rather repeat something that makes sense than something that doesn’t. How is this hard to grasp?
The first fifteen entrants tell a story. Well, maybe not with Morrison or Roode, but we get a buffet with Shelton, Rey, Kofi, The New Day, and an actual surprise return of MVP that make this Rumble the greatest of all time. It makes Drew look like a star for eliminating the Beast, and it beautifully foreshadows dethroning him at Wrestlemania. Even with a mid rest of the match, the beginning is light years ahead of any other rumble in history, shows a psychology that elevates the entire art form of pro wrestling, and hooks me as a fan to want to see what happens over the next three months.
Prove me wrong.