The Royal Rumble, one of the “big four” of the traditional pay-per-views, is this Saturday and will be hosted in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at a stadium specifically built for this event. Despite the lineage and the implications for Wrestlemania of the Rumble, the build to the show has been rather minimal, which suggests that either the office wanted to wait for specific pieces of the puzzle to be able to be put in place, or they were scrambling with a last minute decision. Under the bulk-pricing model of Peacock, management could get away with a short, less spectacular build, but in an era when an ESPN app subscription will cost $30 to be able to watch the show, I’m not sure management has done enough, at least up until this point, to sell the show to the audience as a “must see” broadcast.
Maybe the writing team assumed that the historical cache of the Royal Rumble would be enough to prompt fans to subscribe to ESPN, and they might be right, but I’d say that it’s far from an automatic purchase based on the current line-up of four matches and the build on WWE programming.
This might be a scenario where the corporation has so many spinning plates and so many masters to serve that the overall effort to satisfy all of them could’ve impacted the shine of the individual spot of the Rumble on the calendar. The Raw brand needed some meat on the bone for the anniversary of the debut on Netflix so CM Punk was booked to defend the title against Bron Breakker, and a few weeks later defended the belt against Finn Balor as a part of the European tour. The TKO ticket prices have notoriously increased and a subject of much discussion since the WWE/UFC merger so the company had to give the European fans a reason to spend that cash beyond just seeing the brand live, which has become more common with the globalization efforts of the TKO conglomerate. The result of Punk being tied up with different opponents on television for those specific Raw shows more or less prevented him from building a featured bout for the Rumble. I’m assuming something will be added to this week’s television, but as of this writing, he’s not officially added to the card, even though he’s the world heavyweight champion.
The WWE championship was in a similar boat, as you would’ve thought that the two out of three falls match between Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre would’ve been saved for the Royal Rumble since it’s a signature pay-per-view. However, Drew won the belt on an episode of Smackdown on the previously mentioned European tour, which might’ve been another way to try to spur ticket sales in the market. Given Jacob Fatu’s involvement in that match and the subsequent title change, it created questions about his potential involvement in the main event scene, especially after his bout against Cody at this past weekend’s Saturday Night’s Main Event in Montreal. As we saw, McIntyre played role in that match as well.
At the same time, the hometown guy Sami Zayn defeated Randy Orton, Trick Williams, and Damien Priest in a four-way bout to get a shot at the title at the Rumble. Sure, it was a great moment for the native of Montreal to get the big win and possibly set himself up to finally win a world championship, but the direct build for the Drew/Sami match will literally be a week with one episode of Smackdown to work with prior to the PPV. Don’t get me wrong, Sami cut a tremendous promo a few weeks ago on television that was impactful enough that a case could be made for his character to get the title victory, and I wrote at the time that Sami has all the skills to be an underdog champion so the contest itself should be very good, but we’re talking about the build to a $30 event. The problem is, the great promo was cut when Cody was the champion, not Drew so there’s not necessarily a direct link to the Rumble match. Can WWE brass book something within the next week that truly positions Zayn in a way that the audience will consider him a legitimate threat to the WWE title?
It might’ve been a situation, similar to the European tour that the booking of Sami as the number one contender had to wait until the Saturday Night’s Main Event broadcast so that the company had a selling point for Montreal.
Again, the overall effort to move ticket to the collection of those shows led to an unintentional lackluster build to The Royal Rumble itself. I’m guessing at least one more bout from the women’s division will be added to the line-up, or at least it should be, given the depth of the division.
The best build for the show was the storyline that already had some of the ground work done before it was announced or developed on television. It’s well known that AJ Styles is going to hang up his boots in 2026, and pairing him with Gunther for a career-threatening match at the Rumble uses the psychology that Gunther already ended the careers of Bill Goldberg and John Cena last year. That creates the intrigue of, will AJ Styles really retire without the fanfare? It makes it at least possible that the brute could end another career, will the viewers of the Rumble see Styles’ final match of his legendary career? All things considered, it seems a little forced because AJ was lured into putting his career on the line just to have a match against Gunther, but technically, he could’ve got his hands on him during the promo segment.
On one hand, I could see AJ finishing his career without the pyro and ballyhoo of a major ceremony or tour, especially after the WWE audience just took the extended ride of the Cena retirement tour so the narrative would be somewhat of a retread. On the other hand, AJ Styles was the wrestler of the first decade of the 2000s and he had such a revolutionary career that it would leave too much money on the table not to monetize the opportunity with merchandise and a specific event built around it. If I had to guess, I’d say that this is a rather slick use of psychology and AJ will get the win to continue his career with a promoted retirement bout later in the year.
Perhaps, one of the positives of the scrambled and somewhat last-minute build to the pay-per-view is that the winners for either of the Rumble matches look to be a toss up. Stephanie Vaquer was briefly on the injured list, and Jade Cargill seemed to be working a possible feud with Jordynne Grace. Taking into account how much of a project it was for the office to get Cargill into the spot that she is now as the champion since she still had a level of experience when she arrived in the promotion a few years ago, I think the Rumble winner will be used to determine a challanger for Vaquer since she’s such a dynamic performer. If Sami beats Drew, it could set up for a short reign by design if a heel cuts his wholesome title run short at Wrestlemania. Could an opponent for CM Punk be determined with the Rumble winner? Maybe Cody wins and sets up a rematch with Drew? I think that’s a possible choice for the office, but I’m not sure of the level of fan demand for it since the match has already happened for the title a few times. As I’ve written prior, I think Cody’s position as the representative of the organization isn’t based specifically on if he has the championship so it might be more useful to put the WM main event spotlight on someone else that could eventually be booked as an opponent for him. Bron Breakker and Jacob Fatu look to have all the skills to be major stars for the company, will the Rumble be the pay-per-view to propel them to the main event picture?
It’s still somewhat of an odd situation where traditional pay-per-views, as Survivor Series did, have such an abbreviated line-up, as the current WWE marketing strategic seems to offer the audience less than in the past at a higher price. But, when the TKO corporation can continue to tout record-setting profits, and criticism might be moot.
What do you think? Share your thoughts, opinions, feedback, and anything else that was raised on Twitter @PWMania and Facebook.com/PWMania.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
Email [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, & Threads @jimlamotta89
