Royal Rumble In-Ring Psychology
By Scott Keith on 22nd December 2017
Hey Scott,
Following up on that Royal Rumble question, I have my own theory on why the rumble matches haven't lived up to potential in recent years, and was wondering what you think.
My opinion is it is not that there are only 2-5 plausible winners, like the previous emailer suggested. I think it is because the in-ring psychology in the rumble match in recent years has been horrendous.
- There's a real lack of interesting eliminations. Guys just kinda stand around until it's their turn to go, and the camera misses a lot of them
- There is waaaaay too much dead-time where everyone is standing around waiting for the next guy, with 0 highspots
- There's a never-ending cycle of new entrant runs out, hits his finish on everyone in the ring, then poses when everyone is down; and doesn't attempt any eliminations
- Guys whose finish is a power move (Kane, Mark Henry) will pick guys up and slam them center of the ring, instead of trying to eliminate them while they have them lifted up
- You never see anyone go on a tear where they clean house; like Diesel in 94 and Rikishi in 00
- There has not been a good finishing sequence since Sheamus/Jericho SIX years ago.
I think if they corrected these major problems the match should flow better regardless of whose likely to win. What say you?
Yeah, the pacing thing drives me NUTS. I hate having too much deadwood in a Rumble, because then it's just another shitty battle royal instead of something cool and different. Plus you can't focus on multiple guys if there's 12 people in the ring and everyone only has room to lay on the ropes and do forearms while pretending to push a guy out. I think that if they actually just managed to fix that one issue, it would make the Rumble 70% better for me.