Match Times: The 2011 Royal Rumble

The 2011 Royal Rumble match lasted 1 hour 9 minutes and 52 seconds (1h 09m 52s). This particular Rumble match was hyped up to be "biggest Royal Rumble match in history" because it included 40 participants. This match also featured a memorable tease of comedy wrestler Santino Marella winning in the final moments. This post includes all of the important numbers you need to know about the timing of the match.

Here is a text graphic that displays much of the information discussed below, including a chronological listing of who the longest lasting men were at any given point in the match. The graphic provides a quick visual way to understand which wrestlers dominated the 2011 Royal Rumble match as time progressed, as well as seeing how crowded the ring was at any given point. And if you really want to dig deeper, the graphic also includes time stamps for when each wrestler stepped foot into the ring as well as time stamps for each wrestler's elimination.

For comparison's sake, here are other versions of this graphic for Royal Rumble matches from 1988, 1992, 1999 (version 1, version 2), 2003, 2007, and 2013.

Survival Times

My definition of the Survival Time for a superstar is the time that lapses between the point when a superstar steps foot into the ring and the time that the superstar's feet hit the floor to signal elimination. This does not include the time it takes for a superstar to make his way from the entrance ramp down to the actual ring.

The average superstar survival time for the 2011 Royal Rumble match was 8m 43s and the median survival time was 5m 11s.

Here is the full list of survival times for all 40 superstars.

• 35m 21s: CM Punk
• 34m 18s: John Cena
• 22m 24s: Wade Barrett
• 21m 05s: Kofi Kingston
• 20m 54s: Daniel Bryan
• 19m 08s: Rey Mysterio
• 18m 17s: King Sheamus
• 15m 48s: Husky Harris (Bray Wyatt)
• 15m 08s: Michael McGillicutty (Curtis Axel)
• 13m 23s: John Morrison
• 12m 56s: Santino Marella
• 12m 16s: Ted DiBiase
• 11m 57s: David Otunga
• 9m 40s: Hornswoggle
• 9m 33s: Alberto Del Rio
• 8m 19s: Randy Orton
• 7m 15s: Ezekiel
• 7m 12s: Dolph Ziggler
• 7m 04s: Mark Henry
• 5m 34s: Yoshi Tatsu
• 4m 47s: Drew McIntyre
• 4m 41s: Jack Swagger
• 4m 32s: Mason Ryan
• 4m 08s: William Regal
• 2m 50s: Alex Riley
• 2m 46s: Diesel
• 2m 01s: Chavo Guerrero
• 1m 58s: Chris Masters
• 1m 48s: JTG
• 1m 36s: Kane
• 1m 30s: Big Show
• 1m 16s: The Great Khali
• 1m 08s: Booker T
• 1m 02s: R-Truth
• 0m 58s: Justin Gabriel
• 0m 58s: Heath Slater
• 0m 53s: Tyson Kidd
• 0m 43s: Zack Ryder
• 0m 40s: Vladimir Kozlov
• 0m 34s: Tyler Reks

It certainly seems that the extra 10 men in the Rumble were there just to be thrown out in 90 seconds or less.

8 of the first 25 participants were eliminated before the next countdown clock hit zero. 4 of these 8 guys were thrown out because CM Punk and his New Nexus henchmen were constantly engaging in 4 on 1 onslaughts every time a new participant entered the ring.

Santino's survival time was 12m 56s and it breaks down accordingly:

• 0m 00s: Santino enters the ring
• 0m 21s: Santino is knocked under the bottom rope
• 12m 08s: Santino finally re-enters the ring
• 12m 56s: Santino is the final man eliminated in the match

So Santino spent 11m 47s of his total 12m 56s survival time, or roughly 91.1%, outside of the ring on the ground. That is longer than the survival time of 27 of these superstars.

Hornswoggle's survival time of 9m 40s was longer than the combined survival times of The Great Khali, Booker T, R-Truth, Justin Gabriel, Heath Slater, Tyson Kidd, Zack Ryder, Vladimir Kozlov, and Tyler Reks.

20 of the 40 superstars didn't even last 5 minutes.

Entrance Times

Here are the entrance times for each superstar involved. This is the amount of time that passed between an entrance buzzer going off and when the superstar finally stepped foot into the actual ring. The first two entrants (CM Punk and Daniel Bryan) are excluded because their entrances took place prior to the start of the match.

• 1m 55s: Alberto Del Rio
• 0m 43s: Diesel
• 0m 39s: Big Show
• 0m 37s: John Cena
• 0m 34s: The Great Khali
• 0m 26s: Kofi Kingston
• 0m 25s: Randy Orton
• 0m 24s: Booker T
• 0m 23s: Kane
• 0m 20s: Wade Barrett
• 0m 17s: Ted DiBiase, Dolph Ziggler
• 0m 16s: Alex Riley
• 0m 15s: Henry, Otunga, Reks
• 0m 14s: Hornswoggle, Chavo
• 0m 13s: Rey Mysterio
• 0m 12s: John Morrison
• 0m 11s: Santino, Regal
• 0m 10s: Ryder, JTG, Swagger, Ezekiel
• 0m 09s: Tatsu, Husky, Masters
• 0m 08s: Kozlov, Slater, Sheamus
• 0m 07s: McGillicutty, Truth, Ryan, McIntyre
• 0m 06s: Tyson Kidd
• 0m 05s: Justin Gabriel

Alberto Del Rio's entrance was so long that the 90-second interval expired and the next superstar (Randy Orton) made his entrance before Del Rio even stepped foot into the ring. 24 seconds out of Orton's 25-second entrance coincided with Del Rio's entrance too.

When you remove the 24-second overlap between their entrances, these numbers add up to about 11m 02s of total entrance time out of the entire 1h 09m 52s match. That means that for about 15.8% of the match, at least one superstar was in midst of his entrance.

Time Between Buzzers

Justin Roberts stated that there would be 90 seconds between superstar entrances. How well did WWE stick to that claim? Here are the waiting times between all 38 buzzers, in chronological order:

• 1m 31s: Buzzer 1 - Gabriel
• 1m 30s: Buzzer 2 - Ryder
• 1m 30s: Buzzer 3 - Regal
• 1m 45s: Buzzer 4 - DiBiase
• 1m 31s: Buzzer 5 - Morrison
• 2m 02s: Buzzer 6 - Tatsu
• 1m 37s: Buzzer 7 - Husky
• 1m 22s: Buzzer 8 - Chavo
• 1m 41s: Buzzer 9 - Henry
• 1m 31s: Buzzer 10 - JTG
• 1m 26s: Buzzer 11 - McGillicutty
• 1m 32s: Buzzer 12 - Masters
• 1m 30s: Buzzer 13 - Otunga
• 1m 31s: Buzzer 14 - Reks
• 1m 31s: Buzzer 15 - Kozlov
• 1m 31s: Buzzer 16 - Truth
• 1m 30s: Buzzer 17 - Khali
• 1m 24s: Buzzer 18 - Ryan
• 1m 31s: Buzzer 19 - Booker T
• 2m 09s: Buzzer 20 - Cena
• 2m 23s: Buzzer 21 - Hornswoggle
• 2m 07s: Buzzer 22 - Kidd
• 1m 30s: Buzzer 23 - Slater
• 1m 36s: Buzzer 24 - Kingston
• 1m 31s: Buzzer 25 - Swagger
• 1m 40s: Buzzer 26 - Sheamus
• 1m 50s: Buzzer 27 - Mysterio
• 1m 40s: Buzzer 28 - Barrett
• 1m 30s: Buzzer 29 - Ziggler
• 1m 31s: Buzzer 30 - Diesel
• 1m 31s: Buzzer 31 - McIntyre
• 1m 31s: Buzzer 32 - Riley
• 1m 30s: Buzzer 33 - Big Show
• 1m 44s: Buzzer 34 - Ezekiel
• 1m 36s: Buzzer 35 - Santino
• 1m 39s: Buzzer 36 - Del Rio
• 1m 31s: Buzzer 37 - Orton
• 1m 34s: Buzzer 38 - Kane

Only 22 of the 38 times listed above landed within 5 seconds of the 90-second goal.

It seems that WWE was stretching for time between the 9 entrances spanning from Cena to Barrett, inclusive. During that period, 3 consecutive intervals lasted longer than 2 minutes, and 3 other intervals went at least 10 seconds longer than 90 seconds.

In a perfectly timed match, the final buzzer (signaling Kane's entrance) would have gone off 57m 00s after the very beginning of the match. In reality, this final buzzer went off at 1h 01m 29s.

Ring Crowdedness

I also wanted to take a look at how the ring filled up with superstars as the match progressed. If you add up each wrestler's survival time, it results in a total survival time of 5h 48m 21s. Given that the match lasted a total of 1h 09m 52s, that comes out to an average of 5.0 competitors in the ring at any given second.

Here is a better way to understand how many men were in the ring at any given time. This table shows the total time that the ring was filled with an exact number of discrete superstars at once:

Active Wrestlers	Total Time	Percentage of Match Time	Cumulative Percentage
2	8m 10s	11.7	11.7
3	7m 51s	11.2	22.9
4	13m 59s	20.0	42.9
5	14m 11s	20.3	63.2
6	6m 05s	8.7	71.9
7	13m 01s	18.6	90.6
8	5m 15s	7.5	98.1
9	1m 20s	1.9	100.0

This was not a very crowded Rumble match, especially if you take into account that many of the times when 4 or more superstars were in the ring, it was Punk's New Nexus working together as one unit.

There were many times when Punk and his goons were the only men in the ring, and so they were simply resting and waiting for the next man to enter. This took up a total time of 5m 44s.

There were also many times when the only men in the ring were Punk, his goons, and one poor sap such as Tyler Reks. These periods took up a total time of 5m 35s.

When you add these times up, that comes out to about 16.2% of the match where Punk and his henchmen either had the ring to themselves or shared it with exactly one isolated superstar.

End of the Match

Once the final entrant (Kane) entered the ring, the match essentially turned into an 8-man Battle Royal to the finish between Cena, Mysterio, Barrett, Ezekiel, Santino, Del Rio, Orton, and Kane. This final segment of the Royal Rumble match lasted 8m 00s, and at that point Del Rio emerged as the winner of the match.

That's all you need to know about the timing of the 2011 Royal Rumble match. Which numbers do you find to be the most interesting?