Making sense of the ‘Greatest Royal Rumble’

Doesn’t it feel like one of the best WWE cards in recent memory—the Greatest Royal Rumble—seemingly popped up out of thin air?

It’s because it kind of did.

We discussed the mystery of the Greatest Royal Rumble on the latest edition of the Fourth Wall Wrestling Podcast.

Zach: “What even is it?”

Pete: “Here it is...the greatest pay-per-view of all-time, seemingly, by the card, and we don’t have to pour over the card, because we have a lot to talk about as far as the Superstar Shakeup goes, and we’ll have a preview show for this pay-per-view next week, which is on a Friday night—one of the best cards I’ve ever seen is on a Friday night, which is incredible ... So, we have the Greatest Royal Rumble, and my thing is, I understand—I guess they’re trying to make a really big fan push in Saudi Arabia, but if you have nothing, and you’ve never really had a lot of shows there, you could really bring the B-team, and that would be fantastic. You could bring NXT and that would be fantastic, but instead, they’re loading up, really another WrestleMania after WrestleMania in my opinion with the Undertaker on the card in a Casket Match—that’s a whole other story. Before we can even get into that part, what do you make of this Greatest Royal Rumble, Zach?”

Zach: “It’s a great question, Pete, I’m glad you asked it. I think it’s something we’re all wondering. Obviously, as in many things we talk about in the wrestling world, we are breaking down a story with a small percentage of the story, a small percentage of the information. What’s the real info here? There is probably market data analytics that we can’t see, we don’t know, so they’re seeing some sort of number that says, ‘Hey WWE, there’s some money to be made here. You can fill up a 60,000-person stadium in our country,’ so they’re thinking, why don’t we?

“Go ahead, do it, but don’t do it at the cost of burying one of your greatest trademarks, one of your greatest gimmicks, one of your greatest phrases—the Royal Rumble. Now all of a sudden, the Greatest Royal Rumble? How dare you! I just watched a Royal Rumble a few months ago and it was great!”

For more on this discussion, along with all our thoughts on the Superstar Shakeup, you can listen to the podcast here or on the player below. The podcast is also available on iTunes. New episodes every week.