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WWE News: All 30 ‘Royal Rumble’ Match Entrants Revealed on ‘Monday Night RAW’?

By Dustin Murrell
Published on: 02:46 PST, Jan 12, 2016

Now that last night’s episode of WWE Monday Night RAW has ended, Vince McMahon and company want you to believe that you already know which 30 WWE Superstars will be entering the 2016 Royal Rumble match. On top of several wrestlers previously announcing their official entry into this year’s Rumble, last night’s WWE RAW had multiple examples of 30 or so wrestlers — sometimes including Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar, other times not — that would seem to be the full list of men in this year’s 30-man battle royal. But by the end of last night’s RAW, WWE had implicated more than 40 entrants for this year’s annual Royal Rumble main event.

Prior to Monday Night RAW on January 11, WWE.com had officially confirmed ten of the thirty entrants for the Rumble Match, including Roman Reigns, Chris Jericho, Bray Wyatt, Erick Rowan, Luke Harper, Braun Strowman, Dolph Ziggler, Ryback, Big Show, and Curtis Axel. While other Superstars had hinted at being included, no one else had been confirmed or officially mentioned on WWE programming.

Then, at the beginning of RAW, Mr. McMahon and daughter Stephanie came to the ring as 30 competitors — not including Roman Reigns or Brock Lesnar — stood patiently at the top of the ramp. Vince told these thirty wrestlers that they were lucky to have the opportunity to make history by eliminating Roman Reigns from this year’s Rumble Match. He said it could be any one of the thirty men he was talking to.

Telling all 30 of these Superstars that they will have the opportunity to be in the Rumble Match is a mathematical impossibility. If Roman Reigns is going to be included in the match, one of those superstars will have to be replaced. Then, the Wyatt Family interrupted the proceedings, implying that they would be entering the Rumble. That’s four more of the 30 men on the ramp that would have to be booted. While it was debated back-and-forth throughout the show, Vince specifically mentioned Brock Lesnar’s inclusion during his opening promo, so that’s yet another one of the thirty that would have to be scrapped. Finally, from the confirmed list at WWE.com, Chris Jericho and The Big Show are missing from the 30 present at the RAW opening. So kick two more of those guys out.

If you’re keeping count, that’s a total of eight guys that are causing a numerical conflict.

As the show progressed, the hashtag #OneVsAll was repeated ad nauseam. Vince and Stephanie reminded Roman Reigns that everyone in the Rumble Match wanted to take his title, so it truly would be “One Vs. All” for him on January 24. They mentioned more than once that the Royal Rumble Match was their chance to show the McMahon version of #OneVsAll. They also booked the WWE World Heavyweight Champion in a match against an undisclosed number of implicit Rumble combatants with a very ambiguous explanation of the format.

The initial announcement of Raw‘s #OneVsAll main event match was made during The Authority’s opening promo. Vince told Roman that some (or all) of the 30 men at the top of the ramp would be his opponents. Later in the show, the graphic shown in WWE’s tweet below was used to promote that match.

There are exactly 28 men shown in the background. If you include Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar, you come to a perfect 30.

This set of 30, however, causes a few more conflicts. If we’re to assume that this group makes up the Rumble Match’s 30 entries, then there are some new names to consider. Those names include Neville and Jack Swagger, who weren’t at the top of the ramp and hadn’t previously been included in the Rumble conversation.

Given WWE.com’s updated official list of Royal Rumble match entrants, plus the group of wrestlers from the top of the ramp and the wrestlers from the #OneVsAll graphic, here are the confirmed (shown in italics) and implied entrants for the 2016 Royal Rumble Match.

  1. Roman Reigns
  2. Brock Lesnar
  3. Big Show
  4. Braun Strowman
  5. Bray Wyatt
  6. Chris Jericho
  7. Curtis Axel
  8. Dolph Ziggler
  9. Erick Rowan
  10. Luke Haper
  11. Ryback
  12. Adam Rose
  13. Alberto Del Rio
  14. Big E
  15. Bo Dallas
  16. Bubba Ray Dudley
  17. Damien Sandow
  18. Darren Young
  19. Dean Ambrose
  20. D-Von Dudley
  21. Fandango
  22. Goldust
  23. Heath Slater
  24. Jack Swagger
  25. Jey Uso
  26. Jimmy Uso
  27. Kalisto
  28. Kevin Owens
  29. Kofi Kingston
  30. Konnor
  31. Mark Henry
  32. The Miz
  33. Neville
  34. R-Truth
  35. Sheamus
  36. Stardust
  37. Titus O’Niel
  38. Tyler Breeze
  39. Viktor
  40. Xavier Woods
  41. Zack Ryder

A tally of 41 implied and confirmed wrestlers just means that WWE can still surprise us. If they don’t nail down the specific 30, then as they like to say in the WWE, “anything can happen.” No doubt the WWE Universe will have to wait until the Royal Rumble airs live on the WWE Network on January 24 to find out who joins Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar in the main event.

[Image via Twitter]

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