Used to be, the most exciting night of the year was the Royal Rumble. 30 wrestlers, one prize—anything can happen. The winner goes on to headline Wrestlemania. It was great. The Royal Rumble had two very long runs as a night where a fan could see exactly what the WWE had planned for the next three months. Those streaks were 1993-1996, and 2000-2007. Every winner from the Rumble during those years went on to headline Wrestlemania and win a major championship.
In 2005, WWE introduced a concept at Wrestlemania called Money in the Bank, a ladder match with a very unique prize: a guaranteed title shot, redeemable at any time for up to a year. Not only was the match often very exciting, but the consequence was equally intriguing. When would the winner cash in? Would he telegraph the date, like Rob Van Dam in 2006 and now Daniel Bryan in 2011? Or would he pick his spot when a champion can be easily defeated, like Edge in 2005, or Del Rio at Summerslam?
In the narrative, Money in the Bank winners have cashed in to win almost as many championships as winners of the Royal Rumble. What’s more impressive is that no MITB winners have cashed in and lost, which is something you can’t say about the Rumble. In fact, the last person to win the Rumble and win at Wrestlemania was the Undertaker, over four years ago.
I believe MITB has become far more of an important plot device to WWE than the Rumble, because MITB offers far more creative ways to tell stories.
Because the 30-man (or 40, for 2011) is such a guarantee, any title match that occurs on the same night is already obsolete. That’s why there have been so many uninteresting title matches at the Rumble. And the Rumble itself, while exciting, is more or less the same match every year. If you’ve seen two (1992 and 2002), you’ve seen them all. Generally, the story of any Rumble is either a) a man going the entire distance of the match, or b) a dominating or surprising hero or villain enter late and decimate the remainder. But every MITB match has the potential to be completely fresh. Every match has used a different number of props, a different length, and a new, interesting finish. Some MITB matches have six guys, some have eight.
But of course, what makes MITB really exciting is the consequence. Up until the winner cashes in, his participation hangs over every single title match, an extra layer on whatever drama they’ve cooked up that month. Some winners, like Jack Swagger, have had little patience, cashing in only a week after winning. Others, like Kane last year, cashed in only minutes afterwards. Most cash in somewhere between Wrestlemania and the Royal Rumble. Some guys pick their spots very carefully, while others, like The Miz and Del Rio, attempt to cash in multiple times, thwarted by interference or circumstance. But they all eventually hand the briefcase over to a referee, and they all win.
For the WWE, the Royal Rumble has become a bit of a predictable night. While a random wrestler has never won the Rumble, there were years where the winner really wasn’t obvious from the get-go. Still, with the exception of Edge and Cena (who were both injured and not advertised) I haven’t been surprised by a Rumble winner since 1997. Because the winner of the Rumble main events Wrestlemania, the winner has to be a top-tier guy. But I’ve never been able to call a MITB winner, and I’m also pretty bad at predicting when they’ll cash in.
Of course, why wouldn’t they prefer one over the other? MITB not only makes an early summer PPV exciting when it used to be a filler-only affair, but it also makes every show after that a potential surprise. All the Rumble does is telegraph one guy in one match at Wrestlemania. That was increasingly telling this year, when Del Rio won and opened Wrestlemania, while Cena, who lost, went on to main event. But what’s really telling is MITB winner Daniel Bryan, who has promised to cash in for the World Title at Wrestlemania, bypassing the Rumble match entirely. Because of Bryan, the 2012 Royal Rumble has one less interesting factor, because the winner can only compete for the WWE Championship. That is, unless they change the Rumble to mean something else.
For the first few years, The Royal Rumble didn’t garner a prize. Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Big John Studd didn’t get to main event anything due to their win. It was the win in and of itself that mattered. That’s a nice idea, but it would never fly today. Who would fight over nothing? Well, how about a championship? To this day, the 1992 Royal Rumble is considered one of the best, and I believe a lot of that had to do with the fact that the WWE Championship was on the line. If we’ve already got a challenger for the World Title at Wrestlemania, why not flip the prize of the Rumble and make it for the “real” world title on the 20th anniversary of Flair’s historic win? Hell, add to the drama by having the champion enter at number 1.
Changing the Rumble to make it a title match also takes care of that pesky lame-duck title match during the show, but it does something way more important. It would officially state that the MITB is the surprise of the year, and the real telegraph of where the momentum is going.
K Sawyer Paul is an author and publisher living in Toronto. He tweets and tumbls. In the wrestling world he is known for This is Sports Entertainment and International Object.
Edited by TH.
