This rumble has 50 people in it. At 2 min. per entrance, eliminating the first 2, that's 96 min. before the last person enters. Not many wrestlers have done 90 min. matches, even with the rest breaks a RR match can give. The only one I know of is Bret Hart & Harley Race. Bret and Harly did a 90 min. one on one match for stampede wrestling during a Stampede show one summer.
a interesting story i always love to share when jinder comes up.
during his main event push, my two friends on the riffdowns, a podcast that riffs on smackdown live every week, twk and bobbert made a bet with each other. bobbert bet twk that he could buy him a switch if jinder won the world title. and he did. so today, twk enjoys a switch that's to jinder.
Mr. McMahon comes out at his entrance number, but goes to the announce table and calls the match until the Final Two when he goes in, eliminates "Stone Cold", and wins the match.
The problem with that is Stone Cold isn't the only one that wouldn't like McMahon doing that, and wouldn't be afraid to throw him back in the ring and throw him out.
Off the top of my head, Mankind, CM Punk, and the Shield all didn't like Vince in their stories, and people like Brock Lesner and Orton have gotten so into a match and what "winning" would mean, they've gone crazy on boss figures before.
The MunchKING is Back! And he is AWSOME!
that's gonna be hard. 2/3 of the shield have won the rumble. and on average, all three have made it to the final 2 entrants. so they know how to survive in RRs for a long time. and since they are coming in back to back to back, it's gonna be even harder.
and the more chaotic the match, the better they do.
At that point, it doesn't matter. Right before them, you have some ego-matics (Miz, CM Punk, Orton, Del Rio) who will sneak around and concentrate on staying in the ring. Or Scud missiles (Van Dam, Hardy, Mysterio, Bryan) who will walk in, hit everyone in their way and cause Chaos.
Seth Rollins comes in, and can easily survive the 2 minutes to the next entrance. Reigns comes in and starts the Superman Punches. It's not until Ambrose comes in next when everyone realizes the real trouble they are in. And at that point, it's too late. None of those late entries really worked well with each other (The closest is Edge/Orton at 34/36).
It's the Shield rumble to lose.
true. the shield absolutely thrive on chaos. they will be dragging dudes out of the ring to ****'em up, then put them back in the ring to throw them out. and they will have enough respect for each other that they won't turn on each other until they are the last three and even then, it's a toss up. between reign's power, seth's skill, and dean's insane damage soak, it would be anyone's match.
I'd say that the three Shield members being among the last few combatants is a likely scenario. But basically, that'd be true of most of the last 15.
I think there's probably a good reason why a Royal Rumble in the WWE has (to the best of my knowledge) never had more than 30 participants. Because otherwise, the overall match would go too long and it'd stretch credibility waaaay too much (even for the WWE with all its ridiculous angles and storylines) for someone among the first 15 entrants to still be in the match by the time participant 46 enters.
So in this scenario, the first 15 or more entrants (who would be the first 15 or so WWE champions) have no real chance of actually winning. The real question is, of these first 15 or so, which of them would last the longest? Which of them would eliminate the most people? Which of them would last the shortest?
What makes the Royal Rumble matches so fun to see isn't just who wins and who shows up in what order, it's also who lasts the longest and who eliminates the most people. I remember the one Royal Rumble where Kane was eliminating lots of people, and thinking "Oh boy. How many people's he going to eliminate before they finally eliminate him?".
So yes, there's all sorts of things to keep in mind. My guess is that Stan Stasiak and Bob Backlund wouldn't be in it very long, but Hogan, Andre, Randy Savage, the Undertaker, and Ric Flair would hang in there for quite a while. Bret Hart was the very first Royal Rumble's 'iron man', entering as one of the first two and lasting a great ways into the event, so he might stay in there for a while, too. But none of these guys would be around by the time the Miz shows up, let alone the Shield.