Royal Rumble is perhaps the most exciting pay per view on WWE television after WrestleMania. It is one of the big four pay per views of the year, others being Wrestlemania, SummerSlam and Survivor Series. Every year, the Royal Rumble is filled with twists and turns and this event officially kicks off the ‘Road to WrestleMania’.
There is new and exciting news that has been released in regard to next year’s event. The dual brand pay per view is scheduled to be held at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, on Sunday, January 29, 2017. The special fact about this announcement is that it is the first time that the Royal Rumble will be hosted at the Alamodome since 1997.
The biggest highlight of the pay per view is the 30-man over-the-top-rope Royal Rumble Match that will feature WWE superstars from both Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live, where the winner will get the chance to go down in history books as the man who receives an opportunity to headline WrestleMania 33 in Orlando, Florida.
The Alamodome had previously played host to the 1997 Royal Rumble, where a staggering audience of over 60,000 fans cheered on as WWE Hall of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin won his first Royal Rumble match. He would later go on to win two more to become the only WWE superstar in history to win the Royal Rumble match three times.
Austin had been eliminated, but the officials did not notice and he re-entered the match at number 30 and eliminated Bret Hart to win the Rumble. Another WWE Hall of Famer, Shawn Michaels had won the WWE Championship from Sycho Sid in front of his hometown crowd, thus setting up the WrestleMania 13 clash with Bret Hart with Ken Shamrock with the Special Guest Referee.
WWE could be looking to break the attendance record with the upcoming Royal Rumble. The record for the largest attendance at a Royal Rumble is still held by the Alamodome. But that number of 60,00 attendees could be in jeopardy if WWE are able to market the event and sell out seats with a good match card.
There aren’t too many details on the 2017 Royal Rumble's participants. But given that the event is a dual brand pay per view, the 30 man Royal Rumble match is likely to have 15 superstars from Monday Night RAW, and 15 from SmackDown Live.
The winner will then go on to challenge the WWE Universal Champion or the World Champion at the biggest stage of them all in a headline match at WrestleMania 33 in Orlando.
