From The Rumor Mill: Plans changed for the first ever 50-man Royal Rumble match?
What's the story?
The first ever 50-man Royal Rumble match took place at The Greatest Royal Rumble, but whilst there were a number of shocks and surprises in the match itself, there was one superstar that was missing from the line-up.
In case you didn't know...
WWE has been posting updates on their Twitter page over the past few days where they have shown their newest recruits from the first-ever Saudi Arabian tryouts. It was announced on WWE.com that one of these new recruits would then become part of the 50-man Royal Rumble match after he had been signed to WWE, but this obviously didn't happen.
The heart of the matter
There were a number of shock returns last night including Rey Mysterio, The Great Khali, and Hornswoggle as well as a number of debuts from NXT with Roderick Strong, Tucker Knight, and Babatunde amongst the stars who made up the field of 50-men.
One person that was missing was the Saudi Arabian star that WWE has announced would be part of the match after completing the tryout. Four superstars were used as a part of an in-ring segment with Shawn and Arya Davari, but there was no new signing in the Royal Rumble match. Dave Meltzer speculated that the new recruits weren't ready for a spot in the match as part of today's installment of The Wrestling Observer. (Transcript via RingSideNews)
“Whatever it was they changed their mind because they had said when they did the tryout that the best guy at the tryout was getting in the Rumble and they didn’t put anyone in.”
What's next?
It is thought that the newest recruits will join the Performance Centre and be put through their paces in the coming months, which means that it's unlikely that any of them will be seen on WWE TV in the near future.
Author's take
It's strange that WWE didn't allow the Saudi Arabian star to be part of the Rumble since they had already announced it. A spot in the rumble could have been as quick as their segment with the Davari brothers, but it was always WWE's decision to add the star to the match and since there was no new recruit in the match, that means that there must have been a good reason for their absence.