Chris Masters on the difficulties of a 40-man WWE Royal Rumble match (Exclusive)
Chris Masters believes WWE should continue to have 30 participants in future WWE Royal Rumble matches.
Since the match concept was introduced in 1988, almost every WWE Royal Rumble has contained 30 Superstars. The 2011 WWE Royal Rumble (40 Superstars) and the 2018 WWE Greatest Royal Rumble (50 Superstars) are the only exceptions.
Masters, who participated in the 40-man WWE Royal Rumble, spoke to Dr. Chris Featherstone on SK Wrestling's Inside SKoop. He said he prefers the 30-man WWE Royal Rumble concept with a two-minute delay between Superstars entering the match.
“I guess I’m a bit of a traditionalist about it because 30 just seems like a good number. It kind of seems at 40 it might run long. I don’t want to speed the entrance up to one minute because automatically when you told me 40, if there’s 40 guys, I’m thinking, okay, maybe we cut it from two minutes to a one minute, but we already know how that works [1995 WWE Royal Rumble]. I guess you could do a minute and a half. I don’t know, I just feel like the formula of 30 men and two minutes has been my favorite.”
Watch the video above to find out Masters’ thoughts on Booker T and Diesel’s surprise appearances in the 2011 WWE Royal Rumble.
What happened in the 40-man WWE Royal Rumble?
The 38th entrant in the 2011 WWE Royal Rumble, Alberto Del Rio, eliminated Randy Orton and Santino Marella to win the match. He went on to unsuccessfully challenge Edge for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania XXVII.
Chris Masters entered the match from the No. 14 spot. He lasted two minutes before he was eliminated by CM Punk.
Please credit SK Wrestling’s Inside SKoop and embed the video interview if you use quotes from this article.