What will the match order be at Royal Rumble 2019?

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This year's Royal Rumble is a busy card, with nine matches on the show, including two hour-long Royal Rumble matches. On paper, it's the best card WWE has put together in years, but delivery will come down to how the show is booked, including the order matches take place in.

Match order can tell you a lot about a show, particularly with a Royal Rumble. With that in mind, let's take a look at the order WWE could have planned for tonight's matches.

#1 Buddy Murphy vs. Kalisto vs. Hideo Itami vs. Akira Tozawa

We already know that this match will take place on the pre-show. It being a Cruiserweight title match should have made that obvious enough. This will be the start of the pre-show, coming before any other match on the card when the arena is still mostly empty. That's just how the Cruiserweight title and the purple brand is treated.

It will still be a good match nevertheless. Buddy Murphy is nothing if not consistent, and it will be interesting to see how he defends his title against three other people at once. This should get the crowd amped up for things to come later.

#2 Rusev vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

What a year Nakamura has had. Last year, he won the Royal Rumble match, a match which he was advertised as being one of the star attractions. Now he's shunted to the pre-show, and while he might appear in the Rumble match later, it's still a huge drop for him.

Rusev has gotten in on the vanishing act since he became United States Champion as well. The match should be fine, but this being added to the pre-show as an afterthought tells us much about what the company thinks about the United States Championship.