WWE News: WWE announces big plans for next year's Royal Rumble
WWE announced that they will return to the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas next year for the Royal Rumble. The Rumble last took place at San Antonio in 2007 at the AT&T Center where The Undertaker won the Royal Rumble match. However, there are few reasons why this coming Rumble is going to be historic.
Firstly, it is the 30th edition of the Royal Rumble. Secondly, it is returning to the Alamodome for the first time in 20 years. The last time it came to that venue was when it saw the hometown boy Shawn Michaels take on Sycho Sid for the WWF Championship, which he successfully obtained.
Triple H also tweeted hyping up next year’s Royal Rumble and even teased something big. Here’s what he tweeted:
It was reported 20 years ago that the attendance for the stated event was 60,525. However, the overall attendance record for Alamodome is 73,068. WWE will likely look to “break” this record. WWE has a history of spiking their figures. The prime example is said to be Wrestlemania 3 at the Pontiac Silverdome where WWE state that they got 93,173 in attendance. But this is a highly disputed number and has been looked into extensively.
This year at Wrestlemania 32 itself WWE claimed to have set the attendance record of 101,763. This too is a disputed figure. Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter claims that while WWE sold over 80,000 tickets, the overall personnel and people in the building combined during the event is said to be somewhere around 93,000 people or so. This does technically make it the legitimate attendance record by WWE but nonetheless inflated.
The Royal Rumble event has gotten mixed to negative reception the past six years. This comes from the fact that since 2011, the fans have not been happy about the winners of the Royal Rumble match itself. Last year, the Royal Rumble event as a whole was an extremely stacked and solid PPV from top to bottom, but people were not happy with Triple H winning the Rumble as they knew it was to further the Roman Reigns Wrestlemania push.
However, 2016 has been a rollercoaster of a year for WWE, with the rosters overall being stronger than ever. The winner of this year's Rumble will get to choose between competing for the WWE World Championship of the Smackdown Live brand or the Universal Championship of the Raw brand. Former Universal Champion Finn Balor is rumoured to be returning sometime around the Royal Rumble, instantly making him one of the possible favourites to win the Rumble.
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