Samoa Joe on WWE Greatest Royal Rumble: 'It Will Make for One Wild Brawl'

Like many other WWE fans, Samoa Joe doesn't know fully what to expect from the 50-man Greatest Royal Rumble match Friday, but he is looking forward to what the event can provide. 

"Intrigued is the best word that I have to describe it. The audacity of the match if anything," he said in an interview with The National's Graham Caygill. "That many people in a ring at once, and really the amount of time involved. If you are in from the start you are in for a marathon. I do think it will make for one wild brawl. It will be interesting to see how it comes up."

It's unclear whether Joe will compete in the Greatest Royal Rumble match. He's already wrestling in a four-man ladder match for the Intercontinental Championship, and he isn't included on WWE's preliminary list of Greatest Royal Rumble participants.

Typically, the Royal Rumble match includes 30 wrestlers, and WWE bumped the number up to 40 for the 2011 edition.

More may not automatically mean better in this case.

One problem with the Royal Rumble match is you can generally write off about half the field since there's only a select few stars who could feasibly win such a high-profile bout. Now, WWE is potentially exacerbating that issue by throwing in an additional 20 wrestlers.

Most importantly, it doesn't appear there are any serious stakes involved with the Greatest Royal Rumble match. A giant trophy remains the only prize awarded to the winner:

The winner of the Royal Rumble match in January receives a title shot at WrestleMania. Take that out of the equation, and you basically have the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, which is so prestigious it has been a WrestleMania pre-show match the last two years.

In terms of the overall event, the Greatest Royal Rumble should be huge. Triple H and John Cena are facing off, The Undertaker is in a casket match with Rusev, and fans are getting a WrestleMania 34 rematch between Shinsuke Nakamura and AJ Styles. And that represents roughly a third of the entire card.

But it's easy envisioning the Greatest Royal Rumble match itself as a bit of a letdown given everything else in store Friday.