Royal Rumble 2012: What If WWE Changed It To World War 3 For One Year?

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been watching some old WCW matches on YouTube.

Remember when WCW was even bigger than the WWE in the mid-1990s? One of the great things about the company (and yet at the same time, one of its main problems) is that they had a boatload of wrestlers who were under contract.

Unfortunately, outside of guys like Diamond Dallas Page and Bill Goldberg, not many of the wrestlers were highly featured on television and on pay-per-views, largely due to the emergence of the nWo (seriously though, I think at one point the stable had about 25-30 wrestlers in it).

However, from 1995 to 1998, there was one event in November that allowed all of the talent to be featured on PPV: World War 3.

To those who don't know about this event or never watched WCW, let me explain to you how the match is set up.

World War 3 is just like the Royal Rumble. You throw your opponents over the top rope and out of the ring until there is one wrestler left standing. The winner becomes the number one contender for the WCW Championship (except in the first event in 1995; because the title was vacant at the time, the winner became the new champion). However, there are a few additional twists:

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1: 60 superstars, rather than 30 (or 40, in the case of last year's Rumble) are featured in this match;

2: Rather than one ring, this match has three rings, with 20 wrestlers filling each one;

3: Instead of having them come out one by one at regular intervals, all 60 superstars start the match at the same time;

4: In the 1998 World War 3 match, you could also pin and/or submit your opponent, rather than throw them over the top rope (this never happened, although Scott Steiner attempted to do so on several occasions); and

5: When the field is narrowed down to 20, all of them enter the center ring and battle it out until one man is left standing.

After watching a couple World War 3 events, it made me think. What if, for just one year, they brought this back?

It would be an exciting event to watch and it adds a little spice to an event that has been mostly unchanged since its inception. In addition, all of the talent, from main-eventers like Orton and Jericho (who, as a former WCW star, was in these events) to undercard latent like, say, Tyson Kidd, would be featured.

Now I know one of the main problems with this is that roster doesn't boast 60 superstars. Counting all  of its male superstars, including those injured as of this post, they are just short with 50. However, even back then, WCW had the same problem.

What they did was take guys from their developmental program, the WCW Power Plant. They also got stars from various independent organizations, including those in Mexico and Japan.

WWE could follow a similar point. They can use legends like they've done on several occasions in the Rumble. They could use some of the talent from Florida Championship Wrestling to give them a test on the big stage (Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose instantly come to mind). Or, they could borrow superstars from those independent organizations to add some variety amongst those participating, in exchange for special appearances or small cash considerations.

Heck, maybe they could strike a deal with ROH and have some of their talent featured. Could you imagine that?

I, for one, would love to see this occur. What do you guys think?