WWE News: Will This Year's Royal Rumble Match Feature 30 or 40 Participants?

The WWE billed the 2011 Royal Rumble as “The Biggest Royal Rumble in History” because, for the first time ever, it featured a whopping 40 participants. 

The decision to expand the Royal Rumble field was met with mixed reaction. Many fans were excited when advertisements from earlier this month indicated that the Rumble would be returning to its standard 30-man format. 

However, those fans might want to hold their breath. 

From PWTorch.com: 

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The Scottrade Center in St. Louis has removed any mention of the 2012 Royal Rumble match being a 30-man Rumble. Instead, the advertising for WWE's signature match includes four paragraphs of text describing the match format and the winner receiving a "guaranteed championship opportunity in the main event of WrestleMania." Last month, the arena website listed a 30-man Rumble, which would have been a change from the 40-man Rumble in January 2011. 

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Kind of like the cryptic “It Begins” videos, this report is vague and doesn’t really give us a clear indication about the Royal Rumble format either way. For all we know, it could feature 30 or 40 competitors. 

If I had my wish, though, the WWE would revert back to the traditional 30-man format. 

I realize that WWE officials probably thought that the 40-man format was “bigger” and therefore “better,” but I just don’t think that was the case. While we got a couple of nice surprises thanks to the 10 additional spots—Booker T and Kevin Nash, for example—the majority of them were given to lower-card workers and jobbers who had no realistic shot of winning the match in the first place. 

Expanding the Royal Rumble would be a smart decision if the WWE had a loaded roster like it did during the Attitude Era, but that just isn’t the case anymore. There are so many guys who aren’t over enough with the fans and hardly ever appear on TV. Throwing them in the Rumble isn’t going to make it better simply because more competitors are involved. 

It’s going to make it worse.