Jim Ross Offers Details On How Royal Rumble Eliminations Happen

We are less than a week away from WWE's Royal Rumble, which marks the beginning of the "Road to WrestleMania." The titular matches of the show, one featuring 30 men from WWE and the other featuring 30 women, are set up so that the winners receive a major championship match at WrestleMania. Two superstars start out in the ring, with a new star appearing at every 90-second interval.Wrestlers eliminate their opponents by knocking them over the top rope with both their feet hitting the floor, but — like many things in wrestling — this part of the match is pre-determined. On a new episode of The "Grilling J.R. Podcast," Jim Ross explained why the pre-planned parts of a Rumble match are largely kept to a minimum.

"[The eliminations] are just about the only thing they do go over, as far as I know," he said. "Except, at the very end, they might do some orchestration there; I know they do. But it's pretty much an ad-lib scenario because of the — you can't say, 'Well, okay, you be here. Well, no, you got to go over there. You stand here.' You can't do that! There's too many moving parts. It's just physically impossible, so you go by instincts, and what you're processing as to what you're seeing, and then you let it flow."

Ross delved a bit deeper, pinpointing the specific parts of the match that are discussed beforehand. "They'll give you the order they want you to leave. They tell you when you're coming and when you're going, so you just need to make sure you know who you're following out to keep everything in order."

Along with the two signature matches, this Saturday's Royal Rumble PLE will be headlined by Roman Reigns defending the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship against Kevin Owens.