Insight Into Origin Of WWE Royal Rumble Name

Since its inception in 1988, the Royal Rumble has emerged as one of the marquee events in WWE — one of the "Big Four." While the respective match concept has mostly stayed the same over the years, some modifications have been applied throughout the years. After "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan's victory at the inaugural event in a field of 20 competitors, WWE soon expanded to the larger, and now traditional, size of 30. Despite other rule tweaks, mostly built around times between entrants, the Royal Rumble has largely maintained its lore among fans across its 36-years-and-counting history, as evidenced by the event's record-setting gate for the 2023 iteration. The early trials of the match "didn't do that well" though.

On a recent edition of "Something To Wrestle," Bruce Prichard — Executive Director of "Raw" and "SmackDown" — discussed the origins of the match. To counter the success of their rival Jim Crockett Promotions, Prichard revealed they came up with "a special idea." The concept itself is largely credited to WWE Hall of Famer Pat Patterson, but the initial name of the spectacle appeared slightly different when the company did some test runs of it on live events.

"We were trying to think of a name. We're not going to call it 'Battle Royal.' We're not going to call it 'Legal Run-In Battle Royale.' It needs a name. Since we were doing [the pay-per-view] in the province of Hamilton, Ontario, somehow we came up with the 'Rumble Royal' to make it special, to make it grand, to make it feel like it was royalty, to make it feel that this was larger than life itself."

The idea of the "Rumble Royal" though just "didn't roll off the tongue," so WWE made a slight change and "morphed [it] into the Royal Rumble because the 'Royal Rumble' was a little more prestigious" and had a better flow.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Something To Wrestle With Bruce Prichard" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.