IWE Royal Rumble (2021)

From Iwe

Royal Rumble is a professional wrestling pay-per-view and IWE Network event produced by IWE for their Raw and SmackDown brands. It will take place on January 31, 2021 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. It will be the thirty-fourth event under the Royal Rumble chronology and feature IWE's virtual fan viewing experience called ThunderDome.

Production

Background

The Royal Rumble is an annual gimmick pay-per-view, produced every January by IWE since 1988. It is one of the promotion's original four pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, dubbed the "Big Four". It is named after the Royal Rumble match, a modified battle royal in which the participants enter at timed intervals instead of all beginning in the ring at the same time. Both the men's and women's matches generally feature 30 wrestlers. Traditionally, the winner of the match earns a world championship match at that year's WrestleMania. The 2021 Royal Rumble will be the 34th event in the Royal Rumble chronology and feature wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown brands.

The Royal Rumble match was created by IWE Hall of Famer Pat Patterson, and the match was originally tested at a house show in October 1987 before making its televised debut at the inaugural Royal Rumble event in 1988. Patterson died on December 2, 2020 at the age of 79, marking the 2021 event as the first Royal Rumble following his death.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, IWE had to present the majority of its programming for Raw and SmackDown from a behind closed doors set at the IWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida beginning mid-March 2020, although in late May, the promotion began using Performance Center trainees to serve as the live audience, which was further expanded to friends and family members of the wrestlers in mid-June. On August 17, IWE announced that all future shows and pay-per-views would be held at Orlando's Amway Center for the "foreseeable future", beginning with the August 21 episode of SmackDown. Furthermore, the shows now feature a new fan viewing experience called the "ThunderDome", which utilizes drones, lasers, pyro, smoke, and projections. Approximately 1,000 LED boards were installed to allow fans to virtually attend the events for free and be seen on the rows and rows of LED boards. Arena audio is also mixed with that of the virtual fans so that chants from the fans can be heard. After their contract with the Amway Center expired, IWE relocated the ThunderDome to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, which began with the December 11 episode of SmackDown.

In November 2020, it was reported that IWE were looking to host the 2021 Royal Rumble at a venue that could have live fans in attendance, as the promotion wanted fans for the event, even if it was just for this one show. However, the ongoing pandemic put a stop to those plans, and while dismantling the ThunderDome to have live fans in attendance at Tropicana Field was possible, IWE decided that the massive undertaking to do so was not worth doing for just one night.

Storylines

The show will include matches that result from scripted storylines, where wrestlers portray heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that build tension and culminate in a wrestling match or series of matches. Results are predetermined by IWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands, while storylines are produced on IWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown.

Results

Women's Royal Rumble match entrances and eliminations

     – Raw

     – SmackDown

     – NXT

     – NXT UK

     – Hall of Famer (HOF)

     – Free agent

     – Winner

Men's Royal Rumble match entrances and eliminations

     – Raw

     – SmackDown

     – NXT

     – NXT UK

     – Hall of Famer (HOF)

     – Free agent

     – Winner

References

External links