It is raw rumble time. Unless you're watching this in July, then you've got away ages.

Just pick your favour and pretend it's January. It is the best time of the year though, so do get

ready to impress your friends with trivia. Because yeah, here's ten things you didn't know

about the raw rumble. Number 10, Vince McMahon thought it was stupid. Yep. When right-hand

man Pat Patterson pitched the idea of 30 men being thrown over the top rope, Vince McMahon thought it was stupid. Yep. When right-hand man Paterson pitched the idea of 30

men being thrown over the top rope, Vince McMahon rolled his eyes and thought that sounded awful.

During a meeting with NBC head honcho Dick Ebersole, though, McMahon needed an idea to present for a TV special to told Pat to run with it.

Vince was convinced it would be the death nail to all of this and we could move on, but no, Ebersole thought this sounded most fun, and the raw rumble was officially greenlit. Now, the main reason Dick liked it was due to the entrance format. He assumed viewers wouldn't change the channel if a new superstar was about to walk to the ring, and damn it, he was right. It didn't take long to get

rocking and rolling either, because by 1989 it had become its own pay-per-view, and we know the rest.

We've talked about it, it's the flipping best, and that rhymed. Number nine, the first rumble

had 12 entrants, because again, this was a proof of concept, we were figuring things out. This is

why while 1988 has long been seen as the official debut, the WWF did try one out on a

house show with 12 wrestlers as the one-man gang became the last man standing.

There were barely any recognisable names in it either, although the Junkyard Dog did make it to

the last tool, and do you know what gang got for winning? Nothing. We were literally doing it because we needed something to do. 48 hours we tried again this time with 10 people, so clearly we didn't have a clue. Although really, that just sounds to me like Paterson had the last laugh. His original concept was the right call. Number eight, there were five other non-paperview rumbles

so we are moving away from non-televised live events now because yeah on five occasions

wwee decided to see what mileage they could get out of a rumble and put it on free-to-air programming

randomly there was a tag team version on roar in june 1998 which is a mess as 20 people only had 10 minutes.

Then come January 1999, we tried again.

This time it was a 10 man with another 15 person version coming on Smackdown in 2004.

There was also a mini six-man rumble back on Roar in 2008, and in 2011 it went all weird

as seven humans entered with Jerry Lawler winning to get a world title shot against the Miz.

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