Hello, everyone, it's John Pollock here with you again, and we are going into our latest installment of our history of series, covering the Royal Rumble, which is going to be going down January the 31st.

And we're going to be detailing the history of the show, going back to even pre-1988, talking about the significance of the show, how it has grown in the many

incarnations of the Royal Rumble, where we will go through chapters of what could have been

written off as a failed house show concept to a massive hit on cable for its first

televised iteration, to a pay-per-view vehicle to at worst the number

three show of the year, give or take that year's SummerSlam performance, and into what has

become maybe the most popular show of the year that WWE has promoted, that has stood the test of time over many, many changes

in the company, that this has been a constant. It's become a big tool for the construction

of the WrestleMania card. And it's the modern take of how a battle royal is presented.

And one only has to look at all of the various copycat formats of the Royal Rumble in different promotions.

And the very simple, basic concept of a surprise every X amount of minutes that get a pop that lead to a fan engagement that

peaks every two minutes, give or take, in a said match.

So we're going to be looking at year by year the important stories attached to each Royal Rumble, some business notes attached to them,

what was the significance or lack thereof of that year's particular Royal Rumble?

So in order to kind of assess this, we will be leaning on several quotes from various talents over the years, and we'll also be taking a look at

bi-rate information that comes a lot from the observer. There is, of course,

WrestleMania has a great charting of past pay-per-views going back to 1993.

There's a pro wrestling only post that we also lean on here for pre-1993 buys that, again, are a mixture of various sources, including the Observer Newsletter.

So those are some of the context.

It is important, I think, to note that, like, the buys information, it is always a bit of a range that we're looking at, especially like pre, pre, I would say, mid 90s when it was, you know, at the time, it's still a private company.

And, I mean, generally, there's an agreed upon number of buys that we are

looking at. I don't think anything dramatically changes the belief of whether a show is the

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