10 Fascinating WWE Royal Rumble 1997 Facts
6. WWE Was Going To Air The Entire Rumble Match On An Episode Of Raw
February 3, 1997 was to have been the date of a rather interesting episode of Monday Night Raw. WWE had promoted the show as "Royal Rumble Raw", and announced that they would be airing the entire Rumble match, free of charge, on that broadcast.
According to Dave Meltzer, WWE was apparently put up to it by USA Network. Those at the Network noted that the 1988 Rumble (which aired live on USA) did a killer 8.2 rating, and doing something similar could pop a similarly-high number during what was a tense battle with WCW.
So what happened? WWE's PPV providers, Viewer's Choice and Request, stepped in and put their foot down, due to exclusivity in their pay-per-view contracts. Instead, WWE aired matches from a recent Toronto SkyDome event on that February 3 episode.