10 Fascinating WWE Royal Rumble 2017 Facts
8. Raw Greatly Outnumbered SmackDown In Terms Of Eliminations
The purpose of the 2016 brand extension was to boost SmackDown's ratings, hence why John Cena was drafted over to the perceived secondary brand. A sense of parity was supposed to manifest among the brands, but as the first split showed, Raw eventually gets the favored treatment.
One only need look at the 2017 Rumble match, which featured 17 Raw wrestlers, 11 from SmackDown, one "free agent" (The Undertaker) and one NXT guest (Tye Dillinger). Obviously, 29 men had to be eliminated, so what would you guess the disparity was among the shows?
Here was the scorecard: 22 eliminations were made by Raw performers, four by free agent Undertaker, and a whopping three by SmackDown guys. Those SmackDown tosses included Baron Corbin throwing out Braun Strowman, Luke Harper throwing out Apollo Crews, and Randy Orton dumping Roman Reigns. Undertaker (4) and Strowman (7) each individually outscored SmackDown as a whole, while three Raw guys (Brock Lesnar, Goldberg, and Reigns) each tied SmackDown's collective with three eliminations apiece.