7 WWE Royal Rumble Cliches We'll Definitely See This Year

Over the years, there have been efforts to remodel the traditional Royal Rumble format. 2016, for instance, was the first in more than two decades contested for the WWE Championship itself, while five years prior we saw a bumper 40 men, instead of the usual 30, battle it out for a chance to main event WrestleMania.

Sometimes the Rumble closes the show, other times it shares the main event spot with a title match of equal importance (for example, Kurt Angle versus... Mark Henry?). The point is: in today's topsy-turvy WWE, where flash-in-the-pan ideas go from creative meetings to our screens - and then back again - faster than ever before, you can't really be certain of much.

There are probably one or two Rumble happenings of which you can be pretty sure, though - whether it's a particular move sequence, a Kofi Kingston outside-the-ring spot, or a hackneyed Michael Cole platitude.

Here are 7 Royal Rumble clichés we'll definitely see this year (and every other year).

OK, it's perfectly understandable that WWE are reluctant to bring up you-know-who on their programming, but wouldn't it be better to simply avoid this particular piece of trivia altogether, instead of awkwardly attempting to convince us, every year, that Shawn Michaels was the only ever Rumble winner to enter at the number one spot?

Aside from that, it's more than a little odd that commentators appear to believe winning the thing from the number one spot is somehow more impressive than it is if you enter at number two: in either case you have to see off 29 others en route to victory. This appears to be borne from the belief that the extra few seconds you get in the back at the beginning of the match makes any sort of difference to your performance.