WWE Royal Rumble 2023: 10 Surprise Entrants We Could See

Which professional wrestler hasn't been used in at least a cameo capacity over the last however many years?

Tony Khan adores the import gimmick, and it's fantastic at its best. AEW feels dreamlike, as if anything can happen in that promotion, but the high is such that he has overdone it for a while now. Triple H isn't one for cameo appearances, modelling his booking after his mentor Vince McMahon's fixed cast policy, but he has signed almost every discarded player in the North American industry.

So many fringe players popped up in GCW's annual Spring Break Clusterf*ck match, too, which was essentially a Royal Rumble dedicated exclusively to the surprise entrant as one (overlong) running joke.

The history books are practically hallucinogenic at this point. Essa Rios is still bopping about! Think of the wild range of names that have worked Dynamite or Rampage since October 2, 2019.

Shaq! Diamond Dallas Page! Katsuyori Shibata! Yuji Nagata! Tully Blanchard!

Will anybody actually scan as a surprise in 2023? Will Triple H have the patter within to actually book a fun/comedic nostalgia cameo? Will it even be up to him, or will Vince McMahon have regained control by January 18?

This is all as up in the air as Shane McMahon was trying to steal Mick Foley's gimmick - but there are some very realistic choices to be found a click away...

Triple H won't have to worry about scheduling or owt like that to bring in the Hurricane, since Gregory Helms already works in WWE as a road agent.

"Gregger, once you're done telling somebody to slow it down and grab a chin lock, could you put the mask on and then get the f*ck out of there in a few minutes?"

It's a cheap suggestion, and possibly a lazy one - the Hurricane character has already done the surprise cameo bit in 2018, lasting just 45 seconds before his elimination at the hands of John Cena. To underscore how creatively bankrupt WWE is/was, he also entered the 2021 match. He lasted just 30 seconds before being eliminated by Bobby Lashley and Big E.

This three-year cycle indicates that the Hurricane won't actually enter the match this year, though it's close enough - but is Triple H really as unimaginative as the man under whom he studied for a quarter of a century?

Is Triple H even going to book the Rumble match this year?

Consider the Hurricane the spoils of war; if Vince McMahon books the wacky superhero whose schtick was tiresome before some people reading this were born, you know he's won and the end is nigh.