Hear me out on this first and have a think before you respond as I'm kind of indifferent on this to be honest, reason being is I don't think it's overly needed, sure I understand we're used to this now and it's kind of become tradition but it's not always been this way and to me, having this just makes the Rumble not only all the more predictable due to us knowing pretty much who's on the verge of a push but it completely eliminates that chance of an underdog or a surprise win winning the Rumble, which although rare, at least was possible, now, all this is eliminated and it's just never gonna happen while this is in place.
They could easily have the road to Wrestlemania regardless of the Rumble and it doesn't need to stem either from the winner, they could have a tournament or whatever (King Of The Ring type maybe) as a Rumble win is prestige in itself, I dunno, I kinda think taking that away from the Rumble would make it a little more surprising where as now, it completely eliminates who can actually win for us as a viewer.
Yeah, I know the WWE are often predictable but the Rumble pretty much add's to that more so, such as how we knew Reigns was going to win this year ... and he did, there is less surprise element there now.
So is it really needed? ..... or are we just so used to this now that we can't see anything different? .... thoughts?
EDIT : Not taking away the Royal Rumble, no way!! It's the best PPV of the year, I'm talking about the STIPULATION and it's tie in to Wrestlemania putting restrictions on this, read my first reply in this thread.