WWE Royal Rumble 2023 News: Tickets & Live Gate Update, Peacock, NXT, Ronda Rousey, Changed Plans

WWE’s upcoming Royal Rumble 2023 event in San Antonio, Texas reportedly has around 42,972 tickets distributed and an expected live gate revenue of over $7 million as of this Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Dave Meltzer reported that this year’s Royal Rumble event’s live gate is currently the largest ever for a non-WrestleMania event in the United States in WWE history. Meltzer reported that this year’s event is currently expected to generate either the 11th or 12th highest ever live gate for a wrestling event in wrestling history, depending on if it can or can not surpass the live gate of WWE’s Clash of the Castle event this past September.

In regards to NBC’s Peacock and WWE Network, Meltzer reported that this year’s Royal Rumble event is also currently expected to be the most watched Royal Rumble event in Royal Rumble history. Meltzer reported that the reason is due to Comcast had reported that Peacock had around 20 million subscribers at the end of 2022, which was over double of Peacock’s total amount at the end of 2021 and around 48% higher than this past April’s WrestleMania 38 event.

In regards to potential surprise entrants for this year’s Women’s Royal Rumble match, Meltzer reported that his sources stated that talent from NXT’s women’s division had not been told of the plans for this year’s match and had been waiting to hear if anyone from the brand was being brought in for the event as of this past mid-week. Meltzer also reported that WWE officials had made the decision this past mid-week for Ronda Rousey to not make an appearance due to the feeling of them not want to marginalize her star power by just being another body for the match. WWE officials reportedly did not have any plans for her to win the match nor be the focal point of it.

In regards to other potential surprise entrants for this year’s Men’s and Women’s Royal Rumble matches, Meltzer reported that WWE had contacted several people offering them one-day contracts to appear at this year’s event.

In regards to Rousey, Fightful Select reported that prior to Charlotte Flair’s recent return, WWE officials had plans as of early December for Rousey to defend her SmackDown Women’s Championship against Raquel Rodriguez at this year’s event. Those plans reportedly were changed to Rousey defending her title on a regular episode of SmackDown and for Flair to defeat Rousey for the title as part of her surprise return after Rousey had turned down several creative plans.

It was reported that these changes led to other planned women’s programs for this year’s Royal Rumble and WrestleMania events to be changed as a result. These plans originally involved the potential of a match between Flair and Bianca Belair for the RAW Women’s Championship and a match between Rhea Ripley and Rousey for Rousey’s SmackDown Women’s Championship.