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With darts on the front and back pages thanks to Luke Littler’s stunning success in the World Darts Championship, calls are growing for the sport to embrace an innovative new competition.
A Royal Rumble-style tournament – a mash-up between darts and wrestling – has been muted for a little while and leading pundit and former major winner Paul Nicholson is pushing for the idea to become reality.
Essentially, the premise of ‘A Royal Rumble’, first created by Pat Patterson of the WWE in 1988, sees 30 wrestlers participate and takes the form of a modified battle royal, where combatants enter the ring at timed intervals instead of all beginning in the ring at the same time.
If a wrestler is knocked out of the ring they are eliminated and the last one standing wins the Royal Rumble.
The idea could easily be adapted for darts and could take the shape of a one-night tournament played just once in the entire season.
The groundbreaking competition could see at least 30 players involved starting with the top 10 players in the world. There could then be a qualifying event for another 10 spots. Finally, there would be 10 or so wildcards selected by the PDC and the chosen broadcaster.
Leading pundit and former major winner Nicholson said: “I think this idea for a Royal Rumble has been floated around for a little while now but nobody has done it before and it is still something the public really want to see.
“The thing about this is it is about audience interaction and it is about surprises because the person on the stage who remains there after winning, they don’t know who they are going to play next. And the audience haven’t got a clue who is coming.”
Colleague and darts expert Chris Hammer agreed, adding: “It is the element of surprise. I would like to see this more invitationally. So you could have a legend of the past.
“Imagine Phil Taylor’s music hits with three people left to come out. You’ve got Rob Cross up there and then bang, Phil Taylor comes out and he can get revenge for that World Championship final.”
