The Rumble Raffle: Official Rules and Regulations

Any wrestling fan knows that the Royal Rumble is the best match of the year. The reasons are many: 30 wrestlers! A countdown clock! People being thrown from high places onto the floor! Surprise entrants! Girls (sometimes)! Announcers (sometimes)! Strange bedfellows (always)! Fat dudes getting picked up via team lifts!

So what's the only thing that could make the Rumble better?

THE RUMBLE RAFFLE

For the first time in recorded history, here is a complete rundown of the rules of the event.

The hardest part of the Rumble Raffle: gather a crowd of people that care enough about wrestling (or gambling, I suppose) to put some money on it, and then remind them to bring two $5 bills to the event with them. You could wager a larger amount, sure, but that's kind of embarrassing.

Since there are 30 competitors, you ideally want 10 or 15 participants. After you collect their money (crucial point! Do not let anyone enter without paying unless you have the Repo Man on speed dial), it's time to draw numbers. Let's say you have 10 participants. Everybody will get three random numbers from 1-30. The best way to distribute them? You could always go with the classic "scraps of paper in a hat" strategy, but for authenticity's sake, I suggest using a Deluxe Metal Bingo Cage Set (pictured).

Spin the wheel, make the deal!

The numbers you drew correspond with the wrestlers that enter the match at those numbers. If you're lucky, you might get John Cena. And if you're me, you might get David Otunga. Or an Uso. Or Jinder Mahal. It all hinges on the luck of the draw, just like in the Rumble itself.

What happens if you have an odd number of participants? If you have seven, each person would draw four numbers to get you to 28. Then put the last two numbers up for bids, starting at $5 per number. That way, a couple of people will get an extra number, but they'll have substantially more money on the line than the other participants.

There are two pots (thus the two $5 bills).

1. The victory pot. If one of your wrestlers wins, you get the pot. If a tie happens––see the '94 Rumble and the controversial Bret Hart-Lex Luger finish––you split it. Please note that as per usual in the world of wrestling, the referee's decision is final. It doesn't matter how much chicanery or skullduggery is involved, or even if the WWE board of directors overturns the decision the next day. Whoever gets their hand raised at the end of the night is the winner.

2. The elimination pot. This pot goes to whoever's wrestlers have the most cumulative eliminations (meaning they threw other wrestlers out of the ring, removing them from the match). Pray for Kane.

Due to the often crazy nature of eliminations, this is where things can get tricky. In fact, you may want to designate an official Royal Rumble Elimination Oversight Committee prior to the match in the event that any disputes should arise. The general rule: whoever physically caused the elimination gets credit for it. That means if Sheamus throws David Otunga like a missile at Heath Slater and that causes Slater to fly out of the ring, Otunga gets the credit, because he theoretically saved himself. If Otunga had gone to the floor with Slater, though, Sheamus gets both eliminations.

Team eliminations! Sometimes, several wrestlers team up to throw somebody out. In this case, each wrestler that had a hand in the effort gets credit for one elimination. No fractions or decimal points are allowed in the Rumble Raffle.

Important note: If someone has an extra wrestler due to an uneven number of participants in the Raffle, you'll need to make an adjustment to keep things fair for the elimination pot. The best way to do this is to make the participant determine before the event which of their numbers will count toward the elimination totals. Using the example above, five participants will have drawn four numbers, while two participants will have paid extra to draw five numbers. Those two participants must choose one of their five entries to be disqualified from the elimination pot before the match starts.

That covers it. Let me know if you host a Raffle and if you have any suggested rule changes!

Let's Talk About Rambo: Episode 16: Exercise in Terror

Oh no! SAVAGE has taken a group of schoolchildren hostage inside the Statue of Liberty!

Rambo is working on the roof of his cabin when he gets called to action. The thing that's great about recent episodes of this show, however, is that we get to see not only what Rambo's doing on his days off, but also what Turbo and KAT are up to!

Turbo is driving a Formula 1 car in the desert. And KAT is winning prize after prize at the shooting gallery at the fair––just mowing down those scrolling ducks with an expressionless, dead-eyed look on her face. KAT's leisure activities always seem to involve highly violent activities. I think it's a psychological response to being sidelined all the time by Rambo during their missions.

So, after collecting his team, what does Rambo do? He makes them stand on a NYC pier and watch him while he stealthily scubas up to the Statue of Liberty and climbs up the outside of it with suction cups. He manages to climb all the way up to the head, where Gripper is holding the hostages, but Sgt. Havoc spots him from a helicopter and shoots at him, knocking him from his perch! Rambo falls all the way down to one of the statue's arms.

He is unhurt.

Then, in one of the most Rambo moves ever, he throws a rope around the helicopters blades and by sheer determination and strength, stops them from spinning. No leverage at all. Just standing on the arm of the Statue of Liberty. 

"Don't worry, kids, you were only being held hostage by Gripper."

The scheme is foiled. BUT! Days (or minutes?) later, SAVAGE announces they have a new group of hostages at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Seemed like a good scheme, why not try it again, just in a different country?

Also, we learn their motives: They're asking for a $50 million ransom with which they want to start up the International School for Terrorism. Which they presumably all want to attend themselves, since they're so terrible at it. Also, I'm sorry, SAVAGE, but $50 million might seem like a lot, but it's not going to get you very far. I don't think you could even build a contemporary school building for that in this day and age.

So Rambo rides up to the top of the tower by hanging from the bottom of the open-air elevator. When he gets to the top, in the most un-Rambo move ever, he gets knocked out immediately and tied up to the bottom of the elevator while the bad guys send it back to floor one! Gotta give them credit for the poetic nature of the death trap.

But it only takes like five floors before Rambo, with his bare hands, rips up the ropes that are holding him. He climbs back up and the bad guys parachute away after activating the time bomb, which Rambo stops by shooting an arrow into the timer, preventing it from ticking up to its last second. Apparently the bomb was running off of some kind of egg timer. This is the kind of thing they teach you not to do in Terrorism School, I'm guessing.

They track down SAVAGE to their newest base, in the Middle Eastern city of "Baghdiniad." There they destroy the base, with Rambo and Turbo showing affinity for low-tech weapons, using a bow and arrow and a boomerang, respectively.

KAT, though? She dual wields SMGs and just peppers the entire base with bullets.

I'm starting to worry about KAT.

Mission complete.