Quite a few darters are also fans of pro wrestling, think reigning world champion Luke Littler and former major winner Paul Nicholson as notable examples. This mutual love of Darts and WWE, has led to an intriguing idea being championed; a darting Royal Rumble.
In wrestling, a Royal Rumble sees two wrestlers start in the ring, with another random competitor joining the fray every 90 seconds until there is one man left standing. For darts, the idea is that two players would do battle with a winner stays on format. The unique twist being nobody knows who the next player to step up to the oche would be. For example, think Littler seeing off Michael van Gerwen in a thriller, only for "I've got the power!" to ring out around the arena, as Phil Taylor makes a surprise return and the crowd goes wild.
"It would be very funny," Littler tells the Daily Star when discussing the idea of a darting Royal Rumble. "When it comes to mind it would probably have to be one leg of 501 - and you'd either do top 32 or top 64. It won't be the longest. I think it would be something to do in the future!"
Nicholson, a former winner of the Players Championship Finals and currently working as a commentator and analyst, thinks such an event could gain popularity in the darts world as well. "
"I think this idea of a Royal Rumble has been floated around for a little while now but nobody's done it before and it's still something that the public really want to see," the Asset said previously. "This idea of starting two players on stage after drawing number one and number two and playing each other in whatever format is chosen whether it's 101, 201, 501 or even 1001. There's a winner in that small match but at the conclusion of that somebody else comes out at position three and then you have another match - number four - and so on and so on."
"But the thing about this, it's about audience interaction and it's about surprises because the person on the stage who remains there after winning, they don't know who they're going to play next," Nicholson concludes. "And the audience haven't got a clue who's coming."
Been a while since I got to go fishing🎣😂 pic.twitter.com/7OGCowYFfU
— Luke Littler (@LukeTheNuke180) February 14, 2025