- Several talents were backstage at Sunday's WWE Royal Rumble pay-per-view including Chris Jericho and Nikolai Volkoff, who was mentioned by Triple H during a segment. Even though he wrestled on Sunday in North Carolina, Sean "X-Pac" Waltman was reportedly backstage as well but that could just be a rumor. WWE had 1 or 2 other names backstage at the Rumble in hopes of swerving the internet. WWE officials were hoping that some of the names they had no intentions of using would leak out as being backstage.
One WWE talent who was scheduled for the Rumble at one point but not used was Alex Riley. Riley was taken off the Rumble pre-show to be in the Rumble main event but then not used. It was said that several other stars were removed from the Rumble when plans were changed around during the pay-per-view.
