I've been watching a lot of wrestling recently because the kids are mad into it. (Still at the 'they think it's real stage).

I was watching the Raw Rumble the other night and John Morrison was up to his usual tricks, for example hooking the ropes with his feet as he was headed off onto the floor to stop himself. Unbelievable skill and athleticism, but it got me thinking, what would happen if he messed it up?

There were several similar moments in the Royal Rumble where wrestlers who would go on to have big mini storylines within the Rumble almost went out, for example saving themselves by holding the rope etc. If they fell, would they go out or just pretend it didn't happen?

They'd have to go out and start the storyline some other way I guess.

That will be where all the training and rehearsals they do comes in though, making sure that it won't go wrong!

They improvise without the guy who messed up. X Pac did it years back. He was meant to be in the final four, he failed to catch a rope. Apparently Alex Riley wasn't meant to go out when he did this rumble. They just get on with it.

The refs are all miked up, and if things go awry, they come up with a new plan from the Gorilla position, and it's relayed to the wrestlers via the refs.

Most famous Royal Rumble screw-up happened in 2005. IIRC Batista was supposed to win, but him and Cena somehow managed to eliminate each other at the same time, meaning there was no winner. A furious Vince McMahon came out to get the match restarted, and somehow tore both his quads whilst diving into the ring. No doubt it's on that popular video sharing website somewhere.

No I'm sure I read it was a screw-up, otherwise surely there would have been no reason for Vince to come out if it had all gone to plan?

I read that as "milked up". Which in no way had me sitting here for 5 minutes going "wtf is milked up?"
But yes, the ref is supposed to be the in ring action prompter

So did I. Another example of that phenomenom of your brain reading only the first and last letters and forming the most likely middle itself.

I'm sure you've seen those examples where passages of wodrs can be raed at full speed eevn wehn the mddile letetrs are mxied up?

Maybe Vince came out as part of the work? I'm almost certain with the way the refs reacted 'He won, no he won' etc was a work, and in the scripted finish Vince was to come down and sort it out, but tore both his quads in the process. It just didn't come across as a screw up, as Vince could have called the match to restart from the back.

No, it was botched, trust me Jeff. Batista was supposed to win clean (if you remember, he was quickly becoming the biggest star on Raw at that point with his fantastic fued against HHH and split from Evolution). Batista supposedly screwed up by falling over the top with Cena. There was panic backstage, so using split-second thinking they did the ref angle (where both refs were claiming each guy to be the winner). Vince came out genuinely furious and wanted to clean things up, then the accident happened. Trying to think where I learnt this, it was either Power Slam at the time, or maybe on the Vince McMahon profile DVD the WWE released about 3 or 4 years ago.

R-Truth with a spectacular botch.