Former darts major champion suggests bold new Royal Rumble format that Luke Littler would love
DARTS player Paul Nicholson has called for a Royal Rumble-style competition to be introduced to the sport.
Nicholson, who won the 2010 Players Championship Finals, believes the proposed new event would add more excitement to the darts calendar and attract new fans.
"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.
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"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.
"And the audience haven't got a clue who's coming."
Another person continued: "Just imagine the surprise of hearing your favourite players' walk-on music come on, you didn't know who was coming in and who gets to walk in."
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Darts expert Chris Hammer went on to say: "That's the thing. It's the element of surprise.
"I think I would like to see this more invitational. So you could have a legend from the past.
However, others disagreed, with one person commenting: "This sounds dreadful. If 20 players are competing and you are drawn to play first, you have to win 19 games in a row to win the tournament, which is close to impossible. If you are drawn to play 20th, you just have to win one match. Makes no sense. Or am I misunderstanding?"
World Champion Luke Littler would likely be in favour of the proposal given his love for WWE.
The 17-year-old's walk-out song - 'Greenlight' by Pitbull - was inspired by a trip to Wrestlemania in Florida.
Last year, he revealed: "Me and my dad went to Wrestlemania 33, seven years ago now, it was in Florida, Orlando.
"It was my first time being there. It was a good song, I was singing my head off as a ten years old.
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"I thought that if I did make it – I was playing football at the time a little bit – then that would be my walk-on.
"I will have it for the time being. I haven’t thought about changing it. Gezzy Price went from Ice Ice Baby to Katie Perry. That was weird."
Luke Littler prize money breakdown
Here is all the prize money Luke Littler has won so far after being crowned 2025 PDC World Darts Championship winner:
World Championship 2025 - £500,000
World Championship 2024 - £200,000
Grand Slam of Darts 2024 - £150,000
European Tour - £91,000
Player Championships events - £71,500
Players Championship final runner-up - £60,000
UK Open 2023 + 2024 - £17,500
World Matchplay - £10,000
World Grand Prix - £7,500
European Championship - £7,500
(Unranked) Premier League Darts - £315,000
TOTAL: £1.43 million