EEERRRRRRRRR.
It’s that time of year again.
The time of ten second countdowns and grating buzzer sounds, the sort of thing that gives
Dolph Ziggler and Seth Rollins haunting flashbacks.
Yes, it’s the Royal Rumble, the annual over-the-top rope spot fest.
Kofi’s on a chair, haha, how we laugh and laugh and forget how they always always massively
sag in the middle.
To be perfectly honest though the Royal Rumble is always a good laugh and like last year
we’ll be treated to two, in both men’s and women’s flavours.
The matches themselves are always packed with exciting face offs, feud starting eliminations
and most-importantly surprise entrants, which is good, because this is a rumours and surprises
video and it’s good to have loads to choose from.
So let’s get cracking, I’m El Fakidor Laurie Blake and here are the 10 biggest royal
rumble rumours.
10.
The Rock
In 2011 when WWE needed a boost for its falling ratings and heavily criticised weekly programming,
they turned to a man who had transcended wrestling to become the biggest star in Hollywood: The
Rock.
The Great One returned to the promotion in a non-wrestling capacity and caused a significant
ratings surge.
Over the following two years he headlined WrestleMania twice against John Cena, captured
the WWE Title and helped the promotion shatter buy rate records.
WWE needs him again.
Raw and SmackDown have often been painful experiences in 2018 and that has been reflecting
in rapidly falling ratings and increased fan unrest against the product.
Rock’s name has been bandied about as a potential WrestleMania headliner, with talk
doing the rounds that he would face cousin Roman Reigns at the supershow and put him
over.
Obviously that is unlikely to happen now due to Roman’s illness but that does not mean
The Rock will not wrestle on the show as a headline attraction.
What better way than to bring him back than as the surprise winner of the Royal Rumble,
granting him a WWE Title showdown against either Daniel Bryan or Brock Lesnar.
The latter is a match WWE have wanted to do for years, with their only previous singles
meeting having occurred in 2002 when Lesnar won his first title.
The match would be huge and a clear headline attraction for ‘Mania.
9.
Hulk Hogan
The endless will-he-won’t-he saga over Hulk Hogan’s WWE return finally came to an end
at Hell In A Cell, when the promotion confirmed on the pre-show that he was back with WWE.
Not everyone in the locker room was happy about that, mind you, but that’s another
story.
Hogan returned to our screens at Crown Jewel – the event where WWE knew there would be
the least possible backlash against him – as he cut a generic promo to open the show.
Brother.
He has not been seen since, as WWE is handling his reintroduction with kid gloves, but it
is only a matter of time before he becomes a regular fixture again.
With WrestleMania season coming up, could WWE be tempted to give Hogan one final run
in order to ensure that his in-ring career ends with them rather than Impact Wrestling,
as is currently the case?
It’s unlikely, but then, so was Goldberg wrestling again and he ended up winning the
Universal Title.
Perhaps even more unlikely was the return to the ring of Shawn Michaels, yet that happened
too.
Wrestling is weird now, so don’t rule out a Hogan Rumble cameo.
8.
Shawn Michaels
The much-ballyhooed returned of the Heartbreak Kid was something most wrestling fans thought
they would never see.
His retirement seemed nailed on, after all how could he ever top going out to his greatest
rival in an all-time great match at one of the biggest events of all time?
He couldn’t, but he was gonna paid enough money to wrestle at Crown Jewel that he did
not have to worry about silly little things like his legacy or his credibility . . . he
was probably getting his patio redone, so fair play to him.
Now that Shawn has done one match, he might as well do more.
After all, a fiercely proud in-ring competitor like Michaels is unlikely to want the woeful
Crown Jewel main event to be the final image fans have of his career.
Michaels stated after Crown Jewel that he was unlikely to wrestle again because the
match took a toll on his body, but we have heard that before and anyway, that’s exactly
what he would say if he wanted to keep his return a surprise.
Michaels is probably going to wrestle at WrestleMania.
After all, he is Mr. WrestleMania, and that show desperately needs some star power now
that it has lost two of its proposed main events due to Roman Reigns’ illness and
Triple H’s injury.
Michaels could well enter the Rumble, eliminate The Undertaker and begin their storied rivalry
all over again.
7.
AJ to Win
Predicting the winning of the Royal Rumble can often be a predictable and easy task (everyone
knew Batista and Roman Reigns were going to win in 2014 and 2015).
However, WWE has been known to throw in a curveball on occasion.
Because of injuries causing a shake up to the WWE roster and future booking plans, picking
a winning of the 2019 Royal Rumble is not quite so simple this time.
If we were going with a “safe” option then AJ Styles would be the man to back.
The former WWE Champion was scheduled to wrestle Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series until just
days before the event when he lost the title to Daniel Bryan.
AJ has unfinished business with The Beast.
Given he has been SmackDown exclusive for over two years, it may be time for a shake-up.
If Styles wins the Rumble and topples Lesnar for the Universal title at ‘Mania, the whole
complexion of WWE changes overnight.
That’s not a bad thing.
6.
Braun to win
The Monster Among Men is well practiced in Rumbles having won the mammoth 50-man Greatest
Royal Rumble in April to grant him . . . well, nothing except a shiny green belt.
That lives in Saudi Arabia probably.
Strowman seems like an obvious choice to win the real Rumble if he is in it.
After all, who on the roster could possibly throw him out given how he has been booked?
The question mark over this is whether Braun will be in the match at all, with WWE promoting
a Lesnar-Strowman match at Royal Rumble.
Precedent with Roman Reigns has shown than being in a title match does not prevent entry
into the Rumble match though, so it is not impossible that Bruan fails against Lesnar
then wins the Rumble to earn another shot against him.
5.
Drew to Win
The Drew McIntyre in WWE today could not be further removed from the leather pants-wearing
comedy act 3MB.
This Drew is a vicious killer, a man to be feared and taken seriously.
WWE are certainly taking his push seriously, protecting Drew from doing jobs and portraying
him as a cut above the rest.
He is.
Drew has future world champion written all over him.
He will be a strong favourite going into the Rumble match.
The result likely depends on what happens when Strowman and Lesnar collide again.
If Strowman wins the title and Lesnar moves onto something else at WrestleMania then Drew
is an obvious choice to go against the Monster Among Men given their interactions on TV at
the back end of 2018.
A Rumble win would be well-earned and much deserved for the Scottish Psychopath.
4.
Seth to Win
A report from Dave Meltzer stated that the planned opponent for Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania
was Seth Rollins, suggesting that The Architect could be in line for his first Royal Rumble
victory.
Rollins and Lesnar met once before while Rollins was WWE Champion but the match never reached
a conclusion to due interference from The Undertaker.
The other time they were in the ring together was a brief three-way in the main event of
WrestleMania 31 where Rollins famously cashed in MITB during the scheduled Lesnar-Reigns
main to snare his first world title.
Several years later, Rollins is perhaps the most popular babyface on the entire roster.
WWE could finally get their big babyface WrestleMania victory over Lesnar and crown the hard-working
Rollins as the Universal champ.
After the incredible year Rollins has had it is difficult to argue against this scenario.
3.
More mystery women
The first ever women’s Royal Rumble match provided a host of surprise returns, with
almost half of the match featuring female wrestling stars from the past or indeed the
future courtesy of NXT.
One year later, the WWE women’s rosters on Raw and SmackDown are still not large enough
to support a 30 woman Rumble along, so it seems inevitable that WWE will go back to
the well again for the 2019 match.
Of course, the promotion does risk overdoing it.
In addition to the Rumble featuring several returning names, the Evolution battle royal
was also full of familiar faces from the past, several of whom were very popular with the
rowdy crowd.
It is basically a given that WWE will go that route again this time around.
2.
The Undertaker
The Dead Man will seemingly never be allowed to rest by WWE.
In 2018 he wrestled more high profile televised matches than he has in several years, albeit
with patchy results.
Undertaker’s last Rumble appearance was in the 2017 bout, during which he had a much-discussed
first-time-ever showdown with Goldberg that teased a match that sadly (or perhaps mercifully)
never happened.
Undertaker wrestling at WrestleMania 35 is near enough set in stone and Royal Rumble
is often a place where matches are made for the annual supershow.
With Undertaker’s appearances on TV fairly limited and his interaction with others rare,
this would be a perfect opportunity to get the ball rolling on his WrestleMania programme.
With Shawn Michaels, perhaps . . .
1.
John Cena
Commeth the WrestleMania season, commeth the man.
John Cena has barely been part of WWE in 2018 and the product, ratings and live event attendance
have all suffered as a result.
The promotion needs him back in the game and Royal Rumble is the perfect place to reintroduce
him to the TV audience.
Cena has not done anything meaningful in some time.
He did appear in last year’s Rumble and reached the final few, then he went to WrestleMania
as a “fan” and got creamed by The Undertaker in a brief impromptu match.
Following that he beat Triple H in a nothing bout at Greatest Royal Rumble and made a fleeting
appearance at Super Show-Down that was more notable for his JBL hair than anything he
did in the ring.
Cena deserves better.
And with WWE so short on stars these days he will likely get better as this year’s
‘Mania comes into focus.
There are plenty of people on the roster who Cena has not worked with before.
A fresh matchup for a motivated Big Match John at WrestleMania would be great to see
and the Royal Rumble is absolutely the place to start weaving that thread.
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The Royal Rumble match will no doubt start off 2019 with some insanity, but what insane
moments did WWE managed in 2018, click the video onscreen now to see Luke’s rundown
of the 10 Most Insane moments and give us a subscribe to stay up to date on all of the
latest wrestling news.
I’ve been El Fakidor and that was lucha.