WWE Royal Rumble 2016 Discussion Thread - January 24, 2016 from Orlando, FL (#29)

[TPIB 62]

The 29th annual WWE Royal Rumble will come to you, live on the WWE Network, on January 24 from the Amway Center in Orlando, FL.

 

 

Confirmed Matches/Events

 

30-Man Royal Rumble Match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship

 

Intercontinental Championship: Last Man Standing Match:

Dean Ambrose © vs. Kevin Owens

 

United States Championship:

Alberto Del Rio © vs. Kalisto

 

Divas Championship:

Charlotte © (with Ric Flair) vs. Becky Lynch

 

WWE Tag Team Championship:

The New Day © vs. The Usos

 

Fatal 4-Way Tag Royal Rumble Qualifying Match: Kickoff Exclusive:

The Dudley Boyz vs. The Ascension vs. Darren Young & Damien Sandow vs. Mark Henry & Jack Swagger

 

List of Royal Rumble Match Participants

Big Show (12/28/15)

Curtis Axel (12/31/15)

Ryback (1/4/16)

Bray Wyatt (1/4/16)

Luke Harper (1/4/16)

Erick Rowan (1/4/16)

Braun Strowman (1/4/16)

Dolph Ziggler (1/4/16)

Chris Jericho (1/4/16)

Roman Reigns* © (1/4/16)

Brock Lesnar (1/11/16)

Sheamus (1/14/16)

Stardust (1/14/16)

 

*Roman Reigns © will enter the Royal Rumble Match as the #1 entrant.

Edited January 24, 2016 by Kam

[Guest pheadley]

i dont have a clue at the moment who will win the rumble. bryan, orton, rollins all out with injuries. reigns the champ at the moment so he wont be entering. rumors of owens vs brock and cena vs undertaker at wm. i like ambrose but they only like to use him to help push reigns. they have gave the wyatts a few wins now but i doubt that bray will be given the main event at mania.

[Guest Magic]

Hard to predict what WWE are going to do at the moment, sometimes I think even they don't know, but having said that, I suspect Brock might be a good thing for the Rumble. I'm struggling to see any other way they can go, outside of a Daniel Bryan miracle.

[Guest Yodahew]

Brock vs Reigns 2 for the title with Brock winning the Rumble to have to face Reigns so a total reversale of last years.

 

Outside of that who have you got? Cena again? Trips? Punk returning :lol:?? ADR? Sheamus?

[DC 536]

CESARO!!!!

 

Or Kevin Owens.

[TPIB 62]

Before Reigns won the title, I was suspecting that WWE was building towards Roman winning the Rumble two years in a row. I would say that Sheamus is a viable option to win the Rumble but I think that WWE may have finally learned their lesson about Sheamus in terms of the main event title picture.

 

Brock winning the Rumble makes the most sense. It will pave the way for the aforementioned Brock/Roman WrestleMania rematch and, with no MITB winner heading into Mania, we would be, more or less, guaranteed a winner (which would probably be Brock. I can't see them putting Reigns over Brock cleanly).

 

Now, considering he's on the Rumble poster, it's a possibility that Cena may win his third Rumble and we see Roman vs. Cena at Mania (which could be a decent match, to be honest).

 

Considering how last year's Rumble went, WWE would be wise to have someone more established win the Rumble Match. As much as I believe that the Rumble Match should be used to elevate an up-and-coming Superstar to the main event title scene, I don't see that as a viable option this time around. The interesting thing about the above options is that none of those guys necessarily need to win the Rumble to get into the WrestleMania main event; there's plenty of scenarios that would get them there regardless. After Cena in 2008, I can't completely rule out Rollins coming back ahead of schedule to win. To me, that would be the most impressive outcome.

 

I also wouldn't be against seeing someone completely random win the Rumble like The Undertaker. Can you imagine the swerve of having Undertaker win the Rumble and end up winning the belt at WrestleMania? How about Triple H? Given the current angle between Roman and The Authority, imagine Triple H strong-arming his way into the #30 spot. Sure, the crowd would probably hate it, but it's worth mentioning as a possibility.

[DC 536]

This is the perfect opportunity to have Daniel Bryan be a surprise entrant (#30?) and win it, to bring things full circle.

[BRM 220]

That would be wonderful and would tear the house down.

 

He would probably injure his shoulder doing the "yes" chant during the celebration mind.

 

I don't think he'll win it by a long shot but I'm calling Samoa Joe as a surprise entrant now!

[Guest Magic]

Good shout on Joe being involved. Might be a nice way to debut Finn as well, but I only want to see that if they actually have a plan for him once he's called up.

[King 277]

I think Finn and Joe will debut the Raw after Mania, then again they are sooooo short now on names who knows.

[BRM 220]

I wouldn't expect them to be full time on the main roster anytime soon. But a guest appearance in the Rumble from either men ala Rusev a couple of years could very much be on the cards.

 

After seeing how much Zayn has bulked up during his hiatus I wouldn't rule out a call up sometime soon for him. There were rumours that Owens may of been going head to head with Lesnar at Mania, although they seemed to have sucked any momentum out of Owens and he just seems a generic mid carder right now. But if they were to give him and Zayn 20 minutes to continue their feud at Mania I for sure would be interested .

[DC 536]

I wouldn't say Owens is a generic mid-carder (yet). He still has an aura about him and there is a "mood" that changes when his music hits, so there's still something there.

 

A three-way with him, Dean and Ziggler could be really good.

[TPIB 62]

There were rumours that Owens may of been going head to head with Lesnar at Mania, although they seemed to have sucked any momentum out of Owens and he just seems a generic mid carder right now. But if they were to give him and Zayn 20 minutes to continue their feud at Mania I for sure would be interested .

 

If this was a week ago, I would have agreed with you 100%, but after WWE TLC, they have seemed to renew Owens' intensity on this week's RAW and SmackDown (they had Owens take out both Ambrose and Ziggler on RAW and, on SmackDown, he got disqualified for his relentless Ziggler beating). With that said, I still don't see a Lesnar/Owens match happening at WrestleMania, maybe at SummerSlam, but not WrestleMania.

 

When it comes to guys getting called up from NXT to the main roster, it's really a mixed bag. Arguably, Kevin Owens is the most successful guy to come up from NXT in 2015, but he is the only recent NXT competitor to be brought up that has really made any sort of impact. Look at Tyler Breeze as a perfect example; Breeze kind of fizzled out in NXT so they brought him to the main roster and he had a few good matches with Ziggler, but now Breeze has not slid down the card, he's dived down it. Now it looks like he's going to be feuding with Goldust and, on SmackDown, he lost to Titus O'Neil. My point is that, for every Kevin Owens, there are several Tyler Breezes.

Edited December 19, 2015 by TPIB

[Guest HH-Evolution]

Finns always said he'd rather stay on NXT for as long as humanly possible - Triple H probably won't just rush him on that one, given that it's cleear he's much better off for the moment doing his thing there and being an attraction for that particular element of WWE rather than letting the main shows potentially undo any of that work...same with Joe, really, but it seems like they've ALWAYS intended having Joe NXT exclusive as a draw rather than him having said anything about it beforehand.

 

Having said that, you can bet your ass they'll be in the rumble as a taste of what they can offer in a big stage situation.

[DC 536]

With NXT on the road more and more (and even though it is still developmental), they are going to need the bigger names to sell the tickets while they build up the others on the roster.

 

Jordan & Gable are the hot ticket right now, with Enzo & Cass also being super over (the tag division is actually on a strong footing overall at the moment in NXT). In the singles ranks for the men, you have Joe and Finn at the top of the heap (along with Sami Zayn and Itami when they return), with Corbin (who has really improved) and Crews just behind them, but after that there's no-one of note at the moment.

 

The women are also well served. Asuka, Bayley, Emma and Dana Brook are all doing great work, while Nia Jax is still developing (great match with Bayley at Takeover though) and the rest of the roster* are all more than capable in the ring.

 

*Eva Marie is an anomaly at the moment. She's still really stilted in the ring and with her promos, but she garners such a negative reaction that when it's harnessed correctly (see her match against Bayley), it's a unique asset for the division.