The 2017 Royal Rumble will take place in the 60,000 seater Alamodome in San Antonio Texas. To fill up the stadium, WWE will look to have a few marquee matches at the event to make sure that they have a full house on the night.
One person who’s always an attraction is Brock Lesnar and WWE will look to put Lesnar in one of the top matches of the night, other than the Rumble match itself. Lesnar will face Goldberg at Survivor Series and later this months and will probably win. His next match, after his clash with Goldberg, will probably take place at the Royal Rumble.
There have already been rumours about who Lesnar’s potential opponent on the night could be and this list takes a look at 5 potentially epic matches for ‘The Beast Incarnate’.
5: Samoa Joe
One match that die-hard fans are itching to see is Brock Lesnar taking on former NXT Champion Samoa Joe. The two have quite a few things in common. Like Brock, Joe is a destroyer. Both men are deceptively quick and are as capable of winning by pinfall as by submission.
Brock is one of the most destructive forces that the WWE has ever seen and has mown down opponent after opponent in the last couple of years. If anyone in the WWE can go toe to toe with Brock, it would be Samoa Joe.
Joe has the size, the speed and the technical prowess to be a serious threat to Brock. The match would be a fight to the death between two men who don’t like to lose. As Joe’s feud with Nakamura showed us, an unhinged Joe who thinks that he isn’t the favourite to win is one dangerous individual and this match would interest both casual fans and the hardcores with the right build-up.
4: Roman Reigns
Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar main-evented Wrestlemania 31 and regardless of what the Roman-haters might tell you, the match was a damn good one till Seth Rollins came in to cash-in his Money In The Bank briefcase.
We still have no idea who would have won if Seth hadn’t interfered that night and a rematch between the two would be huge. Roman and Brock are two of WWE’s top stars and if rumours are to be believed, Vince is waiting for a rematch between ‘The Guy’ and ‘The Beast’ so that Roman can go over.
WWE has been building up Brock for a while and if Roman is the one to finally beat him again, it’d be a great moment to turn Roman heel right on the cusp of Wrestlemania 33.
3: Shinsuke Nakamura
What some WWE fans might not be aware of is that the current NXT Champion, Shinsuke Nakamura, has already faced Brock Lesnar in 2006. Nakamura challenged Lesnar for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in 2006 at Toukon Shidou Chapter 1 in a losing effort.
Since 2006, Nakamura has completely reinvented himself and he was widely regarded as one of the best wrestlers in the world when he signed with NXT earlier this year. Nakamura is still unbeaten in NXT and beat Samoa Joe, who appears earlier in this list, for the NXT Championship at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn II earlier this year.
Lesnar vs Nakamura might not be the biggest draw on this list because of Nakamura’s smaller profile in the States but the match between them would be an instant classic. With Nakamura’s relatively pooe English, WWE could create an instant star that night if Nakamura beat Lesnar especially if Paul Heyman turned on Brock to align with Nakamura.
2: Kevin Owens
There were rumours at the beginning of this year that Kevin Owens was a possibility to face Brock Lesnar at the Honolulu house show.
The match didn’t happen in the end but the Royal Rumble presents the perfect time for Owens and Lesnar to finally meet inside the squared circle. Owens is the WWE Universal Champion and will probably still be the champion in January at the time of the Rumble.
A Owens-Lesnar match is definitely going to one of the headline attractions. Paul Heyman and Kevin Owens’ are two of the best on the mic in WWE right now and their dueling promos in the lead up to the match would be gold. Owens has the potential to one of the New Era’s top stars and a victory over Brock Lesnar is exactly what he needs to launch himself into the stratosphere.
1: AJ Styles
AJ Styles vs Brock Lesnar is a dream match. WWE could promote it as the top inter-brand attraction for the Royal Rumble. Although it’d be wiser to hold off on this match till Wrestlemania 33, WWE have a 60,000 seater stadium to fill and might as well pull the trigger on this one.
One thing WWE have to do before this match ,however, is to turn AJ face. AJ’s SmackDown Live’s top heel right now but AJ has to turn before a match with Lesnar. Styles, who’s much smaller than ‘The Beast’, playing heel would make no sense. Styles could bump around like a boss for Lesnar and play the face in peril perfectly.
Styles is one of the best wrestlers in the world right now and Lesnar isn't shoddy either. His match with Lesnar would tear the house down. No matter who went over on the night, both wrestlers would benefit from the match.
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