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Seven titles will be on the line and 10 matches will take place when WWE visits Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for the Greatest Royal Rumble event on Friday.
The show will feature a 50-man Royal Rumble match, comprising Superstars from Raw and SmackDown Live including Braun Strowman, Kurt Angle and Daniel Bryan, while Roman Reigns will challenge Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship in a steel cage match.
Elsewhere on the card, The Undertaker returns to face Rusev in a casket match, John Cena goes one-on-one with Triple H, and Shinsuke Nakamura gets another opportunity at AJ Styles’ WWE Championship.
In this article, we predict the outcome of all 10 matches on the stacked card.
#1 Cedric Alexander (c) vs. Kalisto (Cruiserweight Championship)
After a 10-week tournament to crown a new Cruiserweight champion, it’d be extremely surprising to see WWE take the title away from Cedric Alexander just a couple of weeks after winning it against Mustafa Ali at WrestleMania 34.
For that reason alone, “The Entertainer” will surely leave Saudi Arabia with a victory against Kalisto and with the Cruiserweight title around his waist.
Prediction: Cedric Alexander
#2 Bray Wyatt & Matt Hardy vs. Cesaro & Sheamus (Raw Tag Team Championships)
Bray Wyatt and Matt Hardy have built up a lot of momentum heading into this match for the vacant Raw Tag Team titles, while Cesaro and Sheamus have switched to SmackDown Live and are competing for a set of titles which belong to a brand that they’re no longer on.
Unless WWE really is planning to send The Bar straight back to Raw, the winners of this match will surely be the increasingly popular “Deleters of Worlds”.
Prediction: Bray Wyatt & Matt Hardy
#3 The Bludgeon Brothers (c) vs. The Usos (SmackDown Tag Team Championships)
Much of the SmackDown Live tag team storylines over the last year have revolved around The New Day and The Usos, but the division is now more stacked than ever following the arrivals of The Club and The Bar from Raw and SAnitY from NXT.
The Bludgeon Brothers only won the SmackDown Tag Team Championships a couple of weeks ago at WrestleMania 34 and they now have a whole host of new tag teams to defend their titles against, so it’d be foolish to expect any other outcome than a win for Harper and Rowan.
Prediction: The Bludgeon Brothers
#4 Seth Rollins (c) vs. Finn Balor vs. Samoa Joe vs. The Miz (Intercontinental Championship ladder match)
The annual Superstar Shake-Up is great. The confusion surrounding the title situations? That’s not so great.
This Fatal-4-Way match makes little sense. Sure, it’ll be entertaining, as multi-person ladder matches always are, but two of the Superstars involved in the match are on a separate brand and the next Intercontinental title match – Seth Rollins vs. The Miz at Backlash – has been set in stone for over two weeks.
There has been speculation that Miz could win the IC title for a record-equalling ninth time soon. However, if that title change happens, it’s more likely to occur in the singles match at Backlash, so let’s play it safe and predict that Rollins will retain.
Prediction: Seth Rollins
#5 Jeff Hardy (c) vs. Jinder Mahal (United States Championship)
WWE has been playing pass the parcel with the United States Championship ever since Kevin Owens defeated Chris Jericho at WrestleMania 33.
Since then, the title has changed hands 11 times between nine different people and it has lost all the meaning that it had when the likes of John Cena and Rusev were champions a couple of years ago.
There’s a possibility that Jinder Mahal wins in Saudi Arabia, moving back to SmackDown Live with the title (as he promised on Raw) following the show, but that would surely be one title change too many, even for WWE's standards.
Prediction: Jeff Hardy
#6 John Cena vs. Triple H
It just goes to show how jam-packed the Greatest Royal Rumble card is that John Cena vs. Triple H is only the fifth highest-profile match that will take place in Saudi Arabia.
The match has absolutely nothing riding on it, which makes it difficult to predict a winner, but it essentially comes down to who WWE wants to lose less: Cena, who is currently on a six-match PPV losing run; or HHH, who only wins on rare occasions these days.
With no storyline behind this match, let’s assume it’ll play out like an untelevised live event, which usually means the babyface comes out on top.
Prediction: John Cena
#7 The Undertaker vs. Rusev (casket match)
Considering the limited number of appearances that The Undertaker makes these days, would WWE really have him travel all the way to Saudi Arabia just to lose a casket match to Rusev?
There’s a small chance of “The Bulgarian Brute” walking out with the win, perhaps if John Cena gets involved, but it’s much more likely that the 16-time world champion appears after the match to confront the man who defeated him inside three minutes at WrestleMania 34.
Either way, with or without an appearance from Cena, this win has got to go to “The Phenom”.
Prediction: The Undertaker
#8 Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Roman Reigns (Universal Championship steel cage match)
Regardless of the new contract that Brock Lesnar signed earlier this month, his long-term future with WWE still appears to be up in the air, with Paul Heyman continuing to hint during recent promo segments on Raw that he will return to UFC.
Even if that is the case, will he retain the Universal Championship one more time against Roman Reigns, losing it at a later date to someone else, or will “The Big Dog” finally defeat “The Beast” to win his first major title in two years?
There’s a theory that WWE decided to have Reigns lose at WrestleMania 34 so that he can win the title in front of a more welcoming crowd in Saudi Arabia – and it’s a theory that I fully subscribe to. Reigns is walking out as champ, whether people like it or not. And you can believe… THAT!
Prediction: Roman Reigns
#9 AJ Styles (c) vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (WWE Championship)
For Shinsuke Nakamura to be taken seriously as one of WWE’s most dangerous heels, he simply has to defeat AJ Styles for the WWE Championship.
“The King of Strong Style” was made to look incredibly weak when he lost in back-to-back WWE title matches against Jinder Mahal in 2017 and, although his WrestleMania 34 heel turn against Styles was perfectly executed, WWE can’t hide the fact that he lost again.
Nakamura seems destined to win the gold at some point in the near future, but it'd be a surprise to see both the WWE and Universal titles change hands on the same show, so let's assume he wins it at a later date, possibly at Backlash, with Styles leaving Saudi Arabia as champ.
Prediction: AJ Styles
#10 Greatest Royal Rumble 50-man match
Considering this event in Saudi Arabia is being billed as the Greatest Royal Rumble, it’s a little surprising that WWE hasn’t added a stipulation to the 50-man Rumble match, which will presumably main-event the show.
Will the winner receive a future title opportunity? Will they only get a trophy? And will it be like the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal and mostly be forgotten about two weeks later?
As of the time of writing, two days before the show, the leading contenders to win appear to be Daniel Bryan, Big Cass (whose participation hasn't yet been confirmed) and Braun Strowman, while there’s an outside chance of Kevin Owens and/or Sami Zayn getting the victory.
For the simple reason that WWE never gave D-Bry his big Rumble win in 2014 or 2015, let’s go with him.
Prediction: Daniel Bryan
