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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 take a look at five possible shocks that could happen at the event.
#5 John Cena confronts The Undertaker
The Undertaker and John Cena will be on the same WWE card for the first time since WrestleMania 34 when they compete in separate singles matches at the Greatest Royal Rumble, with ‘Taker facing Rusev in a casket match and Cena taking on Triple H.
Following their surprisingly short match in New Orleans, the two WWE legends will surely do battle again at some point in the next year, so why not add another chapter to the story in Saudi Arabia?
The chances of “The Deadman” confronting Cena are slim – he already won the ‘Mania match, after all – but there’s a possibility that “Big Match John” could get involved after the casket match to lay down a challenge to the man who defeated him so convincingly earlier this month.
#4 Roman Reigns jumps from the top of the steel cage
If WWE wants fans to cheer for Roman Reigns, then having him kick out of five F5s against Brock Lesnar certainly wasn’t the right way to go about it, especially when you take into account that Samoa Joe and Braun Strowman were defeated after one F5 each.
Instead, we need to see something different and truly memorable from “The Big Dog” if he is to win the Universal Championship at the Greatest Royal Rumble.
A spear from the top of the steel cage is a little too ambitious, but don’t rule out a leap from the top of the cage, followed by a spear, to bring an end to Lesnar’s year-long reign with the title.
#3 Chad Gable gets added to the United States title match
There seems to be an unwritten rule in WWE that, whenever somebody defeats the #1 contender for the United States Championship, they immediately get added to the pre-advertised match for the title.
The two most recent examples of this came at Hell In a Cell 2017, where Tye Dillinger was added to AJ Styles vs. Baron Corbin after he defeated Corbin on SmackDown Live; and at WrestleMania 34, where Rusev was added to Randy Orton vs. Bobby Roode vs. Jinder Mahal after he defeated Orton and Roode in a tag match.
With Jinder preparing to face new United States champion Jeff Hardy at the Greatest Royal Rumble, there’s every chance that Chad Gable could be inserted into the match following his victory over “The Modern Day Maharajah” on Raw.
#2 AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura steal the show with a 5-star match
If somebody would’ve said in the build-up to WrestleMania 34 that AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura having a 5-star match would be considered somewhat of a “shock”, they’d have been talking nonsense.
However, following the relatively underwhelming match between the two former NJPW stars in New Orleans, the expectations are considerably lower for their second WWE Championship meeting at the Greatest Royal Rumble in Saudi Arabia.
This will be one of the few featured singles matches on the show without a match stipulation (ladder, cage, casket etc), so both guys are likely to be given plenty of time to produce the kind of encounter that many expected at ‘Mania.
#1 Roman Reigns’ Royal Rumble elimination record is broken
Roman Reigns eliminated 12 people in the 2014 Royal Rumble to set a new record for the most number of eliminations in a single Rumble match.
Since then, Braun Strowman is the only person to get anywhere close to the record – he eliminated seven Superstars in 2017 – and Reigns’ tally has looked unbeatable.
However, if WWE plans to count the Greatest Royal Rumble eliminations in the overall Royal Rumble record books (it’s still a Royal Rumble, so why wouldn’t they?), then there’s a very real possibility that Reigns’ record will be broken in Saudi Arabia.
With 50 men taking part on Friday, there are more eliminations up for grabs than ever before, which means the likes of Strowman could conceivably surpass the tally of 12 set by “The Big Dog” if they stay in the match long enough.
