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The way "big four" pay-per-views of the year are booked often tell us who are the biggest priorities for WWE going forward over the next few months.
While every match needs a winner and a loser, the way those wins and losses are determined on these most important shows throughout the calendar best indicate just how strongly the creative team wants to focus on a particular Superstar.
This is even more prevalent in the Royal Rumble, where the literal objective is to be the one single, solitary winner among your peers to earn a title shot in the main event of the biggest show of them all, WrestleMania.
It takes a lot to stand out among a field of 30 competitors, but every year, we see a handful of men and women who are picked to shine brighter than everyone else.
The 2018 Royal Rumble event has plenty of room for opportunities and more than its share of talented Superstars ready to point that spotlight toward themselves.
Here are five of the top possible candidates who will make a big impact on this Sunday's titanic show.
#5 Roman Reigns
Things are tricky when it comes to Roman Reigns, as it's more than obvious that he is perpetually the guy Vince McMahon and the powers that be want to have at the top, but there are a few elements that could get in his way for this particular event.
Tonight on the 25th anniversary of Monday Night Raw special, he is scheduled to defend the Intercontinental Championship against The Miz—a match, mind you, he may lose, dropping the title to someone who can properly defend it down the line at WrestleMania while Reigns is busy doing other things.
Those other things, of course, are fighting Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship, and that destiny may be cemented with a Royal Rumble victory just the same as he did the last time the event was in Philadelphia in 2015.
Yours truly was there for that event and saw the hatred the crowd had for this firsthand, particularly as I was one of the few, cheering for him at the time.
WWE cannot make that mistake again and not expect the same backlash that they faced three years ago, and with the Elimination Chamber coming up as part of the Raw brand, it seems like that might be an alternate route to take to put Reigns in the spot at WrestleMania 34 that few are going to be hyped up for, but WWE clearly will not budge on.
Those plans are going to happen, undoubtedly, so the question really becomes not "if" but "how" they come about.
At the Royal Rumble, Reigns can win the 30-man match and set it in stone, or he can assert his dominance by being one of the biggest stars in the match who is booked incredibly strong even though he ultimately loses.
By the time the following episode of Monday Night Raw comes around on January 29, Reigns will either be the No. 1 contender or he'll be so strongly booked from the night before that we'll all know that he will win the Elimination Chamber to fulfil that prophecy in a roundabout way.
#4 Asuka and Nia Jax
This is a bit of a tie, as it takes both of them to pull off what I can't help but feel is going to be one of those tricky moves WWE will make in order to have their cake and eat it, too.
The easy call for the women's Royal Rumble match is to have the undefeated Asuka win as, well, she's undefeated. Of course, she would win, right?
What isn't so simple is what you do with the SmackDown Women's Championship if that happens, as the blue brand is in no shape whatsoever to build a proper women's title feud out of the roster they're working with.
That will be elaborated on later in this list, but for now, if you're focusing on how Asuka needs to lose, the only way to go about doing that is to have Nia Jax—the most physically imposing woman in the entirety of WWE, not just Raw—be the one to take her out of the match.
This could happen in a multitude of ways ranging from the simplest of having her toss her over the top rope, to the more complicated where she attacks Asuka and injures her, forcing her to be removed from the match.
If the latter happens, that can be the excuse for why she's still undefeated, as she didn't actually get eliminated from the match, but still came up short.
This would also be payback for Asuka's attack on Jax's legs from the last episode of Raw, and it can even be partially motivated by Nia's friendship with Alexa Bliss, who clearly is afraid of Asuka.
The more Bliss tries to drive a wedge between Jax and Asuka, the more likely it seems that we will get a Triple Threat at WrestleMania between the three, in which case it doesn't make as much sense for Asuka to win the Royal Rumble and suddenly have another contender join her despite that person losing.
Look out for Asuka to be the kayfabe favourite to win, but fall victim to the wrecking ball of Jax, furthering the story between the two and opening up the win to someone later on this list.
#3 Shinsuke Nakamura
Assuming Roman Reigns does not actually win the Royal Rumble because of the Elimination Chamber being a Raw-branded event, that means someone from SmackDown has to do the deed.
It doesn't make much sense for Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn to be co-champions with the WWE title, so the smart bet is on AJ Styles retaining and keeping that belt until WrestleMania.
Judging by the landscape of the blue brand, there really aren't any options for who could challenge Styles other than Shinsuke Nakamura, which makes him a prime candidate to win this year's Royal Rumble.
In the past, the Royal Rumble used to be a tool to promote someone from the upper-mid card into the main event, similar to what Nakamura's current status on the roster hierarchy translates to.
He's a babyface, meaning the crowd will accept his win much more than someone like Reigns, and the appeal of a Nakamura vs Styles match is in direct opposition to the mentality behind the Reigns vs Lesnar match—giving fans a bit of both side of the world of sports entertainment.
Nakamura winning means the "smark" audience gets their match at WrestleMania while the other main event isn't jeopardized and Vince McMahon gets what he wants, too.
If WWE merely ignores the boos they'll get and the decision to have Reigns win the Royal Rumble is made, rest assured Nakamura will still get his moment to shine in the match.
#2 Daniel Bryan
This may seem strange, considering his status as an inactive wrestler playing the part of the general manager of SmackDown, but there are a few contributing factors that may point to Daniel Bryan being a major show-stealer at this event.
At its most basic level, Bryan has been heavily involved in the program between AJ Styles, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn and Shane McMahon, so there's absolutely no way he doesn't make some kind of appearance in that match, for better or worse.
There's always a chance he screws over Styles—either on purpose or accidentally—and leads to a title change, or he can step in and do the right thing to prevent the handicap gimmick from hurting The Phenomenal One.
However, what if Bryan is actually competing in the Royal Rumble on top of that?
Plenty of betting sites have his odds ranked better than a good number of other potential contenders, which is suspicious, as is how active Bryan has been in this storyline while playing up a more heel tease.
He and Styles have a camaraderie together and it's arguable that if Bryan were to be allowed to step in the ring, he'd want no better opportunity than to fight his friend for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania after winning the Royal Rumble, which is something that should have happened in 2014.
Also suspicious are the advertisements saying AJ Styles would defend the WWE Championship at Fastlane in a Fatal 5-Way against Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Randy Orton and Shinsuke Nakamura.
If that is true, it implies none of those men wins the Royal Rumble, leaving no other realistic contenders on SmackDown to challenge for the title at WrestleMania, as there's no chance Mojo Rawley or Epico Colon will get that shot.
If Daniel Bryan were to win the Royal Rumble, though, those four other men would take a backseat and it would make much more sense, while also fulfilling all the positives that a Nakamura vs Styles match would, along with giving fans a moment to rejoice in their fallen hero coming back from a forced in-ring retirement.
There is still much doubt that he would be cleared to compete, but if by some chance he does do just that at the Royal Rumble, he needs to jump straight to the top of the list of potential winners and Superstars who will be the star of the conversation going forward.
#1 Ronda Rousey
We've known for years that Ronda Rousey and WWE wanted to do business with each other beyond just a few sporadic appearances in the crowd and her segment with The Rock, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon at WrestleMania 31.
Lately, more and more reports have spoken about how she has been training at the WWE Performance Center and would make her in-ring debut at the Royal Rumble.
That in itself is a huge news that everyone will talk about if it happens, but when you add into it that she is the most likely winner of the whole thing as well, going down in history as the first-ever winner of the women's Royal Rumble match, she instantly becomes the top star of the night.
Rousey absolutely won't be in this match and lose to anybody but Asuka, and since the means to have 'The Empress of Tomorrow' lose have already been detailed with the Nia Jax plan, this means the UFC legend has nobody in contention to take this away from her.
She can come late into the match and end it by facing Becky Lynch, tossing her over the top rope and striking the first true shot in the battle between the Four Horsewomen of MMA and the Four Horsewomen of WWE.
As SmackDown is lacking in challengers for Charlotte Flair's championship that would be a big enough match for WrestleMania, Rousey fills in that spot and gives fans a match that surpasses any other possible option like Ruby Riott or Tamina.
At WrestleMania, Rousey will go into the match not only with the buzz from the historic Royal Rumble victory and her previous career in MMA but also with Marina Shafir, Jessamyn Duke and NXT's Shayna Baszler (who might be holding that NXT Women's Championship, too, by then) by her side.
There's no better opponent for her to fight than the SmackDown women's champion Charlotte Flair, who would be accompanied by Becky Lynch, Bayley and Sasha Banks to even the odds and make it a true spectacle for the women's division, while Raw has their Triple Threat between Asuka, Nia Jax and Alexa Bliss.
It all starts at the Royal Rumble and there's even a chance this is the main event of the evening for the pay-per-view, too, making Rousey all that much more important for news headlines exiting the show.
Who do you think will make the biggest impact at this year's Royal Rumble? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below!
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