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Disclaimer: The views of the author do not necessarily reflect those of Sportskeeda.
It was announced on last night’s episode of RAW that Brock Lesnar will not be defending the WWE Championship at the Royal Rumble. Instead, he'll be entering the Royal Rumble match itself as the #1 entrant.
This is due to Paul Heyman declaring that no one on the RAW roster is worthy enough to face The Beast Incarnate. While the WWE Championship not being defending at a major PPV isn’t ideal, this time it makes sense and is a good idea.
Firstly, Heyman is correct when he states that no one is worthy enough to face The Beast. Although Superstars like Aleister Black and Drew McIntyre have been racking up wins, it's been against jobbers like Zack Ryder, No Way Jose, and in Black’s case - Buddy Murphy, whose main accolade on the main roster is beating Daniel Bryan once, and that’s it.
If one of those two Superstars or someone else had a one on one match with Lesnar, the match would have been extremely predictable, and the WWE Universe would say that they got buried.
Also, with no WWE Championship match at the Rumble, it gives the spotlight to the other titles on the card. The main title match now will be 'The Fiend' Bray Wyatt vs Bryan for the Universal Championship, which would have been second fiddle to any Lesnar match.
This could also mean that we see the Intercontinental Championship finally defended, which hasn’t happened in months. If The Beast had a title defense, that may not have been the case.
The other bright spot of this is that the Rumble match will likely set up Lesnar’s WrestleMania match. There’s no way he's winning the Rumble match unless WWE is unifying the two main belts, which would be a bad idea.
The Beast would probably have a decent showing in the Rumble before getting thrown out by his future opponent. Who that Superstar is will be the major question. We'll also see some showdowns we may not have seen otherwise, such as Lesnar going up against Big E, Black, or Keith Lee if NXT is involved in the match.
Although the Beast Incarnate not defending the WWE Title at the Royal Rumble PPV isn’t ideal, it has many upsides to it.
