It’s finally January and time for the Royal Rumble 2017, arguably the most anticipated WWE PPV of the year. This year sees the 30th edition of the Rumble. 30 men will enter the Rumble match and only one will be left standing at the end of the night to go on to ‘main event’ Wrestlemania.
Apart from the Rumble match itself, both the WWE Universal Championship and the WWE World Championship will be on the line as Roman Reigns challenges Kevin Owens and John Cena challenges AJ Styles. Will 29th January 2017 be the night John Cena claims his 16th world championship?
On the undercard, Cesaro and Sheamus will defend their WWE Raw Tag-Team Championship against Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson. After the shenanigans that have gone on in this match recently, two referees have been announced for this match which is weird stipulation and will probably lead to more shenanigans for the finish.
Charlotte will also defend her Raw Women’s Championship against Bayley, who will challenge for her first title on the main roster. Charlotte has been berating Bayley in recent weeks, calling her a glorified fan so it will be interesting to see which Bayley we will see on Sunday – the one who laughs it off or the Bayley with a fire in her that we saw in NXT.
Neville also challenges Rich Swann for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship. Raw’s Cruiserweight Division has been a flop so far so there’s a lot of pressure in this match to deliver. As long as Swann and Neville get a little freedom to show what they can do, they’ll deliver.
Apart from these, Sasha Banks will also face Nia Jax while Becky Lynch, Nikki Bella and Naomi will face Alexa Bliss, Mickie James and Natalya.
With the Rumble only a few days away, rumours have been flying left, right and center.
As the Rumble draws closer, we’ll take a look at the latest WWE Royal Rumble 2017 Rumors coming out:
Ziggler and the ‘King’
According to Cagesideseats, Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler will continue his mini-feud with Dolph Ziggler at the Royal Rumble and will play play some part in eliminating Dolph Ziggler from the Royal Rumble match. This will be Lawler’s revenge on Dolph for Dolph’s Superkick to Lawler’s chest a couple of weeks ago on SmackDown live.
Ziggler recently turned heel on SmackDown Live and his ongoing storyline with Lawler is a way for WWE to get heat on Ziggler for his heel run.
(Source: Cagesideseats)
No Alpha
According to F4WOnline, neither member of American Alpha will take part in the Royal Rumble match. Neither Gable nor Jordan will be amongst the 30-men who come out to fight for a Wrestlemania spot later today.
What makes the situation even more interesting is that the SmackDown Live Tag-Team Champions aren’t even scheduled to defend their titles at the Rumble which means that they didn’t even make the card.
(Source: F4WOnline)
Randy Orton now the favourite to win the Royal Rumble
According to the latest betting trends, Randy Orton is now the favourite to win the Royal Rumble and is significantly ahead of Braun Strowman, Undertaker, Goldberg, Finn Balor etc.
Rumours suggest that WWE are planning to have a match between Orton and Wyatt at Wrestlemania for the WWE World Championship with Orton winning the Rumble and Bray winning the WWE title at Elimination Chamber.
If Orton does win, it will be his second Royal Rumble victory after 2009.
(Source: Betting odds)
Seth Rollins and Triple H segment at the Royal Rumble?
The mist surprising thing that came out of last week’s episode of Monday Night Raw was the fact that Sami Zayn beat Seth Rollins to qualify for the Rumble with a little help from a distraction. This means that Rollins is not booked for the Royal Rumble 2017 show, so the question arises – how will WWE get Rollins on the card?
There are two possibilities. One, Cagesideseats reported earlier this week that WWE had booked a segment between Rollins and Triple H at some point in the Rumble card.
The other, and more unlikely scenario, is that Triple H could enter the Rumble again as a surprise entrant and Rollins could come out and eliminate him to progress their feud.
(Source: Cagesideseats)
16-time?
Rumours going into Sunday’s Royal Rumble suggest that the Rumble could be the place where John Cena wins his record-equaling 16th WWE world championship.
Cena has taken on Styles in singles action twice – losing on both occasions. Sunday’s bout will be the first time that the two have met with a title on the line. Styles and Cena’s feud restarted after Cena returned from his hiatus and challenged Styles for the WWE World Championship and the personal animosity between them came to a head on SmackDown Live earlier this week.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
(Sourde: Inquisitr)
NXT
We now know that most of the NXT roster will be backstage at the Alamodome on the day of the Rumble. That means that they could all potentially be entrants in the Royal Rumble match. The likes of Shinsuke Nakamura, Samoa Joe and Tye Dillinger have all been allegedly considered as potential Rumble entrants.
Could any NXT Superstars make a surprise debut at the Rumble? It’s possible.
Potential surprise debuts
Two names that have been mentioned a lot when it comes to surprise debuts at the Rumble this year are former IWGP Intercontinental Champion Kenny Omega and Kurt Angle.
Omega recently announced that he will probably be leaving New Japan Pro Wrestling when his contract runs out at the end of January and has teased a potential Royal Rumble appearance.
Kurt Angle announced his WWE return earlier this month as a member of the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2017. Angle was already being spoken about being a potential surprise entrant this year before the Hall Of Fame announcement was made. The announcement only led to more rumours of a Rumble re-debut even though Angle himself has denied the rumours.
Roman’s next reign
Roman Reigns will challenge Kevin Owens at the Royal Rumble this Sunday with Chris Jericho hung above the ring in a shark cage. Owens has looked like a chump for most of his run with the Universal title and getting beaten up by Reigns on a weekly basis hasn’t helped.
Rumours going into the Rumble suggest that Reigns is the clear favourite to win the Royal Rumble. There is talks of plans in place for Roman to go into a feud with Braun Strowman after the Rumble and going into Wrestlemania season.
(Source: Allwrestlingnews)
Braun Strowman
Braun Strowman has been given a massive push since he broke from the Wyatt Family after the brand split and moved to Raw. After being given a run of squashing jobbers, Strowman won a feud with Sami Zayn and is now being considered one of the favourites to win this year’s Royal Rumble.
Strowman is yet to be pinned and is being given the monster’s push. To his credit, he has also worked hard on improving in the ring.
There is talk that Strowman will win the Rumble and then face Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship at Wrestlemania 33. How will the crowd react to that match if it does take place? I’m predicting that it’s going to be ugly.
