Nate Blogg's 2016 Royal Rumble Preview Extravaganza

This Sunday is my favorite PPV of the year, the Royal Rumble. We all remember last year’s Rumble, won by Roman Reigns, when he was booed out of the building. If you recall, then The Rock came down to the ring in an attempt to get Reigns cheered, and The Rock was booed. And so went the second straight year the WWE faced a lot of backlash after the rumble, with the previous year’s Daniel Bryan fuck up fresh in everyone’s minds.

Well, here we are again, and the main centerpiece of the Rumble is once again Roman Reigns. I don’t HATE Reigns. I don’t think he’s great in the ring, and he’s certainly not good on the mic at all, but I don’t hate him. I hate how every waking second of every WWE show is all about him. I hate how he is constantly pushed down our throats and nothing about him is genuine. I think that’s actually my main problem- how forced he is. How nothing is natural. And the writing is so poor. His current story line somehow has him pegged as the this underdog fighting the bosses, when in reality he’s never lost a match cleanly in the WWE. He’s been shot to the moon on a rocket, but somehow we’re supposed to believe he’s an underdog. It just doesn’t add up.

And they so much want him to be a mega-star that this year’s Rumble, the match where ordinarily the winner becomes the #1 contender for the WWE Championship at Wrestlemania, revolves squarely around Reigns. It’s him vs 29 others. It’s a cheap way of showing just how big and dominant Roman Reigns is. It’s so incredibly lazy. They are having him enter the Rumble 1st and you know it’s going to come down to the final 2. Reigns is more than likely going to break his own record for most people eliminated from the Rumble. He’s going to break the record for most time spent in the Rumble match. It’s Roman Reigns overkill.

My prediction: Roman Reigns doesn’t win the Rumble. I don’t know if he loses cleanly, but in my mind he’s distracted by the authority on the outside and Lesnar F5’s him out the ring to win the WWE Championship. Reigns then beats HHH at Fastlane for the right to a rematch at Wrestlemania. Roman Reigns then breats Brock Lesnar clean in the middle of the ring at Wrestlemania at Cowboys Stadium. That’s how it plays out in my mind. Reigns beats the Beast, the guy who beat Undertaker’s streak, etc et etc. Vince is deadset on Roman being “the guy” and he doesn’t really care what you think about it. Reigns possibly could have been the guy if they had patience, developed characters and stories, and let stuff burn slowly. But WWE is so “now, now, now” that they don’t let stories evolve or become interesting. It’s really a shame.

As for the other matches, not a bad card:

Dean Ambrose (c) vs Kevin Owens – Last Man Standing Match for the Intercontinental Championship – This feud has been decent, but this match should be outstanding. Here are two guys who fought and battled in the Independent scene for years, doing outrageous shit for 20 bucks a night for love of the game. Now they have a match against each other at the Royal Rumble? All hell is about to break loose. I also predict this match as where AJ Styles comes in. Would be the perfect spot for him if he is going to debut on Sunday night. Regardless of that bold prediction, I have Ambrose winning, only because Owens just had a pretty good run as IC champ.

Alberto Del Rio (c) vs Kalisto – For The United States Championship – Kalisto is awesome. ADR is not awesome. I can’t stand ADR. He bores me to tears. He’s a fine in-ring wrestler, but nothing pops. Nothing sizzles. But they pay him a shit ton of money because he’s big in Mexico and that’s a wholeeeeee lot of Tshirts. Actually surprised Portnoy hasn’t hired a Mexican just to sell Tshirts. This is the rubber match between the two Mexicans fighting for the US Championship. If you recall Kalisto beat ADR for it last Monday on Raw, only to lose it back immediately on Smackdown. I truly hope Kalisto wins and starts feuding with Neville and put on a ridiculous ladder match at Mania, that’s my dream. The two best high fliers in a ladder match at Mania is exactly what we need.

Charlotte (c) (with Ric Flair) vs Becky Lynch – For the Women’s Championship - This feud is what happens when you use simple writing and story telling, good backstage interviews, and don’t overthink anything. The classic former best friends turned enemies story, but with Ric Flair teaching his daughter the tricks of the trade. Plus the two women can actually wrestle, so that helps of course. My prediction is Becky wins but Charlotte retains via DQ. Hopefully due to outside interference from Sasha Banks, because there is no reason she shouldn’t be having a 5 star match at Mania.

The New Day (Big E, Kofi Kingston and/or Xavier Woods) (c) vs The Usos – Don’t ya dare be sowaaaaaaa! I love The New Day, you love them, your mom loves them, we all love them. I never want them to break up, ever. The WWE needs a stronger tag team division or else we are going to see this match for the rest of our lives. It’s quite possible we see a full New Day face turn here, and then we’ll get to see how the Usos are as heels. My hopes and dreams are the New Day retain, obviously. And at this point next year I hope to be typing about how Big E should win the Rumble and go on to Mania to win the WWE Championship.

The Royal Rumble Match - I already gave my prediction above, but lots of cool things can still go down in the Rumble. Most importantly, surprise entrants. Who will debut, who will come back? Is it Sami Zayn time? Will Samoa Joe be called up? Is it time for a Daniel Bryan return? Maybe something out of left field like Sasha Banks? Will AJ Styles debut in the Rumble or will he insert himself in a feud, such as the Owens-Ambrose one as I talked about?

Now, one person I haven’t talked about is one HHH. Lots of rumors flying around that he could win the Rumble. I see him being involved in the Rumble, but I don’t see him winning it. It’s not like I’d be shocked if he won the Rumble and main evented Mania, but I truly believe he has faith in the product enough that he wouldn’t do that. If HHH wins the Rumble, it’ll probably be from the 30 (or he’ll make himself a 31st entry) and eliminate Reigns, setting up a Reigns vs HHH Wrestlemania main event. They have been copying a lot of Austin vs Vince story lines, but the thing is, Reigns vs HHH ain’t Austin vs Vince. Not even close. And then what do you do with Brock? Brock vs Wyatt? Would they let Wyatt win a match like that? Doubt it.

Whatever happens on Sunday, let us hope they don’t disappoint us hugely like the last two years. However, if they didn’t have Batista win, we would have never had that Daniel Bryan Wrestlemania moment, so I guess some good could always come out of it. I’ll be watching it and Tweeting about it on the Twitter, if you are so inclined to join the discussion.