After Vince McMahon announced that the WWE’s Royal Rumble match will be for the World Heavyweight Championship, fans have started speculating as to who has the best chance to win the match and become champion. Who will win the WWE’s Royal Rumble? Before making your final predictions, keep in mind that now that the championship is at stake, there are some new factors that come into play.
Up until the announcement of the title stipulation, Roman Reigns was not expected to participate, because the winner of the Royal Rumble match traditionally goes on to face the champion. Also, now that Roman will defend the title, it prevents two months of buildup for the title challenger, which opens the possibility that the victor can be someone who is already an established star.
So, the first thing to think about is who is actually participating in the match. As of this writing, here are the guaranteed participants:
- Roman Reigns (WWE World Heavyweight Champion)
- The Big Show
- Chris Jericho
- Bray Wyatt
- Luke Harper
- Erick Rowan
- Braun Strowman
- Dolph Ziggler
- Ryback
- Curtis Axel
The entire Wyatt family is in, so expect them to have quite the impact on the 26 other superstars in the match. The Big Show has tremendous size, of course, which will help him eliminate others, but he usually becomes the first target. Ziggler has had a great showing over the past few Rumble matches, but since he hasn’t been doing much on television as of late, don’t expect him to jump to being the face of the company. Ryback is a big threat who will get a decent amount of eliminations (unless the Wyatts get to him), but the former Intercontinental champion is stuck in midcard purgatory right now, and I don’t expect him to get out of it any time soon. Axel might have some backup with the recently formed Social Outcasts, but he will either get knocked out before his entrance like last year, or be eliminated twice to put an end to saying that he wasn’t eliminated from the 2015 Royal Rumble. As for Jericho, he’s probably here to make everyone else look good. We’ll talk about Reigns a little later.
Now that we have looked at who is definitely in the Rumble match, who is definitely out of the match? Some currently injured Superstars are (asterisks note Superstars who might be in action by the time of the Rumble):
- Cesaro
- Tyson Kidd
- Seth Rollins
- John Cena
- Daniel Bryan
- Sting
- Sin Cara*
- King Barrett*
This injury list is interesting considering that some of these Superstars would be favorites to be the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion. Seth Rollins and Daniel Bryan have both never actually lost the title, but had to vacate it due to injury, so they have perhaps the most credibility on the roster to win the title, but they can’t. I wouldn’t expect anyone else on the injured list to win the Rumble (including John Cena), so their injuries do not have a significant impact on the outcome of the match.
Now with the Royal Rumble only two weeks away, we have to imagine who will enter the ring, but hasn’t been announced yet. Other than the annual surprise entrants, there are some big names who can still be big threats in the Rumble:
- Brock Lesnar, for one, returns to Raw next week, and he has said before that he’s only interested in the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Making the Rumble match the new location for Suplex City would shake things up quite a bit.
- The New Day has a similar impact that the Wyatts do, where their teamwork is a very hard thing to overcome. Also, if one member of New Day wins, they all win.
- Another group that can have a huge impact in the Rumble is the League of Nations. Dominating the upper midcard and main event scenes as of late, they can even the odds with the Wyatts and, potentially, New Day.
- Dean Ambrose and Kevin Owens have a lot of momentum going for them, but I think that this current feud will preoccupy them enough to prevent either one of them from winning the title.
After looking at the participants and big threats in the match, who has the best chance of winning the WWE World Heavyweight Championship?
That leaves the one Superstar we haven’t analyzed yet: Roman Reigns. WWE is all-in on pushing Roman Reigns to the moon, and he’s practically there. After gaining the support of the WWE Universe after winning the title on Raw, what can make Reigns even more of a star than by him overcoming the odds one more time and defeating 29 other Superstars? There is no other Superstar that has enough momentum built up to realistically win the gold, other than the wild card of Brock Lesnar. Who will win the WWE’s Royal Rumble? After only continuing to improve since last year’s Royal Rumble, Reigns will continue to cement himself as “The Man” in WWE, and head to Fastlane as WWE World Heavyweight Champion.
Here are the odds to date for the WWE’s Royal Rumble:
Betting Odds:
Winner (according to William Hill):
5) Kevin Owens: +1000
4) Dean Ambrose: +800
3) Brock Lesnar: +250
2) Triple H: +200
1) Roman Reigns: +150
Longshot: Sheamus, +2500
Most Eliminations (according to Paddy Power):
4) (tied) Triple H, The Big Show, Rusev, Kevin Owens: +700
3) Braun Strowman: +333
2) Brock Lesnar: +260
1) Roman Reigns: -120
Longshot: Luke Harper, +2000
Diva Participation (according to Betfair): +400
Fastest Elimination (according to Betfair):
3) 1.9 seconds or less: +900
2) 61 seconds or more: +120
1) 2-60 seconds: -250
First Time Rumble Winner (according to Betfair): +333
Superstars to Make an Appearance (according to Betfair):
5) Mark Henry: +175
2) (tied) Sami Zayn, “Road Dogg” Jesse James, AJ Styles: +125
1) Bo Dallas: -110
Longshot: Vince McMahon: +3300
