WWE Royal Rumble 2017: Event Preview
San Antonio, TX - On January 29, 2017, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) will have its annual Royal Rumble pay-per-view event and this year's edition emanates from the Alamo Dome in San Antonio, Texas. As we're currently 23 days away from the event, the card consists of...
• WWE Universal Championship Match: Kevin Owens (c) vs. Roman Reigns
• WWE World Championship Match: AJ Styles (c) vs. John Cena
• WWE Raw Women's Championship Match: Charlotte Flair (c) vs. Bayley
• 2017 Royal Rumble Match
While there will be additional matches, as the last two (2) Royal Rumble pay-per-view events have each had six (6) matches respectively, the card as currently constructed provides a lot of intrigue for fringe fans and professional wrestling diehards alike.
The WWE Universal Championship picture has revolved around the ‘Kevin Owens Show’ as champion Owens and “best friend” Chris Jericho have been major thorns in the side of former Shield mates Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins. Ultimately, Raw General Manager (GM) Mick Foley decided that Owens would once again defend his title against Reigns at the ‘Rumble’ event.
On Smackdown Live, “The Face That Runs The Place” AJ Styles thwarted challengers Dolph Ziggler and Baron Corbin, thus opening up for the returning John Cena to step in a fill the void as number one (1) contender. While given no other reason besides he’s John Cena, the WWE Championship match was set for the Royal Rumble event by Smackdown Live GM Daniel Bryan.
The Raw Women’s Championship has finally moved on from the Charlotte Flair-Sasha Banks feud and now is in the middle of a program between Flair and ultra-babyface Bayley. This storyline has revolved around Bayley earning the number one contender spot, losing the spot, and re-earning the spot, all while Flair continues to flourish in her role as the WWE’s top female heel.
The 2017 Royal Rumble Match already has seen eight (8) of the 30 spots taken up as Goldberg, Brock Lesnar, Braun Strowman, Chris Jericho, Baron Corbin, and all three members of the New Day have announced their intentions to participate in the contest. This leaves 22 positions available for a roster that currently employs 108 male performers and 26 female performers between its Raw, Smackdown Live, 205 Live, and NXT brands.
Without knowing whether or not the WWE will bring in outside performers like they have in the past or have superstars return from injury to participate, narrowing the field down is going to be very complicated for executives at the sports entertainment juggernaut this year. Through the process of elimination, the field of candidates can dwindle as it would be very unlikely that a female performer participates this year as well as any performers who don’t receive much television time.
Considering those parameters, the field of candidates remaining would be…
Raw Roster
• Big Cass & Enzo Amore
• Cesaro
• Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows
• Rusev
• Sami Zayn
• Seth Rollins
Smackdown Live Roster
• Bray Wyatt & Randy Orton
• Chad Gable & Jason Jordan
• Dean Ambrose
• Dolph Ziggler
• Heath Slater & Rhyno
• James Ellsworth
• The Miz
205 Live Roster
• The Brian Kendrick
• Neville
• Rich Swann
• TJ Perkins
NXT Roster
• Bobby Roode
• Samoa Joe
• Shinsuke Nakamura
• Tye Dillinger
This leaves WWE officials with 26 superstars to choose out of for the final 22 spots. More than likely the WWE will have at least one 205 Live star and one NXT star in the event, which would leave 18 participants from the Raw and Smackdown Live rosters for the final 20 positions.
Considering that main event performers like Seth Rollins are guaranteed a spot, on-air storylines (such as the Dean Ambrose-Miz feud over the Intercontinental Championship and Enzo Amore’s “injury” from Rusev) and long-tenured veterans receiving positions (Undertaker, Kane & Big Show, I’m looking at you) will all shake up how the field is set, in reality there are about 5-7 positions that could be intriguing to see how they’re filled.
Potential superstars returning from injury would include: Finn Balor and Shelton Benjamin, although the latter is far less likely. Potential “surprise” entrants would include: Shawn Michaels (hometown guy), Kurt Angle (long rumored WWE return may come to fruition), Matt and/or Jeff Hardy (both having tremendous success in Impact Wrestling) and a long-list of former superstars or independent wrestlers that the Internet Wrestling Community (IWC) would love to see return or debut.
Given all of these possibilities and the potential for a few different superstars to win the Royal Rumble match, the WWE may see a boost in the viewership as the Road to Wrestlemania begins. They say that 'Everything's Bigger in Texas' and let's hope that the 2017 edition of the WWE Royal Rumble lives up to that moniker.
