Is this Sunday's Rumble...

[Guest The Shadow Behind You]

The Royal Rumble is approaching and it's a very popular pay per view or hell; for some it's bigger the WrestleMania. I consider the Royal Rumble the March Madness tournament of the WWE with WM as the World Series, Daytona 500, NBA Finals, Super Bowl, and Stanley Cup all rolled into one. The big appeal obviously isn't the undercard and it's the 30 man over the top rope royal rumble gimmick match that attracts the traditionally second biggest buyrate of the year for the WWE. This year however, at least to me; the rumble seems pushed to the back. Almost forgotten. Not by the fans of course, because those who still follow this business are as usual intrigued by the possibilties that the rumble provides considering there's a wide variety of potential interactions and the mystery of "who drew what #?" offers something different for fans, a chance to gamble. There's hundreds of methods used by fans in terms of making money off this event. However like I said; it feels that the 2005 Royal Rumble matchup isn't as exciting or pushed as hard as previous rumbles have. It's hardly even been the forefront of raw and smackdown the past month. The focus for each show has been the title matches.

 

There's hardly any real significant push for the rumble, save for Edge and John Cena, none of the wrestlers seem focused on it. Usually Raw would have closed with a attempt at building up contenders for the rumble, and again only Edge even expressed his intentions of winning the rumble. Instead of building up the defending winner Chris Benoit, or selling HBK as a former 2 time winner or Chris Jericho or The monsters Kane and Snitsky or the fat man Viscera or even Batistia as the monster who wont be stopped (the focus has been more on the building distention between Evolution and not the rumble itself). Smackdown's only seen John Cena even address the royal rumble. The rest of the card hardly seem to care.

 

What was different this year was however; the Rumble Qualifying matches. Something I greatly liked because it allowed to convey an important side factor that comment Vince McMahon made prior to the championship battle royal a few weeks ago "Anyone can win this, imagine if someone like steven richards wins? we cant have that". So instead of randomly inserting names into the match; people had to earn it and with the exception of HBK and Flair (getting Legend/Former Champion excuses) and The Coach (in because well, he's the coach). That means you had to do something to get in and that makes everyone there look credible enough since they all qualified into the match.

 

I'm fantastically thrilled about the upcoming rumble and a reason for that; at least for now, it's not the open and shut case it was in the past. Last year it was Chris Benoit and...no one else. They hyped others such as Goldberg, Angle, Kane, RVD and TBS but we all knew well that Benoit was walking out the winner. 2003 was clearly Lesnar, 2002 was obviously HHH and 2001 was rock or austin(there was still question about who would be the "challenger" for Mania). The rumble traditionally is closed to one or maybe two possibibities.

 

The newly opened "Main Event CHAMPIONSHIP match" clause, as opposed to the standard face your champion "prize", allows for another case like Benoit last year for someone to jump ship. This year's rumble due to the lack of real major push as usual has a open field feel to it

Here are the "favorites" and realistic contenders

 

Raw

Batistia: Strongly expected winner here as many are expecting HHH V. Batistia. Most built up in the recent weeks for Raw as well.

Edge: The most "focused" and equally pushed as a contender. If Randy Orton wins the title; it easily should indicate Edge is winning. Or Edge could leave Raw and pull a Benoit and go after Angle/TBS/JBL. However, Edge is a heel and JBL is as well. Angle is working Shawn for Mania anyways...and TBS isn't Main eventing Mania again. He hardly main evented it the first time.

Shawn Michaels: Considering Angle has a match for the title and could easily win and is planned to face Shawn @ Mania; would make Shawn a heavy favorite. There's a strong chance, he puts over Edge early that night and goes over and wins and uses the "I've been HHH and Orton already, but i've never got a chance to face angle and now heres my shot"

Kane: Always "pushed" as a serious contender and has rumble success in the past. Highly unlikely but is still a "contender"

Snitsky: Big Monsters always pushed well here.

Chris Benoit: Defending winner. Also a "big pushed" name.

John Cena: Likely the odds on favorite all around. Isn't being pushed as the "he's gotta find a way to win" like Austin 1998/01, Luger 1994, Benoit 2004, Lesnar 2003 winners in the past.

Eddy Guerrero: Former champion and has a lingering beef with the champion. easily pushable as a contender

 

So that's eight "contenders" for The rumble.

[UseTheSledgehammerUh 0]

Eddie's not really a contender...he's been pinned by Rey and lost multiple tag matches in recent weeks.

 

I think Eddie's purpose in the Rumble is to get eliminated by Booker or Rey (most likely) Rey, so he can turn heel and face Rey at WM.

[clean rob 0]

I agree that the Rumble match hasn't been pushed particularly hard this year - nowhere near as much as the EC earlier this month IMO - but the qualifying matches have been a nice touch.

 

The pleasant surprise for me about this year's Rumble is the surprisingly strong undercard. Alongside the title matches, there's Taker/Heidenreich, which will probably suck, but is at least a big blowoff gimmick match, and HBK/Edge, which has been built up pretty well over a long period of time.

 

I have to say I don't agree with the amount of contenders you have listed - Kane and Snitsky haven't been anywhere near the title recently (or at all really in Snitky's case) and I see no reason why they'll win - eliminating each other seems the most likely option.

Benoit and Guerrero look to be out of the title hunt at least for a while, and both ME'd last WM. I don't see a repeat of that this year.

Michaels and Edge should both be too (kayfabe) battered after their match to realistically win, unless they come in very late. Still, Michaels winning would be awful - he's already won it twice and he doesn't need a third time. Edge may have an outside shot as he does seem to be heading for a title match, but a) he's a heel - making him a little unlikely to win it, and b) it makes more sense to have HBK "screw" him out of his title shot and blow this off at WM.

 

Batista and Cena are the only sensible picks IMO. With Edge as a long shot.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

I heard a radio commercial for the RR today and one of the local radio stations here are giving away RR prize packs (autographed stuff from Edge is the big thing).

[Guest Coffey]

Clean Rob kindof touched on it, but the reason nobody cares about the Royal Rumble is because there was just a PPV two freakin' weeks ago. Seriously, one a month is a LOT. More than that is INSANE.

[spman 0]

Plus, the WWE knows they don't really have to put much effort into pushing the Royal RUmble because it always pulls in a strong buyrate based on name value alone.

[slimm44 0]

There isnt as much hype as there has been in the past five years

 

2004: Benoit was Number 1

2003: Lesnar was already the main pick

2002: Triple H returned and was headed for the push of a lifetime, lol

2001: Everyone (Rock, Kane and Undertaker, Austin, Rikishi) were top picks

2000: The Rock was the top guy to take out the McMahon-Helmsley regime

 

Thats the way I see it, this year, they have a wide variety of choices to pick from. Batista, Benoit and Edge are a few picks for RAW, on Smackdown it could be Cena, Eddie, or someone new to push but when has that happened, haha