BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
When you’re a lifelong wrestling fan it’s hard not to be at least a little excited this time of year. When I say “lifelong”, I mean it. You grew up with it. It’s been part of your routine life through many important developmental phases. There is a certain type of (crazy) person that is a lifelong wrestling fan. It’s not a casual pick up along the way. It’s getting hooked in as a child and being so engrossed in it that it’s just part of your everyday essence. You can hate it, you can love it, and you can deny it. At the end of the day, wrestling is always in your blood. Anyone can appreciate professional wrestling, but you’re not going to share the same passion for it as someone who cried over it as a child, had awkward teen years, and had to defend it during the worst of times. You cried when Pillman died. Your mind was blown with Owen died. You went to Blockbuster to rent old VHS PPVS from the 80s. You can hum the theme music to a 100 obscure wrestler’s pre-Attitude era. It’s ups. It’s downs. It’s a ritual. It’s life.
So yeah, it’s Royal Rumble time. Thirty men enter and one man wins. Sometimes. Sometimes there’s less men, sometimes there’s more men. Sometimes there’s a woman or two. Sometimes there are more than one winner. It’s not as consistent as we’d like to think, but premise is always the same… Some people enter and sometimes one person wins. To geek it up, it’s an over the top battle royal with entrants coming in at timed intervals.
It’s fun. It’s the counting down, the suspense of who is out next, and the recurring questions. Wondering who the final four will be, who will be the iron man of the match, who will throw out the most, who will screw over who, what feud will start, what the hell will Kofi Kingston do THIS year, and the inevitable question… who will win!?!
Things are different this year for a few reasons. There is only one Championship belt again so the winner will automatically go for the top strap. There is no question of “what belt will they go for?!” But THEN there is a loophole. The Elimination Chamber is in the middle of this famous journey now. This certainly throws a wrench into this mess. The days of the winner of the Royal Rumble having a for sure shot at the champion at WrestleMania is pretty damn uncertain. While I like the unpredictability, I really miss the long build up to one big match. Having to wait until mid-February to really confirm the main event is a bit of a bummer.
I’m writing this before the final RAW before the show. At this point there are only a few things announced outside of the Rumble. I would guess we’d see Bryan vs. Wyatt in some shape or form, maybe Kane vs. Punk, New Authority Outlaws taking on the Rhodes Brothers. Yes, folks... the Rumble DOES have non-battle royal matches too. This year, Randy Orton defends the belt against John Cena. I take a deep breath and let out a accepting sigh knowing that it’s dumb to ever really predict against John Cena. I’d rather see Orton retain and drop it at Mania. For my prediction, I’m going against logic and with my gut, Randy Orton wins.
In a random singles match, Brock Lesnar faces The Big Show. It would be cool to see The Big Show get a big win like this. He gets just enough wins to make him still convincing as a main eventer, but he’s becoming the guy used to get people over more and more. He deserves the win, but the only way I see it happening is if Mark Henry interferes. This is surely going to lead to Brock’s WrestleMania XXX build so I’m going to have to go with him winning. Yep, Brock Lesnar wins.
I really have no idea who will win the Royal Rumble. That’s the awesome part. There are some rumored WrestleMania XXX matches, but nothing is really as firmly booked as the Rock/Cena matches of the past few years. Batista is an obvious choice since he’s coming back. Batista vs. Orton makes perfect sense given their history and I can’t imagine Big Dave coming back to NOT be in the spotlight. Him having the belt on his shoulder for all of his upcoming Marvel movie release promo wouldn’t be a bad business move. But that’s not a given. Daniel Bryan could win. CM Punk could win. Brock Lesnar is an option. Sheamus could potentially win. Del Rio is doubtful, but could win. Chris Jericho could show back up and take the win. What about RVD? Or what even if they had an old timer show back up and get the surprise win? What if Triple H enters himself at #30, or even #31 to be even more of a dick, and steals the win for himself. The internet would explode. Triple H, will full authority, is the WWE Champion. Holy shit. Whoever they built up to take the belt off him at WrestleMania XXX would have a HUGE moment. Daniel Bryan or CM Punk would the logical pick for that kind of blow off. You know what, I’m going with this bold pick. I’m going with Triple H.
Speaking of “bold picks”! In 2013 I took an extra effort to predict as many WWE PPV matches as possible. It always feels like the WWE is super predictable and disappointing so it was an experiment of sorts. It turns out I predicted 59 matches last year. Of those predictions, not including no-contests or matches that didn’t end up happening, I got 32 correct and 27 wrong. So I got about 54% right. As jaded and disenfranchised as I’ve become in my life long fandom, maybe anything CAN happen in the World Wrestling Ferera…er.. World Wrestling Enterain… er… WWE. Yeah, that’s the one.
|
