Roman Reigns vs. Triple H Likely for WWE Royal Rumble 2016 After Events on Raw

After what happened on last night’s episode of Raw, Roman Reigns facing Triple H at the Royal Rumble pay-per-view seems imminent.

To close the WWE TLC pay-per-view, Roman Reigns annihilated Triple H with chair shots, an elbow through a table and a vicious spear. While this got the former Shield man over with the crowd, it also set up a match between these two at some point in the future. It should be noted that we have not seen The Game since.

The next night on Raw, Reigns won the WWE World Heavyweight Championship off Sheamus, who challenged him to a match. Roman won with the threat of being fired by Vince McMahon looming.

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Then came the closing of last night’s episode of Raw. After McMahon returned from the precinct, he set up Reigns vs. Sheamus for the title on next Monday’s show with the Chairman himself as the special referee. If this is going to be the official rematch, then we may have a new pre-main event bout for the Royal Rumble pay-per-view between Reigns and Triple H in the works.

When the TLC incident first happen some thought this would lead to the Big Dog vs. the Cerebral Assassin at WrestleMania 32. However, once Reigns won the title, the odds decreased. It wouldn’t make sense for the 46-year-old to win the Royal Rumble match and headline WrestleMania 32 in a title match—no one would believe it.

Reigns also isn’t losing the WWE World Heavyweight Championship anytime before the Show of Shows to set up a non-title bout. If he did drop the belt, it would be too soon.

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Doing Reigns vs. Triple H would be best for Royal Rumble because it would give the former a ton of momentum going into WrestleMania. Roman would likely win this match and then head into the WrestleMania 32 main event against the Royal Rumble match winner.

Before any of this happens, though, Triple H has to return. McMahon teased multiple times that his son-in-law will be back for his revenge soon and specifically said “when he least expects it”. This could happen on next week’s Raw during the title match to set up things to come at the Royal Rumble PPV.

Not having this match at WrestleMania also frees up The Game to have another match. There’s no clear-cut opponent for him at the moment, but with The Rock now set to appear, maybe we get the match that has been teased multiple times. If it’s not the People’s Champ, then the logical options for a foe are few and far between.

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Following Raw, Triple H vs. Roman Reigns seems to be in the cards for the first WWE PPV of the year. It makes sense to do it now because if it happened at WrestleMania, the “believability” of it would be low.