WWE Royal Rumble 2017: Predicting Odds for All 30 Potential Entrants
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9. Baron Corbin
Baron Corbin has been one of the beneficiaries of the WWE brand split. He had a successful start to his main roster career this past spring, but fell into a directionless pit with Dolph Ziggler throughout the summer. This had been until Corbin started cutting some impressive promos on Talking Smack and backing up his talk with his wrestling on pay-per-view and in big TV matches.
Five months later, Corbin would get a WWE Championship opportunity on the final episode of SmackDown in 2016. He would not win, but looked solid in the effort and did not get pinned. A win over Dolph Ziggler and subsequent entry into the Royal Rumble match (during a segment with John Cena and AJ Styles) would follow this. Oh, and he’s getting an opportunity to face Cena on Tuesday’s episode of SmackDown.
If we are to believe that the Lone Wolf stands a chance at winning the Royal Rumble match, look back to his Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal win. If WWE really wants to push forward his talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk booking, then he could have an outside shot of winning and challenging for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania.
Given that Corbin has not even crossed the one-year threshold of his time on the main roster, expectations should be tempered. Maybe in a year or two this will change, but in 2017, he will have to give way for the others in this match.