WWE: Shinsuke Nakamura Should Win The Royal Rumble 2018

Last year, Randy Orton won the WWE’s Royal Rumble to earn a opportunity at the WWE Championship, which he took from Bray Wyatt at WrestleMania 33. This year’s Rumble figures to be just as unpredictable, but could Shinsuke Nakamura capture the prestigious win again?

On Jan. 28, the 2018 Royal Rumble will take place in WWE, and it’s anyone’s guess as to who will emerge victorious from the 30-man battle royal. Early on, some fans have speculated that “top guys” Roman Reigns and John Cena seem like favorites, but that may be a little too obvious.

While Roman’s victory could be a logical way to set up a match with Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 34, you could argue that a Rumble win for Reigns doesn’t have to take place for this match to be set in stone.

According to Cageside Seats’s “Rumor Roundup”, Reigns’s route to the Universal Championship isn’t expected to go through the Royal Rumble, and, beyond that, the winner of the Rumble is expected to come from the “Blue Brand”.

AJ Styles is currently the WWE Champion, and while he could drop the title to Jinder Mahal at Clash of Champions, it seems unlikely that Mahal will get a second reign on top of SmackDown Live. I could easily see Styles holding the title until WrestleMania, because he feels like the biggest star in the company right now (though some would argue in Braun Strowman’s favor). Beyond that, Styles is easily the best wrestler in the company, and it’s clear that Vince McMahon values the attention the crowd pays to him.

For the longest time, fans have been itching to see Shinsuke Nakamura and AJ Styles in a singles match, and they both teased a confrontation during Money in the Bank. Styles actually pitched this standoff to Vince, who was hesitant about just how much the fans would care about this. The fans, naturally, had a huge reaction, and Vince definitely took notice.

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Nakamura has been kept relatively quiet over on SmackDown ever since losing his final opportunity at the WWE Championship during Mahal’s reign.

But Nakamura boasts wins over Randy Orton and John Cena in head-to-head competition, and the creative team has been careful about booking his offense and the tenacity of his character in the ring. Recall that Nakamura was never afraid to go up against Strowman.

So I think it’s logical to expect a Nakamura vs. Styles showdown for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania, which means fans could get used to seeing “The King of Strong Style” with a new, heel character at some point.

I know this may sound blasphemous to some people, but the WWE hasn’t done much with Nakamura’s character. In general, the WWE has a difficult time booking convincing babyfaces, and, yes, I believe the language barrier has also caused the company to become especially lazy with booking Nakamura. Remember that the WWE thought it would be a good idea to garner sympathy for Shinsuke by having Mahal say a bunch of offensive garbage to him in promos. And yelling that Nakamura is a “Rockstar!” and an “Artist!” doesn’t exactly help either.

My colleague Matthew Dillon wrote last month that Nakamura should turn heel. At the time, I thought the idea was a bit too “out there”, but it makes complete sense now. While it may seem more likely for Randy Orton to turn on Nakamura in one of the tag matches they appear in, I wouldn’t mind the WWE turning Shinsuke to freshen his character up more. That extra edge could help Nakamura go from a guy who is good in the ring but hasn’t clicked yet, to a guy who feels like one of the biggest superstars in the company.

On top of that, there’s no way the WWE turns Styles heel, because he’s far too popular and, well, they’ve “been there, done that”. Plus, would the WWE Championship feud at WrestleMania really be a babyface vs. babyface match that doesn’t involve polarizing figures like Cena or Reigns? No, they’d have to do a regular heel vs. face match, and while it’s hard to see people booing Nakamura, the fact that people will inevitably still sing along to his catchy theme and entrance shouldn’t deter the WWE from potentially turning Nakamura loose.

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Either way, I think Nakamura winning the Rumble would be a nice treat for the fans and an unpredictable way to usher in WrestleMania season. It would also be a great way to build Nakamura up as a star, but, admittedly, I wouldn’t get my hopes up too much about his chances of winning. That said, if someone on SmackDown Live were to win the Rumble, I can’t think of a more appropriate choice than Nakamura.