WWE Royal Rumble 2018: Is Suffering Due to a Lack of Momentum
By John Brown
Professional wrestling is a business built around the fabrication of issues between competitors, often personal ones. Fans pay and tune in to witness the build towards the eventual victory of the righteous party. A lack of such issues in the current WWE landscape is building towards a rather anticlimactic Royal Rumble.
The Royal Rumble usually contains storylines within it to provide clarity as to where the WWE intends to do for WrestleMania. Shawn Michaels was the first wrestler to begin the match as the first entrant in 1995 and go on to win, cementing him as the face of WWE’s new generation of wrestlers after the departures of Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage.
In 1999, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin was fighting against the corrupt system orchestrated by Vince McMahon, a system that had deprived him (twice if your count Kane’s 24 hour stint with the belt) of the WWE Championship he won at WrestleMania XIV. Rey Mysterio won the Royal Rumble in 2006 after the death of his best friend Eddie Guerrero. As recently as 2016, Triple H would win the Rumble in a quest to keep the power of the WWE in the hands of The Authority as Roman Reigns was gaining momentum.
In the current WWE landscape, there is one main feud on both Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live. Raw’s main feud features three mastodons fighting over who can make the most noise; SmackDown’s revolves around two authority figures, neither of which are pursuing the WWE Championship, arguing over how to deal with the shenanigans created by Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn.
Traditionally, those who compete for a heavyweight title on the Royal Rumble card are not in the Rumble match, with last year’s appearance by Roman Reigns being the rare exception.
Credit: WWE.com
With the exception of the aforementioned feuds, this years Royal Rumble appears to be a crap shoot full of guys who have routinely failed to win or reacquire titles, or those who have been absent from any heavyweight title scene for quite some time. At the moment, there does not appear to be any form of momentum in favor of any performers going into the event. With the stakes that come with a Rumble win, this is bit concerning.
There are certainly a few guys deserving of a Rumble win. Roman Reigns is fresh off losing his Intercontinental Championship, a move that may have been meant to free him up to face Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania.
The Miz, the man Reigns lost the IC title to, has been arguably the WWE’s MVP and is deserving at another shot at the WrestleMania main event. Last year’s winner, Randy Orton, is always a contender, but has had a losing campaign against then-WWE Championship ending in a heinous Punjabi Prison Match, and has been in six-man tag purgatory. In that same purgatory is Shinsuke Nakamura, who has not had the headlining run fans have been clamoring for since his debut.
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It is also a possibility that less emphasis has been put on the men’s Royal Rumble match since the women of the WWE are having their own first Rumble match. The impact of that match may be outshining anything that can come from the men’s Rumble. However, the men’s Royal Rumble match has been cornerstone of all WrestleMania preparations for years. A match with said implications has limited hype behind it this year, finding the WWE running the risk of devaluing of the WrestleMania heavyweight title match that comes as its result.