As the focus of WWE fans remains on the ongoing war leading up to Survivor Series, it’s important to remember we’re getting closer to Royal Rumble as well.
Although Survivor Series is shaping up to be one of the most exciting WWE shows leading into WrestleMania 36, let’s not forget that we’re only around two months away from the always thrilling Royal Rumble event.
Each year, Royal Rumble gives fans some of the most entertaining matches on the road to WrestleMania, courtesy of it’s two epic battle royals.
While it’s still a bit early to know for certain who’s going to walk away from those matches with a shot at one of WWE’s top titles, there’s still several superstars who already have a compelling case for being the last man standing in the ring come January 26th.
With that in mind, here’s three superstars who already seem primed to make a run at winning the Men’s Royal Rumble match.
3. Roman Reigns
Let’s start with the obvious.
Roman Reigns is always going to be tied to the Royal Rumble match, for better or worse. He won in one of the most controversial matches in the show’s history in 2015, and generally always has a big performance even when he comes up short.
On top of that, the specter of a world title opportunity is beginning to loom over Reigns. It’s been a long, long time since Reigns got a shot at one of the major titles, so I wouldn’t be the least bit surpirsed if he received the chance to main event WrestleMania against Brock Lesnar or Bray Wyatt.
Speaking of Lesnar, a “Big Dog” versus “Beast Incarnate” match is already a proven main event at WrestleMania. A boring main event at this point sure, but one that WWE has loads of experience with.
That alone means you can’t rule out the potential for WWE to run it back at WrestleMania 36, even if fans likely have little interest in it right now.
On the other hand, a match against Bray Wyatt would actually be fairly intriguing. Reigns and Wyatt have vastly different characters, so it would be interesting to see how their interactions with one another played out
No matter who he would face though, there’s more than enough reasons to believe Reigns has a good shot at winning his second Royal Rumble in 2020.
2. Kevin Owens
Here’s my early dark horse candidate for winning the 2020 Royal Rumble.
It’s fairly clear that WWE has no issue with pushing Owens. His feud with Shane McMahon was one of the marquee feuds on SmackDown for months. It just so happens that after that feud, Owens has been rarely used.
That seems to be about to change with an impending rivalry against AJ Styles potentially coming soon, but that doesn’t preclude Owens from winning the Men’s Royal Rumble match in the least.
Owens is coming off of a huge main event caliber push from the aforementioned McMahon feud, plus he has the perfect character to go up against someone like Brock Lesnar right now.
In fact, I would go as far as to argue that Owens is the ideal person on Raw to challenge Lesnar at the moment. His anti-establishment gimmick works perfectly against someone who’s been sold to fans as the definition of an overprivileged management favorite.
The rivalry basically writes itself then. Owens can rail against the fact that Lesnar plays by his own rules while he had to suffer under the tyranny of Shane O’Mac, and Heyman can jab back with his usual brilliant promos.
To me, that makes Owens a sneaky choice to potentially leave Royal Rumble with a guaranteed shot at the WWE Championship, and a scheduled showdown against Brock Lesnar.
1. Kofi Kingston
The one superstar who deserves this Royal Rumble win the most is Kofi Kingston. There’s no questioning it, no denying it, nothing. Kingston deserves this win, and a chance at retribution against Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania.
Kingston’s quick loss to Lesnar on the debut episode of Friday Night SmackDown on Fox still stings. It was the end to the reign of a great champion who was one of the hottest superstars in WWE for months upon months.
The fact that all of that could be taken away in seconds by Lesnar was almost unforgivable.
WWE should right that wrong starting at Royal Rumble.
It seems like Kofi Kingston has been on something of a losing streak lately, and may be haunted by the memory of that fateful WWE Championship match.
No matter how WWE decides to address that, all of it should be fuel for Kingston at Royal Rumble regardless. Kingston can declare that he’s going to prove the doubters who consider his run a fluke wrong by not only winning the Royal Rumble, but by vanquishing “The Beast” once and for all at WrestleMania.
It’s honestly close to a perfect story, and one that would let Kingston head into “The Grandest Stage of Them All” with a backing that would likely rival that of what he received at WrestleMania 35.
On top of that, I think there should be something to say about Kingston finally winning a Royal Rumble match after giving fans the spot of the night at these shows for years.
Someone who’s become that closely associated with the excitement that the Royal Rumble brings deserves to win the thing at least once, regardless of the story even.
Combine those two factors, and I can’t help but feel that Kofi Kingston should be considered the early favorite to win the 2020 Men’s Royal Rumble match.