WWE Royal Rumble 2020 will take place on Jan. 26 at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT live on the WWE Network with the kickoff show beginning at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT. The following will predict three possible Men’s Royal Rumble winners almost two months away from a PPV that kickstarts the road to WrestleMania 36.
Who will main event WrestleMania? The Royal Rumble answers that question for all the pondering WWE fans because this extremely popular PPV is all about one word: opportunity.
Indeed, all 30 wrestlers must eliminate their competitors by tossing them over the top rope, with both feet touching the floor. The last one standing will be announced the winner and earn a main event spot at WrestleMania against either the WWE Champion Brock Lesnar or the Universal Champion ‘The Fiend’ Bray Wyatt (if the current champions retain and remain champions after WWE’s TLC PPV this month).
Over the years, this match has gauged its popularity due to its many surprise entrances and jaw-dropping eliminations. The WWE fanbase desire the unexpected and appreciate the shock value behind this historic match.
Royal Rumble 2020 should deliver just that, especially with the many shocking returns that have occurred in the past few months, such as CM Punk and John Morrison. Before we get to predicting three possible winners for the Men’s Royal Rumble, let’s give an honorable mention to the Big Dog, Roman Reigns, who is actually one of the top betting favorites to win the Royal Rumble match in 2020.
Honorable Mention: Roman Reigns
Even though he already won the Royal Rumble in 2015, Roman Reigns still has a solid chance at winning the Rumble in 2020. Indeed, Superstars can win the Royal Rumble twice in five years. John Cena did just that in 2008 and 2013, so it should not be too far fetched for Reigns to do the same.
As a top babyface in the WWE, Reigns’ prior victory in 2015 did not resonate with the crowd very well. Now that the crowd is cheering Reigns again, this could be an opportune moment for his reemergence into the main event scene.
If he were to win the Royal Rumble in 2020, he should target the Universal Champion Bray Wyatt. Last year, Reigns relinquished the Universal Championship due to leukemia and he has not received a Universal Championship opportunity since returning to in-ring action in 2019. Winning the Royal Rumble here should put him in contention for the championship he never lost.
With that being said, let’s predict three possible winners for the Men’s Royal Rumble, starting with the former WWE Champion and current SmackDown Tag Team Champion Kofi Kingston.
3.) Kofi Kingston
Is it safe to say that Kofi Kingston is Mr. Royal Rumble? Yes. Kingston has made the Rumble so much more entertaining to watch with his innovative and miraculous saves. Only God knows what he has planned for the Rumble in 2020.
Is it safe to say that Kofi Kingston will win the Royal Rumble in 2020? That’s a big maybe, at best, but it’s still worth expounding due to the unjustifiable way in which his past WWE Championship reign culminated in October of 2019.
Yes, he won the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 35 against Daniel Bryan and it was the best WrestleMania moment of the entire show despite not being in the main event. Yes, he retained his WWE Championship for six months straight against all incoming challengers, especially ones he had a lot of history with, such as the ‘envious’ Dolph Ziggler and ‘stupid’ Randy Orton.
However, his abrupt 10-second championship loss to Brock Lesnar on a SmackDown (rather than a PPV, like Hell in a Cell which was two days away from that SmackDown) in October threw all of those aforementioned accomplishments out the door with a bad taste in the audience’s mouths. The majority of the WWE fans know that Lesnar performs spectacular matches with smaller competitors, but why couldn’t that be done with Kingston?
Lesnar stole the show with the likes of AJ Styles, Daniel Bryan, and Rey Mysterio in three consecutive Survivor Series. However, when it came to Kingston, it was a different story and it is thereby even safer to say that the racial overtones cannot be ignored, especially since it took Daniel Bryan, rather than WWE management, to push for Kingston to face him at Mania to begin with.
On a further note, Kingston may not even get another WWE Championship match despite his impressive six-month run as the WWE Champion. His championship win at WrestleMania 35 was supposed to signify his official and permanent transition to the main event. Instead, his entire reign was played out as a fluky Cinderella story to please fans for the short term but disappoint them in the long term.
Now that he is relegated to the tag team division with Big E, many naysayers may assert that it’s now Big E’s time to shine and that he should win the Rumble, instead of Kingston. Although that would be splendid and should not warrant a New Day disbandment, Kingston still has unfinished business with the current WWE Champion Brock Lesnar.
There is only one way to make things right: Kingston wins the Rumble in 2020 and challenges Lesnar for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 36. Although he might not defeat Lesnar, he still deserves a better and longer match on a big fight field that will be remembered for years to come and that will further manifest his prowess in the squared circle as well as his future Hall of Fame attributes.
2.) Kevin Owens
It is completely appropriate to believe that the WWE will screw Kofi Kingston yet again not because he lacks talent and/or does not deserve such an opportunity but most likely because of his skin color and/or compact body mass. With the company more inclined to not pull the trigger on Kofi Mania, KO Mania may very well be in the works for the road to WrestleMania 36.
Earlier this year, Chris Jericho revealed on Busted Open Radio (per WrestleTalk) that three years ago, Kevin Owens was set to defend his Universal Championship against his then-best friend, Chris Jericho. Unfortunately, their match was unjustifiably relegated to a mid-card United States Championship feud once Goldberg dethroned Owens at Fastlane 2017.
Although Owens dethroned Jericho to win the United States Championship at WrestleMania 33, it was not exactly the KO Mania the WWE Universe imagined. The match and the victory simply did not mean as much since it was not the championship that he spent an entire half-year building up with Jericho.
On the other hand, when Owens won the Universal Championship on the Raw after SummerSlam 2016 thanks to Triple H turning on his golden boy, Seth Rollins, the victory was monumental and set the pace for a new era that was worth experiencing. On top of that, it foreshadowed exactly the feud in the works today: Kevin Owens vs. Seth Rollins.
Maybe the long overdue KO Mania will finally come full circle in 2020. Triple H even gave a pep talk to Owens on the road to Survivor Series and the Royal Rumble, just like he did for Rollins before Rollins won the Rumble in 2019. It is very likely that the same fate will be in store for Owens, who is now in the main event scene of Monday Night Raw as one of the hottest babyfaces in the WWE today.
If he were to win the Rumble, he should challenge Brock Lesnar in a first-time feud for the WWE Championship, which has eluded him his entire career. Better yet, he could target his grand slam in the WWE against Lesnar at WrestleMania 36, just like Rollins did last year at WrestleMania 35.
On Raw two weeks ago, Rollins made the claim during his town hall meeting that Owens wants to be him. Since their paths seem so similar, this claim is not too far fetched but there’s still no doubt that Owens could take 2020 by storm with an epic Rumble victory in January and his very first main event match at WrestleMania 36.
1.) CM Punk
Kofi Mania and KO Mania would be fantastic, but would they be the ‘best’ case scenarios? Absolutely not, especially since the Best in the World officially debuted on Fox’s WWE Backstage three weeks ago.
Royal Rumble 2014 was the very last wrestling event from which the WWE Universe saw CM Punk inside the WWE ring. What if he returns to Royal Rumble 2020 as the #30 entrant and wins the Rumble to finally fulfill his lifelong dream of main eventing WrestleMania?
After his perfect response to the Hulk Hogan question, as well as his exemplary advice to Seth Rollins’ tweeting, this Superstar should already be the WWE Champion and should hold onto it longer than 434 days this time. In fact, he should hold onto it forever; besides, he is the predominant reason pro wrestling was revolutionized in the WWE to begin with.
He was also the predominant reason fans tuned in to watch the WWE in 2011-2013 and is now the reason fans tune in to watch WWE Backstage in 2019. Most importantly, thanks to the pulse that he has for the WWE product, he is the predominant reason WWE is exhilarating to watch.
Although Punk’s debut on WWE Backstage was exhilarating, the fans need to hear that huge crowd reaction in the WWE arena. Many will be excited to witness his candid insight on the WWE product, but the inner ‘mark’ in the WWE fanbase will never count out a CM Punk return to the WWE ring.
In fact, even the WWE Superstars, such as Seth Rollins and Universal Champion Bray Wyatt, won’t count it out either. These two Superstars continue to tease a match with Punk, but Rollins seems to be the more notable target.
Rollins arrived as a guest to WWE Backstage this week to address the CM Punk situation as well as his tweeting. It looks like this feud is far from over and could blow up on the road to WrestleMania, if intended.
If Rollins and Punk were the final two in the Rumble and Punk eliminated the Royal Rumble Winner of 2019 at the last moment to earn a main event championship opportunity at WrestleMania 36, it would blow the roof off the place. Whether that WrestleMania championship match be against WWE Champion Brock Lesnar or Universal Champion Bray Wyatt, it will finally be time to change the culture and live the revolution. But most importantly, it’ll be clobbering time.