WWE Royal Rumble 2023 It takes place tonight (Saturday, January 28) from the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. Starts at 7:00 PM ET with the Kickoff Show leading directly to the main card at 8:00 PM ET on the peacock.
As always, the main talking point coming out of this show will focus on the winners of the Royal Rumble. With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at the difficult decision WWE has to make regarding the men’s Royal Rumble match.
Cody Rhodes is the favorite among the 19 players officially announced for the match as of this morning. The Rumble marked his return to WWE from a torn pectoral shelving way back in June. Hot as he is when we last saw him in WWE, Rhodes is by far the most interesting prospect WrestleMania Challenger to Roman Reigns out of everyone on the list. Cody’s quest to win the WWE Championship is directly tied to the promotion’s first cut when he returned to WWE last year, so the Cody vs. Roman storyline is right there.
However, Cody’s win is no lock. We don’t know for sure that Triple H will book him the same way Vince McMahon did last year. More importantly, the main uncertainty as to who will win the Rumble match comes from two men who are not on the official entrant list: The Rock and Sami Zayn.
It was rumored a couple of years ago that WWE wanted to book The Rock vs. Roman Reigns in the main event of WrestleMania 39 in Hollywood. Dwayne Johnson is one of the biggest movie stars in the world, so of course WWE would like to make that happen and start it all off with a Rumble win for The Rock. Dwayne also fits well into The Bloodline’s storyline, due to his family’s connection to Reigns. The latest reports indicate that The Rock has a lot of Hollywood commitments and won’t have enough time to get in wrestling shape, so this isn’t the most likely scenario.
Then there’s Sami Zayn, probably the hottest guy in WWE today. He’s been the most entertaining superstar on WWE television in over a year, returning to his Canadian alpha male side with Brock Lesnar in late 2021. Sami has worked his way up to The Bloodline to the point where Roman Reigns has become paranoid and now he’s accusing him of trying to take his place as boss. for the tribe. What better way to continue this storyline then than by having Sami win the Royal Rumble match and be the fan favorite that actually ends Roman’s never-ending run as WWE Universal Champion? she’s perfect. This is the match that many fans want to see WrestleMania 39 Given the way their story turned out.
The main factors working against Sami is that we don’t know if he’ll even be in the Royal Rumble match, and he doesn’t have WWE’s favorite look for a major star. Sami got his stellar work on the character, not for being a credible wrestler at the main event level. There’s a reason why Roman is already crushing him in a title match in December 2021. Does WWE really see Sami Zayn as the star that should be main eventing? WrestleMania?
Another thing to consider is that Sami Zayn is not welcome or interested in doing WWE shows in Saudi Arabia, and one of those events is scheduled for May, just a month away. WrestleMania. The Saudis pay WWE over $50 million for each of these events, so the number one champ in WWE pretty much needs to be there. This does not sit well with Zayn’s chance of coming out WrestleMania as champ, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he can’t win the Royal Rumble match tonight.
WWE has a very difficult decision to make tonight between Cody Rhodes and Sami Zayn, assuming The Rock is unavailable. My best guess is that WWE doesn’t see Sami Zayn as him WrestleMania headlining, so they’d instead go with a very popular returning superstar from last year who checks all the boxes WWE wants a main event and world champion.
Do you think WWE would choose Cody Rhodes or Sami Zayn (or whoever) to win the men’s Royal Rumble match? Let us know in the comments below, Cagesiders.
