wrestling / Columns
Can They Be Champ? 01.27.08: Royal Rumble 2008 Random Predictions
Happy Royal Rumble day, everybody. As I’ve stated many times before, the RR is my favorite wrestling event of the year, so I am quite a bit stoked. I’m also fortunate enough to own the Royal Rumble Anthology, so I’ve been watching past Rumbles this whole week. I just watched the 2005 Royal Rumble yesterday. I can’t believe how many people were in that one that I barely know anything about. Say what you will about the WWE today, but they have a much better healthier mid-card than now then they did around that time.
Also, the number 1 and 2 entrants in the 2005 Rumble were Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit. You know what those two have in common? That’s right, they’re both former world champions.
Well, there is that other thing. They both main evented WrestleMania 20!
One thing confused me about that Rumble. Everyone says that the double elimination between Batista and Cena was a mistake, but watching it with the way the referees react by declaring their brands wrestler as the winner, the thing looks predetermined to me. Can anyone give me the full skinny on that?
Alright, let’s talk about today’s column. Usually, I like to predict things here. Now, I’ve made my 2008 Royal Rumble winner prediction, Triple H, well known over the last few months. I still stand by that. So, to make things more interesting, I’m going to try to predict virtually everything else for this Rumble.
But first, podcasts!
Larry and his wife, along with The Evolution Schematic’s Mathew Sforcina, preview the 2008 Royal Rumble!
TO STREAM: Simply press the play button on the podcast player.
TO DOWNLOAD: Right click on the DOWNLOAD HERE link below and then save the mp3 file to your computer.
Alright, like I said, HHH is my pick to win the Rumble. Orton vs. HHH for WM24 has seemed obvious to me ever since the HHH/Orton feud was mysteriously dropped after that crazy No Mercy PPV. At that point, I assumed they were saving it for WrestleMania. Now, most people agree that WM24 main events will be Trip vs. Orton and Edge vs. Taker. That said, some people are picking Taker to win this Rumble. Obviously, that’s not a bad choice, and I will concede that he’s the next most likely person to win it. However, we just had that last year, and I think the fans will be more excited about Trips winning the Rumble. The WWE knows that. That’s why we had that whole “HHH is out of the Rumble!” tease.
Now, some are quick to point out that three other people have won the Rumble in two consecutive years in a row before. I think those were different circumstance. The people who won two Rumbles in a row (Hogan, Austin, and HBK) were either the top guy in the company or were being positioned into that role. As much as we love Taker, he is working a light schedule these days, and is not the top guy in the WWE.
Alright, I have Trips to win it. What are my other predictions?
#1 and #2 entrants: HBK and Mr. Kennedy.
Obviously, this will work with their current feud rather well. The WWE also loves putting someone who won a Rumble from the number 1 spot in that position again (they did it with HBK in 2003, and they put Benoit in the number 2 spot in 2005). This will be a pairing that will get the crowd excited, and these two men will be able to hold the Rumble together in the early going. I think they’ll both last a good while, but Kennedy will eventually knock HBK out, sometime just before the 15th entrant makes his way to the ring.
Final Four: HHH, Undertaker, Batista, and Mr. Kennedy.
HHH goes without saying. If I think he’s going to win, obviously he has to make the final four. Undertaker makes sense, since a lot of people are expecting him to mimic last year’s win. He’ll probably get another late entrant number. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 30 again. Batista is another guy who is being positioned to be a strong contender in the Rumble. He’ll come in with and be completely dominant for awhile. He’ll also probably enter with a pretty late number, at least after 20. Mr. Kennedy is going to get the “longest lasting entrant” rub. Excuse me a second.
Longest time in the ring: Mr. Kennedy.
There we go. Anyways, Ken could use the rub, since he’s still perceived by many as being firmly in the mid-card, even after his win against HBK. Hopefully lasting this long in the Rumble will give him some more heat. That said, he’ll be the first to be eliminated of the final four, followed by Batista. Shades of last year, Taker and HHH will have a mini-match at the end of the Rumble, although this time things won’t go the Deadman’s way.
Shortest time the ring: Santino Marella.
Poor Santino. As much as we all love his new heel persona, he’s still a bit of a joke of an in-ring performer. They may as well take advantage of it and go for the comedy elimination.
Surprise entrant: Big Show.
We know he’s coming back, so why not have him make his re-debut in the Rumble? Heck, have him come out in the #27 spot so people really think he has a chance. Now, that said, I don’t feel all that comfortable with this prediction. After all, he just resigned with the WWE, meaning that they may not have any WrestleMania plans for him. If they don’t have any WM plans for him, they want to wait until after the Rumble to bring him back. That said, if they do have something for him at WM, the Rumble will be a good place to get that storyline going.
Possible other surprise entrants? Maybe we’ll see Matt Hardy make his return. Hopefully MVP will also be in the Rumble so that they can get their feud up and going again. Some people say we may see Ron Killings, but I think that the WWE will wait until after the Rumble to debut new wrestlers. Same goes for Colt Cabana. I think we’ll see more random veterans than anything. Usual suspects like Sgt. Slaughter and what not.
Alright, that’s it for me. Good times are ahead. We got the Rumble tonight, the Elimination Chamber next month (yes, I do like the Elimination Chamber), and then WrestleMania in March. A good time for WWE wrestling.
But before I leave, there are a couple of things I want to talk about. First would be Chavo winning the ECW championship. You know, I think I’m done pretending that the ECW championship is a world championship. Once you use that belt to continue feuds from other brands, it loses some of its luster. Honestly, the belt lost a lot of prestige when they randomly gave it to Morrison, who had absolutely no momentum going into his title run. Now, I hope the title change was done so that we can get Punk on a real show soon. He can’t get anymore popular if he just keeps wrestling mid-carder rejects like Chavo and Shelton.
Oh, and it looks like Lashley quit. I wasn’t expecting that. I figured the guy was probably thrilled with the position he had in the WWE. Thanks to his size and reasonably high popularity, I figured it was just a matter of time before he became WWE champion. I guess that’s not to be. I can’t say I’m too broken up about it.
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Have fun.
