“It’s the most wonderful time, of the year”

No, not Christmas. ROYAL RUMBLE, baby! As a wrestling fan, the Royal Rumble is my absolute favourite time of the year. The 30 man over the top rope battle royal provides a ton of fun and entertainment, excitement, suspense, drama, comedy and unpredictability. It’s like what WWE should be all year round, but they’re not, so they ram it all into one match to make up for it lol. We have surprise returns, crazy eliminations, insane entrants (Benoit going in as #1 only to win etc). I just love it. I avoid spoilers as much as possible these days, but for the RR, I avoid EVERYTHING I possibly can. I don’t want to know what number anyone is gonna come out at unless it’s announced on the shows (like Miz being #1 this year). I don’t want to know anyone that’s returning during the rumble match. And above all else, I don’t want to know who is going to win. Not knowing a damn thing makes watching the show live that much more fun. So, with the 2012 RR just days away, here are my thoughts and predictions on the “final” card:

John Cena Vs Kane

Emperor PalpaKane is trying to turn John Cena into a sith. At least, that’s how I’m seeing this feud. Leading up to WM against The Rock, its nice to see Cena involved in a feud like this, but come on, how fucking random is it that Kane showed up one week with his mask back on to try and make Cena evil? Unless The Rock somehow hired Kane to do this, then this is probably the biggest random coincidence. Cena needs to embrace the hate that he’s getting, something The Rock was trying to get him to do, and while this is going on Kane happens to show up to get Cena to embrace the hate. So yeah. Random coincidence for now lol.

Not been a big fan of the build to this either, with the exception of Zack Ryder being brutally assaulted on a regular basis and taken out of action last week :D. Cena has just done some weird constipation faces in an attempt to look angry, and that’s about it. Match itself will be a big brawl with probably a shitty ending.

Winner: John Cena

Daniel Bryan (c) Vs The Big Show Vs Mark Henry – Triple Threat Steel Cage Match – World Heavyweight Championship

Man am I looking forward to this! Big Show and Henry started their feud back in July, and then when Show returned we got some really fun big man matches between the two, including the awesome moment of the ring breaking, something that WWE hasn’t actually overused! During this feud they were building Bryan up and he too had some incredibly fun matches with Henry, which eventually led to him winning the WHC by cashing in his MITB (which he won at the MITB PPV… the same show that essentially started Henry’s epic “Hall of Pain” gimmick and was the major groundwork for the Henry/Show feud… fuck that PPV was awesome!). With the WHC, Bryan as a character has evolved into one of my absolute favourites in wrestling right now, and he’s had some fun matches with Show and some more with Henry as well! So all 3 guys have shown they have chemistry with each other, with Bryan and Henry having 2 really great gimmicks atm and Show, while not doing anything that noteworthy as far as being a character, doing perfectly fine. Its rare that a triple threat happens when I don’t feel like its forced. This match just feels “natural”, like all 3 men really deserve to be in the match. Months of build up to them having a triple threat through singles matches, tag matches, and interference. Its nice to see. And it being in a cage? Perfect. Bryan has been doing everything he can to escape with the title, and this time he can’t escape with the belt unless he manages to climb a 15th steel cage and avoids 2 monsters at the same time. Wow, not only does this legit deserve to be a triple threat, but the stipulation is actually spot on too! Which makes me wonder, just who the fuck is booking this thing on SD?

The match itself has potential to be fun as fuck. Not sure it will be “great” in terms of quality, but I’m actually confident I won’t be disappointed with it. Might end up being the MOTN depending on the time it gets. Could be better than the WWE Title match. Yeah, I said it.

Winner – Daniel Bryan

CM Punk (c) Vs Dolph Ziggler – Special Guest Referee John Laurinaitis – WWE Title

The actual Ziggler/Punk feud hasn’t been very good, and has been very, very overshadowed by the Laurinaitis/Punk feud. Which is a shame because I think Ziggler has been tremendous as of late and really deserved more of a spotlight for this match than he’s been getting. Laurinaitis being the referee could end up hurting the match, or could help it, it really isn’t something I can predict. The whole ” Laurinaitis might get fired on Raw” crap they seemed to just throw into the end of Raw last week also kinda screws up the guest referee stuff because now Big Johnny is less likely to try to screw Punk in fear of getting fired the next night. Way to kill the heat. Speaking of, Punk hit the GTS on Big Johnny on Raw too. More heat killed. Laurinaitis can’t screw Punk or he will likely be fired, and Punk knocked him out. Where the FUCK do they go from here? Ah well. Hopefully now the Rumble match will be more about, you know, the match than the special referee.

Which brings me to the match itself. Ziggler is excellent right now. His mic work has improved a ton, and he’s awesome in the ring. Punk is also great in the ring. They’ve had a couple of really good matches on TV recently. This is the match most likely to steal the show.

Winner – CM Punk

30 Man Royal Rumble Match – Winner receives WWE/WHC match at WrestleMania 28

Announced Competitors:

Jinder Mahal
Sheamus
Santino Marella
Wade Barrett
Mick Foley
The Miz (#1 entrant)
R-Truth
Chris Jericho

As far as I know they haven’t announced anyone else right now, but I could be wrong. WWE.com usually has a list of the people who are going to be in it, but not this year! Which I’m not bothered about because it just adds more unpredictability to the match.

Rumble matches are THE reason I love the RR event as much as I do. Some of my favourite matches are RR matches. 1991, 1992, 1996, 2001, 2002, 2009. All super awesome fun matches imo. And out of the 24 they’ve done so far, I’d only say… 3 of them are actually bad matches. 3 out of 24 (95, 98, 99). Pretty great statistic in wrestling I think lol.

Some great talent has already been announced, and there are a bunch of other talented guys who haven’t officially been announced for it that will no doubt be part of it too. Combine that with some potential surprise entrants and just like every single year, the match has potential to be fun as fuck. And just like every year, I can’t fucking wait!!!

So who is going to win? Some years are predictable as hell, some aren’t. This year isn’t as easy to predict imo. Orton just returned on SD and is very heavily protected by WWE, and with this being in his home town he has a huge chance to win the thing. I hope he doesn’t, but it could happen. Sheamus has been pushed huge since day one, and the last year he’s actually deserved the push he’s got. Wade Barrett probably has less of a chance than Orton and Sheamus, but despite everything that has happened to him booking wise, WWE keep trying to shove him down our throats lol. I’m hoping he and Orton will continue their feud by eliminating each other, that way neither of them can win :D.

But my overall pick to win is:

Winner – Chris Jericho

Jericho has just returned. Huge hype for it, and he’s been smart with his return by doing… nothing. Nothing except for telling us that the world is going to end at the RR. And I believe it will start with him winning the RR. Once that happens Jericho will unleash… himself upon us. And it should be awesome.

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