10 Potential WWE Royal Rumble 2018 Winners

9. Bobby Roode

Bobby Roode SmackDown
WWE.com

It would be a major, major shock if Bobby Roode were to prevail in the 2018 Royal Rumble match, but it can’t be ruled out all the same. Roode has been featured as a megastar-in-waiting on SmackDown Live, and the WWE Universe can expect him to be featured in some way at WrestleMania 34. By that, I don’t mean a good run in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.

The 2016 brand split and subsequent introduction of the WWE Universal Championship has opened up the Royal Rumble match once again. WWE is no longer tied to putting the winner in the actual ‘Mania main event. Alberto Del Rio and Sheamus won Royal Rumbles before opening the 'Showcase of the Immortals', and Randy Orton’s reward for winning last year’s match was a bug-infested shambles.

Bobby Roode could easily stand tall at the end of the 30-man extravaganza, before going on to challenge someone like AJ Styles or even Shinsuke Nakamura on the WrestleMania undercard. Roode’s position in the SmackDown pecking order may well become clear at Survivor Series, when the former NXT Champion represents the blue show in the 5-on-5 battle for brand supremacy.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.