Its easy to say that WWE is making a mistake in breaking from more than 20 years of tradition by making the Royal Rumble match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. But it should be noted that things havent exactly been smooth sailing for WWE in recent months or even recent years. The last two Royal Rumbles ended in disarray, with the winners Batista in 2013 and Roman Reigns in 2014 being booed loudly because Daniel Bryan was not the one heading to WrestleMania for a world title match. Fans have become very vocal in that respect, and there was the possibility that whomever WWE would have chosen, fans could have rejected him, leading to another panicked booking session during the Road to WrestleMania. By making the Rumble for the title, it puts Reigns in the role of fighting from underneath. If he wins, he hopefully will finally have rallied the fans to his side in vanquishing the evil Mr. McMahon. If he loses (again, say to Brock Lesnar), then hes once again the underdog, fighting for a spot at Mania and having to overcome the odds to win back his title. The 1992 Rumble took place before the winner got a WrestleMania title shot. That custom started the following year, so this really is breaking tradition. We soon will learn if breaking that tradition really is best for business.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
