10 Wild Outside Bets To Win The 2022 WWE Royal Rumble
It's not looking like Big E - so how about...
Following last night's RAW, either one of two things has happened:
1) Big E is not working Seth Rollins at WrestleMania after all.
2) Big E is still working Seth Rollins at WrestleMania, but WWE don't know how to book.
The original plan was thus, per Dave Meltzer: Seth Rollins was going to win the WWE Title at Day 1, Big E was going to win the Royal Rumble, and the two men were set to clash at 'Mania. Roman Reigns contracting COVID-19 knackered that plan, and for some reason, WWE knackered Big E on RAW last night. He lost clean to Rollins in an impromptu match. One would think Big E's depressingly brief time in the main event picture is over now, which blows up the Rumble field.
Predicting the winner was already a rather difficult task, since so few WWE wrestlers are actually over. To calculate the answer, a formula must be used:
From the number of currently signed independent contractors, take the wrestlers least affected by WWE's horrendous booking and further subtract those who were recently allowed their turn.
This leaves precious few viable candidates.
As a result, all bets are off...
10. W. Morrissey
WrestleVotes recently tweeted that WWE might just be entertaining the idea of opening 'The Forbidden Door'.
They already sort of have, given the agreement to slot Knockouts Champion Mickie James into the Women's Rumble, but that's less 'Forbidden Door' and more 'lol We Fired Too Many Women, Our Bad Door'. Perhaps the source in question is connecting a few dots or making a somewhat informed guess, but regardless, the rumour is out there.
Let's rate its legitimacy.
Nobody from AEW is walking into the Royal Rumble. It's not happening. Tony Khan would want that person to be booked very strongly, and Vince is not going to freely advertise the competition. He might be tempted to further taunt Triple H, since it's his favourite hobby these days, but it's just not happening.
This leaves Impact Wrestling and ROH basically, and few of the contractors plying their trade in those promotions meet Vince's criteria: tall, tanned, athletic, barely trained.
But there is one guy working Impact who almost does: the very tall former Big Cass, who has only worked one other name promotion, which hardly positions him as a polymath with the dreaded ability to work several unique styles.
Probability: 40%