1. What Will The Title Picture Look Like After Sunday?
It remains unclear who is going to walk out of the Royal Rumble as the WWE World Heavyweight Champion on Sunday, and that is a good thing. For once, we cant predict the WrestleMania main event with reasonable certainty. Rock-Cena in 2013 was a given. Orton-Batista was a lock the moment the Animals return was announced (with Bryan only added after a fan uprising). But any of the three men Brock Lesnar, John Cena or Seth Rollins could emerge victorious. WWE could have Lesnar remain the unbeatable Beast for the Rumble winner to slay. Cena could be the companys Old Faithful for yet another Mania main event. And Rollins could be a weasely yet talented heel champ who gets upended in April. And the winner of the Rumble appears to be down to two favorites: Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns. Reigns is the heir apparent to John Cenas role making childish jokes, overcoming incredible odds to constantly win, and thought of as the enduring babyface despite being booed by a portion of the crowd. His meteoric rise was derailed this fall due to a hernia, and Roman is just now getting some momentum behind him. Bryan is the ultimate fan favorite, kept out of last years Rumble, which nearly ruined the match due to fan reaction. With a logical storyline leading to a WrestleMania XXX victory cast aside, fans rebelled and forced Bryan back into the conversation. This year is an opportunity to make amends. Will WWE do that or find another angle for him to hopefully satisfy fans? But it all starts with the Royal Rumble and seeing what road WWE wants to travel on toward WrestleMania. Will it be a bumpy, pothole-filled journey, or a straight shot on the freeway? Either way, we get underway on Sunday.
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.
