1. As Royal Rumble Winner And WWE World Heavyweight Champion
Since unifying the WWE and World Heavyweight Championships, the WWE have painted themselves into a corner with regards to the Royal Rumble. For the past few years, the Rumble winner would happily challenge for whichever was the lesser of the two belts at the time, leaving iconic stars such as Cena and The Rock to battle in the main event. Although an unpopular decision - especially because the prize of winning the Rumble has historically been to headline WrestleMania - it has allowed the creative staff greater flexibility in booking huge stars at the top of the card. The unifying of the belts has stripped away that luxury and provided fans with the promise of new and exciting WrestleMania main events once more. The unpopular decision to book Batista as the 2014 Rumble winner was remedied by modifying the main event into a triple threat match - proving that that WWE are capable of calling a audible if the situation isn't progressing as they'd quite like. Should Ambrose's popularity continue to soar at such a rate, they might well be forced to do the same for him. The WWE may be tempted to shoehorn Dean in a Bryan-esque manner, but it would be far more effective to go back to basics. Have him go the classic route - win the Royal Rumble and beat the champion for the belt. Include a third big name in the match to drive up buyrates, sure, but make sure Dean walks out as champion. It might seem way too early to pull the trigger on Ambrose, but if we learned anything from WrestleMania 30, it's that larger-than-life superstars such as Cena and Orton can be overshadowed by a much fresher face. If anybody's worth such a monumental gamble on, it's probably a wrestler with the quality and promise of Dean Ambrose.
