WWE Royal Rumble 2017: 10 Things To Expect

by Andrew Soucek

1. Empty Seats

A fan sits in an empty section of seats prior to an NFL football game between the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
Michael Dwyer/AP

Despite everything just listed, WWE is going to have a tough time selling out the Alamodome in January. They just have so much working against them right now.

The most obvious is the ratings, which are the lowest they’ve been in the history of Raw. The fact is that the less fans who are watching, the less fans there are to sell tickets to. Also working against WWE is how poorly the post-brand split has gone.

Wrestling is still about big, top babyfaces to bring in fans, and Seth Rollins hasn’t been positioned as that guy in an effective way. That's going to come hurt come January if that hasn't changed.

While SmackDown has been a pretty impressive show, Dean Ambrose has crashed as a character over the past few months and is losing supporters by the week. John Cena has been around the wrestling world so many times that it’s doubtful there’s too many Texans out there just dying to finally see him in person.

The other problem is that Royal Rumble is only a few months away from WrestleMania. Meaning most hardcore fans are only going to go to one of the big shows simply due to budgetary reasons.

There may not be too many fans out there able to convince their significant others that they need to take two weekends off to spend a ton of money to see a wrestling show within the space of a few months. Good luck to those who still need to bring that up! And again, good luck to WWE to make the Rumble a sell out. They certainly have a lot of work ahead of them.

Advertisement
Contributor

As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at." Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week. Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com