The 2017 Royal Rumble is stacked. Last year’s “Road to WrestleMania” was injury plagued and now the WWE is playing with house money. In fact, the WWE can turn this year’s Rumble into their Mega Millions lottery and finally shift into to the “New Era”.
WWE has been using the “New Era” term for a while now.
There has been a change in philosophy in some areas, such as Kevin Owens and AJ Styles holding titles and giving the women main event matches. However, it still feels like WWE hasn’t fully transitioned just yet.
Time and time again they bring back guys like Lesnar, Goldberg, Rock and Taker for cheap pops & ratings. Not only do they return for cheap pops, sometimes they’re shoved into the main event of a PPV. Unjust, when you consider they’ve been on TV all of 15 minutes that month.
We all know Vince McMahon likes big guys. Taker, Kane, Diesel, Luger, Big Show, Yokozuna, Lesnar, Goldberg, Batista; the list goes on. However, the landscape has changed lately, which can be attributed to current Smackdown GM, Daniel Bryan.
The 2017 Royal Rumble can mark a pivotal change and sort off end the “big guy”. You know, the Taker, Lesnar and Goldberg era of WWE.
The Rumble card is filled with guys who are “redefined heavyweights”. Guys who are not your Taker’s and Lesnar’s but they’re not necessarily the Rock, HHH, Edge or Orton either. These guys are more like your Michael and Angle. Your average 5’11” – 6’1″, 215 – 235 pound, superstars.
The 2017 Rumble card has Sasha Banks vs Nia Jax, Cesaro & Sheamus vs Gallows & Anderson and Becky Lynch, Nikki Bella, Naomi vs Alexa Bliss, Mickie James, Natalya on the kickoff show. A lineup that’d be main card worthy just 5 years ago.
The main card will have Neville vs Rich Swann, Charlotte vs Bayley, Kevin Owens vs Roman Reigns, AJ Styles vs John Cena and of course the Royal Rumble match.
Who’s the biggest guy/girl there? Is it Sheamus? Maybe even Nia Jax?
The champions coming into the Royal Rumble are Kevin Owens and AJ Styles. Other guys like Balor, Ziggler, Miz, Seth Rollins, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods are in the rumble and for the most part they are part of main event storylines.
This will happen more as WWE looks into the indie world and sees what wrestling is today. Guys like Will Ospreay, Ricochet and Kenny Omega are all dynamic pro-wrestlers. They are the main event attractions for their promotions and people don’t care about their size because their talent makes them feel 9′ tall.
Let’s not only focus the men. The women have diversity as well, just look at Nia Jax. Rarely do we get female game changers with a physical presence in WWE. We had Chyna, we have Charlotte and now Nia Jax is next.
This Rumble is a sign of the future of WWE because not only is the talent in place, but the opportunity for them to shine is there as well.
As far as us seeing “monster” guys like Taker, Goldberg and Lesnar taking over WWE again; it might be the end of that era…..