WWE Royal Rumble 2018 is the first stop on the road to WrestleMania 34 and an important pay-per-view for Roman Reigns, John Cena and countless other stars.
In all likelihood, we will have a very good understanding of what the WrestleMania card will be after The Royal Rumble, which actually resulted in rather disappointing WWE Network subscriber numbers last year. Perhaps that can be attributed to WWE's over-reliance on part-time stars like The Undertaker, Goldberg and Brock Lesnar, who dominated the build to last year's Rumble event but ultimately delivered rather forgettable performances at the event.
The Royal Rumble is so pivotal because it lays the foundation for WrestleMania, which was the most watched event in WWE history last year and is looking to replicate that success in 2018. Thus, the importance of the Royal Rumble can't be overstated because a poorly booked Royal Rumble could turn fans off to the product if it telegraphs that we'll be getting a pedestrian WrestleMania 34 card. On the flip side, a memorable show could drive up TV viewership and the WWE Network subscriber count, which has somewhat plateaued as of late.
In other words, WWE better ensure that it has quality booking this Sunday, especially after it recently laid an egg for a number of marquee storylines, including the surprisingly boring Survivor Series main event. Here are five bad booking decisions WWE must avoid at the 2018 Royal Rumble.
Brock Lesnar Retains The Universal Title
Braun Strowman may already be WWE's top draw, and the company cannot risk halting his momentum again just for the sake of Brock Lesnar.
After all, "The Beast" is one of many top stars who may not be drawing nearly as well as you might expect, and there are still questions remaining about both his future and his past performances. Critics have pointed out that "Lesnar's matches keep getting harder to watch," and he, at least at one point, was planning on leaving WWE after WrestleMania 34. Though his contract may be extended through August, the question remains: Why push him if he could be leaving and his drawing power is limited?
Make no mistake about it, the art of one star being bigger than WWE as a whole is long gone, and that applies to Lesnar. He's not a Steve Austin, who sold 12 million t-shirts in a single calendar year, and he's not The Rock, whose return match resulted in the most pay-per-view buys in WWE history. The nature of the business has changed, and it's the WWE brand that is more important than any particular star, which is why the seemingly never-ending push of Lesnar has been so baffling at times.
The entire idea behind his push is to use his eventual loss to help establish a new star, right? If that's really the case, then the Royal Rumble is where he should lose the Universal Championship because the best person for him to drop it to is Strowman.
Asuka Loses Another Battle Royal
As much as WWE likes to claim that Asuka is undefeated, that's actually not true.
In a classic case of WWE rewriting history to fit its own narrative, WWE chooses to completely ignore the fact that Asuka was once eliminated from an NXT battle royal by, of all people, Eva Marie. WWE can say Asuka is "undefeated," but it's more like "she's never been pinned or submitted," and having her lose yet another battle royal would be a massive mistake. She is clearly hitting her stride on the main roster, where she was the second most popular new star to debut in 2017 behind only Shinsuke Nakamura.
Asuka has the "it factor" that can't really be explained or replicated, and it's clear she has all the potential in the world to develop into the biggest draw in the women's division, if only the booking is right. That means that WWE shouldn't repeat the mistake it made in NXT by having her eliminated from a battle royal, which would indeed count as a defeat and could potentially erase a lot of the hard work and effort put into establishing her as a must-see attraction in the women's division.
There's no need to throw that all away at The Royal Rumble, where she'll be in front of a much bigger audience than she was when suffered her first loss in NXT, even though WWE doesn't acknowledge it. The real money is in Asuka continuing to run roughshod over the women's division until WWE can build up a suitable challenger who will benefit tremendously from being the first one to conquer one of the most dominant performers in WWE history. AJ Styles Loses The WWE Championship
AJ Styles is clearly the No. 1 star on SmackDown and is someone who should not be shafted once again by dropping the WWE title at The Royal Rumble for the second straight year.
You can look at so many factors and see that fans care more about Styles than anyone on the blue brand. In addition to the tremendous crowd reaction he receives, search data indicates he was WWE's No. 3 merchandise seller in 2016 while he's currently positioned in that same slot on WWEShop.com. In addition, a look at SmackDown's viewership archive shows that Styles helped catapult the show to four straight weeks of viewership increases after his WWE title win last November, demonstrating why he calls SmackDown "the house that AJ Styles built."
It's clear that Styles, who also drew well on YouTube in 2017, is the king of SmackDown and that taking the title off him before WrestleMania 34 is a surefire way to hurt the quality of the blue brand's programming, which is better when he's holding the title than when someone else is.
The drama involving Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan has been entertaining at times, but it's also overtaken the entire blue brand, a problem that would only be worsened if Styles drops the belt to Owens or Zayn at Royal Rumble. That storyline should be completely separate from whatever Styles does at WrestleMania 34, preferably a rematch of his Wrestle Kingdom 10 match against Shinsuke Nakamura, who himself has grown to be a solid attraction.
No Surprise Entrants
If we learned anything in 2017, it's that well executed surprises can work wonders in terms of piquing interest and driving viewership.
A prime example of that is Vince McMahon's return to SmackDown last fall, which coincided with a shocking storyline attack by Kevin Owens that helped the show attract 172,000 more viewers and do its fourth best viewership of 2017. Likewise, Carmella's controversial and surprising Money in the Bank win boosted SmackDown viewership by an astounding 25% only for viewership to rise the following week as well. Likewise, SmackDown viewership soared to more than 3.1 million, well above the show's typical viewership, for the "Superstar Shakeup" last year.
What do all of these episodes have in common? They came after surprising results on previous shows, and fans couldn't wait to see what happened next.
That's the great thing about the Royal Rumble, which is the perfect time and place for surprise returns that could renew interest in the happenings on both Raw and SmackDown. Raw viewership jumped by more than 300,000 viewers for last year's post Royal Rumble episode even though the 2017 Royal Rumble really didn't feature what anyone would consider a major "surprise" return.
Thus, it's reasonable to assume that bringing back a few top-level names in both the women's and men's Royal Rumble matches could result in a massive spike in viewership, one that would be more sustainable if it's made clear that the returning star or stars are back for the long haul. WWE is lucky this year in that names like Batista and Ronda Rousey could be prime candidates to come back, which might serve the company well in the ratings department.
Roman Reigns Or John Cena Wins The 3o-Man Royal Rumble
John Cena and Roman Reigns were the two early betting favorites to win the Royal Rumble, and they've remained at or near the top of the betting odds ever since then.
The fact that Reigns and Cena have consistently been among the favorites to win the 30-man battle royal likely surprises no one, but it would be a massive mistake for either star to win it. Once a launching pad that propelled rising stars to full-blown super stardom, the Royal Rumble match has recently served as nothing more than a stage for already established stars to win again. Aside from Reigns' victory in 2015, the last four Royal Rumble winners (Randy Orton, Triple H, Batista and Cena) had all previously held a world title multiple times, essentially rendering the purpose of the Rumble completely meaningless.
The match should serve as a catalyst for an up-and-comer, and that remains especially true in 2018 when Cena is rumored to be in line for a huge match at WrestleMania 34 (and doesn't need to win the Rumble to get there) while Reigns could easily win an Elimination Chamber match next month to get to his seemingly inevitable 'Mania clash with Lesnar. Cena is one of the only part-time stars who's around enough to be a proven live event draw, so it makes sense to give him a marquee WrestleMania 34 match.
However, that doesn't necessitate a Royal Rumble win while Reigns' probable clash with Lesnar actually doesn't either. This is indeed the year for a surprising Royal Rumble winner, likely someone on SmackDown, with the logic being that a career-defining win in front of large viewing audience could help establish whoever wins it as a top star.
Blake Oestriecher is an elementary school teacher by day and a sports writer by night. He’s a contributor to the Forbes @SportsMoneyBlog, where he primarily covers WWE. You can follow him on Twitter @BOestriecher.
