Smark Out Moment

The Royal Rumble, despite usually having a weak undercard, is generally my favorite pay-per-view of the year. The RR match itself is without a doubt my favorite thing to watch in the WWE, above all the other gimmick matches (yes, even Hell in a Cell and Iron Man matches). Not only is this the second most important ppv of the year, but it's also incredibly fun to watch, even years from now. This year, let's see what we're looking at...

WWE Championship: Sheamus (c) vs. Randy Orton
This has me pissed. Why? Because it means there's a 99% chance that Sheamus will be going into WrestleMania as the champion and dropping it to Triple H. Bad enough that he was ever champion in the first place, but to do all this, too? Fuck off. That's what I say. Not only do I think Sheamus sucks and isn't remotely worthy enough to be a former WWE champion, not only do I think Triple H is not worth another title reign, and not only do I have ZERO interest in these two feuding, but c'mon, you people that deny Triple H being selfish are just delusional. He gives his rookie pal the top title in the company and builds him up to be undefeated just so he can be the grand savior of the entire company by beating him in the main event of the biggest ppv? If this happens, I'm going to be real apathetic about the WWE from now until it's completely over, as I DO NOT want to see this feud happen, especially at this time of the year. I'm praying that Orton wins the title here, as even though I think DiBiase isn't ready for a world title, he's FAR better than having Sheamus. Do I think Orton will win? Hell no. Not a chance. I guarantee you that DiBiase will end up doing something that screws Orton out of the win, so in retaliation, Orton will make sure DiBiase is eliminated from the Royal Rumble. Either he comes out and does it himself or he makes Rhodes do it. Either way, we'll probably see Cody take Randy's side and temporarily feud with Orton post-RR to stall so that they can hold off Orton/DiBiase until WrestleMania itself.

PREDICTION: Sheamus, unfortunately, retains, and I start paying less attention to the WWE.

World Heavyweight Championship: Undertaker (c) vs. Rey Mysterio
Could be good, could be bad. I'm not a fan of Mysterio at all and I think he would be more beneficial and much more fun in the Royal Rumble, as he's always good for being tossed around but still hanging in. However, at least the WWE isn't forcing another Batista/Taker match on us, so that's good. What bothers me about this is that there's absolutely no way in the world that Mysterio walks out of the arena as the champion. There's just absolutely no chance. That keeps me from being too excited about it, as it's quite obvious that Taker will retain until at least the Elimination Chamber ppv.

PREDICTION: Undertaker retains.

ECW Championship: Christian (c) vs. Ezekiel
At first, I thought this would be the opening match, as the ECW bout tends to be. On second thought, I think it might not. They may use this as Bathroom Break #2, the other being the Mickie/Michelle match. Without a doubt, though, this won't be some sort of Match of the Night. Ezekiel has some potential, but this match doesn't. These two have had DOZENS of matches together in the past few months and frankly, I've grown way past being tired of it. Christian will get "dominated" most of the match and then win. I'd be incredibly, incredibly shocked if Ezekiel were to win the title, as I don't see Christian dropping it until they start thinking about the draft, or at the earliest, he may drop it so he can find a spot on the WrestleMania card. Now is too soon, though. After all the ECW Homecoming things, I was hoping for someone different to challenge Christian, like Evan Bourne, rather than just the partner of the guy that Christian's been feuding with for months now.

PREDICTION: Christian retains with a quick Killswitch.

Women's Championship: Michelle McCool (c) vs. Mickie James
At first, I thought Beth would turn face and balance out the women on Smackdown (Mickie, Beth, and Maria vs. Michelle, Natalya, and Layla), but now that that doesn't seem likely, I have to alter my prediction of who the next champ will be. I was expecting Mickie to lose to Michelle and then Beth take the title from her, but now, it's more likely that Mickie will just win here, as she has more potential challengers than if Michelle were to retain. Plus, Michelle's reign is boring, and Maryse is going to win on Raw, so why have two heel champions?

PREDICTION: Mickie James wins the title.

Royal Rumble Match
They have only announced 25 of the 30 participants officially. The fact that only five spots remain is confusing me, as there are some people that are clearly going to be left out that should be in there, and seemingly for no reason. They've shown John Morrison, Dolph Ziggler, and R-Truth in the preview for the match, so I'd assume that they're a part of the five. Plus, Matt Hardy is pretty much a guarantee. Also, Drew McIntyre said in one promo that he will win the Royal Rumble, so I'd assume he's the fifth. This means no Finlay, Chavo, or Goldust, which is odd as they're always in it. The fact that these five aren't announced, though, makes it very tough to determine the intricacies of this match, though I'm going to give it a shot. This section is loooong...I'm warning you.

WHAT ENTRY NUMBER WILL WIN?

When you run the statistics, entries 0-10 have had 7 total wins, entries 11-19 have only had 2, and entries 20-30 have had 14 total wins. The average comes out to 18.2, and if you just do the average for the past 5 years it is 19.6, however one of the winners from that section was Hacksaw Jim Duggan during the first Royal Rumble. Now, on this event, there were only 20 competitors instead of 30, so this means Duggan's #13 spot, when adjusted for inflation, is really the equivalent of the #19.5, which obviously rounds up to 20. That means there's only ONE legitimate case of someone winning in the 11-19 range - HBK, at #18, which is still pushing it to the limit. Thus, you can conclude that there's between a 4 and 8 (ie, 6) percent chance that someone wins from this section. Still, within the past five winners, we've seen two from #30, one from #28, one from #8, and one from #2, which pretty much guarantees that the winner will not be 1-10 or 28-30 this year. Couple all these factors in together, along with how #27 has been given the distinction of the most winners, and you've got a projected winning spot between 17 and 26.

IN WHAT ORDER WILL THEY COME OUT?

Now, this is pretty much a shot in the dark, but after running a few comparisons, I'm going to guess that this is how the Royal Rumble will go. If I'm right, someone owes me a steak dinner lol. The way I see it: 1) Evan Bourne, 2) Drew McIntyre, 3) Zack Ryder, 4) Chris Masters, 5) John Cena, 6) Cody Rhodes, 7) John Morrison, 8) CM Punk, 9) Chavo Guerrero, 10) Jack Swagger, 11) Shawn Michaels, 12) Chris Jericho, 13) Finlay, 14) Kane, 15) William Regal, 16) Ted DiBiase, 17) Matt Hardy, 18) Triple H, 19) R-Truth, 20) Big Show, 21) Dolph Ziggler, 22) MVP, 23) Batista, 24) Khali, 25) Shelton Benjamin, 26) The Miz, 27) Yoshi Tatsu, 28) Carlito, 29) Mark Henry, 30) Kofi Kingston Why this order? Well, for one thing, there are patterns. For instance, the first two entries aren't going to be two heels, usually it's a face for #1 and a heel for #2. Entry #30 is always someone important. They like to group people where their current enemy is close to them, so that would explain the McIntyre/Morrison and MVP/Miz spots in relation to one another. The fifth entry is normally someone who can make a splash. There's almost always a "big man" in the last three spots, and he's usually preceded by at least two people that don't matter that much. I'm not going to bog you down in too many more details about this, as I could be completely off 100%. One little change effectively alters this entire list, so I'm not expecting to get any of them correct lol.

RANDOM PREDICTIONS

• If they book something to be "funny", it'll involve Hornswoggle. Though rest assured, it won't be funny.
• Zack Ryder will be the quick douchebag elimination. They did it last year with Kendrick and Ziggler, they've done it with the Miz in the past, etc. Basically, it's when someone has a grand total of like 2 minutes tops.
  
• If DiBiase costs Orton his match against Sheamus, rest assured DiBiase will be eliminated because of something Orton does
• I don't think there will be a shocker in terms of entrants this year. Edge returning wouldn't make much sense as he could rest more and return at a later date and still have his match with Jericho. He won't win the Royal Rumble if he returns anyway. Booker T says he's not under contract. RVD...they did that last year. I'm just hoping they don't add Hornswoggle into it.
• John Cena or Triple H gets the most amount of eliminations. Easily. You know those two.
• Batista will be eliminated by John Cena. This will spark a feud between the two.
• The allies turning on each other to watch are Rhodes and DiBiase or Jericho and Big Show.
  
• If Drew McIntyre is in it, he'll most likely last a very long time and eliminate someone important. I'm really suspecting that he'll eliminate Kane, for some reason.
• If you're looking for Chris Masters, Yoshi Tatsu, Evan Bourne, Zack Ryder, William Regal, or Carlito to get in pretty much any offense...you'll be sadly disappointed. These guys will be amongst the "Royal Rumble Rejects" this year and are not going to make a splash whatsoever.
  
• Michael Cole will not only say "vintage" a hundred or so times, but also "in his own right" and "shades of". The three will be so frequent that making a drinking game out of it is not recommended. 

THE POTENTIAL WINNERS AND CIRCUMSTANCES

There's only a few people that have the slightest chance of winning this year. It isn't as clear as it was last year, but there's no real question that there's a short list. In no particular order...

1) Triple H - Obviously he either wins, is the last person eliminated, or is at least in the final four. The guy is never going to take a step backwards and let someone else take some of the spotlight. With the HHH vs Sheamus rumors, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him win, but he may just challenge him without winning the Royal Rumble. Either way, if we have HHH vs Sheamus and it's for a title, I'm going to be disgusted and it will ruin my WrestleMania.

2) HBK - They're teasing the match he'll have against the Undertaker. For some reason, I just don't feel it. I think it's a swerve. Why would they do it twice in a row, especially for a world title, knowing that HBK can't beat Taker's streak and that they'll both be taking time off afterwards? One rumor says that they may have Triple H and Michaels "tie" and both win, but I don't think that will happen either. That seems too much like a false flag. My guess is that HBK doesn't win it, or if he does, he'll be facing Triple H at WrestleMania, not the Undertaker.

3) DiBiase - If Orton doesn't win the title, then you can bet your ass DiBiase doesn't win this. If Orton does win the title, you can bet your ass DiBiase has a 75% chance of winning this. It all depends on that. Right now, though, I'd say because of the HHH/Sheamus bullshit, DiBiase is the third most likely winner by a VERY long distance behind Triple H.

PREDICTION: Triple H will, unfortunately, convince everyone that him being on top of the world again is the best decision. They'll all listen like sheep and he'll win and beat Sheamus at WrestleMania while the commentators go on and on and on about how Sheamus is so powerful but the Game is the best in the world and we should all suck his cock.