WWE News And Rumor Roundup: ‘Monday Night Raw’ Clues To ‘Royal Rumble 2017’
The WWE network has come in for some stick in recent weeks. WWE’s Monday Night Raw is supposedly its flagship weekly event, but recent events have been criticized by the WWE Universe for a lack of storyline development. With the first big WWE pay-per-view event this year, Royal Rumble 2017, less than two-weeks away, fight fans expected a rush of announcements at last night’s event, but surprisingly there were none. As reported in the Inquisitr yesterday, WWE star Triple H posted on Twitter over the weekend, stating that he was on his way to Monday Night Raw.
That rumor proved to be false as there was no sign of Hunter in the Verizon Arena in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Another rumor had Brock Lesnar returning to Monday Night Raw. That rumor proved to be more accurate as Lesnar entered the ring to disrupt the evening’s main event, clearing the likes of Sami Zayn, Seth Rollins and Braun Strowman out of the ring as he did so. Of course, we already knew that The Beast would be part of the 2017 Royal Rumble, but at least his appearance ramped up the hype for the event.
Over recent weeks, the biggest stories coming out of Monday Night Raw have involved Braun Strowman and emerging star Bayley. The 2017 Royal Rumble will feature a women’s championship match between Bayley and current champion Charlotte Flair. The WWE network has spent considerable effort building a rivalry between the two, and that rivalry is developing into a feud.
Bayley has already had a win against Charlotte struck from the record books and being defeated by Flair with the help of a biased “special” referee. According to Wrestling Inc., last night saw the Queen mock the Huggable One before their tag team encounter. That match saw Bayley flattened by a body slam from Charlotte’s tag partner. That defeat probably means that Bayley is set to unseat Charlotte at the Royal Rumble.
‘Monday Night Raw,’ The Main Event – The Beast Is Back
The main event on this week’s Monday Night Raw was a six-way tag match. Kevin Owens, Chris Jericho & Braun Strowman teamed up to defeat Sami Zayn, Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins, but it was Brock Lesnar’s introduction into the fray that provided the real entertainment. As reported by the Philly Enquirer, The Beast cleared the ring, and even Braun Strowman seemed to want to avoid a dust-up with Lesnar.
The main event was won by Strowman’s team, and with most of the competitors already declared for the Royal Rumble, we can expect some royal entertainment at the event on January 29.
With less than two weeks until that event, it would have been reasonable to assume that a raft of new announcements would be made at last night’s Monday Night Raw. Surprisingly there were none, so perhaps tonight’s SmackDown Live will tell us more.
Most of the recent WWE chatter suggests that the Royal Rumble will be won by The Undertaker. The Deadman would then go on to challenge the winner of the championship match between John Cena and AJ Styles at Wrestlemania 33. According to the International Business Times, the match between Cena and The Undertaker is off. They report that the latest Wrestling Observer newsletter says that Vince McMahon has changed his mind about that match and that the Undertaker will instead face a, as yet unnamed, Monday Night Raw star at WrestleMania.
“The Undertaker right now is not scheduled to challenge for either title on the show. He did appear on the [January 9] Raw show, after first arriving on SmackDown, because when he was on SmackDown, it was to build for him to face Cena.
“Now he will face someone on the Raw roster. There was a tease of Braun Strowman on Raw, but it will not be Strowman as things stand right now.”
Many in the WWE Universe will be disappointed to hear that news, the Deadman vs. John Cena is the match that everyone wants to see.
[Featured Image by Paul Abell/AP Images for WWE Corp]
