WWE Rumors: Popular Superstar Won’t Be In WWE’s ‘Royal Rumble 2018’ Match
When the Royal Rumble 2018 match takes place in January, one of WWE’s longtime popular superstars won’t be participating. The annual match typically features 30 men battling it out and eliminating opponents by tossing them over the top rope, with this happening until one superstar remains. That winner normally gets to challenge for either of the major championships at WrestleMania. Last year’s match was won by Randy Orton, with other winners in recent history including Roman Reigns and John Cena.
According to WWE Leaks, WWE SmackDown Live superstar Chris Jericho looks like he won’t be participating in the match this time around. “Y2J” is expected to be on tour with his rock band Fozzy as he recently announced on his Instagram account. With the Royal Rumble pay-per-view slated for Sunday, January 28, 2018, it falls on the same date as one of Fozzy’s shows overseas. The group will be playing in Paris, France, making Jericho unavailable for the big match.
There had been some buzz about Jericho possibly winning this past year’s Rumble match when Kevin Owens was holding onto the WWE Universal Championship. In the 2017 edition of the match, Jericho was the second superstar who entered the match. He would last for just over an hour and was eliminated third-to-last by Roman Reigns. Ultimately, “The Viper” Randy Orton won the match after Reigns tossed out Bray Wyatt second to the last and then Orton eliminated Reigns for the win.
Ahead of the 2017 match, there were rumors that Jericho might win the Rumble and challenge Kevin Owens for the Universal title. However, Owens ended up losing that title to Goldberg who would drop the title to Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 33. Jericho ended up in a match against his former friend Kevin Owens on the same card with Jericho’s United States Championship on the line.
It should be noted that Jericho’s time in last year’s Rumble match is the second-longest time a superstar remained in the match in its history. Only Rey Mysterio owns a longer time in the ring for the Rumble. However, Jericho owns the record for longest cumulative time spent in Royal Rumble matches at four hours and 56 minutes so far. Trailing him on the list is Triple H at just over four hours. Jericho also nearly won the 2012 edition of the match.
For the coming year’s Royal Rumble pay-per-view, Chris Jericho wasn’t expected to be a favorite to win the 30-man match. He had been listed at a few sportsbooks with odds given for him to win the Royal Rumble match. As of this report, he’s still listed as a 33 to 1 favorite at the Irish sportsbook Paddy Power. The top favorites at the sportsbook are John Cena and Roman Reigns, each of whom has 9 to 4 odds to win the big match in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania early next year.
[Featured Image by WWE]
