Post 15/1 Raw Royal Rumble Rankings

For the past few weeks, I have been sharing my thoughts on who I believe will win this year's Royal Rumble. Now that this week's episode of WWE Raw is in the can, I think it's time to once again go over this list.

As some of you may know, I moved Braun Strowman to the top sometime last week when it was reported that the current WrestleMania plans didn't have Undertaker, who was at the top of my list before then, featured in any of the title matches.

Undertaker went down into second, Finn Balor was third and Chris Jericho - who spent the majority of the time on this list, and was the reason why I titled it 'The List' -was placed fourth.

I had notable mentions like Randy Orton, Seth Rollins, Samoa Joe, Brock Lesnar and Bill Goldberg below the top four as I made a devil's advocate reason as to why they could end up winning the January 29th battle royal.

It's the top four that really matters, though. And, as of today, it has a new leader.

Samoa Joe.

I've moved Joe up from the 'In the Hunt' section. The main reason is because of the report, also from last week, that one plan on the table for his main roster debut will be to end up in a huge match at WrestleMania. I have hinted quite a few times since I read that report that Joe was a 'dark horse' and worth considering. So, this might not come as that much of a surprise to some of you.

On Raw, we saw most of the 'favourites' to win in the opening segment of the show. It's here where I realised the direction this could be going.

There are so many favourites to win that we're all being set up to believe it could be any one of them. Yes, I know that's the trick every year, but 2017 seems more apparent to me. I now believe the viewers are being set up for the shock victory of a main roster debutant in Samoa Joe walking out as the Royal Rumble winner.

As for the rest of my list - Braun Strowman now moves down to second, The Undertaker is third and I now feel it's time to move on from Chris Jericho, so Finn Balor remains for the time being.

From a betting perspective, the best odds are:

1. Samoa Joe 10/1 Ladbrokes.com
2. Braun Strowman 7/2 Betfair.com or PaddyPower.com
3. The Undertaker 3/1 Betfair.com, PaddyPower.com or Coral.co.uk
4. Finn Balor 5/1 SkyBet.com as well as the four other bookmakers listed above

As is usually the case, I'm sure I'll hear or read something that will make me adjust the list, but this is how it stands for the time being at least.