Trying To Find A Rumble Winner From This Week's Observer

This week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter's opening story covers this weekend's Royal Rumble and mentions some of the matches that are likely to be a part of WrestleMania 33. I've read through it to try and find some hints as to who could end up winning the Royal Rumble.

Without ripping off all the content, there were a few things written that could impact how you bet on this weekend's Rumble.

Here are a few takeaways.

Dave Meltzer notes that, of the list of WrestleMania matches he reported on, Randy Orton .vs. Bray Wyatt is the only Smackdown match listed. This, the writer explains, puts both wrestlers in contention to win the Royal Rumble with the other being favoured to win the title inside the Elimination Chamber a fortnight later. The editor noted a story that was going around about Orton winning the Rumble and Wyatt securing the title in the Chamber match, but prefaced that - if it doesn't happen - 'it would be because plans changed'. If you recall, I have been disregarding this idea for weeks after Randy Orton's odds fell in the first week of January because I thought the title match at Mania would involve John Cena. However, I accepted that the story could go in this direction the day following Shane McMahon's announcement that the Elimination Chamber will be contested for the World Championship. I made it clear that the match could be set up this way. and am still hesitant to go with it as  I still believe we're getting John Cena defending the strap against Samoa Joe.

In a perfect segue, Dave wrote that Cena vs Joe is 'definitely an idea that was pitched' for WrestleMania. He did note that, even if Cena wins the title at the Rumble, he could lose it at Elimination Chamber.

For Raw, there is plethora of ways a Rumble win could go. The editor mentioned that he believes the WrestleMania match for Roman Reigns will see him pitted against The Undertaker, so this should put Undertaker on your favourites list to win the Rumble. However, don't forget that - a couple of weeks ago - it was reported that Undertaker's Mania bout was, at that time, not scheduled to be for the Universal Championship.

Another thing the writer brought up is that Goldberg has been talking about going for the Universal Championship and - with the former WCW and WWE Champion confirmed for Fast Lane - Dave has not ruled out Goldberg versus Reigns being the main event. I guess it doesn't necessarily disqualify Kevin Owens as still being Universal Champ, but there had been a tease of Goldberg versus Reigns on Raw when the pair speared Braun Strowman after a staredown and the article states that Owens, and even AJ Styles, are not scheduled to enter WrestleMania with their respective titles.

In a post published on Tuesday, I wrote that I was not convinced that the money landing on Bill Goldberg is from inside action. It was puzzling. I wrote that, if Bill Goldberg vs Brock Lesnar is the title match at Mania, the former winning the Rumble doesn't reason with me. I stand by this opinion. If you believe that their Mania rematch will be for the title, the person you should really look at winning the battle royal to set it up is Brock Lesnar.

I'm still not on board in believing Goldberg versus Lesnar at Mania will be for the Universal Championship.

A couple of directions this could go in is by having Brock Lesnar interfere in Goldberg's Universal Championship match at Fast Lane. Goldberg wins by disqualification (so that he doesn't lose the match), Reigns keeps the strap and it sets up both Goldberg vs Lesnar and allows for Reigns vs The Undertaker for Mania. If it's Owens vs Goldberg at Fast Lane, it would simply set up Brock Lesnar vs Goldberg and they could get to the destination of Kevin Owens versus Chris Jericho from there. If either scenario is to play out, then Undertaker or Chris Jericho should be in your list of potential winners.

The eagle-eyed visitors might notice that I've covered the top three wrestlers on my own list of potential Rumble winners in the scenarios I've written about above (Joe, Undertaker, Jericho). As well as my own three, Randy Orton was highlighted as a potential winner by the writer and, just by connecting the dots and using common sense, I believe Brock Lesnar should also be on the radar.