Maybe he enters #29 with the ring already cleared and #30 is Hornswoggle and he just eliminates himself giving me/Jericho the victory. Cool?

The alternate scenario is Jericho enters in like 18 or whatever with one person left, he gets the crowd excited, enters the ring and then as they are about to lock up after getting the crowd to cheer more he just self eliminates himself hopping the top rope then walking off smiling.

I'm not sure if Hornswaggle could put himself over the top rope.

I don't know if that fits though. I think Jericho is sticking it to the marks but I still think his character wants glory.

i could see jericho entering in the middle of the rumble, not getting into the ring, spending the entire time pandering to the crowd then going backstage and re-emerging in the end

I def think Y2J and Orton are the favorites but I still think Punk losing the title because Johnny Ace screwed him, and Punk then winning the rumble would be a great storyline. There's a lot more possibilities for this year's rumble winner than last year when everyone pretty much knew it was going to be ADR.

I think to tweak that to something more likely then just having Jericho out in 12th, doing a lap or two of the ring to get the crowd cheering then walking away without even entering and never re-emerging with Cole playing up how he didnt enter and asking if he is still eligible could get it over decently.

There are a bunch of things they can do.

Why was ADR the heavy favorite to win the RR last year? I wasn't really watching at the time

1. Jericho
2. Orton
3. Barrett
4. Sheamus

I think those are the three options in the order they could go. If Barrett wins, I envision Bryan losing to Orton in the Elimination Chamber or something.

Although I do like this, I don't think they want to put the strap on Ziggler yet. Unless they go full fledged Corporation 2.0, of course. Ziggler/Punk just kind of seems like the traditional throwaway RR title match, to be honest.

He was the only one on Smackdown that was ready to face Edge at Wrestlemania. Cena was obviously the favorite to face Miz at Wrestlemania, but a RR win wouldn't do near as much for him as it would for ADR. It helped make ADR seem a lot more credible and look like a threat to Edge, where Cena could be the first one eliminated and still be the favorite over Miz.

I agree with this. But they created Big Johnny as a character to have a heel for Punk. And he's not done anything that really made a big impact on Punk. Usually the heel gm makes life a living hell for the hero. All Big Johnny has done is reversing throwaway matches on Raw.

Jericho gets buzzed in, walks in, walks out.

A big guy wins (one that typically steps over the top rope to get in), does his celebrate, leaves and Jericho comes out and then goes in the ring and celebrates and leaves

Vince was an awful commentator but this time of year I miss gems like "Virgil could win the Rumble!".

Lawler was always fun commentating on the mid '90s Rumble matches as well as all of the heels were his 'pick' to win lol.

It's at least possible for him to win at 29. He could go to the ring but never enter it, just high-fiving and pandering to fans on the outside the entire time as the rest of the field eliminates itself.

Right, here is my theory on what is going to happen on the Royal Rumble and Raw. Its long so ill cliffnotes it

Things we know:

1, According to Jericho "this Sunday at the Royal Rumble, its going to be the end of the world, as you know it."
2, HHH is reviewing the performance of Johnny L next week on Raw
3, The Rumble is the first time "all superstars are eligible"
4, Johnny L has been texting someone constantly since starting his job as Interim GM
5, Johnny L has vowed to cost Punk the title at the RR

So how do we put these things together. The most obvious start is 3 and 5 are linked. Why even stress that "all superstars are eligible" given this has always been true? The most obvious answer is to set up some kind of swerve where someone entirely unexpected but also a superstar will enter. This could set up the (almost a) fact that Kane will enter this year to pick up the elimination record and up his consecutive entrances to 14, but why even bother.

So to cover 3 and 5 my theory is that Ace costs Punk, he then enters the Rumble and perhaps win it. Ill come back to the perhaps, but the point is that Punk is going to get screwed by Ace on Sunday to fully cement him as mega volcanic heel. In the WWE universe when you say something then hit someone in the head with a mic it equals you will actually do it, so it figures Ziggler is our new WWE champion.

Next up in my terribly ordered points is 2 and 4. The first question is who is he reporting to? Ace in kayfabe has always been a yes man reporting to Vince, but in kayfabe Vince is old news and the company was always going to Stephanie and HHH. So all that said the person behind the curtain pulling his strings has been Stephanie.

This may or may not be where the whole "she holds the mystery of my rebirth,
for when i beckon her i will return to reclaim what is mine" comes in. But Jericho has definitely been brought into the company by either Stephanie directly or via Ace given he is exec VP of Talent relations and he has been fully acknowledged as holding the power to hire, fire and when to debut talent.

So this comes to Jericho. "A familiar force shall arrive to claim what is his", this has always been about who is the 'best in the world'. Why Jericho? He and Stephanie have a long history and Stephanie was burned by Punk over the summer repeatedly and HHH stood by and did next to nothing. He beat him at NOC, but all was forgotten quickly and as the Steph quote goes from the summer "and in the end, people always get what they deserve".

Soooo, who wins the Royal Rumble? Punk is the obvious answer, but my money is on Jericho as it comes down to the two of them left at the end. Punk will be cheated from the title by Ace. Now Jericho has spoken there is no need to have him win by doing nothing, that is old hat, Jericho is the best in the world at what he does and he is going to enter and show why imo. That is how at the Rumble the world as you know it will end. Punk has no title, he lost the shot at the title at WM and he is seemingly shut out.

Finally we have Raw the next night. Jericho is seemingly still a face, Ziggler is the champ but is about to learn sacrifice again soon, Punk has nothing but a rematch.

Then comes the big heel turn no one sees coming. Punk calls out HHH and they start the evaluation of Ace, its clear that HHH is going to fire him, and then as COO he comes to the decision - Johnny L is to become the permanent GM. Huge booing of the crowd but its a certain result given he has become such a HUGE part of the product and is really over. They literally cant get rid of Ace now and thus turning HHH to save his job is the logical outcome.

Given HHH is facing Undertaker at WM a heel turn is pretty much perfect for him too leading into that.

They tie Stephanie into it to clear up how she wanted revenge on Punk for what he said to her, for what he did to her husband, what he did to her father.

Punk has a rematch, but they give it to him at Elimination Chamber or he demands it in that so he cant get screwjobbed again. Punk goes over to regain the title and that sets up his match with Jericho at WM, though in theory they could include Ziggler as a triple thread too but i doubt it.

Cliffs:
Steph is behind it all, she plays heel so well and we are overdue having her on screen so promoting WM on the "25th" anniversary to maximise it makes sense
HHH heel turns cos there is no real other way to keep Ace on screen and he is far too over to drop
Punk loses the WWE title to Dolph who unfortunately for him gets another paper champion run
Punk loses in the last two of the Rumble to Jericho
Punk goes over at the Elimination Chamber setting up
Punk vs Jericho at Wrestlemania
Directly or indirectly is used in story to set up HHH vs Taker

Fwiw i didnt want to write this up till Punk was picked as i think Punk going over at the RR then Jericho winning the title at the Elimination Chamber is another way to go down to an almost identical end point. However this has way less of an "end of the world as you know it" feel to it.

The things im confident on are HHH turning heel, Punk getting screwed by Ace and the WM match being Punk vs Jericho. The thing im least confident in is Steph being brought in, but i think we need a McMahon to really sell it and i dont think Ace reporting to Vince who got fired and said it was a bad idea to replace HHH with Ace makes as much sense.

I like it. The IWC will like it. Hell, a lot of fans will like it.

But that is WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too complicated and thought out and together and coherent.

IMO we are approaching reset time (like the hiring of ace and HHH out and the walk out....the previous x months didnt happen).

Orton wins the rumble, faces whomever and goes over.
Jericho starts a program with Punk, with no real reason why. Probably goes over and then jobs to CENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAAAA shortly there after.
Ace is gone, HHH is the king of kings and will end-ah the streak-ah. We have no GM for a while and then at the next reset we have a new GM.

Phill for WWE writer, I absolutely love it! At the Royal Rumble or the Raw after HHH needs to turn heel. I would love to see Punk turn heel and it be revealed that he was working with Johnny Ace the whole time, but that seems really unlikely with Raw not having a strong enough face other than Punk to be in the championship match at Wrestlemania. HHH turning heel is the next best thing.

This video can help get everyone excited for the RR:

I think its a bit of a hard sell that Punk would have worked with Ace all along, but if it happened then Punk would go over Ziggler to retain with Ace screwing Ziggler potentially opening the door to face turn him or they could just have a Smackdown face go over in the Rumble then challenge Punk for any number of justifiable reasons with Orton having history with Punk in the New Nexus being a pretty obvious one.

As of now Jericho is pegged to win. Alot of guys could theoretically win and then they can have them lose their WM title match

I like it, I originally thought the idea of Steph being behind Jericho's return wouldn't have worked but after Jericho's proclamation last night you'd have to think that the Punk/Ace angle is going to segue nicely into Punk/Jericho.

However, the issue that I have with this is that it would require Steph, Jericho, Ace and HHH to all be on the same side, given that it'd be impossible to involve Steph without addressing HHH. I'm not sure they'd really be able to come up with a convincing way to do it.

It'd be weird to have Jericho and HHH in alignment as they have so much history, and it'd be weird for there to be this kind of 'everyone vs Punk' thing going on, what with Cena turning heel and not being there for the inevitable tag team match (playa). I still like it though, and I can't wait for the Rumble to see how it all plays out.

Cena turning heel is a 4 at best. But it wont happen for a while anyway if it does.

Punk would start alone, maybe with the help of Cena to some degree, but he also has Taker helping at some point to feed into HHH vs Taker (which could retire HHH at WM to take him out of the back end of the story) and they could feed guys like Sheamus into the story if they need him to have more backup beyond that.

I could watch Royal Rumble entrances all day.

I can't wait for Goldust to come out and eliminate Cody igniting their inevitable feud, too. I love me some Goldust.

If Jericho wins it should be in this order,
-comes to the ring smiling and playing to the crowd
-gets out of the ring from under the bottom rope to keep playing to the crowd
-gets back in the ring and immed 'heels' it up, beating the crap out of every face in the ring, hopefully starting with hornswoggle so the kids can cry
-goes heads up with orton for the win, orton does the gay finger point at the WM sign, Jericho has none of it and immed rko's orton and throws him over the top