Pretty sure if Jericho's gonna win it then teasing the hometown victory for Orton is a lock. They might even do the 'everyone thinks Orton's won, he poses on the turnbuckle and then Jericho throws him out' spot, which would be awesome. Especially if followed by a 15-minute world-ending promo by Jericho.

It seems weird to me that a couple weeks ago I stumbled into this part of 2+2 and answered a pro wrestling nostalgia thread, and now I'm super-excited about the possibilities surrounding the Royal Rumble when the last one I watched was Steve Austin's win at the Alamodome.

That being being said, my heart will be broken if Chris Jericho doesn't win.

I find it hard to believe Chris Jericho has anything but a 100% chance of winning considering his promo on Monday.

FYP

This forum has a way of sucking you in, man. I was out for a few years then a combination of my Dad's nagging and stumbling on the WM threadzilla around Elimination Chamber last year got me back in to it.

+1. Without 2p2 I doubt I'd still be watching, or at least watching so religiously. Having our own forum instead of just our own thread will increase the number of success stories like that I think.

I have really high hopes for this PPV. Punk/Ziggler should be amazing and steel the show, the triple threat could be really cool if done right, and there's so many possible people that could actually win the rumble this year so the match will be really exciting. I really want Jericho to win the rumble and cut an "End of the World" promo after the match.

I think the triple threat cage match will steel the show, to be honest.

How do they book the Rumble. Ive always wondered. Do they plan exactly when certain people are getting knocked out etc?

lol

I keep getting these bouts of worry over the possibility of Cena winning the Rumble, deciding that his match with the Rock is too important to give up, so he takes his shot at Elimination Chamber and Cena's his way to victory making Rock and Cena for the title.

This has crossed my mind and I'm worried that someone else considers it a possibility, this year's Rumble is shaping up to be potentially the most interesting in years and that would ruin everything imo. I doubt I would watch again before Wrestlemania if that happened.

Or worse Cena could do double duty at Wrestlemania

They do according to WNW who got asked that a year or two back and they have a good track record of knowing how things work behind the curtain. Like any other match they book it start to finish and pretty much all the spots, knock outs and so on are preplanned though obviously there is a lot of chaos as people wander around hitting each other filling time until the next planned spot or when they are just in the background waiting till Diesel turns up, gets a huge pop, then eliminates them.

No chance imo. They just plain wont risk him being gassed in whatever match goes on last (i assume the one vs Rock tbh) or getting injured in the previous match or just generally being overworked at potentially making a mistake.

Its certainly non-zero, but its almost zero. They will just view it as Punk vs Someone (probably Jericho) will happen and so to make that match seem more important they will use it for the WWE title. Rock vs Cena doesnt need the WWE title to seem important (which somewhat buries the title, but lol, standard).

Just expanding on this, at one time this was Pat Patterson's baby. He was, and maybe still is, responsible for every detail in the booking of the Royal Rumble match.

Pat Patterson should book himself to win this year and come out in HHH tights.

I thought Pat Patterson's baby was a ring announcer.

Perhaps, that was a poor choice of words.

+1 for the people who wouldnt be watching wrestling anymore if it wasnt for this thread. got me back into it in a big way.

Is ADR def out, or is there a possibility he shows up?

The estimate was 4-6 weeks, Sunday is 1 day shy of exactly 5 weeks.

If he is back in time for the Rumble or not your guess is as good as mine. Having a quick google around i cant find anything but i wouldnt expect to as they will avoid leaking that info so they can get a bit of a shock entry for his return.

Fwiw they have discussed tweaking his gimmick slightly where he will start working stiffer and more aggressively - which given he works relatively stiffly for the WWE but very aggressively, ive no idea how that will work but time will tell. I assume, with no info whatsoever, they will tweak his gimmick outside of the ring too to coincide as a return from injury is the perfect time to do so. So i dont expect to see the cars in his entrances any more for example and it is like 6 months beyond played out given Cena called it out as phony on Raw (dumbest thing ever, way to break kayfabe you roid monkey douche).

WRT the Rumble match, I remember reading that Edge was always heavily involved in the planning and execution (Edgecution?) of the Rumble match on account of his good memory, seeing as the refs can't be in the ring during the match to help call spots.

I haven't missed ADR one bit.