1) Why Vince McMahon Changed The Royal Rumble Winners
It has been rumored that Roman Reigns was originally supposed to win the men’s Royal Rumble match. WWE management changed their minds before the event and went with Drew McIntyre instead.
Here is what Dave Meltzer wrote in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter about why Vince McMahon changed those plans:
The reasons were that it was said he wanted matches to create stronger main events for Mania. For the men’s side, that does make sense. The decision is to go all out with Lesnar vs. McIntyre as the main event at this point, barring an outside attraction match, and not Wyatt vs. Reigns. The original idea was for Lesnar to destroy everyone in the Rumble, eliminating the first 13 guys, until a combination of a low blow by Ricochet (in retaliation to Lesnar laying out Ricochet on TV the week before with a low blow) and a Claymore kick by McIntyre would lead to Lesnar being out.
The idea is that once he eliminated Lesnar, that McIntyre didn’t need to win, and that Reigns could win and challenge Wyatt so you have the two title matches as someone even. But McMahon wanted to establish Lesnar vs. McIntyre as the main event, and thus everything is geared to making the main event as strong as it can be.
Meltzer adds that Aleister Black was also strongly considered in the spot of McIntyre:
It should also be noted that it was only in the last few weeks that McIntyre was in the spot to face Lesnar. We were only told that Cain Velasquez, Tyson Fury and Edge, who were the names rumored for Lesnar, were all not true. The decision came down to McIntyre and Aleister Black, the latter a major Paul Heyman project. The feeling is that at this point in time, McIntyre was the more over of the two so the decision was made for him
My Take:
- I think that WWE made the right decision. They can now have Roman Reigns win the Elimination Chamber match to build towards Reigns vs The Fiend at Wrestlemania 36. The Rumble win really put over McIntyre and I am excited to see him face Brock.
Have you heard any interesting WWE rumors? Let us know in the comment section below.
On a related note, check out our predictions for Wrestlemania 36 here.