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WWE News: Updated ‘Royal Rumble 2016’ Card — New Match Added

By Dustin Murrell
Published on: 06:16 PST, Jan 22, 2016

With WWE Monday Night Raw and Thursday Night SmackDown over with for the week, the entire WWE Universe is waiting in anticipation of Sunday’s 30-man battle royal and the first stop on the Road to WrestleMania 32 in Dallas, WWE Royal Rumble 2016. And if the five WWE Championship matches already on the card weren’t enticing enough, including Roman Reigns making history by defending the WWE World Heavyweight Championship against 29 other men in the Royal Rumble Match, WWE has added a Fatal 4-Way Tag Team Match that could have WrestleMania main event implications.

Along with the most recent eight-man addition, below is the card as it’s set for this Sunday, January 24 at the WWE Royal Rumble. In addition, there is a further look into the new match booked for the January PPV event and what sort of impact if any it could realistically have on the goings-on of the WWE (as confirmed by PWMania).

  • WWE World Heavyweight Championship–Royal Rumble Match: Roman Reigns (c), Brock Lesnar, Chris Jericho, Big Show, Sheamus, Stardust, Bray Wyatt, Erick Rowan, Luke Harper, Braun Strowman, Dolph Ziggler, Ryback, Curtis Axel, and 17 other Royal Rumble Match entrants — We know that Roman Reigns is going to be the first entrant, and we know a dozen of his opponents for certain. Rumors abound regarding surprise debuts and returns, from Triple H and Daniel Bryan to A.J. Styles and Finn Balor.

    There is one detail that a lot of people are overlooking since WWE hasn’t explicitly pointed it out. Normally, the winner of the Royal Rumble Match is guaranteed a spot in the main event at WrestleMania. While the winner of this year’s Rumble Match will win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, there’s no guarantee that they’ll still be the champion coming April 3. Between Sunday and WrestleMania, there are 10 episodes of Monday Night Raw and the Fastlane PPV in February.

  • WWE Intercontinental Championship–Last Man Standing Match: Dean Ambrose (c) vs. Kevin Owens — It would be a shame if either of these competitors were left out of the Royal Rumble Match, regardless of who is holding the IC Title by the end of the night. While neither of these men are likely to with this year’s Rumble, they could still steal the show with an epic Last Man Standing Match.
  • WWE Tag Team Championship: The New Day (c) vs. The Usos — Week in and week out, there is no one as consistently on-point lately among the WWE roster as The New Day. As over as they are, it would seem that the WWE would do well to leave the straps on the wannabe unicorns.
  • WWE United States Championship: Alberto Del Rio (c) vs. Kalisto — Del Rio already dropped the title to Kalisto once and required King Barrett’s assistance to get it back. Sunday, they’ll have their “rubber match” to settle the score.

  • WWE Divas Championship: Charlotte (c) vs. Becky Lynch — Charlotte is the first of the new class of WWE Divas from NXT to wear the Divas Championship. With Nikki Bella and Sasha Banks on the bench, the WWE Universe will be watching to see if Charlotte and Becky Lynch can truly hold their own.
  • New Match Announced: Fatal 4-Way Tag Team Match–Royal Rumble Match Qualifier: The Ascension vs. The Dudley Boyz vs. Darren Young & Damien Sandow vs. Mark Henry & Jack Swagger — This eight-man encounter will air on the Royal Rumble Pre-Show, with the winning team earning spots in the Royal Rumble Match. In theory, one of the winners of this match could win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship for the first time and go on to headline WrestleMania. However, the last time any of these guys was anywhere close to something like that was when Damien Sandow won the Money in the Bank contract in 2013. While this match could have an entertaining spot or two, there’s a reason WWE put it on the pre-show with such little fanfare.

All of the above matches have been confirmed by WWE.com’s official Royal Rumble preview page.

On Sunday, WWE Royal Rumble 2016 airs live on the WWE Network at 8/7c. The pre-show begins 30 minutes before the official event gets under way.

[Image via Twitter]

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