With less than three weeks to go until the 2017 Royal Rumble , only eight names had officially entered the over-the-top-rope, 30-superstar battle royal as of Monday afternoon. More entrants are expected to be announced on tonight’s Monday Night Raw , but one former WWE World Heavyweight Champion didn’t feel like waiting until the primetime point of the evening. Early on Monday, a former member of The Shield decided to make it official and enter the Royal Rumble .
Monday Night Raw already occupied seven of the first eight spots announced in the Royal Rumble , and now, they own eight of nine. As WrestleZone reported, Seth Rollins jumped on his Twitter account on Monday to officially declare for the match.
Last year I missed @WrestleMania . This year I’ll be in the main event. Officially announcing my entry into the #RoyalRumble . #tearitdown
— Seth Rollins (@WWERollins) January 9, 2017
As many may remember, late in 2015, Seth Rollins severely injured his knee which kept him out of action for months. At the time of his injury, Rollins was the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, and he had to relinquish his belt to be vacated after 220 days as the title-holder.
Due to the injury, Rollins couldn’t continue on as champion, take part in the Royal Rumble , and even had to miss WrestleMania . Now, he’s planning on being in the main event of WrestleMania 33 and taking on the WWE Universal Champion…whoever that may be.
The way things are going, it looks as if the title-holder going into WrestleMania 33 could be either Kevin Owens or Roman Reigns. The two are set to battle it out for the WWE Universal Championship at the Royal Rumble in three weeks, and that could say a lot for who goes to Orlando with the belt in their possession.
Of course, there is still the Fastlane event in early March, and anything could happen there.
Seth Rollins’ entry into the Royal Rumble officially takes the total number of entrants to nine. The first two names were put into the match more than a month ago ad within the last week, seven others have now announced their entries into the battle royal.
Monday Night Raw
- Brock Lesnar
- Goldberg
- Braun Strowman
- The New Day – Big E, Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods
- Chris Jericho
- Seth Rollins
SmackDown LIVE
- Baron Corbin
Baron Corbin became the first official entrant from SmackDown LIVE when he entered the Royal Rumble last week. It is kind of odd that Team Blue hasn’t really added many names by this point and that Team Red is outdoing them eight to one on entrants.
As reported by the official website of WWE , even more names are expected to be named on tonight’s episode of Monday Night Raw . They’ve since updated their preview to include Rollins’ entry which means there are 21 spots left to fill. Obviously, there are some surprises that will end up in the match as WWE always does, but who else from Raw could join?
With that being said, The Undertaker is also set to show up on tonight’s show in New Orleans, and no-one really knows why he is going to be there. The Deadman hasn’t been seen in months and he is a member of the SmackDown LIVE roster, so, why would he show up on a Monday night?
Maybe, he’s set to enter the Royal Rumble match for the first time in eight years?
Seth Rollins entering the Royal Rumble means that Monday Night Raw has yet another strong talent in the 30-superstar match. Team Red is really stacking the deck against SmackDown LIVE for whichever superstar may end up winning the whole thing. The way things are going right now, it is entirely possible that Rollins could end up in the main event of WrestleMania 33 and fighting for the WWE Universal Championship against his former brother in The Shield – Roman Reigns.
[Featured Image by WWE]