5 superstars who will make biggest impact at WWE Royal Rumble 2018
The way "big four" pay-per-views of the year are booked often tell us who are the biggest priorities for WWE going forward over the next few months.
While every match needs a winner and a loser, the way those wins and losses are determined on these most important shows throughout the calendar best indicate just how strongly the creative team wants to focus on a particular Superstar.
This is even more prevalent in the Royal Rumble, where the literal objective is to be the one single, solitary winner among your peers to earn a title shot in the main event of the biggest show of them all, WrestleMania.
It takes a lot to stand out among a field of 30 competitors, but every year, we see a handful of men and women who are picked to shine brighter than everyone else.
The 2018 Royal Rumble event has plenty of room for opportunities and more than its share of talented Superstars ready to point that spotlight toward themselves.
Here are five of the top possible candidates who will make a big impact on this Sunday's titanic show.
#5 Roman Reigns
Things are tricky when it comes to Roman Reigns, as it's more than obvious that he is perpetually the guy Vince McMahon and the powers that be want to have at the top, but there are a few elements that could get in his way for this particular event.
Tonight on the 25th anniversary of Monday Night Raw special, he is scheduled to defend the Intercontinental Championship against The Miz—a match, mind you, he may lose, dropping the title to someone who can properly defend it down the line at WrestleMania while Reigns is busy doing other things.
Those other things, of course, are fighting Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship, and that destiny may be cemented with a Royal Rumble victory just the same as he did the last time the event was in Philadelphia in 2015.
Yours truly was there for that event and saw the hatred the crowd had for this firsthand, particularly as I was one of the few, cheering for him at the time.
WWE cannot make that mistake again and not expect the same backlash that they faced three years ago, and with the Elimination Chamber coming up as part of the Raw brand, it seems like that might be an alternate route to take to put Reigns in the spot at WrestleMania 34 that few are going to be hyped up for, but WWE clearly will not budge on.
Those plans are going to happen, undoubtedly, so the question really becomes not "if" but "how" they come about.
At the Royal Rumble, Reigns can win the 30-man match and set it in stone, or he can assert his dominance by being one of the biggest stars in the match who is booked incredibly strong even though he ultimately loses.
By the time the following episode of Monday Night Raw comes around on January 29, Reigns will either be the No. 1 contender or he'll be so strongly booked from the night before that we'll all know that he will win the Elimination Chamber to fulfil that prophecy in a roundabout way.