What if Kenny Omega wins the 2019 Royal Rumble?
The wrestling world has been buzzing about Kenny Omega. For years, he has been on the short list of most talented and popular workers not contracted to WWE. His big loss at Wrestle Kingdom 13 and absence from New Year’s Dash seem to confirm he is done with New Japan. While the general consensus was that he would join Cody Rhodes and company in their new All Elite Wrestling venture, the latest rumors suggest that WWE has assembled a blockbuster deal to try to court him. While Omega has openly commented on turning down big money deals from WWE in the past, if Vince McMahon really is stacking millions upon millions of dollars, like only he is in a position to do, it seems to re-open the door for Omega to potentially sign.
What if Omega not only signs but gets some creative pull as a signing bonus of sorts—winning the Royal Rumble? This article looks at the possibilities.
#5 Omega is the iron man
While Kenny Omega is beyond reproach as a professional wrestling talent, one of the challenges of him getting a push as big as winning the Royal Rumble upon his debut would be that more casual, WWE-only fans may not be familiar with him.
In a case like Omega’s, one of the best things WWE can do is to let his wrestling speak for itself. Omega is a one of a kind worker who garnered attention based on his in-ring talent, so letting him run the gauntlet through a good chunk of the Rumble could be an appropriate way of not only asserting that he’s great (both in kayfabe and reality), but also a way of introducing him to fans via a microcosm of him fighting his way through the WWE roster. This approach would resemble Ric Flair’s booking in the 1992 Royal Rumble. Though he had started appearing on WWE television months earlier, the 1992 Rumble was in many ways his coming out party for the WWE audience. He entered at number three and outlasted the whole field to capture the WWE Championship. WWE could do a lot worse than to big Omega in comparable fashion.