10 things that need to happen

The Post’s Joseph Staszewski brings you around the world of professional wrestling every Tuesday in his weekly column, the Post Match Angle.

The Royal Rumble is about providing excitement, drama, surprises and the road map to WrestleMania for WWE. 

The company’s latest edition on Jan. 27 at Tropicana Field (8 p.m., Peacock) will be the first under Endeavor’s ownership and all parties involved will want WrestleMania 40 in Philadelphia to feel like the greatest ever. So we here at the Post Match Angle want to throw some suggestions Triple H’s and Bruce Prichard’s way on things we believe can create the perfect Royal Rumble show on Saturday 

10. Give Jimmy and Jey Uso a Rumble moment

It’s been months since the two brothers have been on screen together, so give them and the fans the face-to-face moment they deserve. Maybe have Solo Sikoa break it up, but if they are going to fulfill their dream of a WrestleMania match against each other, you can lay the next brick here.

9. NXT’s Bron Breakker and Tiffany Stratton as entrants in their respective Rumble matches

Both earned it with their work last year and both may be the most main roster-ready talents in NXT. You can make a star out of Breakker by having him spear people all over the place and collect an elimination or two. Give Stratton a potential feud she can go back to at some point with her elimination. 

8. X-Pac and AJ Lee as surprise legend entrants

Sean Waltman has been saying there is no chance he will be in the match, so I guess that leaves the door open. Lee, if healthy and if a dogsitter is available for Larry, is one of the wrestlers fans clamor the most for to return. It would be a huge moment even as a one-off. 

7. Logan Paul forms a new faction

Paul should beat Kevin Owens and retain his United States championship. Doing so with the help of Grayson Waller and Austin Theory would be huge exposure for those two if they team up to begin a new storyline.

6. Naomi returns and Jade Cargill debuts in the women’s Rumble

Naomi, currently known as Trinity, could be finishing up with TNA after dropping the Knockouts world championship two weeks ago, and if she is coming back this feels like the perfect way to do it. Cargill has been training since she signed in September. This is the biggest way to get her in the mix before Mania. 

5. Brock Lesnar returns at No. 30 and eliminates Gunther from the Royal Rumble

The Intercontinental champion has said Lesnar is the match he needs to prove himself. He would be the perfect WrestleMania opponent. Gunther needs to be the one eliminated because The Beast needs to feel like a roadblock the champ must clear instead of the other way around. 

4. Becky Lynch wins the women’s Royal Rumble 

It shouldn’t be Bayley because her losing means she, in Damage CTRL’s eyes, would have failed to earn a shot at Rhea Ripley’s title since Lynch – who would win her second Rumble – would challenge her instead. It sets up better babyface scenarios for the Elimination Chamber.

3. CM Punk wins the men’s Royal Rumble 

Cody won last year, so him winning again would feel stale. Strike while the iron is hot with Punk and make the big headline of Punk winning the Rumble in his first TV match back and getting a WrestleMania main event. 

2. Roman Reigns pins L.A. Knight to retain the Undisputed WWE Universal championship

The Tribal Chief is going to retain, but there is no reason to take a potential one-on-one match with him and Randy Orton or A.J. Styles – both of which haven’t happened during this run – off the table by having them eat a pin. Knight’s second loss would allow him to move on to something else.

1. The Rock interrupts Reigns’ celebration

Save their first face-to-face for when they can cut a promo together, so have Rock — now a member of TKO’s board of directors — show up on the video board from his jet telling Reigns he will see him on SmackDown. You will pop a better rating on Friday if fans know this is coming than Rock making a surprise appearance. 

Serious business 

The Young Bucks – I mean Matthew and Nicholas Jackson – are at their best when they are at their obnoxious peak, and they may have hit a new level of brattiness and seriousness in their segment with Renee Paquette, who was again flawless in her reaction to it all. 

The Bucks are hitting all the right notes in a long-overdue gimmick reboot. They are flaunting their importance as AEW EVPs, showing a touch of cruelty by comparing defending their AEW legacy to Paquette potentially defending her daughter. They even took a not-so-conspicuous shot at CM Punk when talking about the rumors and why they want to wrestle Sting.

Punk called them children. Now the Bucks’ characters are taking their EVP job more serious and said somewhere AEW lost its way and toxicity crept into the locker room.

“We started to lean on yesterday’s self-serving, superficial, cancerous superstars,” Matt Jackson said.

Wonder who that could be?

It made for a weird transition into why they want to wrestle Sting in his final match, basically wanting to crush what the icon represents – the last of a dying breed and not in line with how they wanted to change the world with AEW.

They want to say goodbye to Sting and everybody like Sting. It at least adds more doubt about if Sting wins his last match because a win could spark the Bucks going after all the aging, ex-WWE stars in the Hardys, Adam Copeland, Christian Cage, Billy Gunn, Dustin Rhodes and others down the road. 

The 10 Count

“Monday Night Raw” left me wanting to see two matches we are likely not going to get at WrestleMania 40 after Gunther confronted World Heavyweight champion Seth Rollins — who thankfully vowed to rehab his injury and make it to Philadelphia — and CM Punk and Cody Rhodes’ super intense promo battle. It sold the Rumble in a big way and you couldn’t help but wonder the kind of business Rhodes-Punk would have done in AEW if circumstances were different.

There are very few examples to compare the magnitude of a star at the level of Kazuchika Okada – who is in the G.O.A.T conversation – leaving New Japan to come to the U.S. Let the AEW-WWE bidding war begin. My money is on AEW, but the fantasy booking in WWE is far more interesting. 

I believed from the start that Deonna Purrazzo was going to be the perfect foil for “Timeless” Toni Storm and the short and rare live women’s promo we got felt like a great appetizer to that. Purrazzo’s Jersey toughness put up against Storm’s absurdity and delusion.  

There was a little bit of frustration out there about WWE moving Raw to Netflix in 2025 because I guess there always will understandably be some from those who will have to pay for the content they currently get for free. The question is will Netflix raise its rates on current customers, and how much, to accommodate the billions spent on Raw and what kind of impact will that have?

It feels like Vengeance Day will be the catalyst for Trick Williams and Carmelo Hayes’ breakup so they can move toward wrestling at Stand & Deliver on WrestleMania weekend. They win the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic and Williams wins the NXT Championship. All will look well. Hayes will turn on Williams once they lose to their NXT tag team championship match.

Samoa Joe is going to elevate a bunch of babyfaces during this run and did so with Hook. The Long Island native came right at the champ, took a ton of brutal punishment, established his Hulking-up babyface comeback by kicking out at one late and had the champ on the ropes with the crowd behind him before passing out. Hook showed he belonged.

Josh Alexander is building some momentum again in TNA, stacking wins over Alex Hammerstone and Will Ospreay. The latter being a 4 3/4 star match, the highest Alexander has received from Dave Meltzer.

We predicted in this space last week that Drew McIntyre would be taking the Money in the Bank contract from Damian Priest and cashing in at WrestleMania. I feel even better about it after the way R-Truth cost Priest the match against McIntyre by fussing over the briefcase and Priest’s harsh tone with Rhea Ripley.

Thought Tuesday night’s NXT show was excellent. Numerous storylines progressing significantly using a multitude of storytelling devices both in the arena and out of it around hard-hitting matches. We got William Regal’s brief return to WWE TV as the Rock’s daughter Ava became the youngest television GM in WWE history at 22.