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One of the biggest events on the WWE calendar is coming up this weekend, with the Royal Rumble pay-per-view set for this Sunday.

The Royal Rumble event has been one of the premiere pro wrestling events around the globe for nearly three decades now. The event gives WWE a chance to showcase new talent, celebrate legends, and setup storylines for Wrestlemania season. The pay-per-view event is highlighted by the Royal Rumble matches themselves, where the winner of both the Men's and Women's matches will get a chance to headline Wrestlemania with a championship match.

Last year's Royal Rumble was the last major pay-per-view event under the WWE umbrella that featured a live crowd. Which was great, because one of the best Royal Rumble comebacks of all time happened, when Edge made his return from injury-forced retirement.

But what about this year? The 2021 Royal Rumble will be without fans, so we won't get the mega "pop" from fans when a return or debut happens. However that doesn't mean that WWE is going to go without surprises. They kind of need some.

This week, WWE announced their WWE Network will be shutting down, and moving to NBC Universals "Peacock" streaming service. The deal is reportedly worth billions of dollars.

That means WWE will need to convince fans to jump to a new service, and pay for the subscription (instead of constantly exploiting the free trial system). That means they're probably going to have to do something big.

Or not.

The betting odds for the Royal Rumble do include options for "something big", but the leaders in the odds aren't the kind of big move you might expect if you're tryin to get people to buy in on a new streaming service. Let's take a look at the odds, and you can figure out which ones fall into which column. Here are the odds for the Men's and Women's Royal Rumbles from OddShark.com...

Odds To Win The 2021 Men’s Royal Rumble:

Big E +500
Edge +500
Keith Lee +550
Brock Lesner +750
Goldberg +800
Roman Reigns +1000
Kevin Owens +1000
Daniel Bryan +1000
AJ Styles +1200
The Rock +1400
Bray Wyatt +1600
Drew McIntyre +2000
CM Punk +2000
Seth Rollins +2000

Odds To Win The 2021 Women’s Royal Rumble:

Rhea Ripley +700
Ronda Rousey +750
Shayna Baszler +800
Bianca Belair +900
Sasha Banks +1000
Alexa Bliss +1000
Bayley +1200
Nia Jax +1400
Paige +1600
Charlotte Flair +1600
Io Shirai +2000
Asuka +2000
Lacey Evans +2000

If CM Punk or The Rock were to come back in the Royal Rumble in ANY way, WWE would have enough momentum to build Peacock subscriptions FAST. Same goes for Ronda Rousey on the Women's Royal Rumble side. Outside of those names, there's not a lot to get excited about with the Royal Rumble odds we're seeing in the "favorites" categories.

 

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