[Goku]

It won't be for the title.

 

[IAmNotAJ]

I just had this random little thought. What with Cena declaring that him vs the Rock will be for the WWE Championship, it essentially cements that the Royal Rumble winner in 2012 will be from SmackDown.

We know WWE will never let Cena fail in his WWE Championship pursuit because...I dunno, he hacked reality and unlocked unlimited title shots or something. So with him obviously having the RAW championship by next April for the Rock to fight him for, the Royal Rumble winner will NEED to be from SmackDown to avoid cocking up that match by not making it a pointless triple threat.

And when you consider the SmackDown roster and it's horrible lack of real main event-level or main-event-level-WORTHY superstars, there really aren't too many people who even stand a chance in Hell there.

Yeah they could sign some insanely talented new guy before then, or some guy right now could work his way up to being that level, but really, they're REALLY limiting who can win that Rumble. Especially now that SmackDown's lost one of its biggest names.

I would agree any other time in the past 5 years, but not this year. With Edge retiring it's more important then ever that WWE build up their new talent in their "youth movement", to be credible. Having someone other then Cena (or any other established star) walk into WrestleMania as the World Champion/no. one contender, would be great for business.

So I could easily see someone from Raw winning the Royal Rumble next year, because I highly doubt we'll see Cean or Rock walk into Mania as champion.

 

[the modern myth]

John Cena doesn't need to be in the title picture his entire career. He could still participate in top level feuds without fighting for the championship. I'm assuming that WWE will try to keep him out of the title scene during the build up to next year's Wrestlemania. If they wanted to, they could have Cena drop the title at Royal Rumble 2012 because of an interference by the Rock, thus heightening the rivalry between them.