As previously reported, John Cena’s status for the upcoming 30-Man Royal Rumble match is currently “questionable”, as he was potentially written off the pay-per-view with an injury he allegedly suffered following last week’s RAW Fatal 4-Way main event.
This was pretty much a give in, but Cena’s so-called “injury” is not believed to be legitimate. The latest reports indicate that the 16-time world champion was never actually supposed to be in the Royal Rumble at all, as there were plans to have Lars Sullivan debut on the main roster and attack him, planting the seeds for a major WrestleMania match.
Sullivan was reportedly supposed to debut several weeks ago, and has been teased for the main roster since the December WWE TLC pay-per-view. However, the Freak’s call-up from NXT was allegedly put on hold after he suffered multiple bouts of severe anxiety, and may have even left a recent set of television tapings.
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Basically, with Sullivan not appearing as planned Cena was left in the awkward position of being advertised for the Royal Rumble match, and they were forced to create an alternative situation to write him off. This is not the first example of intentional false advertising on the show, with the intent of selling tickets to a massive 50,000 seat arena, as there were reports that Strowman was actually pulled for the Rumble title match several weeks ago, but they waited until the last minute to make the switch to Finn Balor because it was believed that the “Monster Among Men” would sell more tickets.
For what it’s worth, PWInsider.com is reporting that Cena actually doesn’t start shooting footage for his next major motion picture until early February, so it’s possible he could still make the Rumble if that’s the direction WWE wants to run with the story.
As always, take this kind of report with a grain of salt. As we saw with how WWE handled John Cena’s return to television despite numerous reports to the contrary, plans can and will change at the last minute, and what may be true today may be completely different tomorrow; especially so close to a major event.