The 2023 Royal Rumble ended with one of the great angles in WWE history, although at press time it does not appear it will be leading to the main event of WrestleMania.
The Royal Rumble is WWE’s annual January pay-per-view tradition, where 30 wrestlers (until recently only the male roster, but for the last five years the female roster as well) enter the ring one-by-one to participate in a glorified battle royal, with the winner usually (but not always) getting a championship match in the main event of WrestleMania. This year, the men’s Rumble was won by Cody Rhodes, returning from a gruesome pectoral muscle tear that he actually wrestled through in a Hell in a Cell match versus Seth Rollins last spring. Cody came out at No. 30, last eliminating the man who drew No. 1, Gunther, to earn a title shot at the biggest show of the year. But this year, there is somewhat of a monkey wrench that has been thrown in.
The monkey wrench is Sami Zayn. In April, WWE shot an angle where Zayn, then a heel, decided he was going to try to get in good with WWE undisputed universal champion Roman Reigns and his Bloodline, which at the time consisted of his cousins and WWE tag team champions The Usos. The key to this story is that it was never really supposed to be much of a story; it was just going to be a short-term angle to give Sami something to do for a few weeks.
