Sunday, January 25 – 10:29 A.M. (CT)

-WWE Royal Rumble Sunday is finally here. It's not quite the Super Bowl of pro wrestling, but it's similar to the NFL Conference Championship Weekend in that we'll know at least one person who will compete in a title match at WrestleMania 25.

Enough with the football analogies. It's the freaking Royal Rumble, one of the premier WWE annual events. No matter what the rest of the card looks like on paper, you can always count on the Rumble match to be fun. Fortunately, this year also features a strong undercard with four title matches, including what promises to be two fun World Title matches.

Most fans are focussed on which wrestler will win the Rumble and whether there will be any surprise appearances. While those things matter to me, I'm also hopeful that WWE will use the match to make at least one non-main event wrestler look strong even if he doesn't win the actual match.

I would love to see MVP (is he even in the match?) or The Brian Kendrick or another mid-card wrestler be given a chance to shine by lasting longer than anyone expects them to and eliminating a few wrestlers along the way.

We know Undertaker is a bad ass and we've seen him look strong time after time. Yet my favorite Rumble moment involving Taker was when Maven did the unthinkable by eliminating The Dead Man from the match. WWE failed to capitalize on that jaw-dropping moment, but they had the chance to make Maven a star following that moment.

We also know Big Show and Great Khali are supposed to eliminate a bunch of wrestlers or are at least be difficult to eliminate because of their sizes. Kane has a history of looking strong during the Rumble match. We know where these wrestlers stand in WWE. It's no longer shocking to watch the giants eliminate wrestler after wrestler or survive until late in the match.

If WWE wants to surprise us, they should have C.M. Punk eliminate Big Show in a decisive manner. How about letting John Morrison or The Miz be among the first entrants and the last eliminated? Better yet, how about Santino Marella scores some in-ring credibility by coming out early and lasting longer than anyone expected?

The Rumble match is always fun and the architects of the match generally come up with a few twists and turns or surprise entrants, but they haven't been great about making non-main eventers shine during the match. Here's hoping that changes tonight.

-Rumble winner prediction: Randy Orton wins. Backup plan: Triple H goes all the way.

-Would make my 2009 moment: MVP goes from being unadvertised to winning the Rumble match.

-Possible "surprise" entrant: Umaga returns, although it won't be much of a surprise since they've been teasing us with videos hyping return on Smackdown.

-Elimination that leads to a WrestleMania 25 match: Vladimir Kozlov eliminates Undertaker to set up the undefeated (at least on television) streak of Kozlov vs. Taker's undefeated WrestleMania streak.

-Funniest moment: Santino's elimination. I will be impressed if they can find a way to top Bushwhacker Luke marching down to the ring, marching in the ring, being tossed over the top rope in four seconds, and marching backstage.

-Check back for a double dose of "Live Coverage" tonight, as Rich Twilling and I will be both be posting reports on the show with the results as they happen.

Dot Net Members can also look forward to an exclusive audio recap of the show later tonight. To gain access to that podcast, the ad-free version of the website, and all the other perks of membership for only $5 per month, check out the Dot Net Members' Signup Page.

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