5 takeaways from WWE Backstage (January 7th, 2020)

#4 Analysis of Lesnar at #1 in the Rumble and other RAW happenings

The Beast and his advocate

Even though it wasn't necessarily the first time ever for a star/current Champion to enter the Royal Rumble in the first spot, Paul Heyman announced that his Beast would be doing that because of "the lack of competition" on RAW.

Booker T said that he liked it and "for this to happen, so many things can happen in the future regarding someone's career being made." Christian was "on the fence" because he liked how "the Royal Rumble represents picking which title to challenge for." His main problem was "what happens if Brock wins?" Paige was hesitant because "it feels like it's predictable." Some choices for who could potentially eliminate the Beast were Drew McIntyre and Otis.

One of the other biggest stars on RAW was also discussed in Seth Rollins. He really hammered home yet another nickname Monday night, the "Monday Night Messiah." Renee Young joked that "they (Rollins, commentators) said it like 16 times. Christian had some good insight, adding that he liked the nickname and "if you're the leader, you can give yourself a cool moniker." Since Rollins has "self-proclaimed that he's the leader of RAW, it just adds to the whole package." Booker didn't think that Rollins needed it to get over.

Along the lines of the Rollins/AOP angle, the Big Show returned in the main event to back up Kevin Owens and Samoa Joe. Paige "didn't know what to expect" regarding the mystery partner reveal. There was brief questioning of if the spot should have gone to a star who could have used the rub, but the panel was fine with it being Show. Christian added that "if you promise a surprise, you give a surprise." Show helping out made sense because "they're (Owens and Joe) looking at someone to offset the size of the Authors of Pain."