The Royal Rumble pay-per-view saw a lot of great surprises and a few big names came back to perform for the company once more. But during the Men’s Royal Rumble, two stars from NXT were in the big match and had fantastic reactions. Andrade Cien Almas and Adam Cole might have performed on the previous night at NXT TakeOver: Philidelphia but they still showed up for the big Royal Rumble match. However, that apparently wasn’t always the plan.
Dave Meltzer noted on Wrestling Observer Radio how the Royal Rumble event’s booking went through a couple of changes and as we have already reported Dolph Ziggler was initially a scheduled opponent as Bobby Roode’s US Open Challenge opponent. But apparently, Adam Cole was also penciled into that spot for a short time as well. This might not have been an official call-up but evidently, that was the plan for a short time.
It was probably decided that losing to Roode in an 8-minute match during the kickoff show for the Royal Rumble wasn’t the best way for Cole to make his first appearance on the main roster so he was switched with Mojo Rawley. It would have been a big surprise for Adam Cole to show up and challenge Bobby Roode, but it was probably the right decision to have everything play out like it did.
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