The Greatest Royal Rumble is coming up fast at it will only be a matter of time before the WWE Universe is focused on the Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia at noon on a Friday.
But as WWE hyped the big 50-man Greatest Battle Royal Match on Raw this week during the Sami and Kevin Show, it looks like Kurt Angle might have missed someone and it could have been on purpose. After all, there isn’t much that happens on Raw that isn’t scripted at this point.
“You know what’s weird is they pushed that Owens and Zayn were going to be in the Royal Rumble,” Dave Meltzer noted on Wrestling Observer Radio when Bryan Alvarez continued that Kurt Angle mentioned Daniel Bryan and Chris Jericho who have a history with Owens and Zayn but he didn’t mention Shane McMahon. Dave Meltzer went on to confirm this as he said it was weird that out of all the guys they plugged as part of the match Shane-O was left out.
Bryan Alvarez commented saying, “maybe he’s been pulled because of his deal? I mean how could you not plug Shane McMahon?” Dave Meltzer continued to discuss the possibility that maybe Shane McMahon won’t be wrestling in the 50-man Greatest Royal Rumble match after all even though he was advertised for the match.
“He could be pulled. I mean look, he may have gotten hurt worse in that [WrestleMania] match. They won’t tell us if he did and obviously, you know he’s hardly healthy — I mean maybe he is now I don’t know. […] But he certainly [didn’t look healthy in that match], but that was a couple of weeks ago now. But no, he wasn’t healthy at WrestleMania that was pretty clear you could see by the way he moved and everything.”
Shane McMahon might have superhuman healing powers like his father, but the last time we checked he needed a hernia surgery and had just fought out of a nasty infection and diverticulitis. Those things might need some attention before McMahon can shuffle down to the ring for another match.
It might be possible that Angle just forgot to namedrop Shane McMahon and Vince McMahon’s baby boy will address his participation in the match on SmackDown Live this week. But it’s still very interesting that they didn’t plug Shane’s name when speaking directly to Kevin and Sami to hype the big event in Saudi Arabia after Owens and Zayn had just finished a rant about SmackDown Live’s leadership.
If you use any portion of the quotes in this article please credit Wrestling Observer Radio with a H/T to Still Real To Us for the transcription