Jim Ross joins Fox Sports

[iMike]

He already gave an article giving his fondest memories of the Royal Rumble here:
http://msn.foxsports.com/buzzer/story/r ... eat-012314

[Everlong]

Even JR thinks Batista is going to win the Rumble this weekend

[prophet]

Even JR thinks Batista is going to win the Rumble this weekend

That's because he's one out of two confirmed participants in the match that can win it, CM Punk being the other and I think it's fairly obvious 'The Authority' will screw him out of it in some way be it Kane or HHH.

Batista (and Triple H for that matter) basically confirmed in the opening to RAW that Batista was going to go after Orton and the World Title. His return was originally planned to be a secret and I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that before his return was leaked he was booked to be number 30 and win the thing, shocking the world. Barring some crazy, Daniel Bryan shaped miracle this will still happen on Sunday.

[AkydefGoldberg]

When I read the subject title, I thought he was joining on the broadcast side of things commentating, or analysis football or something.

Seems he's writing articles for them - good on him, got harshly treated by WWE towards the end taking the heat for the videogame press conference that was dominated, rightly, by Naitch lol.

[Hanley!]

Orton could lose the title to Cena though, which would make Batista winning the Rumble pointless. So I don't think it's definitely him.

It shouldn't be anyway, Batista has only headlined Wrestlemania once and for good reason. He needed that excellent story to make him look like a true headliner. He just doesn't have the skills or the popularity to be in THAT spot.

At the moment though, only Punk or Batista seem capable of winning. Or an unnamed competitor. But how many unnamed competitors could even win it? Lesnar or Bryan would make sense. Or Undertaker, conceivably, but I doubt they'd do that. They'll keep their title match separate from their streak match at Wrestlemania. Sheamus could return at the Rumble, but there's no way he'll win - if they were going to give it to a returning vanilla babyface that doesn't deserve to be in the Wrestlemania main event, they'd just give it to Batista.

It's really hard to call. This Wrestlemania is weird, because I don't think there are any matches people are anticipating or really dying to see. There's nothing that seems like an obvious match to book, there's no real investment in any feud in particular. They've done a bad job of making it seem like the culmination of a year's booking.

I still think Bryan has a chance of winning, because if there's anything the fans are really behind at the moment it's him.

[Str8Shooter]

I think there's still a legitimate chance that Bryan makes a surprise entry and wins. The powers that be aren't so stupid they don't know he's over more than anyone.

I'd still lean towards Batista, the story with him and Orton makes sense given their history. It doesn't need the title though, so they should probably have Cena win the title and someone else win the Rumble. They could still do it then.