shinsuke nakamura won the men's royal rumble 2018.
who wins the men's royal rumble 2018?
shinsuke nakamura
hours after the event had concluded, it was reported by multiple sources that a.j. styles, doc gallows, karl anderson and shinsuke nakamura had all given their notice to njpw on the morning of january 4, announcing that they were leaving the promotion and joining wwe. the notices reportedly led to no finishes of matches being changed by booker gedo. the following day, the rest of bullet club turned on styles, kicking him out of the stable with kenny omega assuming leadership of the stable. omega was also set up as the next challenger for shinsuke nakamura's iwgp intercontinental championship. this marked styles' final appearance for njpw. meanwhile, the other three were involved in angles setting up future title matches. anderson and nakamura remained under njpw contracts and were expected to finish off their contracted dates with the promotion before leaving. on january 5, wwe released an article on its official website, discussing the rumors of styles, nakamura, anderson and gallows joining the promotion. the following day, nakamura confirmed in an interview with "tokyo sports" that he would be leaving njpw at the end of the month and signing with wwe. styles officially made his wwe debut on january 24, 2016, at the royal rumble. nakamura wrestled his final njpw match on january 30, making his nxt debut two months later on april 1. the departures led to njpw scrapping its one-year contract system and starting to offer their wrestlers multi-year contracts. in 2018, at wwe's royal rumble, nakamura won the 2018 men's royal rumble match to earn a world title match at wrestlemania, he chose a wwe championship match against the champion at that time, aj styles (who had retained the title againest kevin owens and sami zayn earlier in the night). at wrestlemania, styles defeated nakamura to retain the championship. after the match, nakamura turned heel and attacked styles. after wrestlemania, the two continued to feud through greatest royal rumble and backlash with their matches ending in draws. at money in the bank, styles retained the wwe championship by defeating nakamura in a last man standing match, ending their feud.
wrestle kingdom 10
the buildup to the royal rumble match started on the january 1, 2004, episode of "smackdown", when john cena interrupted a promo of the smackdown general manager paul heyman about tribute to the troops event in iraq. this angered heyman and heyman forced cena to compete in a handicap match with a partner and the two needed to win the match to gain entry in the royal rumble match. cena's partner was revealed to be chris benoit and the two defeated the full blooded italians (nunzio, chuck palumbo and johnny stamboli) to qualify for the royal rumble match. as a result, all the three members of full blooded italians lost their spots in the royal rumble match;had cena and benoit would have lost, neither would have been able to participate in the match. after the match, kurt angle announced that he would participate in the royal rumble match and would win it. later that night, benoit insulted heyman and heyman forced benoit to compete at the #1 spot in the royal rumble. on january 5, kane announced that he was going to win the royal rumble but was confronted by booker t, who claimed that he would eliminate kane from the match and win the match. three days later on "smackdown", benoit defeated the full blooded italians in a handicap mini royal rumble to retain his spot in the royal rumble. goldberg defeated matt hardy and announced that he would participate in the royal rumble match on january 12. on the january 15 episode of "smackdown", several qualifying matches were held for the royal rumble, including a battle royal between full blooded italians, which nunzio won. on january 19, goldberg, randy orton, rob van dam, booker t, mark henry and chris jericho won matches to qualify for a battle royal to determine the #30 entrant of the royal rumble match. goldberg won the match and earned the #30 spot in the royal rumble.
royal rumble (2004)