Brandon Jackson

You’re out at a bar this Sunday, watching the NFL championship games. At around halftime you see a group of people come in and sit down. One or two have on shirts that say “Bullet Club.” They sit by a different TV.

Or you’re at a friend’s house watching the games. It’s midway through the fourth quarter during a timeout, and all of a sudden your friend who’s been on his iPad for the last hour yells in excitement briefly before calming down. You didn’t notice before, but you can tell under your friend’s Cardinal’s jersey he’s wearing a shirt that reads “Fight Owens Fight.”

“What gives? There’s great football being played what could they possibly be watching?”

These people you are confused about are wrestling fans. And they’re watching the Royal Rumble pay-per-view.

“But wait, they have ppv’s all the time! This is the NFL’s second biggest weekend of the season, can’t it wait?”

Coincidentally, this is wrestling’s second biggest show of the year too. It decides what happens at the biggest show, which is Wrestlemania.

“Okay, but we all know that stuff is fake. They know it’s fake right?”

Yes they know. Trust me, they don’t care. Don’t worry, enjoy your football.

*At around 10:15 ET when the game is over.*

“Alright, my team won and I don’t want to go home yet. What’s up with this rumble thing?”

There’s 30 guys in it, they come to the ring every 90 seconds. They get eliminated when someone throws them over the top rope and two feet hit the floor. The two feet thing is important (sometimes). And this year, the last person left wins the heavyweight championship.

“Okay, sounds good. Wait, I don’t know any of these people. Is The Rock in it?”

No he’s not. Well, probably not. There’s about five guys that have a chance to win. To make it easy, I’ll compare them to NFL quarterbacks.

Kevin Owens = Jameis Winston

Kevin Owens is a rookie, and a very good one. He could be a future star. But like Jameis, some fans hate his guts. No matter what he does he’ll never be good enough in their eyes.

Roman Reigns = Andrew Luck

Roman, just like Luck, was considered a blue-chip prospect. But also like Luck, he peaked very early in his career and has stalled a bit. He can still be the best at some point, but will need to do some more work before that happens. Also, Roman is the champion right now because in wrestling sometimes it doesn’t matter how good you are, but that’s a whole different story.

A.J. Styles = Aaron Rodgers

Okay, this one is weird. Imagine that in the last ten years, Rodgers wasn’t in the NFL. Imagine he played in Canada, in the Arena League, and occasionally played in some rec flag football leagues. Now imagine he lost the CFL championship game in December, then signed with the Broncos before the AFC Championship game. A.J. could be the most talented wrestler in the world but was never in the WWE for a bunch of different reasons. (Again, a whole different story). He is most likely making his WWE debut on Sunday.

Remember those “Bullet Club” shirts from before? He was the leader of that group in Japan. They basically won every championship in New Japan Pro Wrestling.

Triple H = Peyton Manning

Like Manning, HHH is an all-time great. But his time has passed. He can still contribute, but he should not be the main focus of a team. However, his ego and unwillingness to give up the spotlight has him still here.

Brock Lesnar = Tom Brady

Brady is the closest QB that could compare to Lesnar in the current NFL. A more apt comparison would be if you took Cam Newton’s body and gave it Aaron Rodgers’ talent with Brady’s intensity. And throw in Bill Belichick as his coach because Lesnar’s manager Paul Heyman is that great too. Lesnar can be defeated, but it takes a great plan, more than one person, and probably some cheating.

An honorable mention is a guy from what could be considered the WWE’s version of the NCAA, which is called NXT:

Finn Balor = Deshaun Watson

Finn Balor is a star (and champion) in the WWE’s farm system, and like Watson, has shown he is capable of being as good as any of the wrestlers mentioned above. Another note about the Bullet Club, Balor was the creator of the group before he left Japan and came to NXT.

So there you have it, The Royal Rumble explained as NFL Quarterbacks. Hopefully you watch, and if you do hopefully you enjoy it.

And one more note about Finn Balor, sometimes he looks like this.

And does things like this.