Big E on WWE Fans Having Huge Expectations for His Singles Run, Winning the Royal Rumble

Thanks to his renewed singles run over the past few months, Big E now finds himself as one of the top choices to challenge Roman Reigns for the WWE Universal Championship. He closed out the final episode of SmackDown by winning the Intercontinental Championship and has been one of the favorites to win the Men’s Royal Rumble since the oddsmakers first started posting their betting odds. The former tag team champion addressed those expectations in a new interview with Dayton 24/7 Now this past week.

“I was able to accomplish a lot as a tag team wrestler in one of the greatest factions of all time — The New Day — but I also want to see how much I can do as a singles competitor,” he said. “It’s been about seven years since I’ve consistently wrestled in singles matches, and now these last few months I’m getting that opportunity. I want to make sure this run goes… a lot of people have these high hopes for me, which I really appreciate, as a singles competitor for quite some time and I can let them down man.

“There’s a lot of, I wouldn’t say pressure because I don’t feel the pressure, but imagine if over the years someone said ‘Man, you should become president of your company. Because you have all that talent.’ And for years [they say] man you need to be president. And they finally give you that opportunity to be president and you stink up the joint. And you’re late, and you’re not doing what you need to do. All that was for not. And that’s the horrible analogy that I made for myself so people understand that I don’t want to be a bad president of my company. I want people to say, ‘Hey man, I’m glad I recommended you for that job. You’re doing a great job right now.’”

E said his goal is to win the Royal Rumble and head to WrestleMania in the hopes of becoming a double-champion. No man has held both the WWE Universal and Intercontinental Championships at the same time, though The Ultimate Warrior was able to accomplish a similar feat at WrestleMania VI by holding both the IC and WWF Championships.

Aside from the two Rumble matches, the only bouts that have been confirmed for the 2021 Royal Rumble event are WWE Champion Drew McIntyre vs. Goldberg and Universal Champion Roman Reigns vs. Adam Pearce.