Statistical Certainty: Alberto del Rio will be WWE/World Champion by April 2012

Good news Alberto del Rio fans. It is highly likely that he will be World/WWE Champion at some point between WrestleMania on Sunday and next year's WrestleMania.

Here are the facts:

Since WrestleMania IX, WWE has put the winner of the Royal Rumble in a title match at WrestleMania (exceptions are: '97 winner Stone Cold Steve Austin who fought Bret Hart and '99 winner Mr. McMahon because...well, let's be serious).

In addition to winning the Royal Rumble being a guaranteed ticket to a title match, there have been other challengers to WWE/World titles through a variety of other mechanisms. In total, over the past 18 WrestleManias, there have been 33 different challengers.

You'd think winning the Rumble may also punch your ticket to a title celebration at WrestleMania, but you'd be wrong. Only 11 out of the 19 winners of the Rumble go on to win at WrestleMania and no one has done it since the Undertaker in 2007.

However, extrapolate it out and you'll see that of the 19 Royal Rumble winners, 95% of them go on to be WWE/World Champion by the time the next year's WrestleMania rolls around. That is significant at the p < .001 level (Chi-square analysis).

So at some point over the next 12 months you will hear: "My name! My name is Alberto del Rrrrrrrrrio! And I am the World Heavyweight Champion!"

But you already knew that.