The Royal Rumble match is one of the few stipulation that is universally loved by all wrestling fans and it has always been an easy home run for the promotion, but 2022 was a new level of missing the mark from WWE with the Royal Rumble.
This year’s Rumble was the perfect illustration of the current state of WWE and their booking, a complete mess. Writing about WWE and their bad booking is overplayed at this point, but it can’t be ignored when they can’t even book properly the Royal Runble.
Let’s start with the women’s Rumble, of the two Rumble matches it was clearly the best one and despite that it had a lot of QUESTIONABLE booking decisions. Ronda Rousey winning was boring outcome, especially when we know their plan is for Rousey vs. Flair, the original match they wanted to book for WM 35 until Becky Lynch’s rise made them change their plans. This a match no one wanted to watch back in 2019 and not right now in 2022.
The women’s and the men’s Rumble had some weird logic regarding eliminations of some wrestlers and time. A wrestler like Michelle McCool being around 20-minutes in the Rumble and being protected and featured more than most current talent was the wrong choice. Bianca Belair was the Ironwoman of the match but her elimination was barely mentioned and once again she felt like second fiddle behind any of the horsewomen.
Another interesting topic to talk about is regarding Mickie James. The announcement of James as an entrant in the Rumble was met with a lot of excitement and created a lot of speculation regarding ‘The Forbidden Door’ in WWE and Impact improving their ratings after this. Well, that didn’t happen, ‘the forbidden door’ was only opened for James and Impact’s ratings didn’t change one bit.
The men’s Rumble is probably, no let me change that, The 2022 Men’s Rumble IS THE WORST RUMBLE MATCH OF ALL TIMES. Madcap Moss eliminating AJ Styles, let me repeat that, Madcap Moss eliminated AJ Styles, what in the blue hell were they thinking they decided this was a good idea?! The same could be said with Bad Bunny eliminating Sheamus, A FORMER WORLD CHAMPION NO LESS!
Lesnar winning the Rumble was a predictable outcome and we’re getting yet again another Reigns vs. Lesnar on WrestleMania. The road to WM has started and it’s honestly disappointing, if WWE were a normal promotion and didn’t have their massive deals they would be in massive trouble. The Rumble showed to hardcore fans and casual ones that WWE’s booking is just bad and things won’t change.
(This editorial is the views and opinions of the writer, and does not necessarily reflect those of the rest Bodyslam.net and it’s staff.)
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