6 Wrestlers Who Suffered Most From WWE Royal Rumble 2018

In a surprise turn of events, this year's Royal Rumble came and passed almost entirely without complaint.

In the men's match, internet favourite Shinsuke Nakamura set up a dream encounter with AJ Styles at WrestleMania; a victory made doubly sweet by the fact that he eliminated Roman Reigns at the death to seal it.

The main event, meanwhile, saw Asuka fend off a challenge from surprise runner-up Nikki Bella. This satisfied the purists, while Ronda Rousey's post-match cameo ensured that company heads got their precious mainstream headlines. All is right with the universe.

Well, not quite. While WWE's decision-making was on point when it came to the night's major winners, there were inevitably one or two casualties at the other end of the spectrum: stars who were lost in the shuffle of one of the biggest nights of the wrestling calendar.

This has happened at every Royal Rumble in history, to be fair, and given that upwards of 70 wrestlers were on the card on Sunday, it was perhaps unavoidable this year above any other. That might exonerate the creative team, but these guys and girls now face an uphill task to claw back their credibility ahead of WrestleMania.

If you like it when comedy and wrestling come together in a delightful blend of slapstick silliness and rubbish acting, then you would have enjoyed Sunday's annual Kofi Kingston spot, in which the former Jamaican Sensation rested his foot on a plate of pancakes to keep his WrestleMania dream alive.

That said, going from wearing the WWE Championship for six months to being on the receiving end of a practical joke - New Day would later dump the pancakes over Jinder's head, for a laugh - is a little bit of a climb-down, regardless of whether you scored two eliminations or not.

If this - playing a goofy, blustering lower mid-carder - is the role in which WWE sees the Modern Day Maharaja going forward then you can't really say anything other than: fair enough. It's not like too many fans were pleased about his sudden ascent up the card last year anyway.

But if this is the case, why even bother making him such a prominent part of SmackDown's main event scene last year? It's as though all of that counted for nothing, which doesn't do too many favours for the credibility of the WWE Title, nevermind Jinder himself.