10 Deadly Mistakes WWE Must NOT Make Before WrestleMania XL
3. A Lacklustre Royal Rumble
Vince McMahon famously didn't envisage the Royal Rumble match as a wise opportunity for his soon-to-be sports entertainment empire. You could argue that he still doesn't, given the scarce cautiousness with which they've often been produced, in spite of the professed WWE Universe's deep devotion for the stipulation.
2022's was a mess, its victors awfully predictable, its shock entrants either unimaginative or weirdly pre-announced, and its prevailing atmosphere being discouraging. 2017's was no better, a Randy Orton victory going down like a wet fart in a cramped church congression. 2014's is infamously blah, though not totally a terrible match.
2023's Royal Rumble was a modernised archetype of how a Rumble should look. Its winners were predictable, yes, but it was the right outcome in both cases. The surprise entrants were sensible, either for storyline purposes or through making use of NXT talent already being flown in. Keeping the use of blasts from the past to a minimum, using just two (Booker T and Michelle McCool). Star-making performances were in abundance across both Rumbles, GUNTHER and Rhea Ripley being made to look like epic, Godlike superhumans.
A return to banal Royal Rumble matches would genuinely turn a large fraction of the viewership away.
It's more important than WrestleMania to so many.