10 Early Reasons To Be Worried About WWE Royal Rumble 2023
6. Rhea Ripley Doesn't Enter The Men's Royal Rumble
For the avoidance of doubt, no, Rhea Ripley’s absence from the men’s Royal Rumble match wouldn’t leave a sour taste in the mouths of fans, but it still remains an obvious avenue for the sports entertainment behemoth to venture down at the namesake event.
The Judgment Day’s ‘Eradicator’ spent the better half of 2022 being rebuilt almost from the ground up, drastically altering her output as she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Finn Balor, Damian Priest, and Dominik Mysterio. That Ripley was inactive in-ring-wise for several months speaks volumes about her character development; she turned her career trajectory around, going from another face on the roster to a genuine reason to tune into Monday Night Raw.
She’s to WWE right now what Chyna was in the nineties. Unless a dire error is made along the road, WWE has a real chance at making her a mainstream superstar, and by entering her into the men’s Royal Rumble, therefore placing her on the same pedestal as that very Hall of Famer, WWE is telling the audience precisely that.
Rumours of a potential Rhea Ripley vs. Ronda Rousey clash at WrestleMania 39 perhaps eradicate the possibility of her men’s Rumble participation, presuming a women’s Rumble victory is what sets her on the road to face ‘Rowdy Ronda’.
Still, she beat the p*ss out of Akira Tozawa. That was pretty neat.