10 WWE Royal Rumble Wins That Would Have Improved WrestleMania
1. Big E (2022)
New Day, same old story.
After scaling the ranks for nearly 11 years, Big E established himself as one of WWE’s most trusted hands. One third of the immensely popular New Day, he collected a pair of runs as Intercontinental Champion and a literal dozen reigns atop the Tag Team mountain including the longest in the division’s history. His efforts were finally rewarded with the WWE Championship last September, a move nearly unanimously applauded. Unfortunately, the subsequent reign was mismanaged, fumbled and derailed. When the first opportunity presented itself, Big E dropped the WWE Championship to Brock Lesnar and received no semblance of a return match.
Sounds familiar, right? If you said it’s a carbon copy of 2019’s KofiMania story arc, then congratulations. Unlike the people who actually have the pencil, you have recognized the fatal flaw in the system.
Granted, Brock Lesnar’s pair of 2022 WWE Championship reigns were due to unforeseen circumstances. However, if Lesnar was always entering WrestleMania as WWE Champion, the Royal Rumble and ensuing Elimination Chamber match didn’t need to be sacrificed to The Beast to do it.
A Rumble win for Big E following Day 1 could have opened a redemption arc. As new champion Lesnar awaited a proper challenger emerging from the Elimination Chamber, Big E could have defected to SmackDown (which he did anyway). This sets the stage for a more compelling Winner Takes All clash at WrestleMania–The Bloodline simultaneously defending the Universal and SmackDown Tag Team Championships against The New Day.