5 Ups & 10 Downs From WWE Royal Rumble 2022

7. ‘Legends’ Serve As Cannon Fodder

Rhea Ripley Ivory
WWE.com

After making a big show of how they had pulled in so many legends into this year’s women’s Royal Rumble match, you’d think that might mean they’d get a nice showing.

But instead, most legends who entered the Rumble was little more than a body in the ring, and in most cases just for a few seconds. Seven legends entered the Rumble and were eliminated before the next countdown had begun: Melina, Kelly Kelly, Cameron, Ivory, Summer Rae, Sarah Logan and Molly Holly.

Admittedly, none of these women really are considered highly revered legends (that would be your Lita, Bella Twins and Trish Stratus, for example), but it became really obvious by the time Ivory was tossed that these women were just there to fill out the numbers and collect a payday. In most cases, they barely got to flash a move.

It really was all about the momentary surprise, the entrance, and then the elimination. And when that happens more than a half-dozen times, it drags the match down.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.