50 Worst Wrestling Moments Of The 2020s (So Far)

1. The 2022 Men’s Royal Rumble Match

When Dave Meltzer said that Cody Rhodes jumping ship changed everything, he really wasn’t wrong. In January 2022, WWE had nothing. The promotion was never going out of business. The promotion was never going to become the #2 behind All Elite Wrestling.

But WWE had nothing. It wasn’t even as inscrutably bad as 2019, 2020, 2021. Improvements had been made to the product, even, since Roman Reigns, exuding menace and cool, was hot.

But WWE was so beyond uninspiring and woefully incapable of building new stars that the only remotely viable option was to go with Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns for the WrestleMania main event. It’s actually hard to convey how apathetic this all was. It was Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns in the WrestleMania main event. For the third time. After they’d already done it in Saudi in October.

WWE built this, at the Royal Rumble, by having Brock drop the WWE title to Bobby Lashley before he entered the Rumble match, at #30, and won. Meanwhile, a returning Shane McMahon was tasked with booking the men’s Rumble (!) and used it as a vehicle to make himself appear really tough. He had to be talked down from basically casting himself as Bob Holly.

It was the most WWE under Vince series of developments imaginable - an astonishingly idealess “this again?!” spree of “how are we still doing this?”

It wasn’t even self-parody. It was what you expect secular death to feel like, the total absence of emotion, thought, insight, feeling. If you weren’t hot on WWE - and gauging by the non-reactions to the various Def Rebel themes, very few were - it was just pure nothingness cloaking your body and mind.

It was Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns in the WrestleMania main event. For the third time.