6 Match Star Ratings For WWE Royal Rumble 2022
1. Men's Royal Rumble Match
A great Royal Rumble match is synonymous with thrilling spots; suspenseful near-eliminations; dream match stare-downs; layered storytelling that builds or advances midcard WrestleMania attractions; an out-of-nowhere fun nostalgic cameo; a final four teeming with anxiety; a notable Iron Man performance booked to highlight a breakthrough act; a monster elimination spree; at least two credible potential winners worth tracking throughout what is a long, demanding runtime.
The 2022 men's Royal Rumble match offered literally none of this.
Riddle and Randy Orton didn't tease dissent. AJ Styles, through his elimination by Madcap Moss, was hardly built as a potential opponent for Edge at WrestleMania. Nor, through his elimination by Shane McMahon, was Kevin Owens. Everything was so casual, aimless. They'll worry about that sort of thing later.
Before the celebrities generated the expected pop and the real stars entered the match late, this truly was a whole load of absolutely nothing notable only for the "TNA!" chants that received the AJ Styles Vs. Bobby Roode meet-in-the-middle.
Johnny Knoxville, professional stunt comedian, basically did the Daniel Puder bit. There was no creativity to capitalise on the publicity with an attention-grabbing GIF worth circulating on social media. Recklessness, yes, but no creativity. Even the few strong moments were damning of the entire company. Bad Bunny impressed again, so much so that - and this isn't that hyperbolic - he's better at this than 80% of the NXT 2.0 roster.
The match was structured with zero love nor forward-thinking. It was simply a procession of just-there midcard acts, entering the ring suspiciously close together, trading eliminations. WWE telegraphed the winner via the result of the WWE Title match, and what's worse, they didn't bother dispatching anybody from RAW to the commentary booth. They only needed Michael Cole and Pat McAfee to put over Brock Lesnar at the finish.
The finish itself was unceremonious in the extreme. Drew McIntyre was thrown out so quickly that it felt like WWE was actively trying to tell you that the events of 2020 didn't matter. Should you let that one "play out"?
On the evidence of this mundane sea of damned souls just doing things, arbitrarily, the only thing that's played out is this wrestling promotion.
Star Rating: ★★