6 Wrestlers Who Suffered Most From WWE Royal Rumble 2018

The only way you can really put a positive spin on Dolph Ziggler's Sunday night is by speculating that his number 30 spot was originally intended for Daniel Bryan, who fell ill (but not seriously il - just a 24-hour thing) at the last moment, leading them to call up the Showoff at the last second.

That's a bit of a reach though. The truth is that they probably had this planned all along: Dolph surrenders his US Title on SmackDown, disappears from our screens for a month, and then makes a triumphant return at the Rumble, only to be eliminated within two minutes.

When you put it like that, however, it doesn't really make too much booking sense. Ziggler didn't have anywhere near the amount of ring time required to convince fans that he had come back a new man. In fact, he was chucked out by the first half-decent adversary he encountered in Finn Bálor.

All of this puts him squarely back in the position that he was in two months ago, before his shock United States Title victory at December's Clash of Champions. Why didn't they just let him have a run with the belt? Surely it would have been better than this.