Assessing The Futures Of 10 WWE Stars Who Didn't Make The Royal Rumble 2022 Cut

3. Xia Li

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WWE.com

What the heck is going on with Xia Li?

Having had her SmackDown debut hyped to the moon with badass animated vignettes, the Protector was soon absent from TV for a month.

Seemingly lining up to feud with Natalya, Li's role now appears to have been given to Aliyah, with Xia instead a side piece in all of this. Despite Aliyah's willingness to do her best, the blunt fact of the matter is that she's undoubtedly inferior to Li when it comes to in-ring ability.

That switcheroo and the Xia Li-shaped hole in the Royal Rumble doesn't bode well for the Chinese kickboxer. As is the time honoured tradition, WWE has a worrying habit of heavily promoting a new arrival, only for management to then immediately sour on said arrival - and the talent involved finds themselves struggling for TV time through no fault of their own.

Li is now back on WWE TV, but it remains to be seen how much the 'machine' is behind her now. It would be a little unfair to say the promotion has totally lost faith in Xia, but again, this is a company who can have a change of heart purely because Vince McMahon is out of ketchup for his still-mooing steak.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.