WWE Women's Royal Rumble 2022: Predicting ALL 30 Entrants
WWE shock the world with some surprises and an Impact World Champion. But who ELSE lies in wait?
This was looking to be an an increasingly tough task for 2022.
WWE release days have developed something of a strange formality about them in recent years, with well over 150 talents and staff let go from the company since April 2020's first major swinging of the axe. We made it a whopping five days into 2022 before yet more departed ahead of the busiest period of the year and a pay-per-view that requires 60 wrestlers across two matches.
Itt rather awkwardly created a scenario that saw the women's main roster short of the 30 places needed to make up a Royal Rumble. Truthfully, it marked the continuation of a pattern of disrespect - women's wrestling within WWE badly suffered in 2021, so a lack of available talent was the last thing this year's January classic needed as a New Year with new opportunities beckoned.
The list of offences was long - the company blew it with Bianca Belair at the expense of an extremely forced Becky Lynch heel turn, Rhea Ripley and Nikki A.S.H ended a theoretical breakout year in a slightly reluctant tag team on a losing streak, Alexa Bliss was destroyed by the Lily nonsense, and speaking of Lily nonsense, Charlotte Flair bounced from miserable angle to miserable angle with very few good matches to pull her out the sludge.
As revealed on the January 7th SmackDown (and perhaps in an effort to address all this), she's calling her own WrestleMania shot and entering this year. As are...
30. Mickie James
A bombshell inclusion, not least considering Mickie James' exposing of 2021 WWE's post-release practices by sharing a photograph of her possessions arriving in bin bags.
Breaking new ground in terms of inter-company relations between the two sides, the Impact Knockouts Champion has gone from being a main roster meat-and-drink entry in 2021 to a history-making special guest sure to beef up the battle royal one year later.