12 Wrestlers Who Had ABSOLUTELY NO BUSINESS Being In WWE Royal Rumble
What are YOU doing here?! WWE has unearthed some shocks and surprises for the 'January Classic'
The most celebrated of all WWE shows not named WrestleMania (and sometimes preferred beyond 'The Grandest Stage' amongst longstanding fans), the Royal Rumble has skewed more functional than fun in the 2020s.
Before Vince McMahon resigned in disgrace, he proved beyond doubt that he couldn't do anything right, all the way down to a dismal 2022 edition of the 'January Classic' that featured a horribly out-of-touch victory in the men's match for Brock Lesnar, active trolling spots throughout both titular battle royals and two World Championship matches with abysmal finishes.
Triple H's first crack at the show in 2023 yielded one of the greatest angles in company history when Sami Zayn turned on The Bloodline in defence of his longstanding friend Kevin Owens, but yet again the 30-person contests left a bit to be desired, and the pattern didn't really change as the decade continued. It typically doesn't harm the hype or quell the buzz around the event when January rolls around, such is WWE's incredible promotion of its biggest shows, 'The Road To WrestleMania' and the Rumble's own rich history.
A few out-there Rumble entrants such as the ones included in the list below could be just what the match needs in the absence of some actual creativity, though perhaps not these exact ones...
12. Shane McMahon (2022)
Shane McMahon got a pop (Shane McMahon always gets a pop) when he appeared a surprise entrant in the 2022 Royal Rumble, but the more he tried and failed to do out there, the more it became clear "no business" was an understatement.
It looked for all intents and purposes like McMahon was booking his own run, including the physical domination of just about everybody in the latter stage of the match not named Brock Lesnar. And when he did bump for the 'Beast', he made a mess of getting himself over the top rope. It was a performance so self-indulgent that he irritated his own insane Father - Vince McMahon, stewarding his final Rumble and with a quality bar never lower, sacked his own son in the aftermath of an alienating and counterproductive display.
It was inadvertently part of an increasingly humorous late-career legacy stuff for 'The Money'. His final WWE match as of writing was his WrestleMania 39 cameo against The Miz that resulted in him tearing his quad on a leapfrog. Wrestling-wise, he was last seen meeting with Tony Khan for a business arrangement that went nowhere after he allegedly asked for "equity" and to "run things" in All Elite Wrestling. Evidently, his Rumble stinker was a sign of things to come rather than an outlier.