12 Wrestlers Who Had ABSOLUTELY NO BUSINESS Being In WWE Royal Rumble
1. Becky Lynch (2019)
Based on just how over she was by 2019, Becky Lynch had every business being in that year's Royal Rumble ahead of a WrestleMania that looked sure to feature the show's first ever women's main event. But a WWE obsessed with trolling its audience to the last insisted on creating a scenario that didn't just tease the fact that she might not enter at all, but also risked heeling their top babyface star.
Having lost a singles match to Asuka on the show's undercard, Lynch was in Rumble limbo. She wasn't not in the match definitively; plenty of wrestlers have worked the undercard and gone on to feature in the battle royal, but Daniel Bryan's 2014 omission was fresh in the memories five years later. Not least considering how similarly organic 'The Man's rise felt. Bryan was still the comparison point for everything - the proof that WWE could actively quash a push or see one through in equal measure, his real life trials resonated more than their spin about it being one glorious storyline.
Subsequently, when Lynch got in the match via desperate politicking over the injured Lana's body, hopes weren't universally high. As they so often did at the time, WWE got lucky with the outcome - Lynch was too over and fans were too browbeaten, and the combination was catnip for lazy creative. 'The Man' came around, navigated the emotional assault course of a mostly-rotten Road To WrestleMania and won both belts to (just about) pay off all her promise.