The WWE’s Royal Rumble delivered a lot of standout moments to fans and a few surprise moments folks didn’t see coming. For all the fun that the pay-per-view delivered, there were complaints about various parts of the show, and that doesn’t just include angry fans on the internet. A new report alleges several talents involved in the Royal Rumble weren’t too pleased with how the main event went down.
The latest news out of the Men’s Royal Rumble comes from Fightful Select, which cited several involved in the Royal Rumble with various opinions on how the match was arranged and orchestrated. One person called it the “most stressful” event of their WWE career and mentioned much of the match was chaotic. This was due to frequent changes to the match being made on the fly, with some wrestlers allegedly not even knowing what they were doing until they were about to walk onto the ramp into the match.
Part of the chaos was reportedly due to Vince McMahon, who changed the order of wrestlers entering all throughout the match. There were even a few times where a wrestler was sent out into the match and had no idea who or if they were supposed to be eliminating someone. That’s not ideal for a match that involves so many wrestlers and a lot of coordination to go on without a hitch, so any frustration from talent might feel justified.
Other complaints mentioned that several talents felt the Royal Rumble did nothing to pay off various feuds and tag team disputes, many of which happened to promote the pay-per-view. One example was the Mysterios and Street Profits, who feuded all the way up to the match but had very little interaction throughout it.
One wrestler reportedly remarked that they felt the Royal Rumble would’ve benefitted from more main roster or contracted talent for the match, rather than a bunch of veterans, which led to “complete chaos.” My assumption is this wrestler was involved in the Women’s Royal Rumble match, which featured several returning former superstars like The Bella Twins, Michelle McCool, and current TNA women’s champ (and former WWE employee) Mickie James. The Men’s match didn’t have many returning talents in its match, outside of Shane McMahon.
One final note is that the report disputed claims that the WWE originally wanted Riddle to win the men’s Royal Rumble and that Brock Lesnar’s win was a last-minute decision (as was the case with the Day 1 pay-per-view). Allegedly, several top talents, creatives, and folks from Riddle’s team disputed that was the case and noted that Lesnar’s win was believed to be in place as early as two weeks before the Royal Rumble.
Even so, it seems like there’s a lot of discontent with how the Rumble was handled overall, which could lead to concerns from talent about how they’ll be incorporated in WrestleMania 38. If this is accurate, hopefully the WWE can rectify some disgruntled talents' feelings with the upcoming Elimination Chamber pay-per-view.
The WWE’s Elimination Chamber pay-per-view will stream on Peacock on Saturday, February 19 at 12 p.m. ET. Pick up a Peacock premium subscription in order to watch it, and get ready to see if Bobby Lashley can retain his WWE title against some stiff competition.
