World Wrestling Entertainment held their annual Royal Rumble premium live event this past weekend. It was terrible.
The result being terrible isn’t much news. The Royal Rumble used to be the one event even lapsed fans of the product would come back to watch because they loved the gimmick created by the late Pat Patterson. Even before his passing the event was losing its magic. If I could point to a moment that mortally wounded the quality of the event it would be in 2011 when Alberto Del Rio won by tossing a comedy wrestler in Santino Marella over the top rope to win. It was promoted he would now be in the main event of WrestleMania. Instead, he opened the show and lost to Edge.
Since then, every Royal Rumble has been diminishing returns and quite possibly the worst thing you can be in the pro wrestling business: boring. While their NXT development league is a terrible product, it’s at least entertaining in a train wreck “who watches this terrible thing” fascination. We’ve now had over a decade of boring Royal Rumble’s.
The only thing we get any excitement for out of it anymore is the hope we see someone new to inject some excitement into the product. This year, the only excitement we really got was free agent and current Impact Knockout’s champion Mickie James entering the Royal Rumble. James, fresh off of being released by the company in 2021 and her locker room belongings left in a garbage bag which prompted her to insult the company and WWE President Nick Khan, was now returning for a pay day.
Some thought this was a new relationship between Impact Wrestling and WWE. So far, it looks like it was just a way for the Knockouts Championship to be mislabled the Impact Wrestling Women’s Championship and then watch Mickie James lose to fellow free agent Lita. She got her Hardcore Country theme from Impact played at least. And it gave the top Knockouts heels plenty of material to fire at her and make the babyface champion look like a pathetic loser for embarrassing herself at a WWE event. So hey, there’s that.
But the fact there was someone from Impact Wrestling led to Twitter account Wrestle Votes coming out with a tweet that WWE was going to try for a “Forbidden Door” entrant. The Forbidden Door of course is a phrase coined by AEW President Tony Khan on the idea of talent from outside of AEW coming into AEW, especially from New Japan Pro Wrestling. So the idea of a “Forbidden Door” entrant made people immediately believe Wrestle Votes meant someone from AEW would be entering the Royal Rumble.
Had more than 1 source this weekend, w/o me directly asking, state they believe WWE will try for an “unexpected” forbidden door entrant for the Men’s Royal Rumble. Personally I’m skeptical it happens, but I can confirm WWE is at least open to the idea. Which is exciting enough.
— WrestleVotes (@WrestleVotes) January 10, 2022
Since that tweet on January 10, the internet was abuzz for the Royal Rumble on who could be entering from AEW. Could it be Chris Jericho, who did show up on Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions show on Peacock? What about Jon Moxley coming in to tease a reunion of The Shield? What about all these rumours of Cody Rhodes being a free agent and working on a pay per appearance deal right now with AEW, which Cody confirmed on a totally real and not absolutely worked pro wrestling interview for YouTube. Most AEW fans laughed about the concept… but then they participated.
Twitter was almost every day someone saying they hated Cody Rhodes and hoped he entered the Royal Rumble. Or how funny it would be to see CM Punk come back. Or Kenny Omega finally showing up and confirming Seth Rollins predicted way back in 2018. The fervour was so high that Wrestling Observer’s Bryan Alvarez basically had a melt down naming every single AEW wrestler he could think of and saying they wouldn’t be at the Royal Rumble. Not to be funny, but because he was actually getting people asking if these people were showing up.
Moxley isn’t in the Rumble
— Bryan Alvarez (@bryanalvarez) January 29, 2022
Britt isn’t in the Rumble
— Bryan Alvarez (@bryanalvarez) January 29, 2022
YOU KNOW WHAT NOBODY FROM AEW IS IN THE RUMBLE
— Bryan Alvarez (@bryanalvarez) January 29, 2022
The buzz worked. There was a lot more talk on this Royal Rumble than last year. Everyone was wondering if WWE could truly pull a Forbidden Door entrant based on that tweet, even if the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer had shot it down almost immediately. A lot of people who were thinking of skipping the Royal Rumble watched this year to see if they could pull off an unexpected forbidden door entrant. So how did they do?
For the women’s Royal Rumble, they got Melina who primarily works for Billy Corgan’s National Wrestling Alliance. She was eliminated pretty quickly. We got former WWE divas like Kelly Kelly, Cameron, Alicia Fox, Michelle McCool, and Summer Rae. Sarah Logan also appeared and was tossed out quick. Of course, the big sell there was Ronda Rousey’s return. Hardly a forbidden door.
For the men’s Royal Rumble… Shane McMahon and Bad Bunny. Both men, not forbidden door entries, were also made to look like bigger stars than anyone on the roster. Bad Bunny was made to look tougher and smarter than former WWE champion Sheamus, while Shane McMahon, the worst pro wrestler in the history of pro wrestling, was able to out strike former MMA fighter Matt Riddle and eliminated Kevin Owens. On Friday night Smackdown the day prior they teased LA Knight and Roderick Strong being at the Royal Rumble. Neither man showed up. NXT was kept off the show entirely.
So despite the buzz working, there was absolutely zero pay off to the buzz, which fair to them they didn’t really create. They didn’t tease someone from AEW entering. But AEW fans ended up hurting the perception of their own promotion by playing along, and even allowing the idea to be considered. You want to look second rate? Entertain the idea of your guys showing up as throwaway entrants to a dying gimmick match. Nobody wonders what WWE wrestlers will show up in the AEW Casino Battle Royale unless they’ve already been released. Don’t expect any, “Will Brock Lesnar show up in the Casino Battle Royale?” rumours for Double or Nothing in Las Vegas in May.
Going forward, fans of AEW should be a little more aware of when something is just using them for social media proliferation. But much like someone tweeting something dumb like Bad Bunny being a better seller than Kenny Omega, All Elite Wrestling fans can’t help themselves but respond. Maybe one day they’ll realize they are serious players in this wrestling industry and break their inferiority complex. One can only hope.
