Original WWE Royal Rumble 2022 Winner Revealed
This year's Royal Rumble event saw Brock Lesnar enter as the No. 30 contestant on Saturday night and win the 30-man match by eliminating Randy Orton, Bad Bunny, Riddle, Shane McMahon and Drew McIntyre to become the last man standing. But "The Beast" wasn't always picked to win the match, as a number of reports have since emerged regarding how chaotic planning this year's Men's Rumble turned out to be. PWInsider initially reported on Sunday that the plans for the match changed 20 times in the days leading up to the show, randing from the order of entrance to who got eliminated when to who got a standout moment at some point during the match (most of the participants did not).
"We were all in a whirlwind. Just as you had your role and spots down, everything started over and over and now most of us were back to square one. It changed again and again and again. It wasn't an easy night even before we hit the ring," an anonymous WWE wrestler said, noting how low the morale backstage for the match was.
The site followed up on Monday by reporting (Matt) Riddle was eventually going to win the Rumble, though that plan obviously didn't stick. This was going to play into the eventual RK-Bro split between "The Original Bro" and Orton. @WrestleVotes then added Riddle vs. Orton was bumped to WrestleMania after plans for their singles match at the 2021 SummerSlam fell through (that was the show where they wound up winning the Raw Tag Team Championships instead). The creative team is now hesitant to split them and have them feud unless the WWE Championship is involved.
WWE had plans since the pairing began last spring for Riddle vs Randy Orton @ SummerSlam, which didn’t happen. Plan was to hold off til Mania. I’m told now only a handful of creative members want to spilt them, w/ the idea that if the match happens, it should be for the WWE title
— WrestleVotes (@WrestleVotes) January 31, 2022
Both Ronda Rousey (the Women's Rumble winner) and Lesnar are scheduled to be on this week's Raw, and WWE is promoting that the latter will announce which world champion he'll face at WrestleMania 38. Given that Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman cost him the WWE Championship in his match with Bobby Lashley, all signs point toward "The Beast" clashing with "The Tribal Chief" for the third time in the past decade.
Did WWE make the right call by having Lesnar win instead of Riddle? Should they move forward with their plan to have Riddle and Orton feud in the near future? Or does their partnership still have enough gas in the tank for this angle to get pushed out into the summer? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments!
