The annual Royal Rumble has come and gone and former WWE Champion Brock Lesnar has won his first-ever Rumble. That’s following the shocking betrayal of Paul Heyman, who helped cost “The Beast Incarnate” the prestigious belt against Bobby Lashley. In truth, Brock Lesnar’s big win wasn’t a shock; Even though he was heavily considered the favorite going in based on the story between Reigns and Lesnar since October, Lesnar winning seemed like a logical choice. Here’s the thing, Lesnar winning the rumble in itself isn’t the biggest issue. It’s the company’s lack of building new stars that are the major problem. Outside of Lesnar and maybe Drew McIntyre, no one else seemed like a viable option to win the 2022 Royal Rumble. Hell, the company didn’t even give any of the young stars a career-defining performance. NXT stars were oddly missing despite teases of LA Knight, Roderick Strong, or Pete Dunne the week prior. Why not give the audience a glimpse of new NXT Champion Bron Breakker? Even then, the young stars on the main roster barely made an impression throughout the annual event. AJ Styles holds the record for the longest time in the 2022 rumble at 20 minutes and 6 seconds. Austin Theory is second with 22 minutes. However, Austin Theory was never treated as a future star on the cusp of main evening WrestleMania. He wasn’t given the Iron Man treatment like past stars such as Shawn Michaels or Rey Mysterio. He felt like a guy who did his spots and left.
The final four men of the Royal Rumble was Brock Lesnar, Riddle, Shane McMahon, and Drew McIntyre! Shane McMahon made his wrestling debut in 1998. Brock Lesnar in 2000. In fact, Brock Lesnar has fought Roman Reigns for the top title at WrestleMania 31 and 34. Now, Lesnar can always fight Lashley for the belt, but the story strongly favors Lesnar vs. Reigns. McIntyre is coming off a lengthy feud with Lashley and actually had a match against Reigns at WrestleMania 35. Riddle was the only fresh guy in the final four and he was tossed out of the ring by Lesnar like he was nothing. The story of Riddle wanting to be the man to retire Brock never came into play because the company had no interest in putting over Riddle as a main event player. WWE’s obsession with Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns highlights that the company only sees two men as true stars, whereas everyone else exists in their cloud. Inside of creating a fresh and intriguing match-up, creative continues to go back to a tired feud that wasn’t all that popular to begin with.
This COMPANY DESPERATELY NEEDS STARS! There was no attempt at trying to showcase the future because WWE can’t stop relying on the past. Brock Lesnar is no longer the future of this company and creative needs to stop booking him as superior to everyone else. Lesnar should be in The Undertaker position and put over young stars. Putting Roman Reigns over once again doesn’t do anything for the WWE Universal Champion as he’s already an established name. Why not test the waters with Lesnar vs. Riddle? Or Reigns vs. Bron Breakker? I understand that Breakker is green and the current NXT Champion, but he’s currently a hot young star and Reigns’s in-ring ability is good enough to hide Breakker’s flaws. Hell, Riddle vs. Reigns works as well. the constant criticism of rematches and boring storylines are highlighted with more Reigns/Lesnar possibly main eventing WrestleMania again. Lesnar winning wouldn’t be much of a big deal if there were guys that the company was grooming for the top spot, but that’s not the case. Big E is already being sent back to the mid-card with The New Day. His title reign was a waste of time. Drew McIntyre is feuding with guys like Jinder Mahal and Madcap Moss; They’re not elevating the former WWE Champion as its only dragging his name down. Damian Priest’s new gimmick isn’t getting over. He was actually booed following his match against Kevin Owens for the United States title. He hasn’t done much since winning the title and company actually wasted his main roster winning streak for a worthless non-title win. Austin Theory comes across as a naive buffoon and isn’t being taken seriously as a main event act despite big wins over Finn Balor. Speaking of Balor, his return to the main roster has been a bust as he’s back to being a nobody again.
This all comes down to booking and no one feels special or hot in the men’s main event scene. I hate to bring AEW into the argument but Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega were missing from the shows at one point yet there was never a void in the main event scene. Adam “Hangman”, Bryan Danielson, Miro, MJF and Darby Allin are just some of the names who could easily take over the main event scene because the company has done an excellent job of not centering their programs around two single wrestlers. It’s time that WWE set aside a couple of wrestlers and give them the special Roman Reigns treatment. They can’t keep treating everyone inferior to Reigns and Lesnar. That’s why Seth Rollins was forced to get into a feud with his former Shield brother because there’s no one on the Smackdown side who even has the star power to hang with Reigns. WWE is in dire state. Not financially, but if this company continues to book in this matter, fans will continue to turn away. There’s a reason that they’re now reaching weekly lows of less than two million on Monday Nights.
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