5 Potential 2022 Men’s & Women’s Royal Rumble Match Winners

Women’s #4 – Rhea Ripley

WWE has seemingly cooled off the Nightmare in recent months following her Raw Women’s Championship loss to Charlotte Flair back at Money In The Bank. Naturally, every wrestler needs to step away from the title picture at some point, but the good thing about Ripley is, it would take WWE just one night to heat her up again.

Ripley is currently locked in a tag team with Nikki A.S.H, which seems destined for splitsville any day now. Ripley’s role in the team has managed to keep her as a featured star on Raw since she lost the title, with Nikki taking the majority of the falls for the team.

I think that WWE knows what they have with Rhea, and that she’s just waiting for her turn back in the spotlight. Her turn could be the Royal Rumble, having come up just short last year, with her one-upping herself this year and either challenging Charlotte Flair to another rematch, or a fresh matchup against Becky Lynch.

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Men’s #4 – Big E

This is an odd one. As of this current writing, Big E is the WWE Champion. Surely Big E should not be in the Royal Rumble match, and the 30 wrestlers should be vying for a shot to face HIM?

That’s where the power of hindsight comes in, people.

Big E is set to defend his gold against Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens and Bobby Lashley at the WWE Day 1 pay-per-view on New Year’s Day. WWE wants to mark Day 1 as a big event on its calendar going forward, leading me to believe at least one big championship change could occur on the show.

A scenario that seems fairly likely to play out would see Seth Rollins weasel out of Day 1 with the gold by pinning either Bobby Lashley or Kevin Owens, with Big E having to win the Royal Rumble to get a rematch against the Drip God at WrestleMania for his gold. A match that, knowing WWE, he would probably lose.

• Brock Lesnar
• Sasha Banks
• Royal Rumble
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