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Royal Rumble 2021 is now in the history books, and one could call it the best show of the Pandemic Era.
Despite the lack of an actual audience, which plays a big role in making matches like the Royal Rumble a huge success, WWE somehow continued their five-year long trend of starting the year with a marvellous pay per view.
Bianca Belair and Edge literally went past the entire field of superstars, after entering the Royal Rumble match at number three and number one, to win the 30-Superstar matches and booked their tickets to World Title bouts at WrestleMania 37.
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Drew McIntyre, Sasha Banks and Roman Reigns continued their respective World Title runs, with the first one demolishing Goldberg in a short match and the latter two in highly competitive matches, that ranged from good to absolutely brilliant.
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However, despite all the plus points of the show, WWE missed a few opportunities with the Royal Rumble, some of which could have actually helped elevate the show from the level of a great show to one of the best of all time.
Here are five missed opportunities from this year's Royal Rumble.
#1 Lack of big returns in Women's Royal Rumble match
Ever since the Women's Royal Rumble match was introduced in 2018, a lot of former stars, returning stars and NXT performers have appeared in the match, and have managed to leave a strong mark.
Be it The Bella Twins, Trish Stratus and Lita from 2018, Rhea Ripley and Io Shirai from 2019 or Beth Pheonix and Naomi from last year, at least one of the surprise entrants managed to leave a mark on the match. Compared to the past three years, WWE failed to hit the target this time.
Victoria, Torrie Wilson, Alicia Fox and Jillian Hall - These are the four former superstars who appeared in the Royal Rumble match, and none of them had a real impact. Their combined stay lasted only 20 minutes, and none managed to eliminate even a single performer.
The appearance of Victoria, after a decade, was a nice surprise, but the other 3 added absolutely nothing to the match. Jillian spent most of the time along with Billy Kay, only to end up getting eliminated by her, and Fox got involved in the 24/7 Title picture while being in the match, which made little sense.
WWE could have done a lot better with their choice of returning superstars with the Women's Royal Rumble match like they did with the Men's version, but they left a lot to be desired for next year.
#2 Alexa Bliss' short stay in the Royal Rumble match
In the weeks leading to the Royal Rumble event, Alexa Bliss was easily the most over female superstar on the roster. She was involved, along with The Fiend and Randy Orton, in the most prominent program on Raw, and had simultaneously started a rivalry with Raw Women's Champion Asuka.
Because of this, she was expected to play a huge role in the Women's Royal Rumble match and was even among the favorites to win the entire thing. However, with the way Bliss was presented in the match, WWE missed a huge opportunity of finally bringing her back to the Women's Title picture completely.
Bliss entered the match at #27, and lasted in the match for only 62 seconds, failing to make even a single elimination. Just to make it more clear, only Carmella had a shorter stay in the Royal Rumble match, and we didn't even get to see the psychotic side that Bliss had been displaying on Raw for some time.
While an elimination at the hands of Rhea Ripley could be the sign of a program between the two soon, the fact that someone like Bliss, who is a top draw on Raw, was dispatched without much fanfare did leave a sour taste. Imagine the impact she could have had in the Royal Rumble match had she stayed in the match for at least 10 minutes.
#3 No outside help for Roman Reigns at Royal Rumble
What a violent and brutal Last Man Standing Match it was at the Royal Rumble. The program between Kevin Owens and Roman Reigns, over the latter's Universal Title, has been the brightest spot on WWE programming, and the two continued the trend at Royal Rumble as well. Not giving a single care about themselves, the two took each other to the limit all over the ThunderDome in Florida.
The action backstage was particularly brilliant, with The Prizefighter hitting two dangerous highflying moves on the champion, including a senton off a forklift and through a table. However, if there was one thing that was missing from the match, it was the outside interference that forms the backbone Reigns' character.
Where was Jey Uso at Royal Rumble? Wasn't he supposed to protect Reigns and his title? The fact that The Tribal Cheif retained his title without any outside interference - aside from a small hand from Paul Heyman - might have helped in developing his character, but it did not do any good for the challenger, in any way.
Even though the result was never in doubt, given the momentum that Reigns has right now, Owens did not deserve to lose at Royal Rumble the way he did. Yes, the Champion did use unfair means by attacking the referee and taking some help from Heyman, but he beat the challenger all by himself, without any outsider knocking his challenger out while he was recovering.
If WWE has some big plans for Owens during the Mania season, which it seems they have, they should have protected him as well by having Reigns win the match with extensive outside help.
#4 Underwhelming use of Superstars in Men's Royal Rumble match
Edge's victory, after a marathon performance of 58 minutes and 30 seconds, felt as good as the victories of Drew McIntyre and Shinsuke Nakamura, but there wasn't a lot more, apart from that, that was overly good about the Royal Rumble match.
Damian Priest and Riddle were easily the other two stars who left the show with more momentum than they had before they entered, courtesy of their interactions with Kane and Daniel Bryan respectively.
The returns of Carlito, Seth Rollins, and, particularly, Christian provided the surprise factor in the match, but the use of all the other established Superstars is where WWE faltered this time.
WWE again swerved fans by having Daniel Bryan eliminated before the closing stretch of the match. Even though his elimination at the hands of Seth Rollins might kickstart a feud between the two, his use in the Royal Rumble match was again underwhelming.
Sheamus, Cesaro, Shinsuke Nakamura, Big E, Bobby Lashley, Sami Zayn - All didn't get the treatment we were expecting. Even Randy Orton's stay in the Royal Rumble did nothing for the match except stretch his rivalry with Edge.
Despite being one of the best wrestlers on the planet, AJ Styles has been portrayed as a wrestler who can't win any match without the help of his massive associate. Unless his elimination at the hands of Braun Strowman leads to a program soon, his presence also did no wonders to the match, just like all the above-mentioned stars.
#5 No appearance by The Fiend at Royal Rumble
When WWE announced Edge and Randy Orton as the first two participants of the Royal Rumble match, everyone was expecting The Fiend, who has not been seen on WWE programming since he was burned by Orton at TLC, to either distract The Viper or eliminate him from the Match.
However, not only did Orton stay in the match till the very end, albeit spending 95% of time backstage, there was no sign or mention of Bray Wyatt's alter ego on the show. Heck, even an appearance by Alexa Bliss to distract Orton in the Royal Rumble match could have been a nice touch, but even Bliss was nowhere to be seen after her elimination in the Women's Royal Rumble.
It's a shame that we didn't get an appearance by The Fiend because that could have been the best way to continue their rivalry. WWE clearly has plans to prolong this rivalry, ending with some sort of match, involving the three, at WrestleMania. Even though WWE did have Bliss distract Orton on Raw the very next night, during his match against Edge, it did not have the same impact as an appearance by The Fiend at Royal Rumble would have had on this program.
