Royal Rumble 2022 predictions for each match on Saturday’s PPV

On Jan. 29, the road to WrestleMania 38 begins with the 35th annual Royal Rumble pay-per-view, which emanates from The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis. As usual, the main draw for one of WWE’s oldest supercards is the eponymous 30-person battle royal — one for the men and, since 2018, one for the women — with the winners receiving a world championship match at WrestleMania.

In addition to the two Rumble matches, WWE has scheduled four matches for the show, three of them for championships. We’ll get into how well WWE built to each of these matches throughout the piece, but most importantly, we’ll discuss which direction the company is likely to go in terms of booking the winners.

These are the predictions for each match at the 2021 Royal Rumble.

Men’s Royal Rumble

Well, we at least know that celebrity entrant Johnny Knoxville isn’t going to win; even WWE has enough self-awareness to not book that end result. That said, that sentence does reflect a general lack of certainty regarding who actually could win this match.

Ultimately, whoever comes out of this with the dub could depend on who wins the WWE and Universal Championship matches. But as things stand, the most obvious candidate to win is former WWE Champion Big E.

Since losing the WWE Championship in unceremonious fashion at Day 1, WWE has done little to reassure fans that they have, no pun intended, big plans for the New Day member, which could either be an alarming sign for his future or another instance of WWE frontloading some losses with the idea that a Rumble win would “give him his heat back”.

Hopefully, as counterproductive as it is, WWE is doing the latter. Prediction: Big E

Women’s Royal Rumble

Even with a higher percentage of non-main roster participants in this match (due to the reduced depth), it’s a little easier to pinpoint the clear favorites in this match, which now includes the returning Sasha Banks.

Now, there have been rumors of WWE bringing Ronda Rousey back to win the whole thing, but in the interest of keeping things positive, let’s pretend that isn’t happening. Instead, let’s focus on what should happen: WWE making up for stalling Bianca Belair’s momentum by giving her a second straight Rumble win. Prediction: Bianca Belair

Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Bobby Lashley (WWE Championship)

Finally, the match everyone has waited for since Bobby Lashley returned to WWE a few years back. Even with some missteps, this match has received the most consistent build of all the matches on this show. Consequently, it feels like an anticipated showdown between two massive heavyweights.

Of course, Lesnar pretending that Lashley — the dominant former WWE Champion — is some sort of unknown undercuts this a little and would chip away at the sheen Lashley has built up over the last year if “The All Mighty” loses here, but if Lesnar and Lashley deliver on the match that most fans hope they have, it may mitigate the potential damage.

Who wins this will depend on who wins the Universal Title match but to play it safe, let’s go with a title retention here. Prediction: Brock Lesnar pins Bobby Lashley, retains the WWE Title

Roman Reigns (c) vs. Seth Rollins (Universal Championship)

Sure, it makes little sense, storyline-wise, why Seth Rollins — a Raw star — is getting a Universal Championship match and there have been points where Rollins has not come across as a threat to Reigns’ title. But the combination of compelling interactions between Rollins and Reigns and the general excitement over the sort of match these two could have has carried the day.

With two SmackDown stars holding world titles, it seems likely that WWE would put one of them on a Raw guy at the Rumble making a Rollins win a legitimate possibility. Plus, Reigns is running out of wrestlers who could realistically beat him for the title, and Rollins is as good a choice as anyone else. Plus, the Usos being banned from ringside eliminates the possibility for nonsense. Prediction: Seth Rollins pins Roman Reigns, wins the Universal Title

Becky Lynch (c) vs. Doudrop (Raw Women’s Championship)

WWE clearly booked this match for two reasons: it wanted to save Becky Lynch vs. Bianca Belair for later and it rightly anticipates that Lynch will get heavily cheered at the Rumble and decided to put her in the ring with a fellow heel.

For a number of reasons, Doudrop does not feel like a real threat to Lynch’s title despite being shoehorned into a monster heel role (with the same silly name, inexplicably), but she’s a good worker and it will be great to see how she does in such a big match against one of the biggest stars in the company.

That said, we know how this is ending. Prediction: Becky Lynch pins Doudrop, retains Raw Women’s Title

Edge and Beth Phoenix vs. The Miz and Maryse (Mixed Tag)

Fair play to these four, they have kept things relatively simple and it led to a more entertaining build than expected. Still, there isn’t much interest in this match from yours truly aside from seeing Beth Pheonix back in action.

We’ve already seen Edge and Miz have a mediocre match at Day 1, so there’s no reason to expect them to top it here, though it depends on what the ladies have planned spot-wise. The result will be the same as it was at Day 1, too. Prediction: Edge and Beth Phoenix win (Phoenix pins Maryse)