Listing 5 wrestlers who should have won a Royal Rumble match

4. Chris Jericho (2012)

When Chris Jericho returned to WWE in January 2012, almost everyone assumed that his first major feud would be with then-WWE Champion CM Punk. It made sense; Punk had spent the better part of 2011 christening himself the best wrestler in the world (and had the championship to prove it) and Jericho’s most fruitful WWE run consisted of him telling anyone who would listen that he was “the best in the world at what I do”. Plus, it was a relatively fresh matchup.

All WWE needed to do to make this dream match a reality was book Jericho to win the 2012 Royal Rumble. Instead, they went with Sheamus, with Jericho finishing as the runner-up.

This Rumble result showed us the shortcomings of having two world championships in one promotion. WWE assumed that it could use the Rumble to heat up Sheamus — who it viewed as, at least, a possible number three babyface — while finding another way to get to the Jericho/Punk match.

Unfortunately, Sheamus’ win didn’t make his program with World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan feel like a bigger deal (that storyline primarily centered around Bryan’s mistreatment of on-screen girlfriend AJ Lee) and…well, we saw what happened in their match at WrestleMania XXVIII.

As for Jericho, not winning the Rumble fizzled the buzz he had when he returned to the promotion. He got his title shot against Punk, but the “Punk is a copycat of Jericho” aspect didn’t resonate with fans the way WWE thought. Perhaps it would have if Jericho won the Rumble.