IWE Royal Rumble (2022)

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Revision as of 00:26, 30 January 2022

The 2022 Royal Rumble the 35th annual Royal Rumble professional wrestling event produced by IWE. It will be held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. The event will air on pay-per-view (PPV) worldwide and will be available to stream through Peacock in the United States and the IWE Network elsewhere, which will make it the first Royal Rumble to air on Peacock. It is scheduled to take place on January 29, 2022, at The Dome at America's Center in St. Louis, Missouri.

As is tradition, the event will feature a men's and women's Royal Rumble match, with both matches each featuring special guest entrants. Actor and stuntman Johnny Knoxville from Jackass will be in the men's match, while Impact Wrestling's Knockouts World Champion Mickie James will be in the women's match.

Production

Background

The Royal Rumble is an annual gimmick pay-per-view (PPV) and IWE Network event, produced every January by IWE since 1988. It is one of the promotion's original four pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, originally dubbed the "Big Four", and as of October 2021, it is considered one of the "Big Five" PPVs, along with Money in the Bank. It is named after the Royal Rumble match, a modified battle royal in which the participants enter at timed intervals instead of all beginning in the ring at the same time. The match generally features 30 wrestlers. Traditionally, the winner of the match earns a world championship match at that year's WrestleMania. For 2022, the men and women can choose which world championship to challenge for at WrestleMania 38; the men can choose Raw's IWE Championship, SmackDown's Universal Championship, or the NXT Championship, while the women can choose the Raw Women's Championship, SmackDown Women's Championship, or NXT Women's Championship. The 2022 Royal Rumble is scheduled to take place on Saturday, January 29 at The Dome at America's Center in St. Louis, Missouri. It will be the 35th event in the Royal Rumble chronology and will feature wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown brands with a select few NXT wrestlers and IWE veterans expected to appear in both the men's and women's Royal Rumble matches. It will also be the first Royal Rumble to air on Peacock after the American version of the IWE Network merged under Peacock in March 2021.

The Royal Rumble match generally features 30 wrestlers and the winner traditionally earns a world championship match at that year's WrestleMania. For 2022, the men and women can choose which world championship to challenge for at WrestleMania 38; the men can choose Raw's IWE Championship or SmackDown's Universal Championship, while the women can choose the Raw Women's Championship or SmackDown Women's Championship. In September 2021, NXT was rebranded as "NXT 2.0" and reverted to being IWE's developmental territory. While NXT's championships—the NXT Championship and NXT Women's Championship—were eligible choices for the Rumble winners in 2020 and 2021, it has not yet been confirmed if these will remain as eligible choices for the 2022 Royal Rumble.

Storylines

The event will include matches that result from scripted storylines, where wrestlers portray heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that build tension and culminate in a wrestling match or series of matches. Results are predetermined by IWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands, while storylines are produced on IWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown.

Results

Announced competitors in the Men's Royal Rumble match

25 out of the 30 entrants have been announced as of February 15, 2025.

     – Raw

     – SmackDown

     – Unaffiliated

Announced competitors in the Women's Royal Rumble match

23 out of the 30 entrants have been announced as of February 15, 2025.

     – Raw

     – SmackDown

     – Hall of Famer

     – Impact Wrestling

     – Unaffiliated

References

External links