In the opening match of Royal Rumble 2022, Roman Reigns lost to Seth Rollins via DQ during his Universal Title defense. The champion refused to let go of the Guillotine Chokehold submission despite his challenger managing to reach the bottom rope. Some fans are saying that it only happened due to the referee lifting his hand but he was able to respond in a positive way while the referee was checking him.
Seth Rollins was reportedly locked in to lose his match against his former Shield brethren on that night but plans were changed at the last minute. It’s been reported by several sources that multiple changes were noted for the PPV matches leading to the frustrations of the talents. It appears that even the Universal Title match was one of those bouts which went through some major changes.
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According to the updates provided by The Wrestling Observer, Seth Rollins was planned to enter the Men’s Rumble match. Another entrant Shane McMahon was really pushing for Seth to be the Rumble. Most probably, an angle would have been created to set up a Shane vs. Seth match at Wrestlemania 38. The two were likely to be involved in an angle at Elimination Chamber, too to plant the seeds for this match.
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Plans changed for Seth Rollins at Royal Rumble
However, Vince McMahon changed his mind and booked a DQ finish, instead of for the Rumble title match which was also the opening contest of the evening. Reigns destroyed Seth Rollins using a Steel Chair after the match, in the same way, the latter did back in 2014 to break up The Shield faction. This program was also based around The Shield break-up and hence it made sense for that beatdown to happen.
Also, that beatdown was also the reason why the Visionary of the Drip didn’t enter the Rumble. From a storyline perspective, it would make the least sense to let an injured star enter the fray, and hence the idea was nixed.
Seth Rollins vs. Shane McMahon at Wrestlemania 38 was still set to happen following Rumble. But Shane was apparently let go from his WWE duties after he received a ton of heats for his Rumble appearance. Talents were not happy with his Rumble show-up and Vince reportedly had no choice but to quietly release him.