Royal Rumble 2012: Sheamus' Win Is Wrong Move at Wrong Time for WWE

There are moments in WWE that are supposed to define a wrestler's career. Winning the Royal Rumble should be one of those moments, but this year's winner felt like a swerve just to do a swerve. Sheamus earned the title shot at WrestleMania, even though it is not one that made sense based on the storyline.

Before getting into all the things wrong with the finish, at least Sheamus and Chris Jericho put on a fun five-minute match at the end of the Rumble. It was exciting and the fans in attendance clearly ate it up. 

Still, Jericho was the one who should have won this match. Everything leading up to the show pointed to him winning. He cut a promo last week on Raw telling the world that the Royal Rumble would "be the end of the world as you know it."

What was the point in having Jericho cut the promo if he wasn't going to win? He looks a little less threatening now, and Sheamus gets put in a position that he shouldn't be in because he wasn't booked to be the Rumble winner prior to the show. 

Sheamus' most high-profile feud over the last month has been against Jinder Mahal. Yes, THE Jinder Mahal. 

Watching the finish of the Rumble, it is obvious that what happened is Vince McMahon knew that everyone figured out Jericho was going to win the Rumble. He couldn't have the fans knowing what was going to happen, so he did a 180 on everything just to throw the fans off the scent. 

There are good swerves and bad swerves. This one definitely falls into the latter category, because Jericho doesn't get to take over WWE like he had promised and all the storylines told us he was going to do. 

Sheamus is going to be put in a low-profile feud for the title heading into WrestleMania, assuming he holds on to his title shot for that long. WWE could take the easy way out by having him cash in his shot at the Elimination Chamber. 

There was no money to be made in having Sheamus win, the booking prior to the show made this finish look even more ridiculous and there are so many questions that WWE has to answer now that likely won't be followed up on because that's how the company works today. 

A Sheamus win in the Rumble should have been a great story if handled correctly. It wasn't, and now everyone in the match looks worse than they did beforehand. 

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