Royal Rumble 2012: Main Event a Disappointing Start on Road to WrestleMania

The Royal Rumble is supposed to set a tone for the Road to WrestleMania. It failed miserably on Sunday night, which puts the WWE under a lot of pressure heading into tonight's Raw telecast.

While I have no problem with Sheamus emerging victorious since Chris Jericho didn't need the push, the way it was handled leaves a lot of questions unanswered. You would think that after 25 years of Rumbles, the company would have a good grasp on how to pull them off, but apparently not.

Sheamus only eliminated two participants to win the main event. They were Kofi Kingston, who is on the decline thanks to Evan Bourne's wellness woes, and Chris Jericho. Y2J hasn't proven anything since returning to the company earlier in the month.

In the meantime, Big Show entered the fray and eliminated four of the company's rising stars in quick succession. Cody Rhodes and The Miz both spent extended periods of time in the ring before the Big Show quickly ended their runs. Jack Swagger and Dolph Ziggler met the same fate.

If Vince McMahon and Co. really wanted to give Sheamus a massive push, shouldn't he have been the guy doing all of the major damage? You would think so, especially since he needs to be built into a main event superstar again within the next two months.

Instead, he comes off looking like a marginal winner at best. It's not good that more people are talking about Jericho losing than him winning. That's immediate proof that whatever the company tried to accomplish by allowing him to pull off the upset didn't work.

It all comes down to a poor build up prior to the Royal Rumble. Even though Sheamus spent some time feuding with Wade Barrett, who had a very poor showing in the main event, he was more often than not messing around with Jinder Mahal.

That doesn't exactly scream Rumble champion. At least Barrett had an entertaining storyline with Randy Orton to fall back on. Sheamus has just been floating around for months.

The entire purpose of the 30-man battle royal is to leave one man looking stronger than everybody else. That didn't happen last night.

Jericho's return was capped off without a definite direction. Sheamus didn't shine like he needed to. And the inclusion of Michael Cole made the whole thing seem meaningless.

The WWE is lucky there is a show tonight so they can start fixing the damage caused by last night's main event. The Rock's return will provide a boost to WrestleMania, but there needs to be more attractions beyond him to make the show great.

Let's hope the creative team is better at damage control than they were at Rumble booking.