WWE Royal Rumble 2012: Should Sheamus Have Won the Rumble?

If somebody asked you before the Rumble who you would pick between Chris Jericho and Sheamus to win it all, you would have picked Jericho. 

It's as simple as that.

Last night, it came down to two guys, and those two guys just happened to be Jericho and Sheamus.

The Jericho part was not surprising.  Jericho just returned earlier this month to the WWE, and depending upon your perspective, his return has received a mixed reaction.

Nonetheless, there have been heavy rumors that he will face CM Punk at WrestleMania for the WWE Championship. 

It was expected he would win the Rumble, which would give him momentum in the next two months to not only set up his feud with Punk, but maybe give reasons for his character development since returning.

Instead, as was expected, Jericho was in the final two.  The only problem was he lost.

Sheamus turned out to be the victor.

Now, before I get into why I think this was the wrong decision, let me say I think Sheamus is a fine wrestler.

I have no problem with Sheamus, and I think, surprisingly, he's better as a monster face than he is as a monster heel. 

He's grown tremendously as a superstar since his debut in the company more than two years ago, and I wouldn't have had a problem if he had won the Rumble if this were any other year, or if Jericho wasn't it.

But here's the problem with Sheamus winning the Rumble over Jericho: The WWE did it purely because everybody expected Jericho to win, and they wanted to surprise the fans.

This is one of those situations where I have no problem with the expected actually happening.

I could easily be wrong about this down the line.  Hell, it could appear that I'm wrong about this even a couple weeks from now.

But as of this moment, as of this writing, it appears nonsensical to have given Sheamus the crown over Jericho.

Since Jericho returned on Jan. 4, he's said very little.  In fact, he's given us very little reason why he's been acting the way he has over the past month.

I have no problem with that because I absolutely loved his return.  In my opinion, it was one of the best returns of all time.

However, the fact of the matter is it's been nearly a month since his return. 

At some point, you have to give the crowd a little bit of a hint, or a little bit of reason, why Jericho has been acting the way he has.

A perfect way to jump-start that reasoning is to have Jericho win the Rumble, thereby making a statement and backing up his proclamation that "the world will never be the same again."

Instead, by having him lose the Rumble, even though he did look strong in his appearance in the match, it makes his promise and his return look empty.

Even if Jericho does face Punk at WrestleMania for the title, even if his promos and his feud with Punk are still entertaining, it would have been so much better had he won the Rumble.

Think about it. 

He goes, essentially, one month without talking, acts bizarre, appears in one match leading up to the Rumble where he doesn't even do anything and then wins it?

Everything that he did leading up to the Rumble looks justified.  But him losing the Rumble?  It makes his return look plain empty.

As I said before, anything could happen.  Maybe a couple weeks from now I'll be singing a different tune about the outcome of the Rumble.

Maybe the WWE has a trick up their sleeve, building Jericho up to be a credible threat to the WWE title and Punk, inserting Sheamus into an interesting feud with whichever world champion.

Maybe I'm wrong.

But as of this writing, to simply make Sheamus the Rumble winner over Jericho for the surprise factor is just simply idiotic.

Jericho winning the Rumble made sense in every sense of the word.

Instead, the WWE chose shock value over common sense.