As PWMania.com previously reported, Shane McMahon was one of the producers for the men’s Rumble match and he apparently received some backstage heat.
Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.com confirmed that Shane was one of the producers for the match. Meltzer wrote that Shane “helped produce the Royal Rumble in both 2020 and 2021 but was way more hands on and taking control this year than in the prior two years.” Meltzer added that “the stories about negativity toward McMahon regarding the men’s match are pretty accurate.”
During Wrestling Observer Radio, Meltzer noted that Shane was originally scheduled to be in the Elimination Chamber match to set up a match with Seth Rollins for Wrestlemania 38. According to Meltzer, Shane had pushed for Rollins to be in the Rumble match:
“Seth Rollins was originally in the Rumble, which was another story – both Rumbles were changed over and over and over again. In fact, the Seth match with Roman was changed several times too. Essentially, the original finish was Roman Reigns was gonna beat Seth Rollins. The whole show, the basic gist of the Rumble show, was that Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar is the big match of the year, and everything at the Rumble was to accentuate that as the big match of the year. So both had to look really, really strong.”
“Vince changed the finish because, when the decision was made to do all those chair shots at the end, Vince thought that was too much to do to Seth Rollins, to destroy him like that. Which also led to the idea – Shane was really pushing for Rollins in the Rumble, but when you did that beatdown, the feeling was it would be really stupid for him to take that terrible beating and then go into the Rumble.”
