Every week, I become more and more convinced that Paul “Triple H” Levesque actually reads our opinion columns.

Okay, maybe he’s a bit too busy being WWE CFO for that, but surely, someone in the WWE writer’s room is paying attention to what we’re writing here. It’s either that, or someone at WWE finally grew a third brain cell, and realized that they should really start shifting their focus to the Royal Rumble, which is — let me check my calendar — a week from Saturday. On Monday’s episode of “WWE Raw,” we got about 10 Royal Rumble declarations, and 9 of those were packed into the last hour of programming. It’s a sin to delay Royal Rumble announcements to less than 14 days out from the show, but I’d argue it’s an even worse to jam-pack a show so full of Royal Rumble announcements, that none of them feel particularly special.

Jey Uso’s Royal Rumble announcement was told through the crowd, where he belongs, so I guess that’s pretty cool. I wasn’t even mad when Rhea Ripley and IYO SKY made their joint Royal Rumble declaration; RHIYO is one of WWE’s hottest items right now, and it would’ve been idiotic for them not to capitalize on their power as a unit. I started raising my eyebrow when Liv Morgan and Roxanne Perez of the Judgement Day came out, and, in the midst of their trash-talk towards RHIYO ahead of their WWE Women’s World Tag Team Championship match at Saturday Night’s Main Event, declared not only themselves, but Raquel Rodriguez as well. Like, I guess it could be written off as a “while we’re on the topic” situation, but still: six Royal Rumble declarations in one show is quite a bit.

There’s more! Bayley, Lyra Valkyria, Kairi Sane, and Asuka also declared themselves for the Women’s Royal Rumble match — at least, they implied their participation through backstage segments. While these segments were very cute (especially the Bayley and Valkyria one, where Bayley told Valkyria to “hug [her] tighter”), their chaotic and confusing nature definitely added to the already packed-to-the-gills feeling of this year’s Royal Rumble announcements.

Can WWE not find a happy medium? My colleagues’ criticisms of the complete lack of Rumble hype less than a month out from the event are still valid, but the solution here is not to dump a bunch of Rumble declarations on us. Nearly a third of the women’s Royal Rumble match has been announced in one night. That’s a bit overwhelming, even for the most diehard of wrestling fans. 

In the future, maybe try to plan better. In the future, plan better, so that you’re not dumping all of your Rumble declarations into two weeks.

Written by Angeline Phu