Women Refused To Work Royal Rumble Match Due To Tyson Kidd's Absence

The 2022 WWE Royal Rumble event will go down as one of the most controversial not because of what happened on screen but because of what happened backstage with Shane and Vince McMahon regarding the booking of the Men's Royal Rumble Match.

It is now also being reported that backstage frustration was not just limited to the Men's match as the Women's Royal Rumble also had some booking issues with plans for the big match changing several times leading up to the match.

The producers assigned to the match included Finlay, Shane Helms, Pat Buck, Michael Hayes, and Molly Holly. One notable name missing was Tyson Kidd  (TJ Wilson) who normally produces the majority of the women’s matches in WWE. Kidd was reportedly not there and Finlay replaced him.

During today's Sean Ross Sapp Q&A Podcast, Sapp reported the following:

“A few weeks ago I had heard that TJ Wilson had grown frustrated. The reason I didn’t run a story on this is because I had heard conflicting things from people that work with him, that are close with him, the company itself. So one person  who told me the information said, ‘heard he wasn’t there, he didn’t show up, wasn’t happy with how things were going, and he’s no longer there.’ However, I follow up with WWE, I follow up with  people close to him and they say, ‘no, TJ is still with the company.’ A couple of weeks go by, he’s not listed on any of the internal producer’s lists. Now, Shane McMahon wasn’t listed as a producer either, but he helped produce the Royal Rumble, TJ Willson did not. To the point where there were women that were contacted for the Royal Rumble that said TJ isn’t doing it, I’m not doing it, and they brought in Fit Finlay.”

Sapp added:

“There is a lot of burnout for producers…beyond this week with the Royal Rumble.” WWE had a short staff of producers last Friday for SmackDown because some of them were at SmackDown while the rest was at the Royal Rumble to go over the match.

It remains unclear why Kidd has not been around of late, and Sapp notes he could be just taking some time off, but he believes that Kidd is still very much part of the company and will attempt to find out more.