WWE needs a women’s Royal Rumble match
By Luke Norris
It’s time for the women of WWE to get their own Royal Rumble.
With the 30th annual WWE Royal Rumble right around the corner, the card is stacking up quite nicely. You’ve obviously got the Royal Rumble match itself, which will include huge names like The Undertaker, Goldberg and Brock Lesnar. You’ve got a WWE Championship match between AJ Styles and John Cena, two men who in my opinion put on the best match of 2016. You’ve got the WWE Universal Championship match pitting Kevin Owens against Roman Reigns. The cruiserweight title match between Neville and Rich Swann has a chance to be one of the highlights of the night.
And there’s also a RAW Women’s Championship match between Charlotte and Bayley, which is all well and good and should be a fantastic match. Yet, I can’t help but think that the women’s division could have and should have gotten something else at the Alamodome: a Royal Rumble match tailored to them.
With all of the progress that the women’s division has made, it’s actually quite shocking that WWE didn’t pull the trigger on this, especially when expecting a crowd of over 60,000 people and the need to fill a four-hour show. Just in the past year alone, we’ve seen the end of the term “divas” and along with it that ridiculous butterfly belt. Charlotte, Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch put on the match of the night at WrestleMania 32 to break in the new WWE Women’s Championship, and since the brand split, we’ve seen even more history made.
It’s now not uncommon to have multiple women’s matches on Monday Night RAW and SmackDown Live and we’ve even seen the ladies in the main event on multiple occasions, including some absolutely amazing title matches between Charlotte and Sasha Banks. Their “Falls Count Anywhere Match” in late November was actually was in my top 10 WWE matches of the year, as was the previously mentioned match at WrestleMania. We also saw the first-ever women’s Hell in a Cell match in 2016 and also saw a Tables Match at TLC for the SmackDown Women’s Championship. And just recently on the blue brand, we also saw the title contested within the confines of a steel cage. Not to mention, that Six-Pack Challenge to just get a champ on Tuesday nights was spectacular as well. The obvious point I’m trying to make here is that the women’s division is on a roll right now and this would have been the logical next step into making it even bigger and better.
The only problem I could see right now with a women’s Royal Rumble is getting enough people to fill 30 slots but that’s an easy fix — you take it down to 20. Problem solved. Right now there are 18 regular female superstars on the women’s roster, and that’s not including Lana or Maryse, both of whom have obviously wrestled before. So there’s 20 right there. Now, you do have to account for neither champion being in the match as you’d still want the winner to be able to challenge for their brand’s respective title at WrestleMania. And yes, there are a few injuries right now to Paige, Tamina and Summer Rae. But that’s a problem that’s pretty easy to solve, isn’t it? Just like in the men’s match, that gives WWE the opportunity to bring back some names from the past as surprise entrants. Just imagine how cool it would be to see Beth Phoenix, Michelle McCool or Sable walk down the ramp. I would say Trish Stratus but it’s her pregnancy that kept her from facing Asuka recently so that wouldn’t work. But in that same vein, what if Lita came out of the booth to show these youngsters how it’s done for a few minutes? What if Vickie Guerrero came back to get the crowd in a frenzy? There are so many names that could work here that would get a great reaction from the live crowd and the viewers at home watching on the WWE Network. You could also throw Asuka and a few of the women of NXT in there as well to give them some time on the big stage.
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Perhaps this is something that WWE creative already has in mind for next year. Maybe they’re trying not to make it feel forced and cram all of these groundbreaking things into a short period of time. Putting it off another year would give them another opportunity to say how much the division continues to grow but I truly believe that this would be the year.
Perhaps instead of a Royal Rumble, they’re going to make 2017 the year we finally get a women’s Money in the Bank ladder match. But I suppose I’ll wait to fight that battle another day.