WWE Royal Rumble 2019 results: Highlights, takeaways, WrestleMania projections

Seth Rollins, Brock Lesnar and Becky Lynch were among the biggest winners from the WWE Royal Rumble.

The 32nd annual WWE Royal Rumble pay-per-view event took place on Sunday night at Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona and what a night it was. With two Royal Rumble matches and just about every single WWE championship on the line, there’s a ton to get to so let’s not waste any time. Let’s take a look at all the results, highlights, takeaways and what the future holds as we travel the Road to WrestleMania 35. We’ll begin with a quick look at the three matches from the kickoff show.

Chad Gable & Bobby Roode def. Rezar & Scott Dawson

This opening match featuring the RAW Tag Team Champions take on one member of AOP and one member of The Revival was booked right there on the kickoff show and it certainly belonged right where it was. There wasn’t much to this one and it ended rather quickly as Chad Gable and Bobby Roode picked up the victory.

What’s next: The RAW Tag Team Championship picture has been a bit of a mess lately and this didn’t do much to help matters but it was fine for what it was. Gable and Roode have clung to their titles and it probably won’t be long before somebody takes them. It’s just a matter of who it’s going to be.

United States Championship Match

Shinsuke Nakamura def. Rusev (c)

This feud hasn’t been overly exciting and it was an easy prediction to make that this match for the United States Championship would end up on the kickoff show. But that didn’t mean that Shinsuke Nakamura and Rusev couldn’t put on a decent match and that’s what we got here. It was no instant classic or anything close to that but it was solid enough and there is now a new United States Champion as Shinsuke Nakamura regained the championship after Rusev accidentally knocked Lana off of the apron, causing enough of a distraction to allow the challenger to hit the Kinshasa to the back of the neck to get the pinfall victory.

What’s next: The easy call used to be that what would be next would simply be the automatic rematch for Rusev but with that somewhat going away, that’s not so simple anymore. However, given the nature of this feud, this likely won’t be the last time these two square off for this title.

Fatal 4-Way for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship

Buddy Murphy (c) def. Hideo Itami, Kalisto & Akira Tozawa

With the cruiserweights once again being left off of the main show, I was pleased that they at least got the spot just before the main card began so more people could witness how incredible these matches are. Once again, the stars of 205 Live went out and had easily the best match of the kickoff show and one of the most entertaining of the night. Every single competitor in this match got some time to shine and it was full of fantastic spots, aerial maneuvers and some fantastic nearfalls. In the end, however, Buddy Murphy was able to retain the title by pinning Hideo Itami.

What’s next: Buddy Murphy continues to shine as WWE Cruiserweight Champion and he’ll now need yet another new challenger as he marches towards WrestleMania, which will likely be another multi-man match, possibly a Ladder Match for the title, which I’d be more than okay with.

Let’s get to the main card, starting with the SmackDown Women’s Championship Match.