WrestleMania 35 preview: Women’s Battle Royal

FanSided previews WWE WrestleMania 35’s Women’s Battle Royal, a match that gets wrestlers on the card, but not much else.

There are pros and cons to WWE’s WrestleMania battle royals. Both the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal (for male wrestlers and called “the Andre” for short) and the one-year-old WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal (initially a memorial for the Fabulous Moolah until the many allegations of her mistreating female wrestlers in her charge became too much for event sponsor Snickers) provide opportunities for many wrestlers to, however briefly, be on the WrestleMania card, but not much else. The women’s battle specifically allowed for some NXT stars to shine in front of an audience that may have largely not seen them before and included satisfying character moments like the interactions between Sasha Banks and Bayley.

However, in the weeks and months after Naomi took home the trophy, the question was raised: What was the point of this thing? She didn’t get a title shot out of it. She didn’t even get a parking spot out of it.

Inclusion in this battle royal seems like even less of an honor this year when the first-ever women’s main event of WrestleMania comes with the monkey’s-paw consequence of the loss of the presumed SmackDown Women’s Championship match on the card. After it had been announced that SmackDown Live would include a fatal four-way between Carmella, Naomi, Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose to determine who would challenge the blue brand’s women’s champ, Asuka, on April 7, Charlotte Flair, who was already booked in the Raw Women’s Championship match for the show, faced Asuka in a previously unannounced title match and won.

So when the second WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal was announced with women who under a week earlier had the potential to be in a championship match included, the initial reactions of many fans and some wrestlers were of disappointment and frustration.

The match has the potential to be fun in itself considering the talented list of participants that so far includes Asuka, Carmella, Naomi, Lana, Rose, Deville, Dana Brooke, Nikki Cross, Ruby Riott, Liv Morgan, Sarah Logan, Mickie James and Zelina Vega, but the fact that this is all that certain wrestlers are probably doing at this year’s WrestleMania might make the enjoyment bittersweet.