WWE 2024 Women’s Royal Rumble
Thirty contenders enter the ring - who will come out victorious?
Before I get into Royal Rumble, I want to address the good news from this week: Vince McMahon has resigned! Although the circumstances surrounding him leaving aren’t great because of what he is accused of doing, it is good to see the back of him, and I hope it continues to help WWE grow from strength to strength. Triple H (aka Paul Levesque) as creative director also made a great call in removing Brock Lesnar from the Men’s Royal Rumble lineup given he was also tied up in the allegations against McMahon. It seems like the company is moving in a positive direction, and hopefully making it much safer for everyone who works in the industry.
Now, back to the action. I was going into Royal Rumble knowing it was going to be great (I love the whole thing), and I was keen to see the action that the women’s division would bring. I was extremely sad that Sasha Banks wasn’t going to be making an appearance, but I was extremely surprised and excited to see Naomi enter the ring after 5 years away from the action. Another cool thing was seeing Jordynne Grace's debut WWE appearance, especially considering we would normally see her in TNA events.
Image courtesy of WWE
I will say that the crowd was a bit disappointing for this event. Royal Rumble is huge, and while the hype during the intros was good, there could have been a lot more hype happening during the match itself. Royal Rumble is a long event, but there is a lot happening. For instance, although Naomi was making her return to the ring and got a good hype up during her entrance, the crowd could really have boosted that by continuing the hype during her actual wrestling too. Given this event was based in Tampa Bay, Florida, I guess it sort of was to be expected to be a bit more of a chill crowd as opposed to cities like New York or Philly. I would love to see Royal Rumble out of one of those cities to get the full vibe happening.
Image courtesy of WWE
In terms of performance, Tiffany Stratton was extremely impressive for her main roster debut, and her gymnastics background was evident in how he handled herself in the ring. She definitely showed that she’s ready for main roster action. Bayley was also great in the ring, giving off a quiet confidence the entire time she was battling her competition. To be honest, respect to all of them, because going up against 29 other competitors must be pretty exhausting, especially for that amount of time. Nia Jax also put up a good fight, especially given she at one point had everyone in the ring focussed solely on taking her down, and she was able to knock them all back in one go.
Throughout the match there was a great display of technique and really clean form, which is impressive given the scale of the match. That said, it was pretty scrappy in parts too, as the ladies were fighting hard to keep their place inside the ring.
I’ve gotta hand it to them as well, the entrances were all pretty great. The theatrics and light shows were awesome, and the props (like the antlers or rocking up in a mini tank) were pretty sick too.
Image courtesy of WWE
Image courtesy of WWE
The victory was well deserved for Bayley, and this goes down as her first Royal Rumble victory too. For this, she now gets a title shot at Wrestlemania in April, which must feel amazing.
I think I would have liked to see more surprises. For instance, as well as Sasha Banks, it would have also been cool to maybe see AJ Lee make an appearance too, or maybe the use of weapons.
That said, it was a great watch and full of brilliant talent.
I give this match 4 out of 5 stars:
