5 WWE Women’s Wrestling Takeaways: Nia Jax Makes History
By JB Alexander
Credit: WWE.com
The 2019 Royal Rumble was a landmark night for WWE in general, but especially for women’s wrestling. Before the largest audience imaginable, memories of Chyna were brought to mind as a woman entered men’s Rumble match, and two big women’s championship matches rocked the pay-per-view undercard with major WrestleMania implications.
The Royal Rumble was magnificent enough that any shortcomings on the part of Raw and SmackDown Live can be totally glazed over in favor of all of the history and the memories made on Sunday night. The road to WrestleMania is officially underway and for the first time in WWE history, women are in the driver seat in just about every way possible.
Nia Jax Dominates All Of WWE
This past Sunday Nia Jax became the first person to compete in two Royal Rumble matches in one night. After competing in the women’s Royal Rumble, she made a surprise appearance during R-Truth’s entrance at number 30 for the men’s Royal Rumble match. She utterly destroyed Truth and forced her way into the men’s Rumble, becoming only the fourth woman in WWE history to do so. As this happened I was stunned and unbelievably excited for what was to come. Nia Jax was about to get into the ring and shove a couple of guys around before being gently tossed over the top rope and eliminated, right?
Wrong. What was actually about to happen was something I was not mentally or emotionally prepared for. Nia Jax didn’t just enter the men’s Royal Rumble; she dominated. And she didn’t just dominate any combination of stars. Nia put down Rey Mysterio, Randy Orton and others, and she even eliminated Mustafa Ali, one of SmackDown Live’s fastest rising stars.
Following this, the unthinkable happened: these guys actually unleashed a full-on assault on her. This is the first time men have laid hands on a woman on WWE television in many, many years and is a clear statement that WWE is moving in an edgier direction. It took a plethora of finishing maneuvers for these Hall of Fame-worthy men to finally eliminate the Irresistible Force, but as Nia Jax’s feet hit the ground signaling her elimination she had to know something special had just happened.
For my part, I knew history had been made and that this all quite possibly just went down as the biggest moment in WWE women’s wrestling to date.