5 WWE Women’s Wrestling Takeaways: Nia Jax Makes History

Credit: WWE.com

2019 Women’s Rumble Outperforms The First

The women’s Royal Rumble had big shoes to fill. Last year was the first ever iteration of the event and was epic in scale not just because of the history being made but because of how many legendary Hall of Famers and other icons were involved in the match. The 2019 Rumble didn’t have any of that hype to sell it to the crowd and after it was all said and done I think it played to the benefit of Sunday’s big throwdown.

Instead of calling in the Hall of Fame cavalry this year WWE relied heavily on the rising stars of NXT. This not only makes logical sense considering the NXT brand was in town for TakeOver: Phoenix, but also makes sense because it was an investment in the future. NXT standouts like Candice LeRae, Kairi Sane, Io Shirai, Rhea Ripley, Xia Li and Kacy Catanzaro took center stage on Sunday and had the opportunity to build a following among the more casual Raw and SmackDown fanbase, and it paid off immensely.

The women’s Royal Rumble match of last year felt like a celebration of women’s wrestling, past and present, and it was magical. This year the Rumble was about solidifying the foundation of today’s breed of Superstars, and because of that the match stood out on its own and, I believe, surpassed last year’s. The match ended appropriately with Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch, the hottest rivalry of the past year. Becky took the win, and until Nia Jax’s show-stealing performance later on it would be the night of “The Man.”