5 Early contenders to win the 2020 WWE Women's Royal Rumble
For the third year in a row, the 30-woman Royal Rumble will be among the featured matches at the 2020 Royal Rumble in Houston, Texas on January 26.
In 2018, the first women’s Rumble in WWE history saw the undefeated Asuka outlast 29 other Superstars to set up a SmackDown Women’s Championship match against Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania 34. The event also included the debut of Ronda Rousey, who appeared after the match and pointed at the WrestleMania sign.
One year later, Becky Lynch bounced back from her defeat against Asuka earlier in the night by going on to win the 2019 Royal Rumble and book her place in the main event of WrestleMania 35, where she defeated Rousey and Flair to claim the RAW and SmackDown Women’s Championships.
With Survivor Series now over, let’s look ahead to the next ‘Big 4’ pay-per-view on the WWE calendar by counting down the five most realistic contenders to win the 2020 women’s Royal Rumble match.
#5 Rhea Ripley
On a Survivor Series weekend that featured in-ring performances from over 60 WWE Superstars across RAW, SmackDown and NXT, Rhea Ripley stood out as the top star of the future from the three brands.
Having defeated Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks in a Triple Threat match on Friday’s episode of SmackDown, the Aussie emerged as one of three survivors as Team NXT picked up the victory over Team RAW and Team SmackDown in Sunday’s five-on-five-on-five elimination match.
The former NXT UK Women’s Champion’s biggest achievement arguably came during Saturday’s NXT TakeOver: WarGames event, where she became the first woman in 14 months to pin NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler.
Given the extraordinary amount of momentum that she built up over those three days, we can expect another strong showing from Ripley if she is selected as one of the NXT representatives in the 2020 Royal Rumble.
It would not be a surprise if WWE decided to allow future Rumble winners to challenge for NXT Championships, as well as World Championships from RAW and SmackDown, so Ripley would not necessarily have to leave NXT if she wins the Rumble.