WWE Royal Rumble 2019: 3 Things We Learned
The Royal Rumble pay-per-view has come and gone and has left WWE fans all over the globe talking about it. In my opinion, and few would argue with me when I say that this year's Rumble event was solid, but it could have been much better.
The event lasted for around seven hours, but fans were satisfied with most of the outcomes of the event. Becky Lynch pulled off double duty to win the women's Royal Rumble match, Seth Rollins defied the odds and was the last man standing in the men's Royal Rumble match.
Brock Lesnar demolished Finn Balor to retain his title, Daniel Bryan defeated AJ Styles in a breath-taking encounter, Ronda Rousey and Asuka retained their respective women's titles and the unlikely duo of The Miz and Shane McMahon dethroned the Bar to win the SmackDown Tag Team titles.
Fans also witnessed a couple of surprises as Jeff Jarret showed up as the second entrant and stood toe-to-toe with Elias. NXT stand-outs Johnny Gargano, Aleister Black, and Pete Dunne made unannounced appearances.
The women's Rumble had its share of surprises as well when Hornswoggle appeared in the women's match under the ring with Zelina Vega. Nia Jax also made an odd appearance in the Men's Rumble match, taking R-Truth's last entry spot.
With all of that said, let's look at 3 things we learned at the Royal Rumble.
#3 NXT matters a lot to the WWE
It was very delightful indeed to see so many young NXT stars appear at last night's Rumble matches, mere 24 hours after they competed at NXT TakeOver: Phoenix. Many of the Rumble's surprise entrants included appearances from NXT's finest talents.
Kairi Sane, Rhea Ripley, and Lo Shirai were just some of the women who appeared in the women's Rumble match and each of them had a great outing. Xia Li was there too, so were Candice LeRae and Kacy Catanzaro. This comes as a shock as many fans were expecting female legends to appear instead of these young women.
The men's Royal Rumble match say Johnny Gargano appear in the number sixth spot, Gargano eliminated Jinder Mahal. Pete Dunne also made an unannounced appearance at the Rumble. Aleister Black made a huge impact as he eliminated Dean Ambrose on arrival.
This goes to show fans that WWE really does care about NXT as such spots are usually given to legends and under-card talent rather than the NXT roster.