The men's Royal Rumble first occurred in 1987 at a house show, with the first official Rumble event debuting a year later. Although Chyna made history in 1999 when she was the first woman to ever compete in a Rumble match (she eliminated Mark Henry and was later eliminated by "Stone Cold" Steve Austin) it took 30 years for the women of WWE to get their own Rumble match in 2018.
The inaugural women's Royal Rumble match featured Superstars from "Raw," "SmackDown," and "NXT," alongside former talent like Jacqueline, Lita, Kelly Kelly, and Trish Stratus. Although the former Sasha Banks (now known as AEW's Mercedes Mone) lasted nearly an hour, she was eliminated by The Bella Twins. In the end, Asuka, who would enter at No. 25, would go down in history as the first woman to win the women's Royal Rumble.
But what if the inaugural women's Royal Rumble match had taken place earlier? Who might some of the initial winners have been? In this edition of What Could Have Been, Wrestling Inc. explores what would have happened if WWE had introduced the women's Rumble four years earlier in 2014 arguably the first year they had the women's roster to support one. What would the 2014-2017 women's Rumbles have looked like, and who would have won?
In 2014, Aksana, Cameron, Tamina, Layla, Natayla, Summer Rae, and Kaitlyn were some of the women on the main roster. WWE would definitely have needed to utilize the "NXT" roster to help make it to 30 women. The Four Horsewomen, Alexa Bliss, Paige, Emma, and Carmella could've easily been part of the mix.
Paige was the first NXT Women's Champion in 2013. The following year, she made a lot of noise on the main roster when she defeated AJ Lee to become the Divas Champion in her "Raw" debut in April 2014. Lee would win the title back in June and it would be hot-potatoed back to Paige in August. Given that Lee was champion going into 2014, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to see Paige debuting a little earlier, winning the first-ever women's Royal Rumble in 2014, and then defeating Lee at WrestleMania XXX, the night before she did it in real life.
The following year featured many of the same women on both the "NXT" and main rosters. By then, "NXT" had also added Peyton Royce, Billie Kaye, Asuka, Liv Morgan, Nia Jax, Aliyah, and Daria Berenato (later known as Sonya Deville; now Daria Rae in TNA).
2015 is the toughest year on this list to figure out since the Divas title wasn't defended at WrestleMania 31 that year (AJ Lee and Paige wrestled the Bellas in a tag match instead). Given that Nikki Bella was the Divas Champion in 2015, a fun possibility would have been having Brie win the Royal Rumble to have sister vs. sister for the championship. Bella vs. Bella definitely could've been a 'Mania match that would have cashed in on the popularity of the Bella Twins.
Lee would have been another good choice to win since she was one of the most dominant women's wrestlers of that era and was feuding with Nikki throughout 2015. Nikki would go on to surpass Lee as the longest-reigning Divas champion. Would that have happened had Lee won the Rumble and challenged Nikki at "The Show of Shows?"
In 2016, "NXT" added Bianca Belair, Ember Moon (Athena in ROH/AEW), Evie (Dakota Kai), Mickie James, Nikki Cross, Mandy Rose, Sarah Bridges (Logan), Victoria Gonzalez (now known as Raquel Rodriguez), and Tessa Blanchard. Bayley, Nia Jax, Lana, and Dana Brooke moved up to "Raw." Maryse was drafted to "SmackDown," and Carmella and Eva Marie joined the blue brand too.
The year prior, Banks had won the NXT Women's Championship and defended it in several acclaimed matches. To keep her momentum in the new year, "The Legit Boss" would have been an excellent choice to win the Royal Rumble, and she did end up challenging for the newly restored Women's Championship at WrestleMania 32 albeit in a triple threat match with Becky Lynch also challenging the champion, Charlotte Flair. Lynch would have been another good choice for Rumble winner, although with the brand split later that year, "The Lass Kicker" became the inaugural SmackDown Women's Champion in September. Banks was one of the most popular wrestlers at the time and winning the Rumble would solidify her as more of a top wrestler and one of the top women. She also did end up winning the women's title in 2016, but it could easily have happened at WrestleMania.
From January until April, Mickie James was on "SmackDown's" roster. She'd spend the next two years on "Raw." "NXT" beefed up their women's roster in 2017 with Zelina Vega, Shayna Baszler, Rhea Ripley, Ruby Riott, Nixon Newell, Kairi Sane, Taynara Conti (AEW's Tay Melo), Lacey Evans, and Abbey Laith (Kimber Lee) rounding out the roster. In September, Asuka joined the "Raw" roster. She had been the most dominant NXT Women's Champion, holding the title for 510 days before vacating it. Maria Kanelis-Bennett returned to WWE in June 2017, joining "SmackDown, while Liv Morgan joined the blue brand in November.
In February of that year, Naomi won the SmackDown's Women's Championship at Elimination Chamber. Unfortunately, she only held the title for nine days due to a knee injury. She would go on to win the title back at WrestleMania 33. She seems like the most obvious option to win the 2017 Rumble given her momentum and being a two-time champion before the year ended.
