We all love the Royal Rumble. The 30-person over-the-top-rope battle royal is the highlight of the wrestling calendar year for many, and with good cause. With so many people entering, anyone can win. I mean, they won’t, and unless your name looks REALLY good on a marquee, you’re more likely to be just another body in a full ring than a future WrestleMania main eventer. But what if that didn’t have to be the case?
What if the world operated on 2K rules, where – sure, there are still favorites and stars whose attributes make them better suited to the match type, but there’s nothing stopping someone from the bottom of the card from dumping a main eventer and winning the whole damn thing. That very conceit is what brings us to our piece today. As we have done in past years, our crack team of contributors randomly drew male and female Superstars and was tasked with writing their wrestlers’ names in the history books. Join our team as we peer into the multiverse and ask ourselves:
What if Giulia won the Royal Rumble?
On the official WWE YouTube channel, Chelsea Green and Piper Niven recently sat down and rewatched the 2023 Women’s Royal Rumble match, providing commentary over the happenings. It was in this video that Chelsea said that one of the most exciting things about the Rumble in today’s WWE is that you never know who will show up. It could be a legend, a returning Superstar, an NXT call-up, or somebody from the independent scene – which is 100% correct, as this year marks the WWE debut of STARDOM’s Giulia.
In order to show the WWE Universe what she is capable of in the ring, Giulia will need to make her entrance early in the match, say around number 3 or 4. It is here that she will get the time she needs to shine while also creating epic moments with the other women to enter the match. Awing the WWE Universe with her unique in-ring style, Giulia manages to make it to the final three, staring down former STARDOM alumni Auska and Kairi Sane, finally eliminating the two Kabuki Warriors simultaneously to punch her ticket to the main event of WrestleMania.
The following night, the Judgment Day, led by Rhea Ripley, are in the ring, delivering their standard opening promo to Monday Night Raw. Ripley, fresh off of defending her title against Nia Jax at the Rumble begins to bring the mic to her face but is immediately interrupted by Giulia. Giulia marches to the ring, slaps the microphone out of Mami’s hands, and begins to pummel the champion. Rhea manages to escape thanks to Priest and Balor leaving Dirty Dom in the ring all by himself to take Giulia’s finisher.
Giulia grabs the mic and says that the easy choice would be to go to SmackDown and challenge IYO SKY for the WWE Women’s Championship. Two women who began their careers wrestling in Japan main eventing the biggest PLE of the year in the biggest sports entertainment company in the world. A platform that would give the whole world a chance to see just how great women’s wrestling is. But that would be easy. Her reason for picking Rhea is personal.
This past year, Giulia was ranked as the number 2 women’s wrestler in the world. Runner up. First loser. To Rhea Ripley. At WrestleMania, not only will Giulia defeat Rhea Ripley to win her Women’s World Championship, but will prove to everyone that she is in fact the best women’s wrestler in the world. Unfortunately for Giulia, she eventually discovers that not even the second best women’s wrestler in the world is on Mami’s level, ultimately losing her WrestleMania match.
– Shane Martin
What if Lita won the Royal Rumble?
As per usual, multiple women’s wrestling veterans and legends make “surprise” entrances in the Women’s Royal Rumble. Sable returns for the first time in 20 years for a huge pop. Kelly Kelly and Eve Torres throw down with Charlotte and Becky Lynch before, I guess, passing the torch. The GOAT Alicia Foooooooox hits a crazy Northern Lights Suplex on Katana Chance before Kayden Carter throws her out.
Among these returns is Lita, whose shock factor as an entrant is negligible as she’s had full-blown singles matches and even a tag title win in recent years. The one thing that is shocking is that she comes in early and sticks around for a long time. During this run, she narrowly avoids multiple elimination attempts, personally eliminates bigger names like Kairi Sane and Nia Jax, and gets the glory of sending Trish Stratus over the top rope the moment she hits the ring — revenge for taking her out of action last spring.
Bayley, a heavy favorite, comes out and #30 and makes it to the final three with longtime rival Bianca Belair and part-time idol/part-time enemy Lita. Lita and Belair team up on Bayley, but Bayley uses their poor cohesion to throw Belair out. Now one-on-one, the fresh Bayley tries to beat down the tired Lita, but Lita forearms her way out of a Roseplant attempt, hits an inverted Twist of Fate, and throws the battered Damage CTRL leader out of the ring to win.
The next night on Raw, Lita is asked who she wants to challenge, and the crowd chants Rhea Ripley’s name, but IYO SKY comes out and says that Lita doesn’t get a choice, as SKY wants to embarrass Lita for taking SKY’s last title from her, the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship. Lita says she’s not so excited to take SKY down a peg, but Bayley, Sane, Asuka, and Dakota Kai all work together to jump Lita. Though Belair runs down to turn things around, it’s Rhea Ripley’s arrival that gets the crowd pumped, as Rhea forms an unlikely alliance with Lita and Belair. Lita, Belair, and Ripley team together on the road to Elimination Chamber, where Rhea defeats Bayley and Lita defeats Kai in Australia.
The next Monday on Raw, Lita is conspicuous by her absence, as IYO SKY instead addresses her win against Bianca Belair vs Bayley’s loss to Rhea. Then, on SmackDown, Lita officially challenges Rhea Ripley in an Alt-Girl of Everyone’s Dreams 2000s Edition vs 2020s Edition match. Lita would go on to get her first ever one-on-one match at WrestleMania and put a huge notch in Rhea Ripley’s belt as Ripley continues on to be one of the top faces in WWE’s women’s division going forward.
– Darius Melton
What if Arianna Grace won the Royal Rumble?
After Roxanne Perez is mysteriously run over in the NXT parking lot, Arianna Grace is slotted into the Royal Rumble to represent NXT. The pageant queen, however, is suddenly filled with fear and anxiety because of what happened to her father in the 2009 Royal Rumble Match. On that night, Santino Marella was eliminated in exactly one second as he was immediately clotheslined by Kane as soon as he entered the ring and Grace was resolute that this wouldn’t happen to her. As such, she returned to her roots and sought training not just from her father, but also his former partners: Vladimir Koslov, who taught her the headbutt; The Great Khali who taught her the overhead chop; Hornswoggle who taught her how to hide under the ring to avoid elimination; and, of course, her father who taught her the way of the Cobra.
The night of the Rumble has finally come and, unfortunately, Arianna drew #3. With grace, poise, and confidence, she appeared on the stage and waved to the crowd as if she was in a pageant but then immediately hid under the ring as Hornswoggle taught her. Periodically, other competitors would try to drag her out from under the ring but she would counter with Kozlov’s headbutt and Khali’s overhead chop. This strategy kept her alive in the Rumble till it came for the #30 entrant.
As Dakota Kai, Tiffany Stratton, and surprise entrant Kharma/Awesome Kong were in the ring duking it out, Roxanne Perez is revealed as #30 and explodes down the ramp. In a fury, she dives under the ring and begins to wail on Grace. Perez throws Ariana in the ring, where she begins backing away. Roxanne eliminates Stratton and works with Dakota Kai to eliminate Kong. Grace then uses a spare moment to eliminate Dakota Kai, but is immediately attacked by Roxy. Roxy goes to eliminate Grace but Santina Marella, Arianna’s Aunt and Santino’s sister, appears and pulls Roxy over the top rope. Arianna wins the rumble, Santina makes her return, but who ran over Roxanne Perez?
Arianna Grace celebrates her win on NXT and addresses the crowd only to be attacked again by Roxanne. Roxanne is in a rage and grabs a chair but is pulled apart by referees but she is heard screaming, “SANTINA RAN ME OVER! SANTINA RAN ME OVER!”
The next week on NXT, Shawn Michaels pulls footage from the parking lot to in fact prove that Santina had run over Roxanne. Santina appears on NXT to confess that she did run over Roxanne by saying she “did it for my niece, I did it for Arianna.” Santina is immediately arrested because she confessed to vehicular manslaughter and that’s no good. Arianna has pending charges for conspiracy of vehicular manslaughter and promptly loses to Rhea Ripley at WrestleMania. It is revealed upon discovery that Santina Marella is actually Santino, but he escapes prosecution due to the footage’s inability to determine if it was Santino or Santina driving the car. Arianna faces trial in the NXT arena with Dijak as the Judge. She is sentenced to 50 hours of community service as Fallon Henley’s ranch hand because that is how the judicial system works in NXT.
– Jay Barrett
What if Bayley won the Royal Rumble?
I know the whole gimmick of this article is that we are randomly assigned longshot winners to these Royal Rumble matches, but fate being what it is, I actually drew the person I genuinely expect to win the women’s Rumble match. Anyone with two eyes can see that Bayley is clearly on the outs with the newer, more Japanese Damage CTRL – and what happens when Bayley once again steps up to remind everyone that she is still one of the 4 Horsewomen and wins the thing? The return of top babyface Bayley, that’s what!
Picture it: the final three of the Rumble are Bianca Belair, Asuka, and our girl Bayley. Earlier in the night, Kairi will set up for her Insane Elbow drop, but the EST will send Bayley into the corner, knocking Kairi to the floor and eliminating her in the process. That will be strike one. As the match comes to a close, we’ll start seeing Asuka take her frustrations out on Bayley a bit, maybe slapping her, pushing her head, the usual kinda jerk stuff. This will lead Bayley not to strike back, but to duck as Belair steamrolls the empress of tomorrow out of the ring, with Bayley immediately grabbing Belair’s leg and dumping her out to win the match. Lots of cuts around the ring to a confused looking Asuka, and (assuming the women’s match doesn’t main event) maybe a cut backstage to the rest of Damage CTRL watching in the back and looking less excited than you may expect.
The following SmackDown, the Damage CTRL ladies come out under the auspices of celebrating Bayley’s win, but Asuka is still not happy about how things went down. Bayley will swear that she’s going to challenge Rhea Ripley for her title instead, but the rest of the crew doesn’t buy it. What happens next is the Randy Orton getting kicked out of Evolution (probably complete with similar thumbs down gesture) that Bayley needs to regain her spot as a top-of-the-card babyface.
She’ll be out selling the beatdown for a little while, before taking the fight back to IYO and squad. I imagine she sneakily takes out Kairi, Dakota, and Asuka, leading up to Mania, where she has a banger match against the Genius of the Sky. I say Bayley wins and we get the second coming of the Hugger…whose first major challenger arrives as a friend before betraying her to set up the match we all really want: Babyface Bayley vs. a returning heel Sasha Banks.
– Jason Segarra
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