The Royal Rumble is a significant event to a professional wrestling fan. It is basically the WWE’s version of a playoff semi-final or conference championship game. The stakes are only higher at Wrestlemania, where the winner of the Royal Rumble is guaranteed a main event spot after outlasting 29 other competitors. It is a genius concept that affords mystery, high stakes, and anticipation to flow freely for about an entire hour within just one match. The Royal Rumble is many a wrestling mark’s favorite match because no two Royal Rumbles are ever the same. The possibilities with different orders and different superstars is endless, making this WWE’s consistently most must see match. This match is the biggest match of them all quite frankly and this year the Royal Rumble becomes even bigger because of the impact it is about to make on what has been marketed as “The Women’s Revolution” by WWE.
This year in Philadelphia, for the first time in the match’s 30 year history, there will be a 30-Woman Over-the-Top-Rope Royal Rumble. While I have watches my fair share of monumental matches that honestly molded me as a young impressionable boy with their hype and their spectacle, I cannot really compare any big match ever carrying as much significance as the first ever Women’s Royal Rumble. The fake pro wrestling part of it is indeed significant I can put that “over” just as much as anything in WWE but the true significance that this match brings on Sunday is the social significance of WWE’s most important match being carried out by an entire roster of women in a sport where women have been a sideshow and extremely disrespected part of the show for over a century.
Since WWE’s initiative to grow it’s own farm system and train pro and amateur athlete’s at it’s own facilities, we have seen a complete paradigm shift with how women are presented on television. Stars like Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch, and Asuka have come on the scene in the last 5 years and they have elevated women’s wrestling to truly be on an equal playing field with the men. When it comes to grandeur, spectacle, and the simulated athletic competition of Pro Wrestling, these women have shown that legit women’s wrestling can be done. They are not the eye candy working a couple moves while they wear next to nothing in the ring anymore, these are pro athletes and entertainers telling stories and competing for loud pops, big merchandise money, and main event spots.
I can only imagine how different this must be for young women who watch WWE now compared to those who had to watch Sable show off her puppies every week when I was growing up. The significance of the first ever Women’s Royal Rumble match might be that one of the television’s most influential programs is getting it right. WWE’s implementation of “Title IX” type policy is not only a genius marketing decision considering the current social climate, but it is also a gigantic step in molding the minds of young impressionable kids; kids like you and I once were, watching these damn near super human athletes put it all on the line in the most exciting match ever conceived. Now young women get to see this and become inspired and it is about damn time. With all of that said though, after the first ever Women’s Royal Rumble match, there is still work to be done on the Women’s Revolution because I think it is also about damn time these incredible superstars take the spotlight on the grandest stage of them all. Time is indeed up and the Wrestlemania main event awaits.
– Alan Michael