The 2024 WWE Royal Rumble PLE is in the books and the road to WrestleMania is officially started.
This year’s event in front of over 40,000 fans inside Tropicana Field in Tampa, Florida was as hot as we thought it would be thanks to special returns, major moments, and key directions taken on the way to WrestleMania 40 in April.
What are the highs? Lows? Most memorable moments? Forgettable moments? We’re here for you.
Royal Rumble Pre-Show
The event began with a Hulk Hogan voiced promo vignette that hyped the show and the entire time I asked myself “why?” It’s shameful for WWE to continue trotting Hogan out in a way that highlights him and positions him front and center as a spokesperson for the company. What sort of needle move does he provide the company at this point? It’s bad any week, but especially this one, in which WWE was playing damage control thanks to Vince McMahon and the horrific allegations against him.
Hogan aside, the open to the show was excellent. The vignette did the hype job, but WWE also showed various stars like Roman Reigns, Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton, CM Punk, and Rhea Ripley arriving at the building. It felt like something the UFC would produce and worked to position those competing tonight as the cream of the crop.
Women’s Royal Rumble Match
Naomi, Grace, weird Nattie elimination. Dupri. Cargill over Jax.
The 2024 Women’s Royal Rumble took a while to get going, but once it did, it worked very well.
The root story throughout was two-fold — Bayley lasting for a long time as the iron man of the bout and Nia Jax rolling through other entrants to build up for the showdown with the debuting Jade Cargill. The latter story was executed perfectly. Cargill taking Jax would popped the audience and made her look as impressive as WWE hyped her to be since she first signed with the company. Cargill didn’t win, but had a memorable debut that will play with fans as she continues to appear on television.
Other notable takeaways? Jordynne Grace made her Rumble debut, but of course as a member of the TNA roster as the company’s Knockouts Champion. Grace showed a lot out there and was given a bunch even though she isn’t a part of WWE. She also was gifted a prominent elimination by Bianca Belair in a memorable KOD onto the ring apron spot.
Speaking of TNA stars, Naomi made her return to WWE during the match as the number two entrant in the match. I could do without the GLOW gimmick and comes across as a bigger star without it, but it stands out with WWE’s top tier production.
The real loser of the match was Maxine Dupri. Yikes. Michael Cole touted her as “heavily improved” as she walked to the ring, but then botched multiple spots and looked entirely out of her element.
Bayley was the winner of the match after a fun final elimination of Cargill and the returning Liv Morgan. Bayley has already had a WrestleMania championship match in the works against fellow Damage CNTRL member, Iyo Sky, and her winning here is a smart way to continue that program and officially get to the match.
The match didn’t have any signature returns in the form of a Sasha Banks or an AJ Lee, but it was entertaining for what it was and left enough on the table for the men’s match later in the night.
Roman Reigns vs. Randy Orton vs. LA Knight vs. AJ Styles – WWE Universal Championship
There just isn’t much to say about this one. Roman Reigns is still the champion and the world knew he would be. It’s the problem with nearly every single Royal Rumble championship match.
There were some cool moments in this with Reigns piling up his opponents and trying to pin them. The Solo Sikoa interference got boos, but not the right kind. Reigns’ continued reliance on interference in matches has run thin and that was the response more than true heel heat.
It was what it was, but nobody will remember this one next year at this time.
Logan Paul vs. Kevin Owens – WWE United States Championship
A pretty good match with a lousy finish. Logan Paul getting handed brass knuckles only for Kevin Owens to use them and get caught with them was backwards from a psychological perspective and left the audience confused on how to react. Happy because Owens used the knuckles? I guess. Frustrated that he lost? That too.
The idea here and the takeaway is that WWE wanted to make sure both Paul and Owens were protected. They did that, but by the end it seemed unnecessary given that Owens is someone on the roster that can reliably lose, but still be just as over. Plus, Paul will certainly be lined up for a WrestleMania match, so why not just have him win and win clean.
The whole thing is ripe for a rematch.
Men’s Royal Rumble Match
Given the strong build to the match, star power included, and different directions to go in terms of a winner, “they got where they needed to go,” isn’t high praise. It’s reality, though.
The 2024 Men’s Royal Rumble Match, didn’t grip the audience like the women’s match did this year and was full of odd focuses around talent that didn’t deserve them. Karrion Kross and Bobby Lashley got a huge moment in the match and the Tropicana Field audience couldn’t have cared less. Add into that some ill-timed production botches for key moments and the result was a bit of a mess when it came to in-match stories and moments.
CM Punk received a strong reaction. Cody did too, so it was fitting that those two were the final two standing. Neither got the hyped up reaction you’d want for their moment because the already timid crowd was split thanks to the stories of both Punk and Cody going into the match. The crowd seemed to side more with Cody and popped when he won.
Other notable angles coming out surround Bron Breakker, who was featured prominently with multiple eliminations, but the victim of the production botch that saw his key elimination of Omos essentially forgotten and not featured with a timed out camera shot. It happened, but nobody saw it thanks to JD McDonagh’s entrance occurring at the same exact time. Carmelo Hayes also was featured due to how long he lasted in the match, but didn’t have the same type of dominant focus as Breakker did.
So, it was fine. Cody heads to the main event of WrestleMania against Roman Reigns and the Raw side of the WrestleMania main event will get sorted out soon. It needed more big spots, more “moments,” more action, and much less focus on undercard stories. But, they got where they needed to go in the end.
Overall
Kind of a bizarre night at the office for WWE. The Royal Rumble intrigue is firmly rooted in the element of surprise and neither the men’s or women’s Rumble match had a major one. Little ones in each, but nothing earth shattering.
The filler matches between both Rumbles were incredibly disappointing with finishes that came across as weak and passive. Those helped slow the audience momentum ahead of the main event, which couldn’t fully pull a reaction of any kind out of the crowd.
It’s a C grade show and definitively so.