The WWE Just Announced An Historic All-Women Royal Rumble Match

Any wrestling fan worth their salt will tell you that January is the greatest month on the calendar. The month starts on January 4th with New Japan Pro Wrestling‘s gigantic Wrestle Kingdom card (Okada vs Naito and Omega vs Jericho fuck me all the way up god damn), and ends towards the end of the calendar month with the WWE‘s always chaotic, fan favourite Royal Rumble event.

The main event match of the annual show – now approaching its 31st iteration – is a sprawling, 30-person over the top rope Royal Rumble battle royal (say that ten times quickly) with a championship match at WrestleMania going to the victor.

For 30 years, the match has been the almost-exclusive domain of male performers. Save for three occasions where women have competed in the men’s match (the late Chyna in 1999, Beth Phoenix in 2010, and Karma in 2012) women have been kept away from the match entirely, and they certainly have not had one to call their own.

That is, until now.

The recent push for women’s wrestling in the WWE has resulted in a number of firsts – first time women closed a pay-per-view event, first time women competed inside a Hell in a Cell cage match, first time women were presented as a co-main event of WrestleMania – and now they’ve got one more.

On today’s episode of Monday Night RawStephanie McMahon announced that this January, for the very first time, the WWE will hold a women’s Royal Rumble Match.

Though the specifics of the match are yet to be announced, it’s likely that the winner of the match will receive a shot at either the Raw or Smackdown Women’s Championship at the upcoming WrestleMania 34 in April.

The sheer amount of women performers on the WWE roster at the moment means the company will be able to hold the match with anywhere from 20 to 30 competitors, which is a far cry from the measly 30-second tag matches the company was affording women on TV just two years ago.

This absolutely rules, and means the January 28th card is gonna feature two Rumble matches, which ain’t even remotely a bad thing.

This punter’s take? Asuka is going to murder everyone to death.

Write it down.

More Stuff From PEDESTRIAN.TV