The Royal Rumble is one of the biggest events in WWE and in pro-wrestling in general. For thirty years the eponymous match featured male wrestlers only, with the odd exception for special female wrestlers like Chyna, Beth Phoenix, Kharma, and Nia Jax.
But then in 2018, WWE expanded the event to include a Women’s Royal Rumble as well. And since then, each annual PLE has included two Rumble matches.
With that change, some fans have wondered how the Women’s Rumble match came to be. Luckily for those curious minds, Road Dogg has answers to those questions.
Creation of Women’s Royal Rumble ‘A Collaborative Decision’, says Road Dogg
On his Oh You Didn’t Know Podcast, Road Dogg explained that there wasn’t one person or one catalyst of a moment that led to the creation of the Women’s Royal Rumble match.
Instead, he suggests that, over time, enough people came to a consensus for the women of WWE to start having their own Rumble match in 2018.
“I don’t think it was one person. I thought it was a collaborative decision. And I really don’t know who the first person to ever think of it was, you know what I mean? You’d have to go back pretty far. But it was time and everybody knew it.”
Furthermore, Road Dogg explained that the point of this match was to really emphasize equality between the men’s and women’s Rumble matches. Even if there were fewer fulltime women’s wrestlers, and even if WWE had to rely on part-timers and surprise entrants, those were decisions worth taking if it meant creating equality between the two matches,
“And it was like, ‘Well, what are you going to do? You’re going to do 30 women, and the immediate reaction to everybody is, ‘well, you’re only going to do 20 women, you do 30 men’. And it’s like, no, that’s, you’re missing the point. Like the point is equality, right? And every way.
So it’s like, ‘well how many [entrants] do they have? They have 30. How? We don’t have 30 [women]? Well, we’ll get 30, maybe we’ll call in some favours.’”
If you use any quotes from this article, please reference the original source and include an h/t to Inside The Ropes.