Batson's Blog

It's January, which means it's Royal Rumble time. WWE already announced last October that the 2nd ever women's Royal Rumble will be returning this year. What can we expect out of this match?  Probably a female version of the men's match. We saw several returning favorites and NXT surprises at the first ever women's Royal Rumble in January 2018: Beth Phoenix Ember Moon (then NXT Women's Champion) Jacqueline Kairi Sane (2018 Mae Young Classic winner) Kelly Kelly Lita Michelle McCool Molly Holly Torrie Wilson Trish Stratus Vickie Guerrero That's 11 women who competed in the Rumble who weren't on the main roster at the time. Granted, some of those women probably returned because WWE didn't have enough women on their rosters to fill up a 30-woman battle royal. But WWE has stacked it's main roster in 2018.   Billie Kay ,  Peyton Royce ,  Zelina Vega  and  Ember Moon  were all called up.   Maria  and  Mary...

It was a huge Wrestlemania weekend just over a month ago. Between dozens of wrestling events in Orlando, the WWE Hall of Fame, NXT TakeOver, Wrestlemania 33 (the retirement of The Undertaker!) and, of course, the Raw after 'Mania. One of the bits of news that came out over the weekend was the announcement of a 32 woman WWE tournament.  Details aren't completely clear yet on this tournament.  Will it involve women from the independents?  Will it strictly be women from the independents? Will it be women who are currently in WWE?  Nobody is really sure at this point because WWE didn't release all of those details. I've got to think that it will be similar to the Cruiserweight tournament and the UK tournament.  In both of those situations, almost all of the participants were from the independents and not signed to contracts.  Sure, you had Tajiri (a familiar face from his previous WWE run), but most of the guys were indy darlings -- not having worked in...

Beth Phoenix vs. Kharma Not only did they miss out on this potential match during Wrestlemania 27, but they missed out on it at Wrestlemania 28 as well. Kharma was already under contract in April 2011, when Wrestlemania 27 occurred. Beth Phoenix had returned from an injury at the previous Survivor Series. WWE didn't debut Kharma until Backlash, though -- one month after Wrestlemania. Then, as we all know, Kharma got pregnant and unfortunately lost her baby. Despite her terrible loss, Kharma returned at the 2012 Royal Rumble. Rather than using her and building towards a match with an injury-free Beth Phoenix at Wrestlemania 28, WWE didn't use Kharma and ultimately released her later on in the spring of 2012. WWE missed the boat on revitalizing a women's division and providing some serious female wrestling. Odds of it happening: slim-to-none since WWE released Kharma last year and Beth retired. With recent reports of WWE wanting to hire back some former Divas...