10 Ups And 11 Downs From WWE Royal Rumble 2020

1. Way To Make A Star

Charlotte Flair Shayna Baszler
WWE.com

WWE had a serious opportunity in front of it Sunday. They were handed a golden opportunity to make a new star immediately at the Royal Rumble.

Instead, they had that person get eliminated by Charlotte Flair so she could go on to challenge for a women’s title at WrestleMania.

Shayna Baszler entered the Rumble at #30 and was on fire, eliminating eight women in short order before it was down to just her, Flair, Beth Phoenix and Natalya. Beth tossed Nattie, and Shayna dumped Phoenix, but Charlotte put Baszler out so she could preen about how she’s “a diamond cut to last.”

Flair winning isn’t the negative here by itself. Flair winning at the expense of making a new main roster star by having Baszler wreck some superstars, and bigfoot her way to the WrestleMania spotlight once again, was the negative.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.