10 Ups And 11 Downs From WWE Royal Rumble 2020

9. Santina Returns

Santina Royal Rumble
WWE.com

Every time Royal Rumble season rolls around, the rumor mill starts flying about surprise entrants.

One name that popped up that brought a sense of dread was Santino Marella. It wasn’t because the master of the unibrow wasn’t entertaining as hell during his heyday. It was because the rumor was that he might perform as his “sister,” Santina Marella – the same “woman” who hilariously won the Miss WrestleMania battle royal at WM 25.

Sure enough, Vince McMahon got his side-splitting wish to see Marella enter in drag at #29, turning the end of the Rumble – a period where things should be at their most serious and tense – into a joke as Santina had a staredown with Beth Phoenix before hitting herself with the Cobra and eliminating herself.

Normally, humor is welcome in a Rumble, as comedy spots can really add to a match if done correctly. But Santina wasn’t a very funny character who overstayed her welcome last time she was around, and simply wasn’t done correctly.

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Contributor

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.