8 Ups And 12 Downs From WWE Royal Rumble 2021

by Scott Carlson

1. Belair A Near-Perfect Call

Bianca Belair
WWE.com

Really, let’s be honest here: WWE put themselves in a great position with their final two in the women’s Royal Rumble match.

Bianca Belair or Rhea Ripley would have been solid choices for the spotlight. As it turned out, both had standout Rumbles, with Rhea tossing seven women (one shy of Bianca’s record-tying eight), and Belair getting the win by reversing and tossing Ripley.

Belair entered at #3 and spent large swaths of the match teasing eliminations left and right, and trading offense and fighting on the apron with Naomi. While she didn’t have quite the standout performance from last year, her longevity (setting a new record) and who she tossed (Ripley, Charlotte Flair, Bayley and Natalya) show that she was put in a position to succeed.

Here’s hoping that WWE is going all-in with Belair as she sets her sights on WrestleMania 37.

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Contributor
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.