8 Ups And 12 Downs From WWE Royal Rumble 2021

5. Logjams Galore

victoria ilonics
WWE.com

Whoever booked the women’s Royal Rumble should be smacked. It was a confusing affair, with the ring filling up with wrestlers and never really emptying out until the very end.

The first woman was tossed after #7 made her entrance, and then no one was tossed until #13 came out (two were booted there). That would make you think someone was coming to clean house. And indeed, Rhea Ripley came out at #14 and eliminated two of three women in short succession, but the ring stayed at that level for a while. It didn’t dip below six women at any point until the very end.

The ring was downright crowded at times, with women having to sidestep each other, and it didn’t really lead to anything. No one came in and really cleared the deadwood until the very, very end with Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler teaming up to toss four wrestlers, but there still was more than a half-dozen left.

It was just poor planning overall, and it showed during the match.

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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.