Ranking All 34 WWE Royal Rumble Winners

16. Asuka – 2018

Asuka Royal Rumble 2018
WWE

WrestleMania title shot: Lost to Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania 34

This is a really hard one to rank. On the one hand, there’s only one “first-ever women’s Royal Rumble winner.” But on the other hand…

When the women’s Royal Rumble was announced, you had to think WWE was going to pull the trigger and make it a big deal, with the winner making history at WrestleMania and thus making it a really historic moment overall.

Instead, we got the right woman winning – the invincible, unbeaten Asuka – which was immediately overshadowed by a debuting Ronda Rousey. And then, the Empress of Tomorrow switched brands to challenge Charlotte Flair – and lost.

From there, Asuka would lose to new champ Carmella multiple times and flounder for months before finally winning the SmackDown Women’s Championship in December.

But WWE blew its one big shot with its first women’s Rumble winner, having her blow her big opportunity on the big stage. Bravo.

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.