It’s no surprise I’m not a fan of the double rumble, but I’m all on board the “just let the women have the Rumble this year” idea. The men’s stuff is stagnant and perhaps giving the women the Rumble Match every other year, we could maybe freshen things up. Welp, never mind. I can’t wait for the WWE to start doing two WrestleMania’s a year. That’s the only thing they haven’t oversaturated.
Oh wait, that’s now seven hours long. The SuperBowl pre-game show things WrestleMania is too long…But I digress.
Thanks to the announcement on RAW, we now know that the Women’s Rumble will feature 30 competitors. However, not counting the Bella’s, the Women’s division on the main roster only has 19 women who aren’t currently champions. That leaves eleven slots for surprises and or NXT talent. If we assume that the WWE will shoehorn Nikki Bella into the event, we can say 20 names. I know fans and even Dave Meltzer is thinking “NXT” for the other ten names (there’s 11 women in the NXT division), I think they should fill those slots with veterans and legends who aren’t with the company.
Believe me, the list isn’t that hard to come up with. There are a surprising number of women who could fill in and be that surprise entrance. For the sake of diversity and shaking things up, Trish Stratus and Lita will not be counted on this list, as they’re just about locks for this event. Trish Stratus is in excellent health, and while Lita’s neck is wrecked, she wouldn’t have to take too many bumps. If DDP at nearly 60 could show up, I think Lita can make a cameo.
Honorable Mention:
LayCool – But no thank you.
Kelly Kelly – She keeps talking about returning to wrestling, what better time?
Bull Nakano – Bull’s been largely retired since 1996, and has only wrestled twice since. I don’t see her being a very viable option.
Madusa – Even if it weren’t for the fact she just had a knee replacement, Madusa left wrestling in 2000 to become a pro Monster Truck Driver.
Wendi Richter – At 56, she seems like a longshot, especially since she’s largely been retired since 89.
LeiLani Kai – The former Women’s Champion is still semi-active at 57, so why not? She was in the first WrestleMania women’s title match, so let’s put her at #11 unofficially.
10) Jazz
– The 44 year old mother of two is married to former ECW and WWE wrestler Rodney Mack and is still active to this day on the indies (as is her husband). Jazz was booked strong to start her run in 2001, winning the WWE Women’s Championship twice, but like most women of her day – once the shine was off she got relegated to mid card status in the division. She was brought back briefly in 2006 for the ECW revival along with her husband but neither made it to t.v. and were released after Paul Heyman was fired from the company.
9) Victoria
– Victoria is still active on the indies, though she has slowed down a bit and isn’t as active as she was in her WWE days or even her IMPACT days. If Trish is going to be involved in the match, it only makes since to have Victoria, as that was both women’s first major single’s feud. She’s open to the idea, but she hasn’t worked for the company since 2009.
8) Candice Michelle
– Once seen as Trish Stratus’ replacement, Michelle suffered from nagging injuries and the typical WWE perception of women at the time. Michelle just wrestled a really good match with Victoria for House of Hardcore in December of 2017, so she can still go, though that was supposed to be her retirement match. If the WWE is interested, would the she want to go back? We’ll have to wait and see.
7) Molly Holly
– The former two time Women’s Champion retired ridiculously young at 28. Holly is still in good standing with the company, appearing in two Table for 3’s in 2016 alongside other former wrestlers and being an invited guest to the Hall of Fame Ceremony and WrestleMania on a few occasions. She’d make a great return, it’s all up to if she’d want to. Holly was always the classiest of the Ruthless Aggression Era Diva’s.
6) Beth Phoenix
– She’s more than deserving, as she was one of the few women of the last era that everyone loved. She was a good worker, beautiful, and charismatic. Her big issues, if you will, is that she never got the feud with Natalya that people wanted and everything that Santino Marella did in the women’s division happened with her involvement. So there’s some not-so-great things about her tenure that fans want to forget. That being said, she’s a shoe in.
5) Jacqueline Moore
– She hasn’t wrestled since 2013 but she’s still in tremendous shape, at least from what we saw of her at the 2016 Hall of Fame inductions. The Hall of Famer would make for a perfect entrant in the Rumble, as she’s one of two Attitude Era women that 1) Could Wrestle, and 2) Won’t embarrass the company. Jackie was always someone who had a good reputation and wasn’t involved in anything skeezy outside of the ring. A former women’s champion and Hall of Famer, there’s really no reason not to bring her in. She’s as close to the perfect entrant as it gets.
4) Stacy Keibler
– Never a big wrestler during her tenure with the company but she was involved in some matches and was someone who bumped a hell of a lot. Her new status in the world outside of pro wrestling, her acting career and her time in wrestling for around 8 years are all good reasons to bring her home. Yet, let me pitch an alternate idea. The one thing you could say about Stacy and her b.f.f. (later) is that they were made to look bad a lot. If you use Stacey here, even if only for a few minutes, you can help re-frame her legacy into something more noteworthy and give her the wrestling moment she rightfully deserves. Fans will also react to Keibler more than most, and that’s what you’re going for.
3) Torrie Wilson
– Torrie is as close to a lock as possible. The current Yogi is still in fantastic shape, and much like Stacy, has a right to have a better imprint on the history of women’s wrestling than she did. Unlike Stacy, Torrie tried to become a better wrestler but the WWE just wasn’t having it. She was still immensely popular during her time in the company and is considered on the same level as Trish Stratus in terms of popularity for that time. She was never the best worker but in a Rumble, that is pretty irrelevant.
2) Awesome Kong
– A pregnancy ended her push, and when she couldn’t lose enough weight in time, her time in the company. The sad truth about Kong, or Kharma as she was called in WWE, is that she wasn’t going to be able to come back. Not anytime soon anyway. Kong unfortunately had to deal with the fact she became the highest profile wrestler in the modern era to have to deal with losing a pregnancy. That whole ordeal would take a tole on anyone. She ended up taking off nearly a year to recover from it. It’s unfortunate that her career was cut short in the WWE, but this Rumble gives her a possibility to rewrite her ending in the WWE. She would return to wrestling and go back to work with IMPACT Wrestling and have a decent run, but many fans still wonder “What if?”. Kong, or Kia Stevens, is now a much loved actress on the hit show “Glow” on Netflix, and the fans are still clamoring to see a return, even if for one night. With how her run ended the first time, you’d think Kong would like to return to the company. Plus, you factor in the stat that she was one of the few women to ever work the men’s Rumble, and you have a pretty good combination of events to bring her back.
NOT Showing Up – AJ Lee. Give it up. It ain’t happening.
1) Ivory
– While yes, she’s not the youngest on the list, I have no doubt that Ivory is still in tip top ring shape. She’s not only instrumental in the Attitude Era having any credibility in the women’s division, but she’s also helped train the next crop of women within the company. She’s a 3x WWE Women’s Champion, a hall of famer in the Women Superstars Uncensored and should be in the WWE’s Hall of Fame. Not only is she instrumental in the main stream, but she was also a member of the GLOW cast back in the 80’s. She wrestled as Tina Ferrari for the organization, and even held gold there as the GLOW Champion. She’s one of the few people on this list that was classy in an era that wasn’t known for it’s class, and she had talent by the buckets when just about everyone else was scraping by.