Do They Have A Choice? Major Update On NXT Being Involved With The Royal Rumble

It’s the next logical step. Last month, NXT completely arrived on the major stage. By defeating Monday Night Raw and SmackDown in the battle for Brand Supremacy at Survivor Series, NXT showed that they were a little bit more than just the minor league. It was a brand new world for the promotion and things could not be changed back no matter what. Now we know their next step.

One of the major lessons to learn from Survivor Series weekend was that even though you performed in the “minor league”, you could still hang with the top stars in the company. NXT was the strongest of the three promotions all weekend and that made it clear that the future may be a little different than expected. Having already conquered Survivor Series, they have a next logical place to go.

According to Wrestling Observer Live, both of next year’s men’s and women’s Royal Rumble matches will feature equal representation from all three shows, including NXT. This will not be the first time that NXT wrestlers will be featured in the matches, but it will be the first time that the lineups will be split evenly. The highest number of NXT entrants in a Royal Rumble was six in the 2019 women’s Royal Rumble.

We’ve come a long way from this. Check out the days when an appearance in the Royal Rumble was a big deal:

One NXT competitor will be in Sunday's Royal Rumble Match

Opinion: This is something that they almost had to do. You can’t have five NXT people involved after having them clear out the Monday Night Raw and SmackDown rosters. There are more than ten people to put in each match from NXT and it should result in some entertaining matches. The most important thing though: NXT winning is not crazy to think about and that makes things a lot more interesting.

Who do you see going into both matches? Will an NXT wrestler win a Royal Rumble? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his- Amazon author page with 30 wrestling books. His latest book is KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews.

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