The 2024 Royal Rumble is now in the books, Cody Rhodes and Bayley won the Men’s and Women’s Royal Rumble matches and will now go on to challenge a champion at WrestleMania 40 in Philadelphia. You can find my full podcast here:

Sample Quote from my podcast:

CM Punk comes in at 27. He looked gassed and granted, it was only his third match back. Yeah. You know, he needs some house shows, brother. But CM punk was there at the end. Ricochet at 28, I thought was disappointing. Drew McIntyre, 29, was good and Sami Zayn at 30, was the last entrant. I was expecting the Rock. I was expecting a little bit more from a surprise. There are no legends. So, I was expecting at least one legend or two. I love the fact that Punk and Cody had an actual match after the Rumble, and this is not an original idea by me. Punk could have easily forced WWE to give him the Rumble win like the Rock, but he decided to give it to Cody instead and fulfilled Dusty’s request to watch out for his kid who shot with it was everything. So there’s a bigger picture thing out of the CM Punk story and out of the Cody winning the Rumble and Punk being the last one eliminated. That goes beyond that, that conversation. Right? The Punk is watching out for his kid. The Punk is watching out for Dusty’s kid, Cody. Punk has to come in and do the right thing in every situation. That’s the only way he’s going to keep his employment. And I’m sure that they have a bigger scale that, hey, if you do business now, we’ll take care of you on the back end. So Punk does everything right. He puts over Cody in the end. He loses to Seth Rollins at WrestleMania. Maybe he wins some money in the bank, but at the end of the day. They may have Triple H, Bruce, Michael Hayes, whoever’s doing creative. They may lay out that. If you do everything correctly by our standards for a year, you’re going to get your main event at WrestleMania. It’ll be Cody versus Punk. It’ll be Roman versus Punk. Something like that.

Here are some written takeaways from the 2024 WWE Royal Rumble PLE.

• Cody Rhodes gets his second chance to “Finish His Story”

  Wrestling Pics & Clips on Twitter: "Finish. The. Story. pic.twitter.com/N43NlRGAFx / Twitter"

  Finish. The. Story. pic.twitter.com/N43NlRGAFx

  Cody Rhodes wins the Royal Rumble match. Cody gets to go on to finish his story or attempt to finish his story in Philadelphia at WrestleMania 40 in Philadelphia. They made it very clear who he wants to challenge. Cody was not only pointing at the sign but Cody was also pointing at the WWE Universal Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns sitting in a luxury suite with Paul Heyman. It’s going to be Cody and Roman and we’ll see where they go from there. We’ll see if they add the Rock to the match either as a referee, host of the event or participant in the Championship match. There’s reporting out there that WWE is going to wait a year and wait until they’re on Netflix, and that’ll be Roman versus The Rock.

• Bayley Sets Record in Women’s Rumble Victory

  Triple H on Twitter: "She fought for a record-setting 63 minutes and 3 seconds... and now, Philadelphia is calling her.Congratulations to 2024 #RoyalRumble Match winner, @itsBayleyWWE! #WrestleMania pic.twitter.com/JdVpwW0YpB / Twitter"

  She fought for a record-setting 63 minutes and 3 seconds... and now, Philadelphia is calling her.Congratulations to 2024 #RoyalRumble Match winner, @itsBayleyWWE! #WrestleMania pic.twitter.com/JdVpwW0YpB

  Paul Levesque, better known by the ring name Triple H, serves as the chief content officer and head of creative for WWE, has been singing Bayley’s praises for more than a few month seemingly out of the blue during the post PLE press conferences, so it’s no surprise to me that Bayley is in an important story line with Damage Control and was the winner of the Women’s Royal Rumble match. Bayley has teased that she’s going for RAW World Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley since her partner in Damage Control is the Smackdown Women’s Champ Iyo Sky. I think Bayley will end up challenging Iyo Sky at WrestleMania in Philadelphia based on the story we’ll see coming on our road to WrestleMania. The story, Damage Control turning on Bayley. I do believe Bayley will go on to win the Smackdown Women’s Championship at WrestleMania 40. I don’t think it’ll be hugs for everyone but it’s a moment that Bayley has earned.

   

• Jade Cargill Makes Impactful Debut

  WWE on Twitter: "Her @WWE debut in the 2024 #RoyalRumble Match is just the beginning.@Jade_Cargill has officially put the entire locker room on notice! pic.twitter.com/AycHBD5DK6 / Twitter"

  Her @WWE debut in the 2024 #RoyalRumble Match is just the beginning.@Jade_Cargill has officially put the entire locker room on notice! pic.twitter.com/AycHBD5DK6

  Jade Cargill made her official in-ring WWE debut during the women’s Royal Rumble match on Saturday night. Cargill entered the match at number 28 and eliminated Nia Jax, Becky Lynch and Naomi, before being eliminated by Liv Morgan. She lasted around 11 minutes having an impressive debut in the Women’s Royal Rumble match. Jade has everything that WWE looks for in a main event level WWE superstar, the question is can she fill those high standards and how long will it take for her to adapt to the WWE System.

• CM Punk Hurt?

   

  CM Punk suffered a significant injury during the Royal Rumble Saturday night. CM Punk tore his triceps late in the match after taking a future shock DDT from Drew McIntyre. Supposedly that was the spot in the Rumble where the referee checked on Punk and he told the ref “My triceps.” Punk tore his triceps previously at All Out in Chicago in 2022 in the main event of the show against Jon Moxley, had immediate surgery and was out of action for more than nine months before returning for the debut of AEW Collision show. Punk was reportedly was scheduled to face Seth Rollins at WrestleMania this year.

   

• Roman Reigns going forward

  Roman Reigns on Twitter: "We stackin bodies tonight.#RoyalRumble / Twitter"

  We stackin bodies tonight.#RoyalRumble

  Roman Reigns didn’t stack any bodies in his successful WWE Undisputed Universal Heavyweight championship match against AJ Styles, Randy Orton and LA Knight on Saturday night. It is clear, at least to me that Roman with be defending his championship at WrestleMania 40 in Philadelphia against the Men’s Royal Rumble winner Cody Rhodes in a rematch of their WrestleMania 39 championship fight. I do expect Roman Reigns to lose his championship to Cody Rhodes letting Cody finish his story and ending the almost 4 year run of Roman Reigns as the WWE Champion. The key point to Cody’s potential victory is how he handles the outside interference from Roman’s Bloodline teammates. If we assume Jey Uso doesn’t turn on Cody, Jey cancels out Jimmy Uso. Cody has already called in one favor to Randy Orton, could Rhodes call in another favor to keep Solo from interfering in the championship match? We’ll see over the next few weeks how this story plays out but I except Cody Rhodes to beat Roman Reigns for Roman’s championship.

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