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WWE Alters Royal Rumble Card – Main Show 5 Matches, Kickoff Show 3 Matches (TJR Thoughts)

TJR Wrestling

On Thursday evening, WWE changed the Royal Rumble lineup around. During Tuesday’s edition of Smackdown Live, a six women’s tag match was announced with Nikki Bella, Naomi and Becky Lynch on one side going up against SD Live’s Women’s Champion Alexa Bliss, Natalya and Mickie James.

Here’s the tweet they sent out on Thursday night. The link provided takes you to WWE.com informing us that the women’s tag match is now on the Kickoff Show.

The Kickoff Show starts at 5pmET with a two hour run-time and three matches scheduled:

Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax (Kickoff Show)

Raw Tag Team Championships (Kickoff Show): Cesaro & Sheamus vs. Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson

Nikki Bella, Naomi & Becky Lynch vs. Mickie James, Natalya & Alexa Bliss (Kickoff Show)

The main Royal Rumble pay-per-view starts at 7pmET with a run-time of four hours:

Cruiserweight Championship: Rich Swann vs. Neville

Raw Women’s Championship: Charlotte Flair vs. Bayley

WWE Universal Championship No Disqualification Match: Kevin Owens vs. Roman Reigns (Note: Chris Jericho will be suspended above the ring in a shark cage)

WWE Championship: AJ Styles vs. John Cena

30-Man Royal Rumble Match

I don’t expect there to be any more matches to the show.

TJR Thoughts: I’m not really mad about it, but I thought they would keep the card as advertised with the women’s tag on the main show. That means that there’s only one Smackdown undercard match and three Raw matches.

Let’s think about the timing as well. The Rumble match goes about one hour, so that means four matches will get three hours. My guess is Styles/Cena is going to be really long like 45 minutes similar to what Okada/Omega did at WrestleKingdom 11 in New Japan earlier in the month. Just a hunch on my part because why would they need three hours for the four non-Rumble matches? It’s weird to me.

I’m sure it will work out fine and I think the card is pretty good, but I’m surprised by the change.

Anyway, we will back on Friday afternoon with a Royal Rumble preview, so be on the lookout for that.