The Royal Rumble is back! With the return of CM Punk and the endless possibilities on who could win the big event in 2024, the first stop on the road to WrestleMania is shaping up to be something exciting.

The Royal Rumble is synonymous with incredible matches and throughout the years, women have been able to step up their game due to the company’s strong focus on the women’s division. These five women’s matches were the strongest of the bunch outside of Royal Rumble. It best represents the talents of the women’s division and highlights that these ladies can put on as great of a match as the men can.

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WWF Women’s Championship Match - Jazz vs. Trish Stratus with Jacqueline as a Special Guest Referee - Royal Rumble 2002

Though extremely short, the match was very explosive and gave Trish her first real test as an athlete. The structure of the match was quite simple: Jazz was targeting the arm of said bout. Plus, the inclusion of Jacqueline added some tension that could’ve gone either way.

It wasn’t the best encounter they’ve had, but Jazz is one of the female wrestlers who never got her flowers in the mainstream. She worked a nice stiff pace that was never boring and was a believable badass.

This certainly isn’t the best match on the list, but only due to it being given less than five minutes. A really good match that sparked a great feud during the early era of the women’s division. My main criticism is that Trish hit the Stratusfaction and Jazz kicked out with ease. Sadly, the announcers didn’t make a big fuss about it nor did Jazz sell the finisher much. It didn’t help that Trish beat her with the less impactful Stratusfaction a minute later.

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Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch - Royal Rumble 2016

It’s amazing how far Becky and Charlotte have come. This was a really good match that helped Lynch in the long run and secured her spot in WrestleMania that year. Lynch has an undeniable babyface prowess and Charlotte working with her dad was a fun act. Lynch’s fiery promo after being screwed over by the duo is what really made audiences gravitate towards the former NXT star. Though it helps that she’s such a talented performer inside of the ring.

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These two would go on to have even better matches in the following years. Becky and Charlotte are essentially the Trish and Lita of this generation. They can always play the best friends card but have excellent matches as rivals now and then.

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Charlotte Flair vs. Bayley - Royal Rumble 2017

It’s still amazing how Vince McMahon ruined Bayley’s babyface run. The Bayley and Charlotte match in 2017 was a sample of what these two can do in the ring. A good match that didn’t overstay its welcome, it built up for the latter’s huge title win several months later. The only criticism is that Flair’s Natural Selection finisher has never looked like a match-ending move.

Sure, this was on the apron here, but it’s always come across as a light move wrestlers use in the early goings, nothing more. Still, a solid start to Bayley’s push before it was destroyed months later.

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Asuka vs. Becky Lynch - Royal Rumble 2019 and Royal Rumble 2020

Admittedly, both Royal Rumble matches with these two are great. However, I wanted to give some others the spotlight so I opted to cheat by putting these two together. Lynch was on a major rise during this time so the results of the first bout were unpredictable.

Asuka usually has strong chemistry with everyone she meets in the ring and Lynch was no different. It was genuinely shocking when Lynch tapped out in their first encounter, but that result was washed away when Lynch went on to win the Rumble later that evening.

Their rematch the following year suffered from predictability. Though I liked the story that was told going in, which was that Lynch couldn’t beat Asuka, nobody brought the idea that she was dropping the belt to Asuka here. The former RAW Women’s Champion was deep into the tag team division and Baszler vs. Lynch seemed like the clear direction following the then NXT Women’s Champion’s big win at Survivor Series. Still, they played off their previous match nicely and it was a great layered back-and-forth battle between the two.

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Ronda Rousey vs. Sasha Banks - Royal Rumble 2019

Ronda Rousey’s first stint in the company continued strong against one of the four horsewomen. No one ever brought up the possibility that Rousey was dropping the belt, especially since the build towards the triple threat match started a month prior. But It’s hard to have a bad match with Sasha Banks.

Some of the highlights include Banks using the armbar against Rousey and her smooth transition into the Bank Statement after Rousey countered her first submission maneuver. It’s a shame that these two never got a chance to re-do their match on a bigger stage, but it was certainly a memorable battle between two of the company’s best.