During Monday night’s New Year’s Day episode of WWE Raw, we found out that the upcoming first-ever women’s Royal Rumble match will, in fact, have 30 competitors, just like the classic men’s version.
This is amazing news, of course, and it opens the door not just for a bunch of surprise blasts from the past, a slew of big opportunities for NXT Superstars, and perhaps an even bigger surprise or two. The women’s Royal Rumble match is now much, much more of a wild card than the men’s match.
As more and more women declare for the Rumble, you can expect that the favorite or favorites to win will begin shifting on a very dramatic and abrupt scale. When we last checked in, the initial betting odds had picked a favorite who isn’t even signed to WWE yet. Now the odds-on favorite is at least someone under contract … but not by much.
According to BetWrestling, the current favorite to win it all is the Empress of Tomorrow, Asuka. If she were to be victorious, she would go on to face the Raw Women’s Champion at WrestleMania, who currently happens to be Alexa Bliss.
The current favorites to win the women’s match are as follows:
Asuka 13/8 (+162)
Ronda Rousey 7/4 (+175)
Paige 6/1 (+600)
Becky Lynch 7/1 (+700)
Nia Jax 10/1 (+1000)
Charlotte Flair 14/1 (+1400)
Sasha Banks 14/1 (+1400)
Bayley 16/1 (+1600)
Naomi 18/1 (+1800)
Alexa Bliss 20/1 (+2000)
Stephanie McMahon 20/1 (+2000)
Of course, we have to continue to take these odds with a grain of salt over the next month (beyond just the general absurdity of betting on pro wrestling, of course). The current champions, Bliss and Charlotte Flair, are currently fairly high in the betting odds, despite the fact that neither the Raw nor the Smackdown Women’s Champion will be in the match.
As we saw on Monday’s Raw, WWE is continuing to tease the idea that Asuka will be gunning for Bliss’ Raw Women’s Championship, and that title change could very well happen prior to the Royal Rumble … or Asuka could earn her way into a title match at the Rumble, with the loser of that match entering the Rumble. But for now, Asuka is the odds-on favorite to win, and best of luck to anyone who has to go toe-to-toe with her in the Rumble.
