Royal Rumble | |||
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![]() Promotional poster featuring various WWE wrestlers | |||
Promotion | WWE | ||
Brand(s) | Raw SmackDown | ||
Date | January 26, 2020 | ||
City | Houston, Texas | ||
Venue | Minute Maid Park | ||
Attendance | 42,715[1] | ||
WWE Network event chronology | |||
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Royal Rumble chronology | |||
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The 2020 Royal Rumble was the 33rd annual Royal Rumble professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. The event took place on January 26, 2020, at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas.
Traditionally, the Royal Rumble match winner receives a world championship match at that year's WrestleMania. For the 2020 event, the winners of both the men's and women's matches received a choice of which championship to challenge for at WrestleMania 36. The men could choose to challenge for either Raw's WWE Championship or SmackDown's Universal Championship, while the women had the choice between the Raw Women's Championship and the SmackDown Women's Championship. Additionally and for the first time, NXT's championships were eligible choices, which added the NXT Championship and the NXT Women's Championship, thus being the first Royal Rumble since 2010 in which there were three eligible championships for the Rumble winner to challenge for.
Eight matches were contested at the event, including two on the Kickoff pre-show. In the main event, Raw's Drew McIntyre won the men's Royal Rumble match by last eliminating SmackDown's Roman Reigns, while Raw's Charlotte Flair won the women's Royal Rumble match by last eliminating NXT's Shayna Baszler. Other prominent matches saw "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt retain the Universal Championship against Daniel Bryan in a strap match, Roman Reigns defeated King Corbin in a Falls Count Anywhere match, and Becky Lynch defeated Asuka by submission to retain the Raw Women's Championship. The event also featured the in-ring return of Edge, who last wrestled in April 2011 before retiring from a neck injury, as well as MVP, who last wrestled for WWE in December 2010.