Royal Rumble (2020)

The Royal Rumble was a profession wrestling pay-per-view produced by WWE. It took place on January 26, 2020 and was the thirty-third event under the Royal Rumble Chronology. Eight matches were contested on the card, with main event being the Men's Royal Rumble.

Production
The Royal Rumble is an annual gimmick pay-per-view, produced every January by WWE since 1988. It is one of the promotion's original four pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, dubbed the "Big Four". It is named after the Royal Rumble match, a modified battle royal in which the participants enter at timed intervals instead of all beginning in the ring at the same time. Both the men's and women's matches generally feature 30 wrestlers. Traditionally, the winner of the match earns a championship match of their choose from any brand at that year's WrestleMania. The 2020 event was the thirty-third event in the SummerSlam chronology and featured wrestlers from the Raw, SmackDown and NXT brands.

Storyline
The show will include matches that result from scripted storylines, where wrestlers portray heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that build tension and culminate in a wrestling match or series of matches. Results are predetermined by WWE's writers on all three brands, while storylines are produced on WWE's weekly television shows.

The main event featured the men's titular Royal Rumble Match. While the WWE Championship is generally defended at every year's Royal Rumble pay-per-view, on the January 6 episode of Raw, it was revealed that there would not be a WWE Championship defense at 2020's event. Instead, as he felt that there was no one on any brand who deserved an opportunity, WWE Champion Brock Lesnar decided to enter himself into the Royal Rumble match as entrant number one. There were no changes to the rules of the match, despite Lesnar holding one of the two world championships that the winner could challenge for at WrestleMania 36. On the January 20 episode, Lesnar's advocate Paul Heyman reminded the fans of the prize of the Royal Rumble match, but said that there was no one worthy enough to face Lesnar in the main event of WrestleMania, implying that if Lesnar won, he would abstain his prize. The match was won by Drew McIntyre when he eliminated Roman Reigns.

Trivia

 * At WrestleMania 36, Drew McIntyre challenged Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship and Charlotte Flair challenged Rhea Ripley for the NXT Women's Championship.
 * This was the first time in history where a Royal Rumble Winner selected a championship from NXT.