With less than a month to go until the Royal Rumble , WWE is already preparing the card and putting matches together for the pay-per-view. As of this writing, there is only one match confirmed for the card, but another has been built up for weeks on Friday Night SmackDown . A match between Lacey Evans and Sasha Banks was scheduled to take place at TLC and was canceled, but it could find a place on the first big event of 2020.
The Royal Rumble is always a fun event. The big matches are the 30-man and 30-woman battle royals, but other bouts do fill the card. Some of them are title matches, while others are grudge battles which take place in front of millions of fans looking for a winner.
For weeks, WWE had been building to a possible match between a newly-turned babyface in Lacey Evans and Sasha Banks. While Evans has been going after the SmackDown Women’s Championship held by Bayley, Banks has stuck her nose into things and it has turned very personal.
A match between Evans and Banks was reportedly scheduled to take place at TLC earlier this month and scrapped, but the feud wasn’t. According to Wrestling Observer Radio , by way of Ringside News , that match is now rumored to land on the card for the Royal Rumble .
As fans have seen the past few weeks, the storyline has actually included Lacey Evans’ daughter and Banks mentioning her at times. That type of personal interaction would certainly merit a match at one point or another, and it should come in January.
According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer , it was WWE’s intention to have the match at the Rumble , but that isn’t even confirmed. Due to it not being done by Vince McMahon yet, it may never become official.
“We don’t need Bayley vs Lacey Evans on the Royal Rumble card. The idea was when it was pulled from the last card [TLC] that it would be added to the next card. Again, you know how Vince operates. Until it happens it hasn’t happened and he can change his mind until the very last minute.”
One match is already confirmed for the Royal Rumble and it has Bray “The Fiend” Wyatt defending the WWE Universal Championship against Daniel Bryan. That title shot was earned on Friday Night SmackDown when Bryan defeated King Corbin and The Miz in a Triple Threat Match to determine a new No. 1 contender.
While the card for the Royal Rumble is still not confirmed until it is announced, this match could be added. Lacey Evans and Sasha Banks have had some back-and-forth buildup, but WWE still needs to announce the match for it to happen.