Plans Change: Royal Rumble and Raw XXX Changes

Plans do change in professional wrestling.

Several plans have changed for WWE since the fall, specifically late November to early December. Between Fightful and WrestlingNews.co, numerous of those have been covered. We're going to look at a few each day.

Raquel Rodriguez vs. Ronda Rousey Royal Rumble: Originally set to take place at the WWE Royal Rumble, the match was moved up a full month, and gained a ton of positive reception from both people backstage and fans. Rousey would shortly drop the title after that to Charlotte Flair, who was a last-minute decision to compete and win the title that night. Charlotte herself didn't even know that was the plan until the night of. We're told Rousey preferred working with Shayna Baszler in a tag team.

Edge vs. Demon Finn Balor Hell in a Cell Royal Rumble: The Edge/Judgment Day feud continues as we speak, but Royal Rumble was to feature a pivotal match. It didn't end up happening due to Edge's filming schedule, but one of the tentatively planned matches for the show was Demon Balor vs. Edge in a Hell in a Cell match at WrestleMania. Several in the company we spoke to admitted the feud needed the buzz of Demon Balor and Hell in a Cell, but wondered how exactly Demon Balor would have fit working as a heel against Edge.

Becky Lynch vs. Bayley: The cage match that the two eventually had in February was originally scheduled for WWE Raw 30. However, several that we spoke to backstage called it a "blessing in disguise" that plans changed as a lot more juice was added to the story. Due to a Bloodline segment going over time, the option of having a "way too short" match or doing an angle to build to a future match was presented, with the latter winning out. The two would end up main eventing WWE Raw a couple of weeks later, adding to the story at Royal Rumble, and also getting Lita involved.