2020 Royal Rumble: Live stream, match card, start time, entrants and rumors

Find your Royal Rumble live stream, because the countdown to the main show is now officially over. Yes, the first stop on the road to WrestleMania, which gives us not one but two of the most exciting matches of the year, has begun and has our blood pumping. 

Whether you're wondering if Becky Lynch can defeat Asuka, fiending to watch The Fiend tackle Daniel Bryan or predicting the major surprises from PPV's 30-superstar battle royals, you've got the same plan as I do this weekend, counting down from 10 as the Royal Rumbles deliver the action. Oh, and below, once the show starts, I'll be live-blogging the show!

We're running out of surprises for the Men's Rumble, as only 4 spots remain after Smackdown's reveal of The Miz and Morrison. Personally, I'd argue that the most exciting part of this year's Royal Rumble is the relatively-new integration of NXT wrestlers into WWE's big four PPVs. While nothing is official yet, I believe that Survivor Series 2019 set a strong precedent that the black and yellow brand belongs on these super-cards. 

The matches have begun, by the way, with Shorty G vs Sheamus starting things off on the kickoff pre-how. Andrade vs Humberto Carrillo is also coming up before the main card. All the results and a bit of liveblogging will be found below.

NXT's inclusion at the Rumble also makes sense because it's not exactly novel: Johnny Gargano and Aleister Black appeared in the 2019 Men's Rumble, while Io Shirai, Kacy Catanzaro, Candice LeRae, Kairi Sane and Xia Li appeared in the Women's Rumble last year. Heck, even Pete Dunne and Rhea Ripley (both "signed" to NXT UK last year) tangled in their respective Rumbles. Fun note: Ripley was eliminated by Bayley, and now that the two are on opposite sides of the face-heel dynamic, there's prime opportunity for Ripley to exact her revenge. 

Of those superstars (at least those who are still in NXT), I'd say Catanzaro, LeRae and Dunne are all highly possible for tonight, as none wrestled at WWE Worlds Collide. Ripley's also possible, as her match with Toni Storm went pretty quickly. 

In 2018, fewer NXT stars were in the Rumble, with Andrade (back when he had a last name) and Adam Cole (BAY BAY!) in the men's Rumble, and Kairi Sane and Ember Moon in the Women's Rumble. If NXT got even-more folks in this year's event, it would show a gradual sea change where WWE's hottest brand is getting more chances to shine. Cole's possible, but and as for Ember, her injured status is still keeping her off the tips of prognosticator's tongues.

While Drew McIntyre is most folks' favorite to win the Men's Rumble, most of the other likely winners — for both Rumbles — are coming from NXT. Sure, Roman Reigns is always a good bet ... if you want to really test the WWE Universe's positivity towards the large canine. McIntyre would go to face Lesnar at Mania (sign me up for this), while Roman could be the person to finally crack the riddle of The Fiend. NXT fan favorites Matt Riddle and Keith Lee are both prime candidates for a big win and call-up.

Over in the Women's Rumble, everything points to Shayna Baszler having a big night. WWE just released a new t-shirt for her compatriot Ronda Rousey, so there's a chance we could hear Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation," blare on the PA. If they're smart, they'd use Ronda's music to distract a babyface (after #30 comes out) and help Shayna win. Perennial favorites Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss have declared for the Rumble, neither has a whole lot of momentum, while the Queen of Spades is seemingly ready for the next big chapter in her career.

Here's everything you need to know to watch Royal Rumble live streams:

Royal Rumble 2020 card

• Men's Royal Rumble match (for a world championship match at WrestleMania)
• Women’s Royal Rumble match (for a women's championship match at WrestleMania)
• Daniel Bryan vs "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt (c) in a strap match for the Universal Championship
• Asuka vs Becky Lynch (c) for the Raw Women's Championship
• Roman Reigns vs. King Corbin in a falls count anywhere match
• Lacey Evans vs. Bayley (c) for the WWE SmackDown Women's Championship
• Humberto Carrillo vs. Andrade (c) for the United States Championship [Kickoff show match]
• Shorty G vs. Sheamus [Kickoff show match]

Our picks are marked in bold.

How to watch Royal Rumble live streams with a VPN

While the WWE Network (more on that below) is widely available and quite affordable, if you’re on vacation and logging into public Wi-Fi to stream the PPV (which I’ve done in the U.K., among other places), you might want to check out a VPN. You’re using that Wi-FI network to cut down on data usage, but it opens up any non-secured activity to snooping, and a virtual private network will hide your online activities from other people on the same Wi-Fi network.

We've evaluated many VPN services, and our top pick is ExpressVPN. It meets the VPN needs of the vast majority of users, offering outstanding compatibility with most devices and impressive connection speeds. It's also affordable at $12.95 per month. (Signing up for longer periods of six months or a year reduces the cost even more.)

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Royal Rumble 2020 live blog, results

That leaves one match: the men's Royal Rumble match. Rusev and Lashley are announced as not participating in the Royal Rumble. That gives us 6 surprise slots. And of course, we start with Brock Lesnar at 1. 

Elias is number 2 and I'm a big shrug, and Elias is soon eliminated. Big Red Erick Rowan is 3, and he's brought his misery cage, and he's eliminated faster than anyone can ask what's in there. #4? Glorious Robert Roode, also eliminated. John Morrison at 5, eliminated in 9 seconds. Number 6 is Kofi Kingston, looking for his revenge. Speaking of revenge, Rey Mysterio is number 7 and here for justice for Dom. Big E out next, and we had a hope spot of those three faces working together, before Brock threw them everywhere like a kid playing with his own toys.

Cesaro at 9. Eliminated. Shelton Benjamin, a one time friend to Brock, meets the same fate. 11? Shinsuke Nakamura, with Sami Zayn. Out. MVP at 12, also eliminated.

And at 13? Will Keith Lee be unlucky for Brock? Brock is selling big for Keith Lee! 14? Big Braun Strowman. Brock eliminates both of them. Ricochet out at 15. Drew McIntyre at 16! A low blow from Ricochet and a Claymore from Drew McIntyre eliminate Brock! McIntyre throws Ricochet out of the ring like he was throwing one of his toys. Miz comes in and out of the match at 17. AJ Styles is 18. Ziggler is 19. Karl Anderson at 20. 

EDGE IS NUMBER 21. UNRETIRED ADAM "EDGE" COPELAND IS BACK. 

King Corbin is 22. BRO! Matt Riddle at 23! Corbin eliminates Riddle and I am livid. Gallows out at 24. McIntyre eliminates King Corbin. Orton at 25, and RKOs for everyone. Rated RKO team up to eliminate The OC.

And Roman Reigns, The Big Dog, is entry 26. Kevin Owens enters at 27. I've just realized that Samoa Joe, Seth Rollins and AOP have all yet to appear. Wonder if this means that Akam and Rezar aren't in this thing. Aleister Black in at 28.

Samoa Joe is number 29. That leaves Rollins for 30. Lots of good options out here. And hilariously, Seth is bringing AOP and Murphy with him to the ring. AOP catches Rollins after Owens threw him out of the ring. Seth comes back in the ring to eliminate Owens. Black and Joe eliminated by Rollins. Orton, Rollins, Reigns, McIntyre and Edge are the final 5. McIntyre eliminates Rollins after everyone hits a move on him.

Edge tosses Orton out after catching the viper waiting to RKO him. Reigns eliminates Edge on the ring apron. McIntyre claymores Reigns and throws him over the top. DREW MCINTYRE WINS THE MEN'S ROYAL RUMBLE.

GOOD NIGHT!

Asuka vs Becky Lynch (c) for the Raw Women's Championship! A damn good match. Seriously. The finish, and how they worked the mist spot, was excellent. Becky Lynch wins via Disarm Her submission. 

"The Fiend" Bray Wyatt vs Daniel Bryan in a strap match for Bray's Universal Championship. Thank god there's no red light filter for this one. Lighting aside, this is the best Fiend match so far, by a country mile. That strap assisted LeBell lock was excellent. Fiend retains via uranage chokeslam with mandible claw. 

Bayley vs Lacey Evans. This, friends, is what they call a 'cooldown' match, where the crowd recovers its energy. Bayley retains by grabbing the tights.

It's time for the Women's Royal Rumble! Alexa Bliss in at #1! Let's see who she goes up against. NXT's Bianca Belair, who is pushing Bliss around, is #2! Our first surprise of the night! Mighty Molly at 3! Nikki Cross can play at 4! At #5, it's Lana time. Next the recently signed and extremely excellent Mercedes Martinez! Followed by Liv Morgan at 7 — who eliminates Lana, who also eliminates Liv — and Mandy Rose at 8.

Candice LeRae at 9! Bianca eliminates Mighty Molly. Mandy falls out of the ring ... AND ONTO OTIS! She's not eliminated! Sonya Deville out at 10. Fire and Desire eliminate Mercedes. Kairi Sane out at 11!

Mia Yim out at 12. Nikki eliminated! Otis isn't strong enough to hold both Fire and Desire. Dana Brooke out at 13. Belair eliminates Candice! Alexa eliminates Kairi. Bianca's tied an eliminations record. Tamina's out of mothballs and in at 14. Dakota Kai out at 15! Chelsea Green (with Robert Straus) is 16. Green, soon eliminated, and I've lost track of some eliminations, but Bianca and Bliss are the only two left. 

That's what you get Alexa, for grabbing Bianca's hair! Alexa out.

And Charlotte in at 17! Naomi out to a HUGE pop at 18! Beth Phoenix at 19! Toni Storm at 20, Kelly Kelly at 21. I'm less than enthusiastic about both of them. Sarah Logan at 22. Eliminated by Charlotte. Natalya out at 23. 

Xia Li makes 24. ZELINA VEGA is 25! Charlotte fights of Li, Natalya and Phoenix. Naomi, for some reason is helping her. NXT's SHOTZI BLACKHEART is #26!!! Carmella is 27. Less said about what followed that the better, except SHAYNA IS HERE AT 30. Baszler throwing out all of the bodies. Beth eliminates Natalya. Shayna tries to push Phoenix over the top, Charlotte tries to do the same to Baszler. All three remain. Charlotte and Shayna have a staredown.

Shayna eliminates Beth, Charlotte and Shayna struggle. Charlotte Flair eliminates Shayna and is headed to WrestleMania.

Excellent backstage segment with Kevin Owens and Samoa Joe, followed by an interesting segment between Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville.

Roman Reigns vs King Corbin, in a falls count anywhere match, is kicking off Royal Rumble 2020. Good brawl so far, but doesn't really have much creative use of the baseball stadium. And the Slammy for fantastic usage of a Porta Potty goes to Roman Reigns. Amazing use of the dugout roof, too. Reigns wins after a spear. 

Andrade vs Humberto Carrillo has been amazing, as expected. Nothing much to say, but make sure you watch this on VOD if you don't see it live. Andrade retains via roll-up pin-fall. 

Sheamus vs Shorty G is the first match. Thankfully for Gable, this isn't a recreation of Sheamus' match against Bryan at WrestleMania 28, as we're already a couple of minutes in. Sheamus wins via pinfall, preceded by a Brogue Kick. A good little match, lots of good grappling from the fella and the olympic athlete.

Royal Rumble live stream via the WWE Network

$9.99 at watch.wwe.com

The WWE Network, which costs $9.99 and includes a free 1-month trial for first-time subscribers, is the best place to watch The Rumble. Available nearly everywhere, one month of the WWE Network costs 18% as much as the Royal Rumble costs as a PPV (yes, DirecTV and the like still sell WWE pay-per-views).

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Who's declared for the men's and women's Royal Rumbles?

Far fewer competitors have declared for the women's rumble than the men's. On the go-home SmackDown, we learned 4 new rumble competitors: The Miz and John Morrison and Carmella and Dana Brooke. None of these four, if you ask me, are major threats.

The Women's Royal Rumble announced participants:

• Alexa Bliss 
• Carmella
• Charlotte Flair
• Dana Brooke
• Natalya
• Nikki Cross
• Sarah Logan

The Men's Royal Rumble announced participants:

• AJ Styles
• Aleister Black
• Big E
• Bobby Lashley
• Braun Strowman
• Brock Lesnar (entering at No. 1)
• Buddy Murphy
• Dolph Ziggler
• Drew McIntyre
• Elias
• Erick Rowan
• John Morrison
• Kevin Owens
• King Corbin
• Kofi Kingston
• The Miz
• Otis
• Randy Orton
• Rey Mysterio
• Ricochet
• Roman Reigns
• Rusev
• Samoa Joe
• Seth Rollins
• Shinsuke Nakamura
• Tucker

Who could surprise at the Royal Rumble?

Each year, we see the Royal Rumble as a big stage where legends could make their ultimate return to the ring. The big name on everyone's lips is Edge, who retired from competition on April 11, 2011, due to his injured, once-broken, neck. Rumors have circulated for months that the Rated-R Superstar has been cleared from the injured list. He's denied it all, of course.

The other potential big return has been on WWE TV for months: CM Punk (aka Phil Brooks) who left the company acrimoniously in 2014, but has been working with the company on its FSI talk show, WWE Backstage.

Oh, and Cain Velasquez, whose in-ring debut against Brock Lesnar was less memorable than his arrival to the company on the first SmackDown on Fox, may also arrive to terrorize Lesnar. Speaking of which, Lesnar is entering the Rumble at #1, because he can.