Ladies and gentlemen, the 2020 edition of the Royal Rumble is soon at hand! We are but hours away from the start of one of the most storied events in WWE history! Nay, in all of professional wrestling! 30 men and 30 women will each battle for the right to headline WrestleMania! Nominally, if not always totally factually~! But hey, it turned out to be true last year. And this year, I’ve been looking at ten favorites for both the men and women! We’re just about closing things out now, so it’s time to look at a special entry: Toni Storm!
This one’s unique because Storm was not a part of my initial list of people to look at. Instead, the readers voted her in! She was but one of many choices. But with a solid 25% of the vote, she made it in! Shout-outs to Liv Morgan and Natalya, who both tied for second place. Let me tell ya, I like this pick a lot, so with no further adieu, let’s get into it!
Toni Storm – Relevant Stats
- WWE Debut: 2019 (Debuted in NXT in 2017)
- First Rumble appearance: N/A
- This would be her first Rumble appearance.
- She has amassed zero total eliminations.
- She has never held the Raw or SmackDown Women’s titles.
- Current betting odds: +5000
How 2019 Went For Toni Storm:
I can safely say that among the 19 other people being previewed for this series, not a one of them at any point ever got me to bring up NXT UK. So for that reason alone, Toni is pretty unique. Indeed, not only is Toni a part of NXT UK, but she was really the face of the women’s division when it was in it’s infancy. Toni won the 2018 Mae Young Classic, defeating Io Shirai at WWE Evolution to take the top spot. And this ultimately earned her a vie for the NXT UK Women’s Championship as she competed to become the inaugural winner. It didn’t happen for her that fast though, as Rhea Ripley took the gold instead.
She didn’t give up though, still in hot pursuit coming in 2019. At NXT UK’s first ever Takeover, there in Blackpool, Toni defeated her rival Ripley to take home the gold and she held it for much of the year after that. She would defend her title against Ripley, Jinny and Nina Samuels among some more unique challengers. But ultimately, at NXT UK TakeOver: Cardiff on August 31st, Kay Lee Ray proved too much for her and ended her reign at seven months.
This largely ended her year as she was scarcely seen afterwards, though she slowly built to her attempt at regaining the title at TakeOver Blackpool II at the start of 2020. Before then however, she found herself embroiled in NXT’s war with Raw and SmackDown. Toni teamed up with Bianca Belair, Candice LaRae, Io & Ripley to defeat Team Raw and Team SmackDown at Survivor Series. This served as her final televised match in 2019.
So where does that leave her chances?
Now, I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that Toni is among the most likely to win. Not even close, really. Sure, she’s been a big deal in NXT UK and similarly presented strongly on NXT proper. But as we saw with WALTER getting utterly reamed at Survivor Series, being a big deal in the UK doesn’t exactly make you a big deal in WWE. She’s an underdog to put it mildly.
But… the betting odds have her as a less likely winner than people like Sarah Logan and Sonya Deville. It has her on equal standing with Dana Brooke and the unfortunately retired Paige. That, my friends, is some grade A nonsense. She definitely has a better shot than the oddsmakers seem to think. I mean I’ll say this, I’m certain she’ll be there in that Rumble and I’m certain she’ll be made to look pretty good for the time she gets. I cannot say the same for Logan.
What would her story be?
This is an interesting one to tackle because… she has zero history with anyone she might end up facing off with, should she win the Rumble. Bayley, Becky, Lacey, Asuka, all of them strangers to Toni Storm, atleast in WWE’s continuity. That doesn’t mean there isn’t an interesting story that could be told though, just means you have to be a little creative.
And of all of those four, I think your best bet is The Man herself. This could make for an interesting dichotomy because the two of them have a fair bit in common. They’re both of the rebellious sort. But we’ve seen Becky Lynch in the past couple months show concern over how she’s now become a poster child for WWE, and how the higher ups are now starting to protect her. This is something that a woman like Toni could really play on.
Toni Storm could antagonize over Becky for not being what she says she is. Accuse her of being fake, whereas she truly represents the anti-establishment. This would be unfair enough to where Becky is more than sympathetic here, but it’d also be a believable viewpoint for her. After all, whilst Becky Lynch legitimately is one of WWE’s golden gooses, and kinda already was by the time she became champion, Toni in this scenario would’ve come from absolutely out of nowhere to win a Rumble that she had no right winning. I mean she’d come in with a pure guest spot, no expectation whatsoever of her actually taking the whole damn match. It’d be a shock to the system for certain.
Toni and Becky would represent two sides of the same coin and that’s always great for storytelling. Plus, they both like to do a lot of suplexes. So that’s also fun~
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