4 unnoticed similarities between Royal Rumble 2018 and 2019

The Royal Rumble PPV is the favorite WWE show of many members of the WWE Universe and the WWE Creative have delighted the fans by providing them with what they wanted in the last two editions of the show.

While, last year fan favorites Shinsuke Nakamura and Asuka won the Royal Rumble matches, this year we had fan favorites Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch emerge as the winners of the Royal Rumble matches.

There were a lot of things similar between the 2018 Royal Rumble PPV and the 2019 Royal Rumble PPV, with the obvious one being the fact that Brock Lesnar successfully defending his Universal Championship on the two shows.

However, apart from that, there were 4 other things common between the two shows, which went unnoticed by the fans -

#4 Bobby Roode successfully defended his championship on the pre-show

Bobby Roode was glorious on both the shows

On the kick-off show of the 2018 Royal Rumble PPV, we had the United States Champion Bobby Roode put his title on the line versus Mojo Rawley. The match was quite lopsided as Roode put away Rawley's challenge in under 8 minutes. However, Bobby's reign had come to an end on SmackDown Live's next PPV, Fastlane, where he lost the championship to Randy Orton.

This year on the pre-show of the Royal Rumble, Bobby Roode defended his RAW Tag Team Championship with Chad Gable against an odd team of Rezar and Scott Dawson. The reason why this bizarre team challenged Bobby and Chad for the titles is still unknown but it seems like WWE Creative has run out of ideas and storylines for RAW's Tag Team division.

Nevertheless, Bobby Roode and Chad Gable retained their RAW Tag Team Championships on the kick-off show to help The Glorious One maintain his unbeaten streak on the Royal Rumble kick-off show.

#3 AJ Styles featured in the WWE Championship match of both the shows

AJ Styles has been in the WWE Championship picture for a long time

AJ Styles has been the MVP of SmackDown Live since the brand split of 2016 and the fact that he has been in the WWE title picture for a long time just signifies the above statement. Last year, he was the WWE Champion and was defending the title in a handicap match against Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. The Phenomenal One retained the Championship in a surprising manner and went on to have a long reign with the Championship.

This year, AJ Styles was feuding with 'The New' Daniel Bryan for the WWE Championship heading into the Royal Rumble PPV. The duo clashed for the title on the show, but AJ Styles failed to win the title thanks to an uninvited interference from Erick Rowan.

Also, AJ Styles was a part of the WWE Championship at Royal Rumble 2017, where he lost the title to John Cena after an epic match.

#2 The number of NXT superstars in the men's Royal Rumble matches

Johnny Gargano entered the 2019 Royal Rumble match at #6

In the 2018 men's Royal Rumble match, 2 NXT superstars made their debut on the main roster. First, it was Andrade Cien Almas who entered the match at #7 and lasted nearly half an hour in the match and next it was Adam Cole who entered the match at #23 before he was eliminated by Rey Mysterio in 6 minutes and 52 seconds.

This year as well, 2 NXT superstars entered the men's Royal Rumble match. Johnny Gargano made his first main roster appearance by taking the sixth spot in the 2019 Royal Rumble match. Gargano was even successful in eliminating former WWE Champion Jinder Mahal from the match, before the NXT superstar was sent out by Dean Ambrose. Also, former NXT champion Aleister Black made his presence felt in the 2019 Royal Rumble match by entering the match at #21.

#1 Only 1 title change took place on both the shows

The Bar had defeated the team of Seth Rollins and Jason Jordan to win the RAW tag team championships at Royal Rumble 2018

On the main card of Royal Rumble 2018, Seth Rollins and Jason Jordan lost their RAW tag team championships to Sheamus and Cesaro in what was the only title change of the night. All the other title matches of the night saw the champions retain the belts.

This year as well, only one title change took place on the Royal Rumble PPV. On the kick-off show, Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Rusev to win the United States Championship from The Bulgarian Brute. All the other title matches did not witness any title changes just like the 2018 Royal Rumble show.