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What's the story?
WWE needed to make up the field of 50 men for The Greatest Royal Rumble and it seems that the company decided to hand a number of NXT superstars their debuts in Saudi Arabia.
In case you didn't know...
The Greatest Royal Rumble saw a number of NXT stars make their debuts since the company decided for the first time to not include any of the WWE stars who were in matches earlier in the night.
Whilst the match included a number of surprise entrants like The Great Khali, Rey Mysterio, Mark Henry and Hornswoggle, there were also a number of other superstars from NXT and the Performance Centre who were given their first taste if the main roster.
The heart of the matter
There were four current NXT superstars who made their debut as part of The Greatest Royal Rumble match, these stars include Dan Matha who was quickly eliminated by Braun Strowman.
Undisputed Era member Roderick Strong was a shock addition to the field at number 34 before he had a back and forth with Baron Corbin and event managed to eliminate Rhyno before he was then eliminated by the former United States Champion.
Tucker Knight was the first NXT star to make his presence known in the Royal Rumble when he entered at number 24 and eliminated Drew Gulak before he was then taken out of the match by Big E. Knight has made quite an impact in NXT over the past few weeks as one half of Heavy Machinery and put on quite a show in the Rumble match.
Babatunde was quite a shock when he was added to the match at number 37 and then attempted to go toe-to-toe with Braun Strowman; sadly, the former football player wasn't able to overcome the odds when he was in the ring with The Monster Among Men and became another victim that was eliminated by the former Tag Team Champion.
What's next?
These four stars were brought up to the main roster to make up numbers in the match alongside some legends and some of the mid-card main roster stars, so it's likely that they will now return to the NXT roster in the near future.
Author's take
The Greatest Royal Rumble didn't really live up to the hype, but it allowed these four superstars to be part of an epic overall show.
The stars involved will never forget that they were part of history in Saudi Arabia and even though their main roster promotions are probably a long way off, they all proved that they had bright futures when they were included in one of the biggest matches of the year, earlier tonight.
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