Words by: Driune Santana

What a way to celebrate the night before Black History Month! Bianca Belair is the 2021 Women’s Royal Rumble winner and is headed to Wrestlemania.

Belair entered the ring at No. 3 and eliminated the former NXT women’s champion, Rhea Ripley, to mark the most outstanding achievement of her young career. The dynamic set up for a head to head battle between Belair and Ripley after teaming up to toss Charlotte Flair over the top rope. With nearly 57 minutes in the match, Belair was the last woman standing, filled with tears of joy as she spoke about how much this win meant to her.

“Winning the women’s royal rumble and lasting over an hour, what can top this other than now going to Wrestlemania? This is a great moment. This is a moment that I can’t even describe. It’s just the answer is a feeling; it’s a feeling. How do I feel? It’s just a feeling that I can’t describe. I’m just so excited, I’m so ready to go to Wrestlemania,” she said. “I’m just taking it one step at a time. I beat Bailey, and I won the women’s Royal Rumble match. Right now, I’m just living in the moment. I gotta call my mom. I gotta call my daddy. I got to celebrate with my husband, Tez, and I’m living in the moment! After tonight, I’m just going to prepare for Wrestlemania, and then I focused on whom I’m going to face; all I can say is, you can’t spell Wrestlemania without EST!”

After everything she has been through, Belair has climbed the mountain, and now she needs her championship. The Knoxville native makes history the first Black woman to win the women’s royal rumble, and she deserved it. The EST of WWE could steal the show with Smackdown women’s champion Sasha Banks if she chooses to face The Boss in April. Belair’s win is a moment in women’s wrestling memoir, and the work she has put in will never go unnoticed.

Bianca is such a phenomenal athlete, and she is indeed the “it” factor. From her in-ring ability, her look, her smile, she has the potential to become one of the greats in WWE history. However, we can’t help but take a look back at her NXT days to now being on the main roster. Belair was a force to be reckoned with four years ago when she made her debut in NXT. 

Ever since she was a child, Belair was bred to be the best. She was the next big superstar in NXT, on the main roster, and now a future champion. The first time wrestling fans were introduced to Belair, she was the least experienced, but she was better than the whole NXT women’s division and more than half of the women’s main roster. Although Belair was cocky, she damns impressive. She ran through her opposites with no hesitation to the point where she beat their asses with her iconic whipped braid.

There’s no surprise that her competitive nature was brought over into the Mae Young Classic, as she landed a perfect 450 splash on Kairi Sane during the second round of the contest. Many debated that Belair should’ve been the winner of the Mae Young Classic, but in fans’ eyes, they saw her on a bigger stage. At last year’s Royal Rumble, Belair made her first appearance in the annual event, lasting 33 minutes while taking out eight of her opposites before being eliminated and setting a new record for Women’s Royal Rumble eliminations overall.

2021 is the year of Bianca Belair and lives up to being “the strongest, the fastest, the toughest,” all-around best Superstar going, and she’s not slowing down until she is the EST of Wrestlemania.