Naomi Returns to WWE at Royal Rumble 2024; Eliminated by Jade Cargill

Brian Ach/Getty Images for WWE

Naomi made her WWE return Saturday in the women’s Royal Rumble match at the same-titled premium live event.

Naomi entered the ring as the No. 2 entrant in the 30-woman field. She engineered an impressive showing by lasting the majority of the match and eliminating both Alba Fyre and Becky Lynch.

However, her Rumble run ended when Jade Cargill knocked her out immediately after she took down The Man.

Only five women (Cargill, Tiffany Stratton, Bianca Belair, Liv Morgan and eventual winner Bayley) were left when Naomi was eliminated.

The two-time SmackDown women’s champion and one-time WWE women’s tag team champion had not been seen on WWE programming since May 2022 when she and Sasha Banks successfully defended the women’s tag titles against Shayna Baszler and Natalya on an episode of SmackDown.

On the May 16, 2022, episode of Raw, both Naomi and Banks were advertised to take part in a Six-Pack Challenge to determine the No. 1 contender for Bianca Belair’s Raw Women’s Championship, but they left the building and were removed from the match.

According to Fightful Select (h/t WrestlingInc’s Sai Mohan), Naomi and Banks walked out due to a creative dispute over how their tag team title reign was being handled.

WWE later released a statement condemning their actions and subsequently suspended them indefinitely and stripped them of the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships.

Neither Naomi nor Banks appeared on WWE programming for the rest of the year, but they both resurfaced in different companies in 2023.

Banks made the move to New Japan Pro-Wrestling and Stardom under the name Mercedes Moné, while Naomi made her TNA debut in April as Trinity.

Naomi was immediately presented as a top star in the TNA women’s division, and she won the Knockouts World Championship, holding it for 182 days.

She dropped the title to Jordynne Grace at Hard to Kill this month, which essentially spelled the end of her run with the promotion.

Naomi returns to WWE as, arguably, a bigger star than ever before, and she has a chance to truly cement herself as one of the faces of its women’s division moving forward.

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