Category: Review

(Originally Posted Jan 2018)

So the Royal Rumble has been and gone, and we’re officially on The Road To Wrestlemania, and….well it was a bit of a mixed bag I guess, the highs were high and oh boy, the lows were very low; let’s get started.

Kickoff Show Notes:

There’s not a whole lot worth talking about on this show. There was the 6-Man Cruiserweight Tag Match and while it was a fun match, it doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things.

The Revival vs The Club was up next and the Revival got their win back from Raw, again a solid match, but nothing to write home about.

And finally, Bobby Roode’s US Open Challenge in which Mojo Rawley came and got him some; and I honestly can’t remember a single thing about this match other than Roode won, so on with the show…

AJ Styles vs Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn

Good to know WWE had about as much faith in this match as I did, putting it on first. This match was about as good as it could’ve been with all the crap surrounding it, Styles can get a 4 star match of anyone, and Owens & Zayn did a good job of working a Revival style match. But ultimately it didn’t feel like anything special, it just felt like your standard tag team match, except one guy never tagged out. I said in my predictions that I just wanted this whole story to be over and done with, but it doesn’t look like that’ll be the case, since AJ Styles would roll Owens up off a Pop-up Powerbomb, only for Owens to claim he wasn’t the legal man. Honestly I can’t really tell if he was or not, a case could really be made either way, because yeah, it looked like Zayn and Owen’s fingers touched, but does that really count as a tag? Will this story ever end? Do I even have the capacity to care anymore?

The Usos vs Shelton Benjamin & Chad Gable

Now we go from the perfectly fine to the downright disappointing. By all rights, this should’ve been match of the night, The Usos are fantastic wrestlers and both Gable & Benjamin shine when they have the right opponents, but boy was this a waste. I had a feeling that if any match was gonna get cut short for time, it would be this one, and sadly I was right. They put on a good back and forth for a good ten minutes before The Usos scored the first fall, which I thought was a little odd, but fair enough; and then about five minutes later, one of the Usos rolled up Shelton for the second fall and the win…..oh, ok then. Ultimately it was what it was, and while it lasted it was a fun match, it just should’ve been given way more time and been way better.

30 Man Royal Rumble

Finally, I get to talk about something I enjoyed. This match was goddamn excellent, personally I think it’s one of the Top 3 Rumbles of all time, let’s break this thing down beat by beat.

So at Number 1 was Rusev, fantastic placement if you ask me, the whole Rusev Day thing is super over, and he does great work with it, there’s a reason the crowd spent a good 70% of this match chanting “Rusev Day”. He was then followed out by Number 2, Finn Balor, and honestly when he came out at number 2, I believed he was going all the way, again a great placement. So they fight for a little bit before Rhyno comes out at 3, and then Baron Corbin comes out at 4. He eliminates Rhyno pretty quick before Balor dumps Corbin out of the match aswell, at this point Corbin gets all mad and lays out everyone in and out of the ring, again a great booked move, Corbin’s out of the match early but still retains all his heat by laying out 4 dudes at once. And yes I said 4 dudes, because number 5 was Heath Slater, resident punching bag of this match. Corbin lays Slater out before he can even get to the ring, and we get 60-90 seconds of staring at dudes laid out on the floor, but it all makes sense when number 6 hits the ring, Elias.

Elias is absolute gold with his role on the roster, and he really seems like he’s enjoying it as well, so he gets to sing us a little song in the ring while everyone else is taking a nap until Number 7, which may honestly be my favourite surprise of the night: Andrade “Cien” Almas. Since I didn’t do a review of NXT Takeover I’ll talk about it quickly here, Almas vs Gargano is so far my match of the year, and I’m including Wrestle Kingdom 12 in that statement, I was blown away by that performance and I am now all in on Almas, so seeing him here was a fantastic surprise. At this point the entrances seem to be picking up the pace a bit, and we get Bray Wyatt and Big E and numbers 8 and 9 respectively; Big E trying to feed Heath Slater some pancakes was a nice funny little spot. Then we get Number 10 who is of course Tye Dillinger, except it’s not as we cut backstage to see Tye being laid out by Owens and Zayn, for Sami Zayn so then take his spot in the Rumble. I get that this probably just existed so Shane has something to be mad about on Tuesday, but Zayn was only in the match for about 5 minutes and didn’t do anything of note in that time, so what really was the point?

Now we move into the Mid-card quick-fire round of the Rumble, it can’t just be me who thought the entrants were coming in way less than 90 seconds during the teens right? Anyway, Sheamus is next out at number 11, and he finally ends Heath Slater’s misery and rolls him into the ring…only for Slater to turn around and throw Sheamus out in 2 seconds, brilliant move here, giving Slater a moment like that will always get a pop and it’s a fun little thing to see, however it was short lived as Slater was himself thrown out straight after. Next up we had Xavier Woods at 12, and Apollo Crews at 13, again nothing of real consequence happened and then we got Shinsuke Nakamura arrived at number 14, and I’m gonna be honest with you I got very worried when Nakamura came out that early, I was really starting to doubt my prediction for him to win. Nakamura did his big spots and we continued with our quick-fire mid-card round, as 15, 16 and 17 were Cesaro, Kofi Kingston and Jinder Mahal.

Things started to pick up after this, as Seth Rollins arrived at number 18 wearing the most 80’s attire I’ve ever seen, and WOKEN Matt Hardy at 19. We got some nice interactions between Bray & Matt, with them working together to eliminate Rusev (who lasted a whopping 30 minutes) before fighting a whole bunch and eliminating each other. Then, we move into the penultimate phase of the Rumble as number 20 arrives….John Cena. We get a nice little sequence where everyone left in the ring gangs up and tries to beat down Cena, before he fights back and lays everyone out, before eliminating Elias, who got a really good showing in this match. But never mind that, because we’ve got number 21, The Hurricane! This was a totally unexpected surprise, albeit a short one, since in a callback to THAT moment in the 2002 Rumble, Hurricane tries to throw Cena out, but fails miserably and gets himself eliminated by Cena. Number 22 then hits the ring, and the Rusev Day chants start-up once more, as it’s Aiden English. But he doesn’t really do much, but then we get number 23, Adam Cole Bay Bay! This was another great surprise, that I didn’t see coming at all, he didn’t really do much in the match itself, but it was cool to see him.

The ring then fills up a little bit with no eliminations as Randy Orton, Titus O’Niel and The Miz enter the match at numbers, 24, 25 and 26 respectively. I don’t quite understand how or why Titus lasted as long as he does in this match, I know six minutes doesn’t seem very long, but given that he basically just sat in the corner for five of them, seemed kinda pointless. Anyway that doesn’t matter as we get our final surprise of the match at number 27, Rey Mysterio! Dude looks chiselled as all hell nowadays, looking way better than he did when he left WWE in 2014. He swiftly eliminates Adam Cole, which kinda sucks, but it’s Rey Mysterio, so I’m not gonna complain. But then we have to bring the mood back down again for number 28, as it’s everyone’s favourite, Roman Reigns. He gets a couple quick eliminations throwing out Titus O’Niel and then The Miz with help from Seth Rollins. But then Roman continues to be the worst person on the planet, as he throws out Rollins while his back is turned, I kinda wish Rollins had a more annoyed reaction to Roman doing this rather than just the “Oh shucks! You got me!” look he had on his face; Just because your a face, doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to get upset dude.

Then we get our last two entrants, which are both kinda weird…number 29 is Goldust. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Goldust, but 29 seemed like a really weird place for him to enter, if he’d entered in the mid teens he could’ve got some good spots off and kick that nostalgia gland a little, but instead he didn’t really do anything before being eliminated by number 30, Dolph Ziggler. The thing is, this wasn’t really the surprise WWE thought it was, because everyone had been predicting it in the build up, hell some people even predicted Ziggler to win the damn thing. So he entered here to no fanfare and then got dumped out after two minutes….ok I guess?

But that’s the end of my complaining, because from this point out, it was all fantastic action. We move into the final 6, Mysterio, Cena, Orton, Nakamura, Balor and Reigns; we get a quick “old vs new” stare down and the fighting commences. Amongst the brawling Orton is eliminated by Reigns, and Mysterio is then eliminated by Balor and we have our final four. And I’m gonna be honest with you, my heart was in my throat here; all 4 of the guys I picked out in my predictions made it to the final four and I had absolutely no idea which way it was gonna go. They were able to harness that dread that all of the fans had of Cena or Reigns winning and turn it into some of the best tension I’ve ever felt while watching a match. There is a lot of back forth between all 4 guys and everyone gets their time to shine, but eventually time gets the better of Balor, and after spending 57 goddamn minutes in the match, he’s eliminated by Cena.

Then we see some fantastic booking, as Cena and Reigns team up to beat down Shinsuke, and I’ll tell you something, people have been complaining all year about people misusing Shinsuke Nakamura, and I agree with them, it’s been awful, but all of that bad booking was completely undone in the last 10 minutes of this match, as Nakamura looked like a million bucks. After a lot of back and forth, Nakamura blasts Cena in the face, sending him crashing to floor and eliminating him and we’re down to two. Nakamura vs Reigns, if Nakamura wins, the crowd will explode with joy, if Reigns wins, they’ll explode with anger. And oh boy was this tense, they slowed the pace right down, and hit big move after big move, no idea which way it was going to go. But eventually we could all celebrate as Nakamura launched Reigns over the top rope and down to the floor, making Shinsuke Nakamura the winner of the 2018 men’s Royal Rumble. After the match he declares he wants AJ Styles at Wrestlemania, and I couldn’t be more excited.

Seth Rollins & Jason Jordan vs The Bar

Looking back on this show, it makes me feel like the men’s Rumble match probably should’ve gone on last. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why the women went on last, and I’m glad they got that opportunity, but the crowd were so tired out after the rollercoaster that was the men’s Rumble, none of the other matches really got the reception they deserved. Case in point, this match right here; this was a grear worked match, that told a really interesting story, but no-one was paying attention because of what had just happened in the Rumble.

But anyway, the story of the match was, Jason Jordan is literally the worst Tag Team partner in the world, which is weird when you consider he used to be a Tag Team specialist. Early on in the match, The Bar throw Jordan into the ring post, and he spends the rest of the match acting like he’s got a concussion of some sort, so Seth has to work the entire match on his own. And he did a bloody good job of it when you consider he’d just spent 20 minutes in the Rumble match aswell. So eventually, Jordan gets back up on the apron and tags in, only to suddenly remember his head hurts and tag straight back out; then he goes and as a nice little sit down on the ring steps while Seth gets his ass kicked. So unsurprisingly this leads to The Bar regaining their tag team championships, and I imagine Rollins will be very cross about it….you know, when he regains consciousness.

Brock Lesnar vs Braun Strowman vs Kane

I don’t know whether it was just because I was tired, or there was just nothing interesting about it, but I actually had to rewatch this match before I review it, because I could not for the life of me remember a single thing that happened during it. I mean, it’s pretty much what you’d expect the match to be, well, except for that one moment where Brock legit tried to knock Braun out. But yeah, lots of weapons, lot’s of chaos, but nothing super special. A fun watch, but nothing to write home about, as expected, the match ended when Lesnar dropped Kane with an F-5 and retain his championship.

30 Woman Royal Rumble

Alright, let’s do this then. This match was a weird one, the match itself was fine, but it wasn’t quite what I thought/hoped it would be/should’ve been. I’m not going to beat for beat on this one, because honestly there’s a lot less worth talking about, so I’m just going to mention the main points.

So at Number 1, Sasha Banks, who really was the MVP of this match, and she she started the match off against number 2, Becky Lynch. Half an hour is a very good showing, but I though maybe she should’ve lasted a little longer, there’s a lot of women rolling to the outside of the ring for no real reason in this match, and I think it would’ve been cool if every few minutes, Lynch & Banks would end up being the only women left standing over and over again and they just keep fighting.

Anyway, this Rumble is full of surprise entrants, the first of which is Lita at number 5, which is nice to see, people weren’t sure if she was on good terms with the company thanks to her not being at Raw 25 and her subsequent tweet about it, but here she is, and she got a damn good showing, and could still wrestle at a decent pace. Immediately following that though at Number 6 was Kairi Sane, I really feel like there should of been less “legends” in this match and more NXT competitors, Nikki Cross and the Iconic Duo especially should’ve got spots in this match, we didn’t need EVERY woman of note in this match WWE… However as disappointingly short as her appearance was, it was fun seeing Kairi and her wonderful elbow.

Throughout the match we saw appearances from legends like Molly Holly, who honestly hasn’t aged a day since we last saw her and Michelle McCool, who got a whopping 5 eliminations for some reason, no Lay-cool reunion sadly though. My favourite of the whole thing had to be Vickie Guerrero, and well done to everyone else in the ring for responding to her perfectly, completely ignoring her for a little while before all ganging up and getting rid of her; however the highlight had to be when she laid out Carmella with her own briefcase before storming off, I laughed so hard at that moment. Also Kelly Kelly was there, I don’t really have anything to say about her, but she was there.

Things started to pick up towards the end of the match, we got a fun save spot from Naomi, where she copied Kofi Kingston from 2013, only she did it better, because she just rolled the chair instead of trying to use it as a pogo stick. Nia Jax also got a really good showing, she got to do the big Andre the Giant spot, throwing everyone off of her. But if anything this encapsulates my main issue with this match, there was nothing new or unique, they were just re-hashing old spots that the men have been doing for years; if you truly want me to believe that the women really deserve this main event spot, then you’ve gotta be showing me things I haven’t seen before, I want to be blown away by these wrestlers, but I couldn’t help but feel underwhelmed for a majority of this match.

That said, there was still plenty to enjoy, the confrontation between Ember Moon and Asuka was really fun, unfortunately Ember’s injured arm betrayed her, as Asuka sent her flying out of the ring like she was Wile E. Kyote falling off a cliff. Speaking of Asuka, she didn’t really look as dominant as I would’ve liked, I get the whole idea of having her struggle before winning, but I think it might’ve been better to just have her destroy every fool in her way, before having a tough final battle with someone like Sasha Banks.

Speaking of the finish, of course, The Bella Twins are so heavily involved, admittedly it was kinda nice to see them, and Nikki turned on Brie for what must be the 6th or 7th time by now. But eventually, Asuka overcame it all and became the first ever, women’s Royal Rumble winner.

While I did enjoy most of what I saw in this match, I just feel like it could’ve been so much more, and there was a whole lot of wasted potential in there, and as much as WWE like talking about making history, but they seemed to rely on it too much in this match. I get it’s nice to see people from the past, but maybe we could’ve got rid of people like Kelly Kelly and Torrie Wilson, to make way for the women of the future, since that’s what you seem to be patting yourself on the back so hard for at the moment.

And that’s it! I hope yo- What?

Oh right…

So after the match had ended, Asuka gets in the ring with the two women’s champions and is going to pick who she’ll fight at Wrestlmania, when suddenly, Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation” plays and in some of the worst cinematography I’ve ever seen on WWE, the camera very slowly pans round to reveal that Ronda Rousey is here! And she does…..something? I don’t know, she eyed everyone up, pointed at the Wrestlemania sign in a moment that I’m sure looked cooler in her head and then the show ended.

There’s a lot of different opinions going around about this, but personally I think this was a trash way to end the show, it’s WWE trying to have their cake and eat it too. Ronda should’ve either been in the Rumble, or not there at all. It completely stole Asuka’s spotlight and also entirely undermines the entire point of having this “historic” match in the first place. Why did Asuka have to beat 29 other women to get this opportunity, when Ronda, who’s never been in the WWE, can just show up, point at a sign and get handed whatever she wants? Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited to see what Ronda does going forward, but I just think this could’ve been done so much better.

And that’s (really) it! I hope you’ve enjoyed all of these words, I had a lot more to say about this show than I thought I did, let me know what you think in the comments or on Twitter @10ryawoo.

I’ll see you on Thursday for my first Pokemon-centric post!