Tag: Royal Rumble

WWE Royal Rumble 2020: Every Match Ranked

The Road to Wrestlemania is officially underway and if it’s going to be anything like this show last night, it’s a road I’m very excited to be going down!

Everyone who’s ever used the internet has said it at some point over the past week, but Royal Rumbles are always so much fun to watch and this year was no exceptions, with two Rumble matches that were among the better ones as far as I’m concerned. Even better than that is that the Rumbles weren’t the only thing to write home about, as many of the other matches on the show were quality watches too.

Let’s not waste any more time getting into it and breakdown Royal Rumble 2020 match-by-match!

8 – Roman Reigns def. King Corbin
(Falls Count Anywhere)

No prizes for guessing this one would be last.

Quite simply, this match had everything that I hate about Falls Count Anywhere matches all rolled into one. The action was extremely samey the whole way through (the portaloo spot notwithstanding) as almost the whole thing consisted of Reigns & Corbin wandering around, occasionally hitting each other and throwing each other into the nearest, vaguely solid object.

Even when Roode, Ziggler & The Usos showed up, I still didn’t find myself getting excited, the spot where one of The Usos launched themselves from one of the stands was cool looking, but given that none of the four men involved in that spot were actually a part of the match, I just couldn’t find a reason to care. Also, the camerawork was just plain awful, I don’t know whether the cameramen were being told to shake the camera vigorously throughout all the action, or whether they were just bad at their jobs, but I almost got motion sickness from watching the action at one point.

It certainly wasn’t the most boring match ever and I’d rank it above the match that these two had at TLC, but that’s not exactly saying much. At least the right man won

7 – Sheamus def. Shorty G
(Kickoff Show)

Not much to say on this one, other than it was a lot more competitive than I was expecting it to be. I have no idea where creative are going with this storyline for Sheamus, but I’m happy to wait and see where it goes and that included not having much worth saying about this match. It’s nice that Shorty G wasn’t just annihilated like I thought he would be, but I honestly think watching him get slaughtered by Sheamus might’ve been a bit more fun to watch.

Like almost any pre-show match, it was perfectly acceptable, but not something I’m going to be talking about for very long after the fact.

6 – Andrade(c) def. Humberto Carrillo
(United States Championship)
(Kickoff Show)

Much like Sheamus vs Shorty G, this match was perfectly fine and the only reason this one goes above that match in my rankings is because it lasted slightly longer.

The dynamic between the two was quite different to Sheamus & Shorty G’s though, as these two men have very similar in-ring styles and it felt much more like the new kid on the block trying to get a feel for one of the older fighters, in order to find a weakness. Unfortunately for Carrillo, that weakness never presented itself and while I wouldn’t say Andrade dominated him in this match, he certainly seemed to get a lot more offence in than Carrillo did.

This match wasn’t as exciting as the match these two had at TLC last month, but I still thought it was a decent showing for a pre-show match where, ultimately, everyone knew the outcome going in.

5 –  Bayley(c) def. Lacey Evans
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

I think this is the match that I was the most pleasantly surprised by because, if I’m being honest, I wasn’t expecting much going in.

Bayley’s Pay-Per-View matches this past year have, for the most part, been rather underwhelming and I’m still not much of a Lacey Evans fan, but I think the two did a great job at putting on a well-paced and enjoyable match. For one thing, Lacey’s daughter is ADORABLE and her smile just seemed to instantly brighten my mood, but I also thought there was a lot of good action between the two.

I wouldn’t have thought Lacey could work that well as a face, but I found myself getting behind her as the match went on, thanks in large part to Bayley’s great ability to work as a heel. Watching this match it’s clear just how much Evans has come on as a wrestler, especially when you compare it to something like her matches against Becky Lynch from last May.

Admittedly, this wasn’t some super exciting match to set the world on fire, but I think these two women did an admirable job and made me finally see the potential in Lacey Evans’ new character direction, and more generally as a performer, so I’d rate that a success.

4 – Charlotte Flair won the 30 Woman Royal Rumble Match

With each year that goes by, I think the women’s Royal Rumble match keeps getting better and better. As WWE hires more and more credible female competitors, it no longer feels like the match is relying on the nostalgia pops and thread-bare action in order to get the crowd interested, finally putting it on par with the booking philosophies of the men’s incarnation of the match.

For the past two years, the downfall of the women’s Royal Rumble has been the first half but that wasn’t a problem here because I thought the first half of this match was the best portion of the whole thing. I wouldn’t have thought that Bianca Belair would be the one to get the rub of dominating the early portions but I absolutely loved how it played out. There was a good mix of everything in there, from the serious to the comical and it kept the action flowing at a good pace.

From when Charlotte entered through until Shayna Baszler showed up wasn’t all that interesting, but I still had a good time seeing people like Beth Pheonix & Shotzi Blackheart showing up and briefly kicking arse, even if blood somehow started POURING out of the back of Beth’s head.

While I’m a bit disappointed Shayna Baszler didn’t win the match, I’m not mad about it. While she is absolutely a ready-made star, I can understand why people think it might be a bit too early to give her a rub like winning the Royal Rumble and, let’s be honest, Charlotte was always going to have to win one of these eventually. Not to mention that sequence towards the end where Baszler just decided she’d had enough of this shit and eliminated EVERYONE still in the ring in space of about a minute was great to watch.

While it wasn’t perfect, it was undoubtedly the best of the women’s Royal Rumble matches we’ve had so far and I can honestly say I’d happily watch it again and have a good time doing so.

3 – Becky Lynch(c) def. Asuka
(Raw Women’s Championship)

This is one of those situations where I think a disinterested crowd took away from a match that was a lot better than the reactions it was getting. I don’t blame the crowd, however, if I had already gone through 3 hours of action and knew there was a Royal Rumble match immediately after this one, I’d try and conserve my energy too, but it doesn’t stop it taking away from the match somewhat.

Still, there was a lot of solid wrestling to this match and I don’t think we should let a muted crowd take away too much from that fact. These two have clear chemistry in the ring together and if I’m being entirely honest, I wouldn’t mind seeing another clash between them in front of a more lively crowd. Asuka did a good job of striking a balance between heelishly slowing down the action but keeping things relatively exciting and tense as she worked her magic.

Meanwhile, Becky did was Becky does and it was as much fun to watch as it always is. She’s so good at making herself look just about beatable, before striking out with the comebacks and sneaking away with the win. I especially liked the finishing sequence where both women were escaping each other’s submission manoeuvres and I’m happy that Becky finally got her win back.

2 – The Fiend Bray Wyatt(c) def. Daniel Bryan
(Universal Championship)
(Strap Match)

Told you they’d make it work.

If I’m being honest, I was starting to lose faith that we’d ever see a really great Fiend match, his character didn’t seem to leave much room for competitive matches, however, I was thankfully proved wrong last night as I thought this was a great way to go about it.

Strap matches usually tend to restrict the performers in the ring, but that wasn’t the case here as they were able to get some really impressive action in and still feature the strap heavily in most of their spots. Throughout the match, I really got the feeling that Daniel Bryan was finally able to get a feel of The Fiend and had plenty of counters prepared for the erratic offence The Fiend threw his way.

It was a little slow to start, but that was necessary to get the damage in on Bryan and lend a lot more drama to his comeback, which definitely worked. Every now and then Bryan would get a little advantage over The Fiend and each time he managed it, he kept the momentum going for just a little bit longer. Unfortunately, the fact that it was extremely obvious going in that Bryan wasn’t going to win sapped a bit of the drama out of the final LeBell Lock, but I still came away from the match having had a great time watching some great wrestling, so I can’t complain.

 1 – Drew McIntyre won the 30 Man Royal Rumble Match

Well, I sure didn’t see that one coming.

This was very clearly a Rumble of two halves and I think that both halves were as entertaining as each other, but in different ways. The first half where Brock was eliminating everyone was so fun to watch, it could’ve lost its novelty pretty quickly, but there was enough variation in both the entrants and the method by which they fought that kept it entertaining and it was clear from his face that Brock was having a great time, which helps LOADS.

My personal favourite moment in that first half was when Shelton Benjamin came out and Brock greeted him as an old friend because we knew that turn was coming, but Brock was so uncharacteristically cheery that I couldn’t help but chuckle. The drama was there too, with Kofi, Big E and Rey did their best to take on the Beast, it’s a bit disappointing that Kofi didn’t get his moment, but when the three of them prepared an attack on the outside, I felt the drama of it. Also, honourable mention to Brock bopping to MVP’s music.

Eventually, Drew came out at 17 and things went off the chain. Ricochet giving Brock the low-blow was a nice bit of poetry and the Claymore Drew hit to eliminate Brock was brilliant and Brock sold it like death to boot. As the ring filled up with people we got the more standard Rumble action and thanks to the calibre of the guys involved it was all great stuff.

Edge’s return was brilliant, even if a lot of us sort of knew it was probably going to happen. I became a wrestling fan not too long after Edge retired, but I’ve seen so much of his stuff since then and that look on his face as he walked out – pumped and ready to fight, but also on the brink of crying tears of joy – that hit me right in the feels and it was a wonderful moment. On top of that, he got a great showing, Spearing everyone in sight and giving us a cheeky little Rated RKO reunion for our troubles.

As I mentioned in my predictions, while Roman wasn’t the person I necessarily wanted to win, I would’ve been happy if he did and I’d come to accept the fact that it was just how it was going to happen. So when Drew threw Roman over the top and won I was genuinely shocked and overjoyed. I never would’ve picked Drew to win, but now the prospect of Drew vs Brock is in front of me I am GAGGING for it, make that man the first-ever UK-Born WWE Champion, I need that in my life.

As far as a Royal Rumble match goes, this was a resounding success on all fronts and it easily up there with many of the better Rumble matches to ever take place.

And that’s it! Those are my thoughts of Royal Rumble 2020! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, let me know what you thought of the show, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back on Saturday where I’ll be running down Doctor Who Series 5!

 

WWE Royal Rumble 2020: Predictions & Analysis

Rejoice one and all! It’s Royal Rumble time again!

I don’t think it would be surprising for me to say that the Royal Rumble is perhaps my favourite Pay-Per-View of the year. The nature of the stipulation means that it’s always a really fun match to watch, even when it’s not actually all that good in terms of quality. It also means we’re going to finally start to get an idea of where the company is headed for Wrestlemania this year, as it seems management is leaving their decisions a lot later than usual this year.

As it stands, I’ve not been following the world of wrestling as closely as I normally do this past month; and that goes double for Raw & Smackdown. I don’t know whether it’s just the hecticness that comes with restarting everything following the holiday season, but either way, I’ve done my best to catch myself up so I can get predicting!

Shorty G vs Sheamus

It’s been a little while since his return now and I still can’t work out if I’m excited to see Sheamus or not.

I thought he was absolutely fantastic with Cesaro as one half of The Bar and absence does make the heart grow fonder, but I’ve never really cared for him as a singles star, especially when he’s running through guys I enjoy watching more, which is unfortunately where I think this one is going.

I think this match has the potential to be a fun one though, Gable tends to have great chemistry with bigger guys and as long as he’s not booked to be totally annihilated by Sheamus here, he should look pretty impressive in defeat. I think I’ve made it pretty clear already, but I’m picking Sheamus to win here. Sheamus has just returned and looks to be starting out a tear, it’s possible that Shorty G could sneak a rollup win and enrage Sheamus, but that just seems like taking the long way round to the same destination.

Andrade(c) vs Humberto Carrillo
(United States Championship)

As was expected when Lesnar moved over to Raw, the United States title has suddenly become a much more heavily featured title on the red brand, however, I can’t say I’m thrilled by this being the match that makes it onto Pay-Per-View.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Humberto Carrillo, but we saw him unsuccessfully fight Styles for the title so recently that I don’t feel like he’s built up enough credibility in order to be challenging for the title again and I highly doubt he’ll be winning it. I’m confident it’ll be a fairly enjoyable watch, since these are two guys that have similar styles, unfortunately, I think it’s probably going to land on the pre-show, meaning it likely won’t get the time it needs to be properly special.

Either way, Andrade is leaving with the title in tow, he just had a big (but rather condensed) feud for it with Mysterio and I think doing a quick switch over to Carrillo would squander this new-found credibility Andrade has built up for himself; and ultimately, I value Andrade’s credibility more than I do Carrillo’s at this point.

Roman Reigns vs King Corbin
(Falls Count Anywhere)

Oh yeah, this feud.

After TLC gave us exactly the crap we expected, I can’t say I’m all that optimistic about this match’s prospects. With The Usos recent return and Reigns & Corbin’s entries in the Royal Rumble match later in the night, I would’ve preferred to see some sort of 6-man tag match instead of another one on one affair. That said, if TV this month is anything to go by, it’s likely this will devolve into another clusterfuck anyway.

After Corbin got the win last month, I’d like to say picking Reigns to win here was an easy decision, but given that Reigns is one of the top contenders to win the Rumble this year, WWE might want to cast doubt on his ability to compete before appearing in the match; not to mention, if anyone’s going to inexplicably win for no real reason, it’s King Corbin. I’m sticking to my guns though and saying Roman Reigns picks up the win here, perhaps with a post-match beatdown in order to cast that doubt I was talking about.

Bayley(c) vs Lacey Evans
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

Wait really? A heel vs heel ma- wait, what do you mean Lacey Evans is a face now, that can’t be right…*furiously checks notes* Well I’ll be…

Having watched a lot of Lacey’s efforts as a face, I can’t say I’m all that convinced and neither are the crowds. Bayley & Sasha have done as good a job as they can to get heat by going after Lacey’s daughter, but I just don’t have any motivation to care about Lacey after spending most of the year as a heel who always loses and turning face without anyone even realising it for a couple of weeks.

Lacey’s definitely improved as a performer since her matches with Becky earlier in the year, but I’m still not overly confident this match is going to be all that great. Bayley’s title matches always tend to be the ones that get cut short and on a PPV like the Rumble, where we’ve got to squeeze in two separate hour-long matches, I don’t think this one is going to get the time it really needs to be more than mediocre.

As for a winner, it’s gonna be Bayley, I’d say this was an easy pick regardless because I don’t see Lacey Evans picking up a title this close to Wrestlemania. Additionally, there’s the fact to consider that Lacey beat Bayley clean on Smackdown in a non-title match and wrestling logic dictates there’s absolutely no way she’s winning on Sunday.

Becky Lynch(c) vs Asuka
(Raw Women’s Championship)

Ok, so apparently Royal Rumble 2020, just copied Royal Rumble 2019’s homework.

Not that I’m complaining though, this match was brilliant last year and I expect it to be brilliant this year too. I also think there’s a much better story going into the match this year, the whole thread of Asuka being the one person Becky’s never beat is something I wasn’t expecting to come up but they’ve used it to good effect and manages to make Becky seem like an underdog, which is something I haven’t felt about her since this time last year.

Unfortunately, the outcome of this match is a lot more predictable than last year, since it’s pretty clear that whatever the planned match is for Wrestlemania, it involved Becky Lynch going in as champion. As I said, I’m sure this match will be great and give us that reminder of why we all route so hard for Asuka to succeed, but I would be very surprised if Lynch didn’t get her win back in this one.

The Fiend Bray Wyatt(c) vs Daniel Bryan
(Universal Championship)
(Strap Match)

Oh, so Royal Rumble 2020 also copied Royal Rumble 2014’s homework? I guess there are worse events to copy.

While I enjoyed the storytelling aspect of their Survivor Series match, I found the action itself to be a bit disappointing. I know now that it was necessary to tell this story to its full potential, but it felt quite one-sided and boring until The Fiend suddenly won out of nowhere. However, now that the story has been told, I’m confident this match will be different from the previous one.

In the past month, Daniel Bryan has once again been able to evolve his character even further than he did in 2018 and despite being the underdog babyface again, he feels like a very different person to the one that faced off against Wyatt before, both in 2014 and from a couple of months ago. As such, I’m hoping that this match will be a lot more competitive, creating a feeling of two equals competing, instead of one man kicking ass until he suddenly gets murdered.

A strap match is a bit of a weird wrinkle to add to the feud. I get why thematically it makes sense, but it still feels a bit out of nowhere and I can’t help but feel like it will hamper both men’s ability to person at their best. I know there’s plenty that can still be done with the formula, but it’s one of those matches where pretty much every spot needs to involve the strap in some way because WWE thinks we’re idiots.

That said, I don’t think the outcome is going to be any different from the previous two times we saw this match. The Fiend is still easily the most popular male wrestler in WWE right now and for him to be defeated here would feel like a huge anti-climax to its story. The match might be a lot closer than last time, but the outcome will be the same, with The Fiend Bray Wyatt holding the Universal Championship aloft.

Women’s Royal Rumble

This is the first women’s Rumble without a clear cut story going into it. With Asuka’s win, it was pretty obvious to most people that she was going to win and last year, although we weren’t sure whether it would actually BE Becky, we knew that story would be a huge factor in the winner of the match. This year though, there’s no such speculation to be found and it’s a bit of an open field in regards to who could win.

Since it would be a waste of everyone’s time for me to rundown all 30 entrants, I’m going to cover the 4 or 5 names that are currently being thrown around the IWC as potential winners and comment on what I think of their chances.

Sasha Banks – One of the longest standing rumours for Wrestlemania matches this year has been a 4-way match between all of the 4 horsewomen, which is something I definitely want to soo and Sasha winning the Rumble would certainly get us on that road. However, given how Sasha has been booked since her return, I’m not sure it would work, Sasha could easily go after Becky, with Bayley backing her up, but given that Charlotte is currently a face, I can’t see how she’d force her way into the match, so I’m saying no to Sasha winning.

Ronda Rousey – This one is pretty unlikely, but more unlikely things have happened in Royal Rumbles before. Ever since she left last April, people have been trying to anticipate when Rousey will return to get her rematch with Becky and this seems as good of a place as any. Given what Rousey has been saying in recent interviews about trying to organise a work/family balance it seems like she’s still in a stage of working out what she wants to do, so I think it’s going to be at least another 6 months or so before we see her back in WWE, but you never know…

Becky Lynch OR Bayley – Ok, this one is actually just me throwing my own theory out there, but hey, why not? Becky has all the motivation in the world to want to go after Bayley’s Smackdown women’s title, since Becky never got her rematch when Charlotte took the title from her in May, not to mention Bayley attacked Becky a few months ago when she officially turned heel. As for Bayley, it makes all the sense in the world for her to try and go for the double gold in order to prove she’s just as good of a champion as Becky, that was the whole theme of their Survivor Series feud.

Out of all of the candidates I’m discussing, this is the one I think is the least likely, but I’d certainly be excited if it happened.

Shayna Baszler – This is the most popular theory currently going around and if we’re speaking purely in terms of what I want to happen, I’m fully behind it. Baszler proved that she’s a big deal at Survivor Series and it’s clear that she and Becky still have unfinished business from that match. In addition to this, Baszler is a ready-made star from her run in NXT and this would launch her right into the main event scene.

Charlotte Flair –It’s going to be this one isn’t it? I don’t think many people will disagree with me that Charlotte Flair is bound to win a Royal Rumble at some point in her career, so why not this year? If the horsewomen 4 way is going to be the Mania match, then I think Charlotte winning the Rumble is the best way to go about setting it up. Have Charlotte go after Becky, only for Bayley and Sasha to heelishly get themselves involved, or something along those lines.

I really hope that Shayna is the one to win, but I don’t have the confidence to pick her, so I’m choosing the safe option and picking Charlotte Flair to win her first Royal Rumble.

Men’s Royal Rumble

My view on this match is much the opposite to the women’s Rumble because as much as there are a couple of people with an outside chance, I honestly think there’s only one real candidate to win this match, still, let’s discuss some others anyway.

Kevin Owens – While I think the chances of Owens winning this match are basically zero, I think it would be the most interesting person to win. Lesnar vs Owens is a money match and you’ve already got a match with Rollins lined up so that he doesn’t have to sit around a twiddle his thumbs because Lesnar refuses to do the February Pay-Per-View. It’s a massive shot in the dark, but if I had to pick who I wanted to win, Owens is my guy.

Seth Rollins – Pretty much just the flipside of the Owens argument, things going into Mania would look pretty similar, only with Rollins coming out victorious instead of Owens. I know we’ve already seen Lesnar vs Rollins twice, with Rollins winning both times, but if the dirt sheets are to be believed, WWE still doesn’t have much of an idea as who Lesnar’s opponent is going to be, so it’s all still up in the air as far as I’m concerned.

Cain Velasquez – Unfortunately, I think his match against Lesnar at Crown Jewel did some irreversible damage to Velasquez, at least in the short term, because I honestly don’t see him as any kind of threat. However, this is WWE and it wouldn’t surprise me if a full-length Lesnar vs Velasquez match ended up being the Wrestlemania plan and having a cross-over star, like Velasquez winning the Royal Rumble, would certainly make some headlines.

Brock Lesnar – Yeah, like Lesnar’s going to work a full hour. As he’s the WWE Champion, it would be just a tad counterproductive for him to win the Rumble, unless of course Lesnar vs The Fiend is what they have in mind, which I don’t think would be all that good of an idea. The general consensus from the IWC is that Lesnar is just in this match to set up a potential Mania match via whoever eliminates him from the match, which is a consensus that I agree with, there’s just no rationale for him winning.

Roman Reigns – It’s gotta be Reigns, right? What else is there for him to at Mania? The Fiend vs Reigns is a match that’s been rumoured since about September and it makes the most sense from a story perspective. Reigns is really the only face on Smackdown that’s higher up the totem pole that Daniel Bryan, so having The Fiend face anyone else would seem like an anti-climax. Not to mention, Reigns hasn’t even sniffed the world title scene since his triumphant return from his leukaemia in February, so I think it would be a great story to tell.

As for how the fans will react, it’s honestly hard to tell. Personally, I’ll be cheering if he wins, but the wrestling fan-base is a fickle one, so even if they’ve been pretty consistently cheering Roman Reigns since his return, they may suddenly turn on him if he’s going for a world title. I hope that doesn’t happen though because I think Reigns winning is the right move in the long-term.

So there you have it, those are my predictions for WWE’s Royal Rumble 2020! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, please feel free to let me know what you think is going to happen on Sunday, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back this time next week, where I’ll be running down my rankings of Doctor Who Series 5! (For real this time, I promise).

10 Times a World Title Changed Hands Between the Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania

As we continue our travel along the winding road to Wrestlemania, there is often one thing that is a complete certainty, none of the major championships will be changing hands.

Coming out of the Royal Rumble WWE begin the process of advertising their big main events to sell tickets, and as the media starts to promote them more and more in the build-up, it’d be a pretty bad idea to suddenly change a marquee match simply for the sake of shock value.

While this holds true for the most part, sometimes (ten times to be precise) there are outside circumstances or storyline plans that trickle over into the months between the two major events, and the result is that we get a shocking title change only a month or so out of the granddaddy of them all. So I thought it’d be interesting to take a look at all the times this has happened, the circumstances surrounding them, and what came of them come Wrestlemania.

Shawn Michaels – Vacant – Bret Hart – Sycho Sid: 1997 (WWF Championship)

One of the most talked about moments in Shawn Michaels career is what kicks off this list.

Going into Wrestlemania 13, there were big plans for a main event match between Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart in a rematch from their Wrestlemania 12 Iron Man match, with the plan being for Michaels to return the favour and drop the title back to Bret Hart, however, it was not to be.

Thanks to a knee injury that Shawn claimed had been nagging him for a while, he was forced to vacate the championship over a month out from the big event. There are many that claim this injury wasn’t as bad as Michaels made it out to be and just didn’t want to drop the title to Bret Hart due to growing real-life heat between the two.

Shawn would drop his infamous “Lost my smile” promo and disappear from our screens for a good few months. This left a WWF Champion sized void in the plans for Wrestlemania, so a Fatal 4 Way match was made between Bret Hart, The Undertaker, Stone Cold and Vader, in which the Hitman would come out victorious.

It wasn’t to last though, as thanks to interference from rival Stone Cold, Bret Hart would lose the title just 24 hours later to Sycho Sid. Sid would carry the title into Wrestlemania 13, where The Undertaker would defeat Sid to claim his second WWF Championship and grow the still very young streak to 6-0.

The Rock – Mankind – The Rock: 1999
(WWF Championship)

Two years down the line, the landscape of the then WWF was vastly different, the Attitude Era was in full swing, and with it came a whole host of quick title changes.

Mankind and The Rock had been feuding for the WWF Championship ever since The Rock and Vince Mcmahon had pulled a repeat of the Montreal Screwjob at Survivor Series 1998 to give The Rock the title. Mankind had claimed the title for himself the following December with an assist from Stone Cold (and turning the tide in the Monday Night Wars in the process), only for The Rock to take the title back at the Royal Rumble in the infamous I Quit match where The Rock went way over the top with chair shots and used a recording to win the gold.

This led us to the first ever Halftime Heat event, that took place 7 days after the Royal Rumble and aired during half time of Superbowl 33. This featured the only ever empty arena match for the WWF Championship where Mankind would win the title for the second time by pinning Rock with a forklift that seemed to have a camera strapped to the underside for some reason.

This epic feud would eventually come to an end on the February 15th 1999 episode of Raw where a ladder match between The Rock and Mankind would end with The Rock picking up the gold in an extremely brutal hardcore match. Sadly for The Rock, he would once again experience a short reign as at Wrestlemania 15, The Rock would lose the title to Stone Cold Steve Austin, with Mankind acting as the referee.

Kurt Angle – The Rock: 2001
(WWF Championship)

Due to the nature of the road to Wrestlemania, most of the title changes that are highlighted on this list tend to have some series of shenanigans or storyline justification surrounding them, to heighten drama going into the grandest stage of them all. So it’s quite weird to see a title change as clean cut as this one at this time of year.

This title change is exactly that, however, since at No Way Out 2001 The Rock would take the WWF Championship from Kurt Angle a chaotic match, with a couple of shenanigans throughout, but had a fairly clean finish. This would mean that The Rock would carry the WWF Championship into Wrestlemania X-7 to face off against Stone Cold in their legendary main event. Where Austin would famously shake hands with Satan himself, turning heel and aligning himself with Vince Mcmahon in the process.

Edge – Triple H: 2009
(WWE Championship)

These next two form a little bit of a two-parter, as both took place at the No Way Out Pay-Per-View in 2009.

Edge carried the WWE Championship into the Elimination Chamber that night, after winning it from Jeff Hardy the previous month at the Royal Rumble, however by the end of the night, things would look very different. The WWE Championship Elimination Chamber match kicked off the night, with Edge being in the unfavourable position of entering the Chamber first, against the man he beat for the title, Jeff Hardy.

A mere three minutes into the match, however, Edge would go for a spear, only for Hardy to catch Edge into a small package, pinning him and eliminating him from the match, losing the WWE Championship in the process. What followed was a fairly entertaining chamber match between the remaining five men, ending in an exciting one on one between Triple H and The Undertaker, with the king of kings eventually coming out on top.

Triple H would carry the WWE Championship into Wrestlemania 25 where he would face Randy Orton in the world’s most boring match, retaining the gold in the process.

John Cena – Edge: 2009
(World Heavyweight Championship)

Edge wouldn’t stay without world title gold for long though, as we would find out later that same night.

Once again looking at No Way Out 2009, this time we’re taking a look at the main event, an Elimination Chamber match for John Cena’s World Heavyweight Championship featuring, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, Kane, Mike Knox (no, I don’t remember who he is either) and Kofi Kingston. Sadly for everyone’s new favourite wrestler, Edge would make a surprise appearance during Kingston’s entrance, laying Kofi out before locking himself in the pod, taking the spot in the match.

This tactic would end up paying off for the superstar that’s rated R, as he was able to convince the other participants in the match to gang up on champion John Cena, taking him out after everyone hit their finishers on him. Edge would then find himself in the final two against Rey Mysterio and eventually came out victorious, walking out of No Way Out 2009 drapped in just as much gold as he entered with.

This wasn’t to last, unfortunately, since at Wrestlemania 25, Edge would lose his World Heavyweight Championship back to John Cena, in a triple threat match along with the Big Show. Yeah…Mania 25 wasn’t really that good, to be honest.

Sheamus – John Cena – Batista: 2010
(WWE Championship)

Yet another set of changes that took place on the same night, only this time around it’s not thanks to a single man.

Entering 2010, the WWE Championship scene was in a rather strange place. It was a time before CM Punk would make his meteoric rise, the age of Orton was over and Triple H was slowly winding down the amount he wrestled on such a high profile, this meant there was a big void at the top of the card for someone to face John Cena. Then along came Sheamus.

I’ve mentioned in various articles about how Sheamus tended to win things at the wrong time and in weird ways, and his WWE title win at TLC 2009 was no different. Sheamus would defeat John Cena in a tables match to claim the title in one of the worst table matches finishes ever – on par with Big Show accidentally stepping through a table – as both men would fall off the top turnbuckle, and Sheamus would narrowly miss a table as he fell, so narrowly that it looked more like a botch than anything else.

Regardless, come February Sheamus walking into Wrestlemania as WWE Champion seemed like a very real possibility, until he ran into an Elimination Chamber featuring both John Cena and Triple H. In expected fashion, John Cena “overcame the odds” to become WWE Champion yet again, only for Vince Mcmahon to come out, announce the return of Batista, who would immediately be granted a WWE title match against the leader of the Cenation and came out victorious.

Batista would take the title to Wrestlemania 26, where he would immediately lose it back to big match John. So that was worthwhile.

The Undertaker – Chris Jericho: 2010
(World Heavyweight Championship)

The night wasn’t over, however, as in the main event of Elimination Chamber 2010, we would see the World Heavyweight Championship change hands. Not because of a random Batista appearance, but a sudden Shawn Michaels appearance.

The Undertaker had held the World Heavyweight Championship ever since October 2009, where he defeated CM Punk in the most one-sided Hell in a Cell match in history, and we were now in the midst of the excellent storyline, where Shawn Michaels was begging The Undertaker for a rematch of their classic Wrestlemania 25 bout.

The Undertaker would constantly refuse Shawn Michaels’ request, and after Michaels failed to win the Royal Rumble to face the Deadman at Wrestlemania, the heartbreak kid decided drastic action was needed. Right at the end of what was a rather good Chamber match, which included The Undertaker being set on fire by his own pyro, Shawn Michaels would appear from underneath the Chamber, superkick the unaware phenom allowing Chris Jericho to pick up the gold.

Jericho would be challenged by Royal Rumble winner Edge at Wrestlemania and successfully retain his title, before being cashed in on the very next Smackdown by the one and only, Jack Swagger.

Edge – Vacant – Dolph Ziggler – Edge: 2011
(World Heavyweight Championship)

Now time for some title changes that happened all in the same night.

Going into 2011, Vickie Guerrero had paired herself up with Dolph Ziggler during her “cougar” phase and was still mad at Edge for that time they were supposed to get married. Also at some point prior to his World Heavyweight Championship the Spear had been banned, so, since hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, Vickie used that as an excuse to strip Edge of his World Heavyweight Title.

Once this was done, Vickie would waste no time in handing the title to her boy toy Dolph Ziggler, which was a historic title reign that would last all of an hour, since Edge would win the title back later on that very same episode of Smackdown.

This title reign would take Edge through Wrestlemania, where he would defeat Alberto Del Rio until he would tragically have to vacate the title due to a neck injury that also forced him into retirement. As much as the ending of it was historic though, nothing else about this particular title change was in any way noteworthy, and just seems rather weird when you look back at it.

John Cena – Bray Wyatt: 2017
(WWE Championship)

It’s strange to think that John Cena’s most recent WWE Championship reign (the reign which tied Ric Flair’s record) lasted a mere two weeks, but that was the state of affairs we were faced with just two years ago.

The Royal Rumble 2017 was quite a weird event, with an excellent WWE title match that was won by John Cena, a cluster of a Universal Title match where Kevin Owens would defeat Roman Reigns thanks to Chris Jericho – who was hanging above the ring in a shark cage – and a sudden Braun Strowman appearance. Then we had the Royal Rumble match which, despite having about 7 potential winners, was one by Randy Orton in an extremely confusing fashion.

This left us with arguably one of the most predictable Elimination Chamber matches ever, as Randy Orton was still involved with Bray Wyatt at the time, and it was clear that things were leading to a Wrestlemania encounter. Eventually, following an extremely good Elimination Chamber match, Bray Wyatt would stand tall among his fireflies as WWE Champion for the first (and as of writing, only) time.

Sadly, it wasn’t to last as Bray would disappointingly lose the title to Randy Orton at Wrestlemania 33 in what was arguably the most boring match on the card.

Kevin Owens – Goldberg: 2017
(Universal Championship)

Oh boy.

Goldberg won a World Championship in 2017, I’m just pointing that out because I don’t think we make a big enough deal about it. It was over so quickly that it’s pretty easy to forget, but we must always remember that Goldberg won a WWE World Championship in 2017, and also at one point his son joined them in the ring to celebrate and took his shirt off for no apparent reason. Never Forget.

There was a lot of moving pieces going into Fastlane 2017, Brock Lesnar vs Goldberg had already been booked for Wrestlemania 33, and Kevin Owens had recently turned on Chris Jericho at the heartbreakingly wonderful Festival of Friendship. This left us with two big Wrestlemania matches in the works, both of which could’ve potentially been for the Universal Championship. WWE just had to make a simple choice.

They chose poorly.

Kevin Owens vs Goldberg was booked for Fastlane and panned out pretty much how you remember it in your head. Owens refused to get into the ring and officially start the match until eventually, Chris Jericho appeared to distract Owens, Spear, Jackhammer and 22 seconds later, Goldberg was your new Universal Champion.

Golberg also wouldn’t hold his newly won title very long, as Brock Lesnar would conquer the one who conquered the one in twenty-one and one to take the Univeral Championship. Which, in a roundabout way, leads us up to exactly where we are today, going into Wrestlemania 35.

So there you have it, all 10 times that a world title changed hands going into Wrestlemania. Thankfully we haven’t had anything as exhausting as that to deal with this year (although there is still one more week for Shane to win the title making Shane vs Miz a title match), but I hope you enjoyed this look through the past to see how it’s been done before.

If you enjoyed then please leave a like and share this around on all your favourite social media sites, and follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo as we head into Wrestlemania weekend, as I’ll have a whole lot of opinions to blurt out into the ether, and stay tuned for my NXT Takeover & Wrestlemania predictions and reviews over the next couple of weeks.

WWE Royal Rumble 2019: Every Match Ranked

It’s now been 12 hours since the Royal Rumble finished, I’ve slept for about 10 of them, and I’m still not entirely sure I’ve recovered from everything that happened on Sunday night. I know that sounds like a bad thing, but it’s actually the opposite because I’m buzzing so much over everything that could happen going forward now.

This year’s Rumble was a really enjoyable show, with most of the non-Rumble matches delivering on a much higher level than they normally do. Still, the arbitrary rankings are calling so we must take every match on the show and order them from the very worst, to the very best.

Quick Note: Bobby Roode & Chad Gable vs Rezar & Scott Dawson is dead last, I just have absolutely nothing to say about it, so I’m not even going to bother officially ranking it.

9 – Daniel Bryan(c) def. AJ Styles
(WWE Championship)

Erick Rowan?!

Imagine going back two years and telling yourself that Daniel Bryan vs AJ Styles would be the worst match on a big 4 Pay-Per-View featuring a Brock Lesnar match, no-one would believe you, and yet here we are.

For one thing, this match really did get the worst spot of the night in terms of the order of matches. Having two Rumbles on one show can be a bit of a curse since you either have to put them back to back and risk exhausting your audience, or separate them and have one of your big matches get completely ignored by a tired crowd.

Bryan and Styles tried so hard to get the crowd back into this one, but after Becky Lynch winning the women’s Rumble in the fashion she did, it was never going to happen. That said, what happened in the match didn’t really help matters.

Right out of the gate the match was quite a standard WWE style main event. I don’t know if they were told to reign it in, or just didn’t bother but I really felt like this match needed to kick off at a fever pitch to really get the crowd to pay attention following the women’s Rumble. Secondly…Erick Rowan.

I don’t even know what to say to this. Rowan going from, an emotionless big dude that hits people with a hammer, to, Chequered shirt wearing vegan who cares about the environment might be one of the biggest and most sudden character changes I’ve seen in quite a long time.

8 – Shinsuke Nakamura def. Rusev(c)
(United States Championship)

Weirdly, this was the most surprising result of the night.

I wasn’t expecting a great deal from this match, and while it didn’t blow me away, it was certainly a fun match that was a lot better than what we usually get on the pre-show.

I’m not entirely sure why Shinsuke Nakamura won since, from a creative standpoint, I don’t really see what more Nakamura can do with the title (which is weird considering he did literally nothing with it). Realistically, I don’t see Nakamura holding on to this title for much longer, probably dropping it to someone like Rey or Andrade very soon, and I’m really worried that another short reign like this will destroy what little prestige that US title has left.

7 – Shane Mcmahon & The Miz def. The Bar(c)
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

Wrong.

In the past 10 months, Cesaro & Sheamus have lost their tag team titles to both a 10-year-old kid and have been pinned by Shane Mcmahon and his ugly ass shooting star press, a move I love but somehow Shane made it look crap.

That said, this match was fairly enjoyable, Shane did all his usual crap and it had minimal bearing on the match, Miz was working his ass off here to make this thing look competitive. The Bar was great as usual, although they weren’t really allowed to kick into that higher gear which is so fun to watch.

All I can hope for right now is that this title reign is short because if it’s still going by Wrestlemania I might lose my mind.

6 – Brock Lesnar(c) def. Finn Balor
(Universal Championship)

Well, I can’t say I was expecting any different.

It’s hard to get a lot of real excitement behind a match were the ending feel inevitable the whole time, but these “Brock Lesnar vs small guy” matches seem to keep delivering.

I didn’t enjoy this as much as I did Lesnar vs Bryan, but I think this told a different story, even if it did hit the same beats in places. Having Finn blast Brock right out of the gate was a good move to make sure the crowd were into this one, especially following the fairly vapid WWE Championship match that preceded it.

Ultimately having Finn tap to the Kimura is never going to make him look weak, this is the same move that made The Undertaker tap out after all. The attack after the bell should be good for giving Seth more motivation to take down Brock following his Rumble win, I just hope Balor keeps the momentum he’s built up over the past couple of weeks.

5 – Buddy Murphy(c) def. Hideo Itami & Kalisto & Akira Tozowa
(Cruiserweight Championship)

Just put these guys on the main show, come on.

I really feel that the cruiserweight division needs more matches like this. One on one contests on 205 Live are often excellent, but if you want to get a crowd going on a pre-show (or even early on in the main show), you want a good fast paced multi-man match.

There was great action from start to finish here, and it allowed some of the more forgotten talents on 205 Live, such as Tozowa show that they can still go just as good as anyone else on that roster and deserve these featured spots.

I hope we get a really good one on one feud coming out of this match, as I think Murphey and any of these guys would be a brilliant match to watch.

4 – Ronda Rousey(c) def. Sasha Banks
(Raw Women’s Championship)

The structure of the show last night was quite weird. Having both women’s title matches go on early and then immediately followed by the women’s Rumble seemed like an odd choice, but it seemed to serve the overall narrative of the night quite nicely.

This match wasn’t as flashy or as fast as you’d expect the match to be, but that didn’t detract from the quality of the match whatsoever because the storytelling here was fantastic. It really feels like, with every new opponent she faces, Ronda has to learn something new about how to wrestle. Sasha was in control for a large portion of the match and Ronda seems to really excel· in matches like this at looking like an efficient and smart wrestler, waiting for her spot and taking control at crucial moments.

It was a wrestling match that just focused on wrestling, and sometimes that’s all you really need.

3 – Asuka(c) def. Becky Lynch
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

WWE proving here that sometimes they can have their cake and eat it too.

I’d like to point out how hard I found it to choose which women’s title match was better, they were both brilliant in different ways, and believably the order could be reversed and I’d still be happy with it. In the end, I settled on putting this one higher because it felt just a tad faster paced and had a tiny bit sweeter of a finish.

As for the details of the match, I find myself saying pretty much the same things I said for Ronda vs Sasha, it was just 15 minutes of solid and fun to watch wrestling. As I mentioned, I liked the finishing sequence a little more, with Asuka and Becky constantly reversing their submission holds until Asuka catches Becky out with something she wasn’t expecting.

While I was a little apprehensive of Becky tapping out at the time, but given what happened later in the night I don’t think it matters. It ended up as being a pretty great way to give Asuka a strong win heading into Wrestlemania seasons without it costing Becky anything.

2 – Seth Rollins wins the Men’s Royal Rumble Match

It was SO close between these Rumble matches, I had to watch both of them a second time before I could make a decision I was happy with. I’ll talk about why I picked one over the other in the number 1 spot, so for now, let’s go through all the highlights in this match.

We kicked things off, as we always should, with Elias. He did his stuff before eventually being interrupted by none other than Double J, Jeff Jarrett. This was something I’d always wanted to see, but I never thought it would actually happen. They tease a duet before Elias takes a cheap shot on Jarrett, followed by a smash with the guitar and a swift elimination.

The NXT entrants were also great this year. After giving us Almas and Adam Cole last year, WWE decided to check the other three boxes on my, favourite wrestlers in the world right now list, by giving us Johnny-freaking-Wrestling, Pete-goddamn-Dunne and ALEISTER FUCKING BLACK. While there is a part of me that is still absolutely furious that Baron Corbin eliminated Black, all three guys got a great showcase in the match and I love every single one of them. Now in 2020, we need Velveteen Dream to come out to have a stare down with Nakamura and I’ll have got everything I’ve ever wanted from Rumble cameos.

The comedy spots in this match were also pretty spot on, Curt Hawkins hiding under the ring, followed by Titus O’Neil’s reaction to the whole thing was very funny, and resulted in Hawkins actually getting an elimination, which was cool.

Nia Jax trying to do what Becky Lynch did was also very fun to watch as well. It’s a little unclear what the rules are on women entering the men’s Rumble now there is actually a women’s Rumble, but I’ll go with it for now. I never really thought about Nia Jax getting RKO’ed until Sunday night, but once the scenario was placed in front of me, I realised I’d never wanted to see anything more in my life. I know some people are up in arms over this, but I think Nia’s got the build to pull it off, and there’s been so much heat behind Nia since the incident with Becky that the crowd were over the moon to see her get beat up for a second time that night.

The final four onwards was also excellent, not quite as good as last year’s final four but I still thought it was great. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Seth getting laid out for a little while, but it wasn’t actually for very long so I didn’t mind it too much in the end. Watching Ziggler, Almas & Rollins teaming up to try and take down Strowman was fun, and I especially liked when Rollins did the smart thing and got the fuck out of the way when Strowman started to rally.

The final sequence was nail-biting stuff too. Once again I found my logical wrestling brain arguing with my emotional brain over what was going to happen moment to moment. Of course, WWE aren’t going to do Strowman vs Lesnar at Mania, but during that whole final segment, I was so scared that’s exactly what would happen.

Overall this Rumble match had lots of great action from start to finish and now we get to sit back and enjoy the ride to Mania where Seth will (hopefully) take down Lesnar (please, God).

 1 – Becky Lynch wins the Women’s Royal Rumble Match

So this is what happens when the man comes around…

Unlike the men’s Rumble, this match wasn’t great the whole way through, in fact, I’d argue the first half of the match didn’t have a great deal to enjoy at all. However about halfway through the action really picked up and all the raw emotion surrounding the finish were unrivalled.

Going into more detail, the match started off a bit sloppily, with Lacey Evans not being quite as crisp as she could’ve been on some spots early on, and until Charlotte hit the ring, there just felt like there was a general lack of action.

Billie Kay refusing to enter the ring until Peyton Royce showed up was pretty entertaining in the way only the IIconics can pull off, and Nikki Cross getting one of the loudest reactions of the night was pretty cool too. We also got to see the world’s most adorable badass in Kairi Sane, running down to the ring while looking through her telescope, how is that helping in any way? I just love her so much.

We got a whole bunch of innovative spots from Naomi and NXT’s Kacy Catanzaro (a name with far too many syllables for me to remember), which kept the pace going at a point in the match where things could’ve quite easily sunk back down into a slump. In addition to this, we got some comedy in this match as well, and I know most people hated this, but I couldn’t help but giggle when Hornswoggle popped out from under the ring where Zelina Vega was hiding, although I would’ve loved to see Almas kicking the piss out of the little guy once they got backstage.

Eventually, we get to the closing stages of the match, specifically where Lana comes out at number 28. She makes it to the top of the stairs and then begins to limp very slowly down the ramp. Now, at this point is when the eyes of everyone watching lit up with hope, we didn’t want to get our hopes up just yet, but we could believe what might happen. Following an attack from Nia for good measure and Carmella entering the ring and being instantly forgotten about, IT happened.

The thing we were all praying for, but refused to believe in actually happened, as Becky Lynch wandered up to Fit Finlay who was tending to Lana and made her case right there on the spot and – after a quick debate – Finally gave the green light, the crowd (and I) when crazy as Becky officially entered the Women’s Royal Rumble match.

Everything from this point on in the match was fantastic, a whole bunch of quick and impressive looking eliminations with Bliss, Carmella, Bayley all falling one by one. Lynch would pull Nia off of the ring apron to eliminate her before Nia responded by beating Becky up. At this point Charlotte really came into her own for this performance, as Becky was being tended to by officials on the outside, Charlotte watched on in glee, goading Becky and revelling in the fact that she was about to be declared the winner without having to do anything.

It wasn’t to be though and as the referee was about to raise Charlotte’s arm, Becky burst back into the match, screaming at Charlotte with a tear in her eye “You’ve taken enough from me, you’re not taking this” – just thinking about it brings a tear to my eye. After a quick scuffle, Charlotte was dumped to the floor and Becky finally won the Royal Rumble.

The emotions here were so powerful and is a testament to how amazingly well all of the women involved have been booked since the summer. It was these emotions that made me realised that I had to pick this match over the men’s since it gave us what may be my favourite Royal Rumble moment ever.

Thank you very much for reading this review, if you enjoyed it then please share it around on social media, and if you disagreed with me on any of these points, then come shout at me about it on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure you stick around because later in the week I will be posting my review of NXT Takeover: Phoenix. I’ll see you there!

WWE Royal Rumble 2019 Predictions

The new year may bring some the depressing realisation of being yet another year closer to the grave, however to wrestling fans it means the excitement, anger and general confusion that comes with the Royal Rumble event.

How predictable a Rumble is, generally varies widely. Either it’s ludicrously obvious like in 2013, or completely unpredictable like in 2017, and this year we seem to have one of each. As usual the undercard seems pretty easy to call, however, the matches themselves look to be fantastic.

Rusev(c) vs Shinsuke Nakamura
(United States Championship)

Oh, this is still happening?

It’s not been officially confirmed as of the time of writing, but I imagine this will end up on the pre-show, and while these are both guys I like very much, I can’t say it deserves any better.

Rusev winning the US title on Christmas Day (which was also his birthday (which was also Rusev Day)) was a great point on that feud which felt like it had been going on forever. Instead, they decided to artificially extend the feud by having Lana take the world’s weakest bump and having it take her out of action for over a week (despite being an active wrestler herself).

The US title really needs something to save it soon because right now no-one has any reason to care about it. With any luck, someone like Almas will win it soon and make it matter again, as for now, I’m going to pick Rusev to retain here, mostly because I don’t see a reason for Nakamura to win it back any time soon.

Buddy Murphy(c) vs Kalisto vs Akira Tozowa vs Hideo Itami
(Cruiserweight Championship)

Oh hey, I remember when these guys used to have any sort of on-screen presence in WWE.

Believe it or not, I have actually been watching the occasional episode of 205 Live this month so I’m not just blindly guessing at what’s going on for once. Personally, I’ve been really enjoying Murphy’s title reign, putting on great match after great match, and I don’t really want to see it end anytime soon.

That said, I also really love Hideo Itami and all the stuff he did pre-WWE and in NXT, so finally giving him a platform where he gets to wrestle in front of an audience that actually cares about his existence. Kalisto is long past being worth anything in the cruiserweight division, and while I like Tozowa, his opportunity had come and gone if you ask me.

It boils down to a choice between my heart and my head, and realistically it doesn’t make sense for heel Itami to take the title off of heel Murphy, so I’m going to pick Buddy Murphey to retain.

The Bar(c) vs Shane Mcmahon & The Miz
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

I don’t very often define a creative decision in WWE as “wrong”, because any creative decision tends to have some pretty sound ideas behind it and could end up leading to something great. However, Shane and Miz winning the titles here would very much be the wrong decision for this match.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad The Miz isn’t just floundering about doing shit-all until Daniel Bryan is ready to fight him again, but using Shane Mcmahon to do it really doesn’t feel like the right way to go. Miz obviously still has some beef with Shane from the World-Cup-To-Determine-The-Best-In-The-World™, and he’s obviously going to turn on him eventually, I just really hope they don’t win the titles before then.

The Bar has been looking really strong in this title reign, taking out The New Day, The Usos and AOP with relative ease and to have it end with them losing to Miz and Shane would be a disaster.

Unsurprisingly I’m picking The Bar to retain because I don’t want to imagine the alternative.

Asuka(c) vs Becky Lynch
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

Yes please.

This is the match that I’m planting my flag in for the match of the night. The Smackdown women’s division has been absolutely brilliant ever since Summerslam and this is the perfect way to keep the ball rolling. Taking the most popular wrestler and making them fight your second most popular wrestler, it’s booking at it’s simplest, yet most effective.

As for who should win, I think it’s pretty simple, but picking who will win is slightly more difficult. Personally, I think Asuka has to retain otherwise she may as well have never won the thing in the first place. The problem is, given that a Triple Threat between Ronda, Charlotte and Becky is what’s currently on the cards for WrestleMania, I think there’s a chance WWE will want both titles to be on the line, so Becky could win it back any day now.

Ultimately, I’m going with Asuka since I just can’t see why they’d have her win the title if they were going to take it off her before Wrestlemania, especially as soon as this.

Ronda Rousey(c) vs Sasha Banks
(Raw Women’s Championship)

Remember the days when Sasha was treated as a megastar in the women’s division? Good times.

That said, Sasha has been made to look pretty damn good in the build to this match, which is quite impressive considering how much of a chump she’s looked al lthroughout 2018. With any luck, Sasha will be able to carry this momentum into the Elimination Chamber next months where she’ll probably be fighting for the women’s tag titles. Who knows, maybe she’ll even stay this level of a star for the rest of the year.

This is one of those matches that doesn’t immediately spring to mind when you think of dream matches for Ronda Rousey, but now it’s being presented to me, I’m very happy to see it indeed. I spent all of 2018 singing the praises of Ronda Rousey as an in-ring competitor and I stand by that, so I’m expecting a fantastic match here, provided no shenanigans occur.

It’s not exactly hard to pick a winner though, Ronda Rousey is going to retain for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who knows who these women are.

Daniel Bryan(c) vs AJ Styles
(WWE Championship)

While I’m sure this will be a great match and I’m happy to see it, I can’t help but be a little bit disappointed this isn’t Bryan vs Ali.

I still love Styles as much as I did when he first joined WWE, but I think I’m done seeing him in the world title picture for quite a while now. His reign was long and filled with a lot of great matches with awful finishes, so once this is done I hope to see him try something new and interesting for a little while before sniffing around a world title again.

Bryan, on the other hand, should carry that title forever. His character since turning heel has been a brilliant heat magnet that crowds seem to love so much that they want to boo him. A heel that actually gets boos for doing heelish things, crazy I know.

I’m going with what I think should happen here and pick Daniel Bryan to retain and carry that thing into Wrestlemania to have a brilliant match with literally anyone on the Smackdown roster.

Brock Lesnar(c) vs Finn Balor
(Universal Championship)

I have but one simple request, which is for Finn Balor not to die please.

There’s a lot of fear out there regarding this match right now, that all of Balor’s momentum from winning two matches in one night and pinning John effing Cena will be wasted when Brock beats him easily in about 8 minutes. I was fearful of this too until I heard the news that apparently Brock requested Finn as Braun’s replacements since he likes to wrestle the “David vs Goliath” style of match.

Hearing things like this and looking back at matches such as Brock vs AJ and Brock vs Bryan have restored my hopes that this will actually be a pretty good match.

You don’t need me to tell you who’s going to win though. You can root for Finn all you like, but Brock Lesnar is winning.

Women’s Royal Rumble Match

I thought this one would be pretty hard for me to call until I read the list of participants.

For those who are unaware, the current match that is planned for Wrestlemania is Ronda vs Charlotte vs Becky. Now obviously plans can change at a moments notice in WWE, but I know many fans (myself included) will be a little disappointed we aren’t going to get Ronda vs Becky one on one.

As for the Rumble match itself, I’m looking forward to it. I was rather underwhelmed by the inaugural women’s Rumble last year, as I thought it relied too heavily on women from the past and didn’t focus on the current stars. However there are significantly more women on the main roster this year, so we should get some effective storytelling involving modern-day stars instead of the past this year.

Normally for a Rumble, I’d got through all the people who had a chance of winning but this time around there really seems to be only one choice for me. There is still a tiny part of me that is holding out hope that Becky will make a surprise entrance and win the thing, but I’ve got to go with my head here and pick Charlotte Flair to win this.

Men’s Royal Rumble Match

I’m really excited about this one.

I feel like last year’s euphoric win for Nakamura has restored my faith in the Royal Rumble match, even if what happened after wasn’t amazing. Even bad Rumble matches are fun to watch for the most part and I’m feeling pretty confident that this years will be a good one too.

While I think Drew Mcintyre does have an outside chance here, realistically this match is between two men for me:

John Cena – It’s generally never a good idea to count Cena out of any match like this, but this year, in particular, I think he’s one to watch. There isn’t really any of note on Smackdown right now that Bryan could face at Wrestlemania, and personally, I’d really like to see him fight Cena.

Cena is the antithesis to everything Daniel Bryan has been preaching these past few months, add onto that Cena’s 17th world title reign, their previous match at Summerslam 2013 and whatever drama is going on over on Total Bella’s and you’ve got yourself one hell of a story right there.

I’m fairly certain Cena vs Bryan will be the match at Wrestlemania, but I don’t think Cena’s going to go through the Rumble to get there.

Seth Rollins – You have no idea how badly I want this to happen. Seth Rollins has had arguably the best year of his career this year, putting on the best match of almost every major show he’s been on this year (TLC excluded). In process of making the Intercontinental Championship the most hotly contested title in WWE last year, he also built himself up to be the only man who could really take down Brock Lesnar in Roman Reigns’ absence.

Getting a Rumble win under his belt would be a fantastic way to go full steam ahead into Brock Lesnar and have a brilliant run with the Universal Championship, taking on all comers until the summer at least. It seems the most logical choice to me, and I really want to see it happen, so Rollins is the man I’m picking to win this year.

That’s all folks! Thank you very much for reading these predictions, follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo for live reactions to the Rumble on Sunday and NXT: Takeover on Saturday, and stay tuned for my review of the Rumble early next week!