Last night was the WWE's annual Royal Rumble event, the second biggest wrestling show of the year and, most importantly, the kick-off to the Road to WrestleMania.
I'm not going to talk about the whole show - although I would definitely advise that any wrestling fan watch it for the HUGE return in the men's rumble match itself.
The Undercard
This year's event was stacked. There were a total of 8 matches, including two rumble matches, the univeral title match and 2 women's title matches - all of which delivered. There were also some quality opening matches such as Shorty G vs Sheamus (in which the Great White picked up a much needed win to cement his return), Andrande vs Humberto for the US title (which saw Andrande continue his title reign) and Roman Reigns vs King Corbin in a blinding little match that saw Reigns finally beat Corbin (and hopefully bring this feud to an end).
Both Women's title matches delivered and continued to showcase just how far the division has come (to the point where 3 out of 8 matches were women's matches) and saw both champions retain. The Universal Championship match also saw Bray continue his reign, which isn't surprising as WWE seem to be all in on The Fiend at the moment so having him lose the title pre-Mania would completely destroy his character's aura.
The Women's Royal Rumble Match
This match was probably the better of the 3 women's rumbles we've had so far.... apart from the winner. Charlotte Flair is a 10 time champion so didn't need a rumble win to stake her claim at a title shot at Mania. The win, in my opinion, should have gone to Baszler as a show down with "The Man" Becky Lynch would be much preferred to seeing Becky vs Charlotte part 74. All in all the match was great with Shayna coming in at number 30 and picking up 8 eliminations!!!
The Men's Royal Rumble Match
This match was fantastic. A pure work of wrestling art that told so many stories and set up some great potential angles heading into Mania. We got to see Lesnar eliminate 13 people in a row then get eliminated decisivley by Drew McIntyre, we got a return of Team Venom favourite (and first ever interview guest) MVP, we got a huge surprise in the form of Edge coming back at number 21 and then being in the final 3 and finally we got a tremendous result as Drew McIntyre picked up the win to gain a title shot at WrestleMania.
Final Thoughts
This year's Rumble was a fantastic show and was much needed for myself - I'd been going off the WWE (and wrestling in general) for a while now but this show made me want to tune in to tonight's Raw and see the fallout and what the WWE have in store for WrestleMania. So far, I'm predicting Roman vs. Seth, Drew vs. Brock and potentially Edge vs. The Fiend (because who doesn't want to see the Rated R superstar pick up title number 12?) so it'll be great to see where WWE goes from here.
Comments