Not sure what prompted it, but I decided to watch Royal Rumble last Saturday (Didn't hurt that WWE Network is free on Peacock now). Other than a few PPVs here and there and maybe some shows off and on I've been more of less detached from wrestling for about 12 years after watching it pretty often from being a young kid till my 20s. There was definitely some good and some bad. I didn't know many of the wrestlers, which is to be expected.
Thought the Rollins/Reigns match was surprisingly good. Lots of head games by Rollins, and he's quick/athletic. Still not a fan of Reigns, I just see him as a walking muscle with little skill on the mic and not a lot of pure wrestling talent. Despite Reigns' failings, Rollins carried him to a surprisingly good match that was well liked by some writers, B+/A- range. Lots of big spots, told a good story, Rollins had a nice callback entrance going with the old Shield walk down the steps /w gear. Rollins ends up winning after Reigns snaps from the mind games and gets himself disqualified,. There were call backs to Rollins breaking up the Shield with chair shots to Ambrose and Reigns, which is what Roman ends up mimicking to get disqualified. I gave this one an A-, I was shocked cause I didn't expect to be entertained by this one. I give most of the credit to Rollins though.
Women's Rumble was up next, and it was pretty good too. There were some good surprise entrants here, but not too much nostalgia to ruin the match. Sasha Banks was great, make a real presence and was a bit cocky as she tossed some of the girls out. Bellas were good, nice little call back with Alicia Fox before they backstabbed her. Seeing Lita, Molly Holly, Melina, Mickie James, Kelly Kelly, and even Ivory was all welcome. Ivory started cutting a promo on the way down as her old Right to Censor gimmick and got thrown out by Ripley as she was still cutting the promo lol. Nicki A.S.H. had a moment with Might Molly too, which was good. As expected Ronda showed up and won, that was the only real disappointment. She didn't really need to win the Rumble to appear at Mania, the spot could have been used to get over another talent. Ronda looked a bit rusty as expected too, and her ring gear looked drab as fuck. Supposedly one of the least liked Women's Rumbles, I'd still give it a B-/B despite the Rousey win.
Lynch vs. Doudrop. I've never seen Doudrop wrestle before now. She seems rather athletic for a big gal. Manhandled Lynch for awhile, really crushed her on a few spots where I cringed. Some of her spots made it look like she was bringing her full weight down on a much smaller Lynch, but she was careful and didn't appear to cause any injuries. I thought Doudrop looked pretty good as a heel. Reminded me a bit of Bam Bam Bigelow and like him she didn't seem like a stiff worker. Lynch finished her off with a Manhandle Slam/Rock Bottom off the 2nd rope. B grade.
Lesnar vs. Lashley. Some writers liked this match, but I thought it was a load of crap. It was a fuckin' suplex fest, which is great for a bit but it can't be the whole match. Unfortunately these two are so big that spears and suplexes are about all they can do these days. The match was supposedly 15-20 years in the making, and honestly I could have done without it. Brock just isn't interesting to me anymore, thought he was better in his younger days when he was flexible and could actually wrestle. I've never cared for Lashley, and neither wrestler is any good at selling or carrying the mic. The most exciting part of the match for me was Heyman's introduction of Lesnar lol. I thought the whole thing stunk that bad. Reminded me of the Lesnar/Goldberg match from many years ago...but the crowd wasn't chanting obscene things in this one (Or maybe they were and WWE drown it out). Lesnar lost after getting hit with the belt by Reigns intervention along with Heyman. Even the swerve at the end was kinda meh. I gave it a D+.
Miz & Maryse vs. Edge & Beth Phoenix. The Glamazon came out with makeup and a hairdo as a tribute to Luna Vachon which was pretty cool. This was to be a pallet-cleanser prior to the Men's Rumble, so I didn't expect much. Some good back and forth as Maryse tried to stay away from Beth. Miz and Edge had some spots here and there. Maryse played it much like a Scary Sherry getting cheap shots in on Edge from time to time. She's even been carrying a brick around in her purse, reminded me of Macho /w Sherry & Zeus vs. Hogan & Beefcake at Summerslam back in the day lol. Beth eventually got fed up screwing around with Maryse and took it to Miz. Finished with Double Spear, Double Glamazon Slam for the win. For what it was I thought it was an okay match. Little bit of light-hearted fun before the Men's Rumble. C+/B- range.
Men's Rumble. I was really looking forward to this one. The Rumble is always fun...almost always. You often get a young talent setup to win and catapult their career. You get surprise entrants you never expected. You get some shocking eliminations. What we got instead was a big pile of crap. This was easily the most disappointing Rumble match I think I've ever watched. For starters the match was mostly filled with a lot of Midcard talent that you couldn't see winning the whole thing, and they were heavily front loaded in the first half hour. Aside from AJ Styles coming out at #1 there really wasn't what I would call another heavy hitter until Ziggler came out at #16. This Omos guy came out at #11, he's a fuckin' giant, but he ended up getting tossed relatively quick after Chad Gable got the rest of the people in the Rumble to team up and eliminate Omos. Really wasn't a good use of a big man.
Sheamus at #17, Riddle at #20 was entertaining and brought some life, McIntyre came in at #21 in a bit of a surprise I guess coming back from injury early. Owens in at #22. Kofi at #24, Big E at #26, Orton at #29, and somewhat predictably a pissed off Lesnar at #30. Other than Rey, who is definitely showing a bit of age, that was kinda it for what I'd call star power, or at least talent that I could legit see winning. Johnny Knoxville came in, but it had been announced ahead of time. Nothing really came of it. Bad Bunny I guess had some heat from last year and was in at #27...a celebrity coming in at #27. Riddle did a backflip with Bunny on his back to allow Bunny to land a Destroyer, which was impressive on Riddle's part. Somehow Bunny got a few eliminations too, and while he didn't look awful for a celeb entrant he just came in kinda late...wound up as one of the final 5 oddly enough. The last surprise was Shane-O-Mac in at another late spot, #28. Shane predictably got a big pop and actually eliminated Owens, somehow lasting till the Final 3...wasn't good booking though because you know he's not going to win.
Once Lesnar entered at 30 he ended up cleaning out everyone. He had the last 5 eliminations, and they all came pretty quick. The last one was McIntyre and there was no build up or anything...he just got jobbed almost immediately. Brock coming in and wrecking the field really did nothing for the match. He could have still been a part of Mania without the Rumble win, and the ending was so predictable especially since there was a feeling he could wind up in the match after losing the title to Lashley earlier in the night.
There was just nothing redeeming about this match at all. Kofi tried a big spot on the outside to land on the barricade, but it got botched and even the announcers couldn't save him because everyone saw his feet touch so he had to be eliminated. I'm sure they intended him to go much farther. The surprise entrants were Bad Bunny (Who they teased earlier in the night) and Shane, neither being that noteworthy since Shane still wrestles on occasion I guess as recently as WM last year. They didn't do a thing with Rey and Dominic Mysterio, I don't even think they were both in the ring at the same time, so kind of a missed opportunity. Some of the better, more established talent like Owens, Styles, Sheamus, and Ziggler (The last two both eliminated by the Bad Bunny WTF) all got eliminated quicker than they should have been. Really made no sense. The only noteworthy positive I haven't talked about is Rick Boogs. When he came out I think Pat McAfee called him the "Ripped Freddie Mercury." He is indeed the Ripped Freddie Mercury. Dude was huge and has an amateur wrestling background I guess. He was pretty entertaining too, just seems to have a lot of charisma. Plus he was one handed military pressing some guys above his head, it was nuts. They need to push that guy, he's got a future.
This is one match I was expecting a lot and we really didn't get anything. While the Women's Match wasn't an instant classic it was definitely much better than the Men's Rumble. My sister-in-law, who doesn't like wrestling at all nor has she ever really sat down to watch it, actually stuck around for the Women's Rumble and was somewhat glued to the TV as were my kids and niece. The Men's match didn't keep anyone's interest as even they could feel the energy was weak, I ended up being the only one that finished watching the PPV. Unlike the Women's match I agree with what some of the writers have said...this one was awful, really awful. They gave it an F, and I have to agree. I immediately rewatched the 2008 Rumble afterwards. Not my favorite one, but even with the Cena victory it was lightyears better than whatever WWE put together on Saturday. Literally the worst Rumble match I've ever seen, and that says a lot.
