I know a lot of sites do this but I’m a site so why not me too? Every day I’ll be posting a review of a Rumble all the way up until the 2012 show. Hope you like them.

We have arrived at the first of the Big Four PPVs, the Royal Rumble. This is one of the true unique matches in wrestling as there isn’t another match like this. Yes it’s a battle royal, but it’s distinct from others are we have the time intervals. In case you’ve never seen one of these, the rules are simple. You have 30 men (twenty in the first one) in total with two starting it off.

Every two minutes thereafter (with a few exceptions in some years) another person comes in. The only way to be eliminated is to be thrown over the top rope with both feet touching the floor. The last man standing wins, and beginning with the 1993 match, the winner received the world title shot at Wrestlemania, making this in a way something like the semifinals of a season with the finals being at Mania.

As usual, this has a backstory attached to it involving Vince vs. Crockett. The NWA had a show called Bunkhouse Stampede, which was somehow worse than it sounds. Vince decided to give away a PPV level card (in his head at least) for free. The Royal Rumble was that show.

In something that amuses me greatly, Vince would be TICKED when the NWA did the exact same thing on March 27, airing the first Clash of the Champions, which really was a PPV caliber show at the same time as Wrestlemania 4, which this is the buildup show for. Anyway, the series has produced some great moments, primarily due to the idea of the iron man record, which is how long people can last in the match.

It’s something that’s just cool to think about while really having no significance at all. The record is over an hour by a few people but we’ll get to that later on. Other than that, it’s really just a great novelty act that only comes once a year and never gets old to me. That’s very hard to do, but it works. I have no idea how the reviews of these matches are going to go, but I’m looking forward to it. Let’s get to it.

As always, I hope you guys call me out on anything you disagree with. Keep in mind that these are simply my thoughts as I watch the shows. I very well may be wrong about every opinion I have on them, so if you think I am, then bring it up. That’s what these are for at the end of the day: getting people talking, which I’ve done enough of now, so let’s get to…more of me talking.

Royal Rumble 1988
Date: January 24, 1988
Location: Copps Coliseum, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Attendance: 18,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

Here we go with the first ever Rumble. This wasn’t actually on PPV but rather a special on USA, similar to Saturday Night’s Main Event in a way. The idea was invented by Pat Patterson, and that’s about all there is to say on that aspect of it. Since this was a TV special, it only has four matches on it, which to be fair is the same amount on the first Survivor Series. The Rumble here has twenty men in it, most of which are midcard guys.

There are two other things going on with this show other than the matches. First of all we have a contract signing for Hogan and Andre II, which took place two days after my birthday. Also, Dino Bravo is going to try to bench press 715lbs, which would be a world’s record. With all that said, let’s get to the first ever Royal Rumble, which certainly is a historic thing when you think about it.

Vince and Jesse talk about the show, which sounds ok at best, but that doesn’t really mean a lot.

Rick Rude vs. Ricky Steamboat

This was a great feud in WCW in about four years, but it never took off in the WWF for some reason. Ricky, not Rick mind you, would be gone very soon. He wanted time off to be with his newborn son, but it didn’t happen so he went to WCW and had some of the best matches of all time with Ric Flair. So Ricky and Rick are fighting here before Ricky leaves to go fight Ric. I’m glad we’ve got that cleared up.

Rude just got here recently, so there’s very little known about him. I’ll never get tired of seeing Steamboat skin the cat. It just looks awesome every single time. Ventura always seemed like he had a man crush on Rude, which was just funny to me. There’s really no point to this match other than just having a match for the sake of having a match, which isn’t something I agree with but it’s fine I suppose.

You have two great wrestlers so it means the match should be good. It’s classic 80s heel vs. face stuff, so what more do you want. That being said, this is fairly boring to start. It’s fine from a technical standpoint, but it’s a bit bland. Dragon’s armdrags help that out though, as I could watch him do those all day. Granted I’d be bored out of my mind doing so, but I could do it. Steamboat is really good at being able to keep the crowd into a very standard match.

That’s a talent that very few people ever could have, and Steamboat is one of the best ever at it. I mean, he’s working on the arm of Rude, which is some of the most standard stuff you can do and he’s making it interesting looking at least. He’s doing mainly arm work and the crowd is reacting to it. That’s all you can ask for. During this first part of the match we keep hearing a woman’s voice over and over again.

It’s not something that’s supposed to be there either. Jimmy Hart never managed Rude, at least not that I can remember, and Steamboat’s wife who occasionally came to the ring with him, so I have no clue who that is. However, once a camera swings around, we see that a woman has brought a bullhorn with her, more commonly known as a megaphone. Oh this is going to be a long match isn’t it?

And now this is just getting boring. It’s going on way too long here and Steamboat just botched taking an elbow BADLY. I mean it looked horrid, which isn’t something I can ever remember saying about him. I want to hurt that woman with the megaphone. Oh look, it’s ANOTHER armbar, but the fans are cheering it to an extent. At least there’s some psychology being used and he’s adding in more stuff to the arm to switch it up a bit. That’s nice to see.

Now if only the arm plays into the finish later on, we’ll have an actual story being told instead of just most of one which is what happens far more and far too often. Rude can’t pose because of the arm, and the woman thinks it’s just SO funny. The fans really do love Steamboat. They’re cheering wildly for simple punches and chops. That’s saying a lot. Rude goes to the really bad version of a camel clutch.

It’s the kind where he just sits on Steamboat’s back and puts his hands on his face which is supposed to be effective somehow. Thankfully that lasts about ten seconds. Oh never mind it’s back on. Dang I can’t stand teases like that. Steamboat slaps the mat which would be considered a tap out today, but obviously this is way too early for that. Rude really wasn’t that good at this time in his career.

He’s rather young and doesn’t have a lot of stuff in his arsenal and it’s rather boring. Somehow we’re discussing Vince putting his fingers up people’s nostrils. You can tell the announcers are rather bored at this point. This match is relying on rest holds such as this chin lock far too much. Yeah they’re actually still in it. At least with Steamboat he worked on the arm which makes sense.

It takes away the Rude Awakening and while you can argue that the clutch takes away Steamboat’s movement, it’s just boring looking. Ricky (again, not Rick but Ricky) mixed up his offense and used strikes and holds on the arm to at least keep it moving. That’s a major perk if nothing else. To their credit, the crowd has stayed rather hot the whole time. They really did love Steamboat. DANG that bridge was pretty from Dragon.

They speed it up all of a sudden and now it’s good. Steamboat goes up for the cross body but Rude pulls the referee in the way of it. I’m not sure if Rude was using the Rude Awakening yet, as he gets Steamboat up in an Argentinean Body Vice, which is where you put a guy on your shoulder and pull down. Jesse says Steamboat just got a Rude Awakening, so there’s your finisher name.

Rude would be with Heenan by the time Mania rolled around and would be somewhat better. He leaves celebrating but Vince gives away the DQ ending by mistake just before it happens. Nice going BOSS. Rude is a bit angry to say the least as we go to commercial. That’s just weird to say.

Rating: C+. This was something that didn’t need nearly twenty minutes. The problem was in all the rest holds and Rude simply wasn’t ready for a seventeen minute match yet. Steamboat didn’t help things with the arm work, but to be fair Rude forgot about it maybe two minutes after he was done. The crowd was into it, but it was just barely ok. The ending sucked too.

It’s time for the bench press attempt. Ventura talks about what we’re about to see while insulting Gene at the same time. Bravo, the Canadian, gets an interesting reception. We get a promo from his manager, Frenchy Martin. It’s in French naturally so I have no clue what he said and I can’t make fun of him. Since we only have four matches, we have time for a warm up of 415lbs first. Wait, Bravo wants it to be silent.

I’ll give you two guesses as to how that goes. He does the 415 ten times as we set up another 90 to make it 505 as Frenchy talks some more. There’s no angle or comedy angle or anything like that going on here. Bravo is just lifting weights. The fans, shockingly, are booing. He speeds this set up a bit by only doing eight reps of it. Gene is despately trying to make this seem epic and is failing completely.

We’re up to 555 now, and it’s just the same thing: Bravo wants the people to be quiet, he stalls, he lifts it, and more weight is added. What’s the point of this thing? Gene is trying to do like a commentary thing here and it’s dull to no end. Bravo can’t do it because there’s too much noise. Ventura waists more time by saying be quiet and Gene asks for silence. Bravo does about six reps here (they should all be red) and again asks for silence.

This is just idiotic as we’re at about ten minutes. Yes, ten minutes is being wasted on this. Were there no jobbers available for people to squash? It’s 595 this time as Bravo hates noise. Wouldn’t the time here have been better spent in like, a match for Bravo? This is obviously supposed to be used to get him over but it’s not working. I’d assume it would work better with actual wrestling, but I don’t know enough about the finer points of the game I guess.

Again, the same formula is used but this time we have another French promo. He does three reps as Gene says how awesome Bravo is. Who really thought this would be a good idea? Remember there’s no Titantron or anything, so the people can see a spotlight on something, but for the most part they can’t see a freaking thing. We’re at 655 pounds now so at least we’re close to being done.

I love also how there’s no judge or official to determine that this would be a record or anything like that also. The booing is ridiculous now so Ventura and Bravo yell at McMahon, who allegedly was just a commentator at this time so that was odd. Hey he got 655 up! We’re over seventeen minutes now as Jesse says that this is unofficial because the bar will have to be weighed later. So wait, this might not count anyway? Give me a break guys.

This is beyond moronic and has been from the start, but supposed someone hit their head and thinks this is interesting. We don’t even get to know the results until later on? WOW and you people wonder why people popped so huge for Hogan and Savage. They were the only interesting things on these shows. Again: be quiet. He lays down but gets back up once again demanding silence. Oh come on now. He’s walking away now and Martin is trying to calm him down.

Jesse asks the people if they want to see a world record. Crowd: NO! Jesse ignores this of course. They waste a minute getting Bravo calmed down and we’re hopefully at the end of this. Jesse helps him do it by grabbing the bar. He would claim to have gotten it clean with Jesse saying he only put two pounds of finger pressure in it. This went on over twenty minutes, as in longer than the opening match. If anyone can explain the mindset of Vince for doing this, I’ll get you a ham sandwich.

Women’s Tag Titles: Jumping Bomb Angels vs. Glamour Girls

This is 2/3 falls. The Women’s Tag Titles did indeed exist. Much like he did with Moolah’s Title, Vince bought them from the NWA and gave them to the Glamour Girls who allegedly won them in Egypt. I think it was billed as a double main event and shown on a split screen with Patterson winning the Intercontinental Title in Rio. It happened blast it! Anyway, the Glamour Girls are old and annoying, but the Bomb Angles are freaking AWESOME.

At Survivor Series when they beat up the Glamour Girls, Jesse said they were like watching Savage or Steamboat or Dynamite Kid and he couldn’t be more correct. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m not a fan of women’s wrestling, but I’ve been looking forward to this match as I’ve never seen it, so you’ll be getting a legitimate fresh review here from me.

More or less this is just housekeeping at this point, as everyone knows the Angels are winning here. I’m not going to try to spell the Angels’ last names properly time after time, but the Glamour Girls are Judy Martin and Lelani Kai. Only the Angels get entrances. These belts were defended maybe twice or so in the six and a half years they were around and no one noticed when they were retired.

These two are like Lita vs. Moolah or something like that. For the sake of simplicity, the Angels will be named Red and Pink based on their attire. All four are wearing what would be described as one piece swimsuits for attire which aren’t flattering at all. Jesse and Vince are arguing about weightlifting and Jesse implies that Vince has never lifted one. That’s another of those moments that are ironic given what we know now.

Vince doesn’t know the names of the Angels either. OH MY GOODNESS! Vince says for lack of anything better, let’s call one Pink and one Red. I called that first Vince! I don’t care if I wouldn’t be born for another ten days. That was MY idea. That’s either awesome or scary as I’m thinking the same way Vince does. The Angels are just flat out destroying the Glamour Girls here as they look about as worthless as Vince is on commentary.

DAng man at least know the names of your talent. His excuse is he doesn’t speak Japanese. What difference does that make? If I walk into an Italian restaurant I can order spaghetti and I don’t speak Italian. It’s a word and you match it with a color. How hard is that?

Pink using the split legged move that Jeff Hardy used a lot. The Angels remind me of the Hardys actually with their continuity. In a very cool spot, both have a leg of one of the Glamour Girls and pull on her as the other Girl pulls from the other side. The Angels win and the Glamour Girl that’s standing more or less winds up doing a headbutt onto her partner. It looked cool.

The Angels are embarrassing the champions at this point as the Girls more or less can only do bare bones level stuff while the Angels, although a bit sloppy at times, are all over the place with varieties of offense that look very great. Like I said they’re not perfect, but man alive they’re fun to watch. They’re not boring like most of the women wrestlers around this time period. It’s like the situation in the Winter Olympics a few years ago with the French judge.

One of the teams did a very basic routine perfectly and the other team did a ridiculously hard routine nearly perfectly. As far as execution goes here, the Glamour Girls are likely better, but they’re nowhere near the level the Angels are at here. Jimmy Hart rubbing one of the Glamour Girls’ calves to get the circulation back into it is funny stuff. Oh I almost forgot: the woman with the bullhorn has had it taken away or has been told to stop using it THANK GOODNESS!

The Girls win the first fall using a fairly cool looking move. Martin sets for a powerbomb but instead shoves Red over her head. Big Show used this for awhile which he called the Alley-Oop. We take a quick commercial break between falls and when we come back we ring the bell. I like that. All of a sudden Vince knows the name of the Pink Angel. Well thanks for getting it seven minutes into the match buddy.

She goes for the same finishing move again after a big brawl but Red gets a sunset flip out of it instead to tie us up. We hit another commercial and upon returning we run down the Andre/Hogan contract signing and the Rumble very quickly before the bell rings. I’m most impressed here as the announcers actually talk about the match once the bell rings instead of hyping up the bigger stuff later on.

That’s showing the girls respect which is something you rarely see in today’s product. When the Angels are on offense, this match is interesting. When the Girls are on offense, I want a sharp object to do bad things with. Ah there now it’s interesting again. The Angels hit a double dropkick from the top to win the belts in a cool looking finish. That was nice.

On replay, Jesse is proven correct as he claims that when the Angel went for the cover she hooked the arm of Martin, raising it off the mat so there shouldn’t have been a pin. Vince says that since the shoulder blade was down it counts. I don’t know what to say to that.

Rating: B-. I was expecting to be bored out of my mind here, but they carried this quite well in my eyes. It was fairly clear that these belts were a joke, but if nothing else they gave us something that we very rarely if ever get to see in this era, with that being a fast paced and well done women’s match. This was fun. It was sloppy, but fun.

We hit the recap button on Hogan vs. Andre which I’m sure you all know. In case you’re brand new to wrestling (if you are you’ve picked a most interesting place to start), Hogan and Andre had the biggest match of all time at Wrestlemania 3 in front of 93,173 people, with Hogan successfully defending the title. At one point very early in the match though, Hogan tried to slam Andre but his back gave out and Andre landed on him.

There was a lot of controversy to the count because Hogan literally couldn’t kick out and it looked like Andre had won in 15 seconds. That’s the driving force behind this rematch. McMahon says that he thinks the third mat slap was “the referee shoving himself up to signal that it was a two.” I get that Vince is the face commentator, but THAT’S the best he can come up with? No wonder he was on the verge of bankruptcy so often.

Anyway, DiBiase came into the picture and tried to buy the belt, but Hogan wasn’t interested. Since Hogan said no, DiBiase paid Andre to take out Hogan. DiBiase was so great on the mic and in general it’s terrifying. How did he not get a short run with it? Depending on if you want to believe it, there’s a story out there that says he was supposed to, but due to Honky Tonk Man throwing a monkey wrench into things, that never happened.

The full story of that is in my Mania 4 review if you’re interested, but in essence, the original plan called for DiBiase to hold the belt over the summer of 88, but it would have involved Savage beating Honky for the IC belt. He said no, so Savage got the world title four months ahead of schedule. Basically we recap the entire feud up to this point in a series of videos that take about seven minutes. This feels more like a show for people that are new to the company at this point, which is rather interesting.

After another commercial, we’re in the ring and for some reason they ring the bell for this. I guess it was to get attention, but it was still odd. Gene says what this is for and introduces Hogan for the contract signing for this match which will take place a week from Friday. It was taking place on a live show on NBC on a Friday night. Live TV was a very new idea back then and being on prime time during the week was unheard of.

You can tell it’s a very different wrestling world than it is now. Hogan is wearing jeans. That just looks odd. Jesse makes a great point that Hogan should be booed for coming out to Real American in Canada, but of course he’s worshipped even more. Gene mistakenly says that Andre weighs 425 which confuses Vince for a bit. Jack Tunney is here and gets a very mixed reaction (he was a big time promoter in Canada and had a lifetime job for selling to Vince.

This same deal was in place for Monsoon who owned the Puerto Rico territory of all places) as he should. Andre just looks awesome in his suit where you can see the suspenders holding up his pants. It sounds stupid but for Andre it looks sweet. Heenan has sold his contract for a million dollars and then later in I think 1989 bought it back for a hundred grand. That’s a very sweet deal when you think about it.

There’s a ton of mind games from Andre which has Hogan looking flat out scared. That’s something you hardly ever see. Hogan signs as DiBiase cuts a promo talking down to Hogan which is just awesome. Andre just stares at Hogan before signing which is rather scary. Andre signs and then beats up Hogan of course, because it wouldn’t be wrestling without it. This was a new idea so the cliché isn’t there yet, making it much cooler.

Buy Wrestlemania 4.

We talk about the Rumble, which sounds really weak. There’s not a lot of huge names in it, which kind of hurt things. Let’s do it.

Royal Rumble

Bret Hart is #1 and Tito Santana is 2, so if nothing else we’re guaranteed a solid opening. This was the hot feud for the tag belts at the time, so I’m quite shocked that these are the two opening guys. Bear with me on this, as I have no idea how this is going to go. And we’re off. Vince is complaining about Andre and DiBiase’s conduct, saying that if Andre wins the title it’ll be a dark time for the company. I agree.

Those 45 seconds were indeed a nightmare comes to Stamford. Thankfully Jesse gets Vince talking about the match and mentions how ironic it is that these two are starting, which amuses me. Something I noticed here: Vince mentions that hopefully 3 will be one of Tito’s friends. This was a lot more of a standard battle royal as there’s no concept mentioned of every man for themselves.

The idea of say Neidhart throwing out Bret would be a split of the team instead of just a regular thing in a battle royal. That’s very interesting. 3 is Butch “I was supposed to be a Horsemen” Reed. Tito hits the forearm just as Butch comes in to make it one on one again. Jesse says that Reed is virtually rested. Why wouldn’t he be all rested? Also if you’ve been resting, doesn’t it imply you had been doing something before? Why am I examining this?

After about a minute and a half (the space between people always changed through the match. According to Wikipedia this match runs 33 minutes even. Now I’m bad at math, but with 19 different entrances considering that two start and two minutes between each, wouldn’t there be a minimum of 38 minutes, which would also assume that the last person out was eliminated more or less immediately and didn’t have to run to the ring) Neidhart is 4, making it three on one against Tito.

Naturally just before Jim gets in, Bret and Butch mess up a double team spot which I think was going to be called the Convenient Plot Twist of Doom, but I could be wrong. The Harts kind of steal Demolition’s finisher to beat on Santana a bit more. Vince finally points out the idea that Reed could double cross them, but naturally he doesn’t.

After about 75 seconds we have the fifth entrant of Jake Roberts who was rapidly becoming a huge name. He’s by far the biggest star in the match at this point and immediately eliminates Reed and then hammers on Neidhart. Jim would be his opponent at the infamous Heroes of Wrestling issue which I’m sure you’ve heard of.

Jake and Tito clean house for a bit as it will never cease to amaze me how a guy can get a beating that would put most people in a hospital and be up fresh and fighting just seconds later. The crowd is WAY into this. The DDT doesn’t hit and the heels are in control again. Bret hits a piledriver on Tito as number six is Harley Race who needed to retire about five years prior to this.

At seven we have Jim Brunzell as we’re in full on battle royal mode of very little happening. This is a white hot crowd which is helping the boredom a lot. All six guys try to get each other out in a big pile which is either very cool or very stupid. Sam Houston, Jake’s tiny and untalented brother in law is eighth. The commentary here has to be limited as it’s really just punching and kicking and a random attempt at an elimination that doesn’t do anything.

That’s the nature of the beast though as you have to fill in a lot of time out there. We have seven people in the ring right now which is far too high of a number. As I type that, the Harts throw out Tito. Danny Davis is ninth. He was a referee turned wrestler and about as effective as Santino. Sam Houston beats him up if that tells you anything. Race gets caught in the slingshot position which is where he sits on the middle rope and gets punched down but his feet save him and bring him back in.

I’ve always liked that one. More random punching follows. These fans REALLY want a DDT. Boris Zhukov is the tenth entrant and eighth currently in the ring. How are we already halfway done with this? He goes for Houston, which makes sense as he’s the tiny guy in the match, but it’s getting a bit repetitive. Race and Boris go at it, and the term every man for himself is first used on a Rumble broadcast. I love me some hot heel on heel action. It had to be said.

Davis tries to get rid of Sam Houston to become mayor of Jobber Town USA, or would it be Jobber Town Canada in the Horowitz province? We start the second half with Don Muraco (incorrectly called #10 by Vince) and Nikolai Volkoff who run down at the same time. Uh oh we have an uninteresting problem here. Muraco hits him and climbs in, making that whole segment completely pointless.

We have WAY too many people in there until Boris is eliminated to take us down to just eight in the ring. That’s still far too many people laying on the ropes and punching each other. I wonder if they ever get bored doing that for so long. Brunzell hits a sweet dropkick on Hart. That was nice. Apparently Nikolai will be 12th when we finally get to him.

After Vince mentions that he has the list of all twenty names, more or less ending any feeling of suspense at least for me, Nikolai comes in, again making the time where he stood at ringside completely pointless. Race does his traditional back flip bump to be eliminated which always looks good.

Jim Duggan comes out 13th to a MASSIVE pop. He and Roberts were likely the second and third biggest faces in the company at this point. He and Race have a short incident in the aisle which I guess is the setup for the hilarious fight they had at the Slammys. Find that show as it’s hilarious stuff all night long.

There are WAY too many people in there with I think nine at this point and for some reason they’re all on one side of the ring. That looks very odd indeed. Ron “Don’t Call Me Lance” Bass comes in and I promise that’s the last of my Chris Berman moments. I can’t stand that guy. I like the way Duggan punches. It just looks cool. The ring is too full but Brunzell being thrown out helps a bit.

Brian Blair is 15 to get us down to just five people to go. These fans sound like they’re heroin addicts given how much they want the DDT. After even more stalling and bad punching we have Hillbilly Jim at sixteen. He takes out Anvil in about four seconds to keep us at that ten person equilibrium. Dino Bravo gets us to 11 as number 17 which I think is a new record for most people in the match’s long standing twenty minute history.

That’s the problem here. Considering the whole match is thirty three minutes, Bravo should be coming in at thirty two I believe, yet we’ve got three more to be entered. Bass gets rid of the pest known as Sam Houston. The match becomes legal when some rookie that hasn’t done anything yet known as the Ultimate Warrior comes in. He’s a jobber killer at this point and barely even that high up.

Bret finally goes out as I guess he couldn’t stand to be in there with someone as bad as Warrior. He was in there twenty five minutes which is the record at the time. About forty seconds after Warrior comes in we have One Man Gang who would win the Slammy for Best Group. He knocks out Roberts and Blair in about a minute to finally start clearing the ring up a bit. The final man comes out after about a minute and it’s the Junkyard Dog. Well that’s pretty anticlimactic.

For the life of me I will never understand what was so great about this guy. He was supposed to be a big deal but I’ve always found him to be a complete waste of air. Anyway, this is the final field of about nine or ten so let’s do it. Yeah it’s ten. Vince shows off his brilliant wrestling mind by picking the Dog to win it. The 300lb Lithuanian Nikolai Volkoff is the first of the ten out thanks to Duggan.

Gang backdrops Jim out to take up to eight. Gang is also the I think fourth person that Jesse says this is his type of match. We get it: brawlers should do well in this. Davis gets clotheslined out to finish eighth. Gang and Bravo eliminate Warrior about five seconds later with relative ease. Dog is out a bit later to take us to five. Bass’ elimination takes us down to four.

I know that was just listing eliminations but they all came rather quickly with nothing at all between them. The final four are Gang, Bravo, Duggan and Muraco. The announcers pick the Gang for the win. Muraco beats up the Achilles enthusiasts while Duggan is down. Bravo holds Muraco up so Gang can clothesline him out, and naturally…it works. What? Of course it works.

Those are finely trained professionals. Did you expect them to make a mistake or something like that? They try the same spot on Duggan and it fails to take us to Gang and Duggan as the last two. Gang beats on Duggan on the ropes and charges at him, but Duggan of all things uses his head and pulls the rope down for the win.

Jesse is annoyed which is funny. We almost immediately go to commercial. One thing I really liked there was that there were no commercial breaks which would have messed up a lot of stuff for me. I’m glad they did it right.

Rating: C-. This match gets a pass, but it wasn’t that good. To be fair, it’s the very first one and they had no clue what they were doing, so given the information and knowledge they had, this was good. The roster wasn’t huge here as Hogan, Andre and DiBiase were the biggest stars in the company at the time, so there was only so much they could do, but it was certainly watchable. Next year they would iron out a lot of the kinks to improve it greatly, but for a first try this was fine.

We recap the real thing of the show by talking about Hogan and Andre. Hogan comes out again to talk about the title match on the fifth and says exactly what you would expect him to say. This was just window dressing.

Islanders vs. Young Stallions

Yes we actually have another match on this show and oddly enough it’s also 2/3 falls. The Islanders had dognapped Matilda recently in a somewhat well known angle. In short, they stole the dog and then gave it back. It was a big deal at the time for no apparent reason. Vince plays Sherlock Holmes here which is idiotic sounding. Heenan is apparently in Barbados for no given reason. Tama and Jim Powers start.

Tama was a guy I’ve always liked but he never got anything going for him. Vince admits that he was bored out of him mind during the Bravo segment which is great. It’s always good to hear Vince admit the he screwed up. They more or less ignore the match for the beginning because the show is more or less over at this point. Vince says that Tama has a devastating leap.

He doesn’t say into a splash or anything like that, but just a devastating leap. Wait, so he has a painful jump? Is he a jump rope master or something? Does Heenan turn the ropes? The man that would somehow become a Horseman named Paul Roma gets a tag and then it’s his turn to get beaten up. Oh dear Roma hurt his knee. No one seems to care. He gets counted out to end the first fall.

We go to commercial and as we come back, the Stallions are in the back getting Roma’s knee looked at. As stupid as that sounds, we get another recap of the contract signing and while a match is going on, we go to Andre and DiBiase for a promo in the arena. That’s just painfully stupid looking.

The commercial is let’s say three minutes long. In three minutes a guy with a bad knee got to the back and DiBiase and the Giant got word to the production team that they wanted to say something and got to the stage in time? That’s a BIG stretch. Andre says exactly what you would expect him to say. He does use the term Giant-a-Mania which is kind of awesome.

After another commercial we’re back in the second fall. Roma’s knee is dead here but we keep going anyway. I’ll give them credit as that’s actually a rather creative way to get in a match and a promo in the final part of the show. It’s kind of plausible but not really. It’s close enough though. Naturally they talk about the promo. You have to give it to Vince: he managed to get a promo in so that he wouldn’t have to talk about this match very much at all.

I’ll give him credit for something up with good ideas like that. That’s not bad at all. Jesse says that the Hogan vs. Andre match will be bigger than the Indy 500. Vince says he’d like to see Jesse dragged behind an indy car. DAng that’s rather violent.

This is just rather generic stuff for the most part as Powers can’t tag out because his partner is hurt. He finally does and Roma is destroyed, giving up to a half crab pretty quickly. Jesse somewhat sarcastically calls it a valiant effort which is I guess his attempt at being nice?

Rating: C-. This booking made little sense as I don’t get why this went on last. It was pretty boring but it’s not bad. It’s standard 80s stuff but it’s little more than a squash. It closed the show on an odd note, but this was ok I guess.

Vince and Jesse recap the show for about three minutes with a very long talk about the Bravo thing. For the love of goodness it wasn’t a big deal! They desperately try to make it a big deal, but dang man it’s just a failure. They of course recap Hogan and Andre and in a funny close, Jesse goes through the information for the match time and location etc., which disgusts the marketing freak known as Vince. That’s just great.

Overall Rating: C+. There’s a major factor to remember when watching this show: it was completely free. As a pay per view, this would have been lower than an F. However, given that this was pretty much thrown together and was given away free, how much can you complain? You got four matches and six segments total.

The first match was ok I guess, the second was exciting, the third was a new gimmick which is always worth a look and the fourth…well I’m not sure why it was where it was but it’s not bad. The two segments were the epitome of hit and miss as the first was just a waste of time, but to be fair you could just change the channel for this one. The Hogan/Andre was nothing but a build up for next week which is also fine. The one thing I don’t get is where a lot of guys were.

I mean, there’s no IC Champion in Honky. There’s no Savage who would go on to win the world title at Mania. No Demolition who would win the tag titles. Beefcake wasn’t there either and he would get the title shot at Mania. Martel, the other tag champion wasn’t there.

It certainly would have helped the battle royal out, but I guess that’s neither here nor there. The show is fine all things considered, but it’s really more of a historical thing than a good thing. It’s not bad at all, but don’t expect a great show because it isn’t one.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

These seem to be pretty popular. Just out of curiosity…What’s your favorite Rumble?

Royal Rumble 2011
Date: January 30, 2011
Location: TD Bank Garden Arena, Boston, Massachusetts
Commentators: Michael Cole, Matt Striker, Jerry Lawler

Well we’ve finally, and I do mean FINALLY arrived.  This is the first 40 man Rumble and while I’m still not behind the idea it could be good I guess.  There are only 4 matches tonight: the Rumble, a Divas match and the two world titles.  It should be fun as WWE has been on a straight up roll recently.  Let’s get to it.

Smackdown World Title: Dolph Ziggler vs. Edge

Well you can’t say they’re going easy to start.  And Edge’s pyro doesn’t go off.  Remember that the Spear is banned here and if Edge uses it then Ziggler loses the world title.  Vickie comes out to do the intro and tries to start a Spear chant which is kind of funny.  We get big match intros too which is always nice.  Lawler: “Ziggler is just like Santa Claus.  Everywhere he goes he takes that old bag with him.”

Dang Edge goes from winning the match to starting the show the next year.  Quite a drop…yet he has a title here.  I love logic or whatever you call it in wrestling.  Striker is doing a great job of tossing softballs up for King to get good lines off of.  Lawler has always been a guy that needs someone to set him up but once he gets a start he’s fine.

Edge controls a lot early on with some basic stuff.  We hit the floor and it’s all Edge.  Ziggler gets a kick to the side of Edge’s head as they come back in to get his first advantage.  Off to a chinlock now as the LET’S GO EDGE chant gets going.  Sunset flip is blocked for two.  More chinlock and this time a longer version of it.  Big elbow drop gets two.

Dolph gets a running charge to send Edge out to the floor and into the barricade.  Back in that gets two.  Hey look it’s a chinnlock!  Edge fights up and a double cross body puts both guys down.  Stinger Splash in the corner misses by Zigs.  Ziggler gets that Downward Spiral into a Stunner for two.  Edge counters the Fameasser into a sitout powerbomb for two.

Uncharacteristically for Edge he goes up top but Ziggler beats him to the punch.  Cross body off the top is rolled through for a VERY close two by Ziggler.  Dropkick gets two on Edge.  Zig Zag is blocked and Edge busts out the Edgecator (modified Sharpshooter) for two.  Edge misses a charge at the ropes and the Fameasser hits for two.

Big Boot puts Ziggler down and Edge sets for the Spear in the corner.  Vickie like an idiot, yells at him to not do it.  Ziggler wants the sleeper but gets caught in the Edgecution but Vickie grabs the referee.  She and Edge get into it and Kelly of all people comes out to beat on Vickie.  As Edge is watching the catfight a Zig Zag gets two and that more or less seals the ending here.

Dolph gets the sleeper and Edge is fading fast.  Oh of course he fights it off.  He manages to get a big jawbreaker out of it instead and down goes the referee.  Vickie is down as well so there’s the Spear.  Edge pulls an Eddie and lays down too.  Cole: SOMEONE HAD TO SEE THAT!  He’s totally right you know.  Edge uses an Unprettier of all things to end it.

Rating: A-. This was a solid back and forth match, but I really don’t like the Spear in there.  Striker calls it the Unprettier which is supposed to be the Killswitch I believe?  Anyway this was a very good match with Ziggler getting some very close near falls out there.  It’s your regular Rumble match that had a challenger who simply wasn’t going to win but Dolph looked great.  Very good opener indeed.

Mania is 63 days away!  Naturally we have the Chamber in there which is going to take away a lot of that time.

We recap Miz vs. Orton which goes back to Miz cashing in.  That’s still sweet and was perfectly done.  DEMON CHILD!!!  Also Miz beat the tar out of Orton on Raw.

Miz and Riley say Miz will win and insult Boston.

Raw World Title: Randy Orton vs. The Miz

Cole talks throughout the WHOLE entrance and then in the ring he says that this is a big match for Miz.  Thanks for clearing up that defending the world title on PPV against one of the biggest stars of all time is a big match.  Miz chant to start as it’s all Orton early on.  Back in the ring as Orton stomps away and Lawler and Cole get into it as always.  I’m still thinking that results in a Mania match which it should.  Lawler deserves a match at Mania.

Orton beats him down in the corner and Cole says this is unfair to him.  Nice flashback to Heenan in 92.  Riley interferes and here comes the Champion.  Orton fights back but misses a charge in the corner to give Miz the advantage back.  The Miz is a Triple crown winner.  Let that sink in for a bit.  Ok he kind of is at least.  Corner clothesline gets two.  More beatdowns and a knee to the ribs get two.

Orton is able to get back in there with a kick and up the ropes we go.  Superplex gets two as Cole talks about Riley.  Elevated DDT is countered by a backdrop and we hit the floor again.  Back in Miz gets two.  Miz goes up and a double axe gets two.  He throws on a chinlock as it’s all champion here.  Back to the floor one more time and Orton eats the post.

He beats the count at 9 and the beating is on again but this time with Orton in control with the Thesz Press.  Powerslam sets up the stomping.  Orton sets for the powerbomb but Riley distracts him.  Miz gets that backbreaker/neckbreaker combo he’s been using lately for two.  Angle Slam hits so Miz wants to get the title and leave.  Instead Orton kills him with a clothesline.

Since we’re looking at a split screen replay we miss what Miz hits to get two out of nowhere on Orton.  Miz misses a kick and Orton grabs a rollup for two.  Elevated (called Suspension by Striker which works also) gets two.  He sets for the RKO and HERE THEY COME!  It’s the New Nexus minus Punk who stare down Orton.  As the referee is distracted Riley gets in and in an AWESOME spot, Orton picks up Riley and LAUNCHES him over the referee and onto Nexus.  Riley was AIRBORNE!  There’s the RKO but Punk runs in with a GTS and Miz retains!  Cole jumps up and down like a little girl in celebration.

Rating: B. Good match but definitely not as good as the previous one.  The thing is that with a show like the Rumble, everything besides the one big match is pure bonus.  The two title matches have been rather good so this show is already looking up.  This was very good stuff for the most part here which is pretty much expected.  If nothing else it gives us some new direction.  Not bad at all here and a pretty good match.

Cody Rhodes gives a prepared statement while we can’t see his face which is always funny.

Divas Title: Natalya vs. Laycool

Just before the match starts we get an E-Mail, making it a fatal fourway and he adds….Eve?  Uh…ok.  Oh and the GM makes fun of Cole and all the people that complain about him.  No tagging here of course.  There isn’t much to say here as it’s an insane spot fest for the most part.  Natalya gets the double Sharpshooter on Eve and Layla which is a great visual.  Layla gets the neckbreaker on Natalya.  There isn’t much to say here like AT ALL.  Michelle kicks Layla, Eve wins the title with a moonsault.  Natalya might have pinned Michelle at the same time.

Rating: D. This was pretty bad overall.  It was a mess of a Divas match which is bad as usually they have some good stuff going for them and certainly have been recently.  This was bad and it was the epitome of a bridge to the Rumble.  Speaking of which, let’s go to that.

Bellas/Gail/Bryan segment.  It’s stupid and the same thing from Monday but with the Bellas pretending to be nice with flowers.

Rumble By the Numbers.

Royal Rumble

Punk is #1 to the shock of no one, and to no one else’s shock, Corre has a member in at #2 but they all surround the ring.  Punk gets beaten down by everyone until Nexus comes down for the save.  Cole gets an E-Mail which says STOP IT!  Everyone but Punk has to leave and only Punk is in at the moment.  LOUD Punk chant and #2 is Bryan.  The IWC just orgasmed loudly.

Bryan speeds things up and takes Punk down with some nice shots.  It’s dueling chant time as Bryan hits the top rope dropkick.  In at 3 is Gabriel.  Gabriel beats Punk up with ease but misses the 450 and Bryan tosses Justin easily.  The timing is absurd already as you expected it to.  Number 4 is Zach Ryder.  He gets both guys down in the corner and manages to get a Rough Ryder on Punk.  Bryan throws him out with ease as I hope we’re not going the 95 route.

Regal is in at #5 and he cleans house which isn’t very dirty at this point.  Lots of suplexes all around.  Regal and Bryan slug it out with European uppercuts which surprisingly Bryan wins despite not being, you know, European.  Bryan kicks both guys with ease and we get #6 in the form of Ted DiBiase.  Backbreaker for Bryan and dropkicks to him and Regal.  Down goes Punk to the following clothesline.

Bryan vs. Regal and DiBiase vs. Punk for awhile which gets us nowhere.  Seventh is Morrison to a BIG pop.  Springboard kick puts Regal down and Morrison cleans house, including with his eternal rival in Punk.  C4 to Bryan.  I had Morrison as a dark horse but methinks that’s out the window.  He gets thrown by DiBiase but lands on the apron.  Morrison gets launched to the railing and GRABS THE WALL like freaking Spiderman, climbs up to the apron, tightrope walks it to the steps and gets back in.  Ladies and gentlemen, that is not going to be topped tonight.

Tatsu is #8 and he does nothing at all.  Ninth is Husky Harris.  Regal went out somewhere in there that I missed when I was dying from Morrison’s wall grab.  Harris immediately gets in front of Punk for defense so Morrison and Bryan try to kill him.  He’s 23 and the youngest person in this Rumble.  That’s rather impressive.  We get to ¼ of the way through this with Chavo.

Seven people in there now as Gabriel, Ryder and Regal have been eliminated so far.  Three Amigos to DiBiase but Punk cuts him off.  And never mind as he takes three of his own.  Punk’s get broken up so it’s suplex time to Morrison.  Here are some for Bryan as well.  He must have done ten suplexes in like 30 seconds.  This is kind of cool actually.  FINALLY he gets the third in a row.

Number 11 is Mark Henry to clear out some dead weight.  There go Chavo and Tatsu.  Punk beats Henry down a bit as it’s time for JTG to be #12.  This portion of the Rumble brought to you by not Michael Hayes.  JTG, Henry, Punk, Harris, DiBiase, Morrison and Bryan in there at the moment.  Hey I’ve actually got this up to date!  Number 13 is Michael McGillicutty to give Punk some backup.

Punk tells him to HURT EVERYBODY.  There goes JTG as we’re getting a bit cluttered here.  Granted a lot of that is Henry and the midcard is well represented.  Harris and McGillicutty put out DiBiase to make room for Masters at 14.  Masterlock to Punk but he can’t get him out as McGillicutty makes the save.  Bryan hammers on Masters as #15 is Otunga.  That makes four members counting Punk in there at the moment.

Bryan is out almost immediately and Masters joins him soon.  Nexus cleans house and gets Morrison out too.  Over to Henry now and yep he’s gone too.  Just Nexus left in the ring now.  Tyler Reks is the sacrificial lamb at #16.  How long can he be unknown for?  There he goes of course.  So are we just waiting on Cena now?  I think that’s pretty clear.  In at 17 is Kozlov who has history here.

Why not just wait on the floor and wait for like five people to get together to at least have even odds?  Vladimir is out with ease.  Punk gets all meditational on us and it’s Truth in as the Rumble is now legal.  Striker agrees with the whole wait it out.  This is a great way to run through some of the weaker guys though.  Punk gets the corner clothesline and bulldog.  In between, he looks at the camera and raises the roof shouting WHAT’S UP in a sarcastic voice.  Funny stuff.

Truth is gone.  And here’s trouble in the form of the Great Khali.  He chops them all down and gets rid of Harris to break up this blockade.  GET BETH PHOENIX STAT!  Naturally in next is Mason Ryan (20).  India vs. Wales goes to the darker skinned ones until Ryan gets him out.  BOOKER T IS NUMBER 21!!!!!  SCREW YOU MAIN EVENT MAFIA!!!!!  Epic pop for him too and Booker looks awesome.

Kicks all around and a Book End to McGillicutty.  SPINAROONI!  SPINAROONI!  OH MY GOODNESS A SPINAROONI!  Punk charges but Ryan makes the save.  Booker is out but that was insanely awesome.  My screen froze on Booker’s eyes bugging out.  You knew it was coming.  John Cena is in next and the fight is on.  He takes everyone down with basic moves and there goes Ryan to a low bridge.  Otunga and McGillicutty to a double clothesline and it’s down to Cena and Punk!

Cena charges into a corner elbow but Punk can’t get GTS.  Double clothesline puts both men down ala Hogan and Warrior in 1990.  Number 23 is…..it’s Hornswoggle.  The look on Punk’s face is hilarious.  More or less it says “no…..freaking….way.”  Punk gets up and drills Horny but goes after Cena instead.  FU TO PUNK AND HE’S OUT!  Cena is left with Horny as #24 is Tyson Kidd.  Headscissors to Kidd by Horny sets up an FU and there he goes.  Ok no he doesn’t yet as Horny wants to do it.  Horny gives him an FU and there goes Kidd.

Twenty fifth is Slater who takes a low blow from Horny and a super Stunner which actually looked pretty cool.  Double You Can’t See Me.  Tadpole Splash and there goes Slater.  It’s Kofi Kingston at 26 and this could be awesome.  Cool moment as they stare down and look at the Mania sign.  I totally buy Kofi as a threat to Cena here which is a very good sign.  Kofi beats on him a bit but it’s really a standoff.  Swagger is 27^th and takes down the weakened guys.

Vader Bomb to Cena and one for Kofi as well.  And now….dude go for the midget already.  Swagger goes after Horny but Kofi kills Jack with a cross body.  Double Boom Drop as Horny is a bridge for Kofi to jump off of.  28 is SHEAMUS.  Oh yes.  This guy is a, and I will never ever say this again, a dark horse to win this.  Sheamus cleans house and goes after Horny.  Cena saves him AGAIN and it’s another Tadpole Splash coming.  Never mind actually as Sheamus KICKS HIM IN THE HEAD to eliminate him.

Rey is #29.  We have Kofi, Cena, Swagger, Sheamus and Rey in there at the moment.  Trouble in Paradise to Sheamus but Swagger takes him down.  Rey was on the corner and Swagger tries the running belly to belly.  Rey ducks and knocks him to the apron and a 619 takes him out.  Barrett is 30 as this is FLYING by.  Wasteland to Kofi is blocked by a kick to the knee by Rey.

Cena vs. Barrett goes to Wade in the form of a Boss Man Slam.  That could so be a finisher for someone.  Maybe Ryan?  The first #31 in history is Dolph Ziggler???  Oh crap man, that could be a shock.  He hammers away on Sheamus as Barrett is in trouble.  Dolph, Sheamus, Barrett, Kofi, Cena and Rey at the moment.  Cena is in trouble and the crowd reacts BIG.

32 is DIESEL????  OH WOW!  The crowd pops HUGE.  I can’t get used to hearing him called Diesel.  Drew is 33^rd.  Nash looks kind of awesome in there.  Drew and Sheamus hammer down Diesel who is all of a sudden getting a HUGE chant!  Dude sign this guy up!  619 to Diesel which I can’t believe I just typed.

34^th is….the Miz???  Oh wait it’s Riley.  He slides in and Cena just drills him.  Striker got cut off mid sentence in a laugh.  Barrett puts  Diesel out.  ANOTHER big Diesel chant as he leaves.  Miz sits in on commentary for a bit.  Big Show is number 35 and it’s time to clear out some guys.  Show and Diesel look at each other.  Oh dang there’s some history there.  The Celts jump Show as he comes in which doesn’t go well for the UK guys.

Miz sounds like he has a cold.  There goes Ziggler at the hands of Show.  I want to know who #40 is.  36 is Big Zeke.  Uh oh.  Show puts Drew out.  Zeke puts Show down and OUT on his own!  There are four entrants left.  Who isn’t out here yet?  Rey, Zeke, Cena, Kofi, Barrett and Sheamus at the moment.  Santino is 37^th and gets a solid pop.  He goes right at Sheamus of all people.  And now he goes for Zeke who growls at him.

Santino gets knocked to the floor under the bottom rope.  Alberto is 38 and I completely forgot about him.  Ricardo does the intro!  No one else has gotten an intro but no one else is Alberto Del Rio.  Del Rio takes his sweet time and isn’t in before Orton is 39^th.  ONE MORE TO GO!  RKO to everyone and there goes Kofi.  Sheamus is out too as is Drew.  And then, it’s Cena vs. Orton.  The crowd just went SILENT and in the awesome way I mean.

They stare it down with the Mania sign between them and there’s the clock.  And it’s Kane.  Uh, kind of anti-climactic but ok.  So it’s Kane, Cena, Orton, Santino, Rey, Del Rio and I think that’s it.  I likely left someone out though.  Oh and Zeke and Barrett.  Zeke beats up Kane with relative ease after Kane cleans some house.  There goes Zeke.  Ok now we’re down to Barrett, Kane, Cena, Orton, Rey and Del Rio.  Kane is put out by Rey!  Barrett puts out Rey!  I LOVE YOU BARRETT!!!

Final four are Barrett, Orton, Cena and Del Rio.  Cena and Del Rio are in trouble but both hang on.  Randy and John (sounds weird calling it that) stare it down again to another hush.  There they go with the punches.  Both finishers miss as FU is broken up by Barrett for no apparent reason.  Maybe he’s the new Corre member?  Del Rio vs. Cena and Barrett vs. Orton at this point.

FU to Del Rio but here comes Riley again for no adequately explained reason.  MIZ ELIMINATES CENA!!!  LET THE INTERNET ERUPT!!!  Blast it not Orton again.  Is Santino still in?  Orton busts out a bunch of his basic stuff and there goes Barrett!  DEL RIO PUTS OUT ORTON TO WIN THE ROYAL RUMBLE!!!  Wait Santino is back!  COBRA!!!  THEY WOULDN’T!!!!!  Oh thank goodness Del Rio threw him out to officially end it.

Rating: A. I was wrong.  I thought this would be overblown but it felt more epic this way.  HUGE props to WWE for putting someone new in there.  That is absolutely huge for WWE as they are actually giving someone the huge push and the momentum to do it with.  He’s a glorified midcarder and he won.  This is exactly what they needed to do with this and it worked wonderfully.  Mania has matches set up for it now and we got some great surprises.  Epic Rumble although maybe just a step beneath next year.  GREAT ending though.

Overall Rating: A. This was a great show indeed.  The Divas match was the only bad thing all night and on a card with four matches you can’t argue that in the slightest.  They’re setting Mania up very early this year and that’s nothing but good.  This was a great show as WWE now has two big wins in a row.  I’m freaking pumped up for Mania now as this was great stuff indeed.  Loved it and bring on Elimination Chamber baby!

Royal Rumble 2010
Date: January 31, 2010
Location: Phillips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia
Commentators: Michael Cole, Matt Striker, Jerry Lawler

First off, love that announcing trio. Having 6 guys was WAY too much for PPVs. I’m excited for this Rumble. Yes the title matches are easy to see, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be bad. Sometimes you need predictable matches and this is one of them. The matches look good on paper and the build was all there. The Rumble winner is pretty up in the air actually. That being said the show is starting so it’s time to shut up. Actually it isn’t but you get the point.  Let’s get to it.

The video is what you would expect: a look back. Basic but well done as usual.

ECW Title: Ezekiel Jackson vs. Christian

They’ve built this up great as it finally feels like the night Christian is going down. I’m not so sure though. Jackson is a freaking scary man indeed. My stream is very choppy so this is kind of like a fast moving slide show mixed with good audio. There goes Regal after a few minutes. Striker talks too fast at times. Cole sounds sick or something. We hit the formula based stuff which is likely the best way to do this.

Since Jackson is still limited in the ring, it’s probably best to have him be carried by the far more experienced and better Christian. We’re in our second chinlock of the match already. Seriously Striker: CALM DOWN! Christian hits the jumping reverse elbow making him awesome. And then he does those stupid claps to take that away. “Hmm, I have him down and I’ve walked around in a circle so he doesn’t know where he is.

I’ll clap since that doesn’t give him a tip at all.” Jackson hits a big clothesline and we get LARIOTO from Striker. Jackson is really limited. Like Monty Brown levels of limited. I love that slingshot kick that Christian does in the corner. Why should I care about who last won the title where? No one says a word and Striker says nothing? That’s very amusing. Sleeper time. And there’s the Killswitch out of freaking nowhere for the pin. What the heck was that???

Rating: C+. This was your run of the mill big man vs. little man and the more I think about it the more I like the ending. Christian couldn’t hang with Zeke going head to head so he stopped trying to and got a quick win. I actually like that one.

Cryme Tyme both want to be in the Rumble but only one spot is available. Apparently they’ve managed to trade Khali’s spot for a kiss from Tiffany. Apparently not. Gender stereotype humor fails and Khali imitates Urkel. Shad is almost able to look eye to eye with Khali. This is stupid on so many levels. Miz comes in and Teddy, who has no authority on this show, makes the US Title match.

Rhodes sucks up to Orton and throws Ted under the bus. I’d bet on the same thing happening later with Ted,

US Title: MVP vs. The Miz

Talk about two guys that have gone in completely opposite directions. Miz used to look like a joke and is now awesome and MVP used to look awesome and now is a borderline joke. Something tells me he’s winning tonight though. MVP was US Champion what, back in 2007 and he’s still in the same place how long later? There’s a big MIZ IS AWESOME chant. Or was it AWFUL? Either one is a good sign.

MVP is all over him to start which points to Miz hanging onto the belt. Ok, we get it: MVP hung out with some chick from The View. It means nothing at all. Ah there we go. Miz is back now. He’s grown more than anyone else I’ve ever seen in the past two years. We get it also: MVP used to be in prison. Let it die already. MVP is just a failure as a face. His character is designed to be a heel but we can’t have street wise heels that look like stereotypes of course.

Ok, so MVP hits a face crusher and literally 12 seconds later the Ballin Elbow hits. Are we supposed to believe that Miz isn’t going to get up in that amount of time? Seriously? There’s a Pounce from MVP and called so much by Striker. Oh, period. Wouldn’t want to forget that.

I actually don’t know who’s going to win here which is rare in matches like these but it’s a nice plus. And Miz hits a rollup as MVP is getting back in for the pin. And that’s what he needs: wins, even by fluke, that are clean. MVP attacks him after the match and is heavily booed. Please let that be a heel turn. Cole implies it’s not.  Blast it.

Rating: B-. Not bad at all. The ending was great here as it literally came out of nowhere. Miz needs more wins like these but it gives him more and more credibility every time which is what his character needs at the moment. I haven’t seen them get a character’s development much better than his in a LONG time and I’m loving it.

Jericho and Show continue their bromance. R-Truth laughs at Jericho and says it’s every man for himself. It’s better than it sounds but it’s still dumb.

Orton is walking. Yes indeed he is. And there’s Ted to say he’s here for him. No Cody in sight though and I was right with my prediction.

Ad for Raw. I love that they feel the need to advertise a show that you likely would have had to see in order to buy this show.

Soldiers are here. Oh they’re from the National Guard.

Raw World Title: Sheamus vs. Randy Orton

And the champion comes out first for no apparent reason. Sheamus is another character that has gotten a solid push from nowhere and I’m liking it. It’s working bette than Bradshaw’s when they did the same thing and I think that’s because there’s nothing of his past to compare it to. Bradshaw had nothing to go off of in the main event either but we had known him for years and he sucked. Orton gets a bit of a pop.

Please: give him a face title run. It could work. A heel vs. heel title match isn’t something I would have guessed on but it should be awesome. I’m pulling for the Irish dude just to prevent anything resembling Orton vs. HHH or Cena again. We get the big match intros too. Orton gets a straight up face pop. Sheamus gets heat but it’s mild. Still though, likely his best ever. It’s weird seeing Orton not being taller.

Sheamus is getting a bit of heat here. I like it. MASSIVE Randy chant. The fans Vince. LISTEN TO THEM. Yep, he’s wrestling life a face too. Sheamus is dominating here as he should. I’m glad they never went anywhere with the kick he gave Lawler. Orton goes for the knee which makes a lot of sense here. There has been talk of Sheamus holding the belt until Mania. I like it. We’ve begged for a new main event guy and we’ve gotten one.

Giving him a long reign is making him far more credible as a champion and main event player. It’s a brilliant move and I think it’s working. Orton STAYS ON THE KNEE! Oh blessed psychology how I love you! Sheamus works on the arm of all things. It’s different if nothing else. There’s the boo/yay thing. Fans are more or less completely behind Orton which is something Vince needs to listen to.

Sheamus goes for the Razor’s Edge but his knee gives out. See what psychology can do for you? Orton hits that elevated DDT that is varying degrees of awesome. They’re trying so hard to have him be heel in this and it’s failing epically. The Punt, which again is more of a freaking place kick but what do I know. Vince started the XFL so obviously he’s smarter than I am. It misses of course because that never hits on PPV for some reason.

Oh wait forgot HIAC. There’s likely a reason for that one. Rhodes runs in and attacks Sheamus but the RKO hits, meaning Sheamus keeps the belt. YES! Came out of nowhere but whatever. The fans are calling for the RKO on Rhodes but they settle for a choke instead. Ted comes down and gets that whipping. Grr and there goes the stream again! Orton more or less fires them, HOPEFULLY turning face. And Sheamus kicks Orton in the head and everyone leaves him there. Not bad at all.

Rating: B. I liked this a lot more than I should have. The psychology was all working here and it played into the match later on which is nice. The DQ ending kind of sucked as I would have preferred Sheamus to get a pin but this worked just fine I think. Legacy is FINALLY over though which is the far more important thing.

We recap Mickie vs. McCool which is by far the best build to a match I’ve seen in a women’s match in years . It’s even better than the Mark Henry vs. Viscera match. Short version: McCool and Layla were saying that Mickie was fat and it led to this. It’s a lot better than it sounds, trust me.

Smackdown Women’s Title: Mickie James vs. Michelle McCool

I’m actually pumped for this thing if you can believe that. Odds are it’s going to suck but whatever. The video had Beth in it which implies she’ll be here tonight. Sweet goodness change Michelle’s music. I freak can’t stand it. McCool cuts a bad promo before the match. Mickie isn’t here apparently?

And here’s Layla in the fat suit. This was stupid Friday but cute I guess and now…never mind as Mickie is here. And it’s a 20 second match as Mickie freaking murders her. Ok then. And they bring out food and poor it on the heels. Good to know.

Rating: N/A. Not sure if I like this or not. Mickie dominating is good as it ends this quickly, but it feels flat otherwise. I think I like it though. Yeah let’s go with that.

Ad for Elimination Chamber. Yeah nothing says SPECIAL gimmick match more than two in one night baby!

We recap Rey vs. Taker, which more or less is Rey won a contender’s match and then Batista is a whiny man. Something tells me that’s your ending because he has muscles and therefore he’s a good wrestler, at least in Vince’s eyes.

Smackdown World Title: Undertaker vs. Rey Mysterio

They call this the biggest match in Rey’s career. Yep, far bigger than winning the title at Mania I’m sure. As bad as a champion that he is, that belt looks awesome on Taker’s waist. More big match intros which while they’re usually good, they kind of don’t work for Taker for some reason. This is likely to rock or suck with no real in between. This is like a wet dream for Vince: both guys are big faces so why wouldn’t this work?

Taker at 299 pounds sounds odd for some reason. Rey gets freaking launched to the floor but lands on his feet. Nice indeed. Taker has done maybe two moves and he’s put Rey on the floor twice. This is all Taker so far. Thankfully the 619 misses. Taker goes for the Tombstone but Rey uses the ancient Chinese principle of kicking his feet to get out of it. Taker of course messes up his knee because that’s all he can do in most matches anymore.

His hip is in a lot of legit pain at this point so it’s likely not a ton of acting. We get the Asai Moonsault for the Japanese fans out there. Taker’s chest looks the same as Michelle’s used to look like. I wonder if they got them done in the same place? They seem like they’re killing time, which screams BATISTA to me.

Surprisingly enough though it doesn’t come as Taker just more or less casually hits the Last Ride after countering a flippy. Where’s Norcal when I need him? Oh yeah at a bar with muscle guys.

Rating: C-. I wasn’t thrilled here at all. The only good thing was that there was a clean ending which was my main concern here. It’s two more old guys in the main event but at least they’re popular so that’s all I can ask for. Not awful, but underwhelming.

Shawn and Kane talk. HHH and Shawn talk. Greatness personified.

I freaking LOVE that video package about the numbers.

Royal Rumble

Dolph Ziggler is first and Evan Bourne is second. Ok then. And the Zig Zag hits a few minutes in. He pulls a Davey Boy Smith though and doesn’t make sure he goes over. The Shooting Star hits and Punk is third. With the roll he’s been on lately he needs a LONG run here. He starts off hot by throwing out both guys and has time to cut a promo. The heat is there, the look is there and the ability is there.

He has to job to the old guys though right? Number four is one of Cryme Tyme. Oh it’s JTG. Please….make it quick. Hey I got my wish! It lasted just a few seconds as we get our second promo of the night. I love Punk in case I didn’t make that clear. Fifth is Khali. Don’t you freaking put Punk out to this imbecile! You know they will though. Please, sacrifice Serena or something. I beg of you Vince, use your freaking brain.

Nope, Punk gets his the beating. Oh I get it: Khali is a “fun” character so that makes the idiocy ok. He gets the vice but it doesn’t last long enough and…Beth Phoenix is 6th? Well ok then. It’s different if nothing else. Beth gets picked up and placed on the apron where she kisses Khali before ELIMINATING HIM!! Punk hits her with the GTS after a brief skirmish. Didn’t see this coming. Seventh is Zach Ryder. This is odd indeed.

Beth is odd as we get some awesome music from Ryder. Punk tries to recruit Ryder and then hits him to MASSIVE face pops. He’s alone again as this is awesome. It’s another promo. Kane or Show will put him out soon enough. He says he’s better than whoever is next and you can smell the elimination coming from here. And it’s HHH. Bye Punk. Have fun in the belly of HHH’s ego. His intro takes the better part of ever so at least he’s consistent.

Hey Punk actually lasts until McIntyre is 9th. And HHH puts out Punk to get his ego up again. Yep, can’t have these young talented and over guys taking the place of guys like HHH. HHH is called the future of the company. That’s a scary thought. DiBiase is 10th. We’re 1/3 of the way through this. Oh great. Morrison is 11th. Nothing of note is happening at all. McIntyre takes Starship Pain and here’s HHH to take his head off anyway.

Kane is 12th, To recap it’s HHH, Kane, DiBiase, Morrison and McIntyre in there at the moment. The IC Title boys take a double chokeslam and it’s all Kane meaning he’ll be out soon or last a long time. And HHH saves DiBiase. Ok then. I guess the whole end your career thing is forgives. Cody Rhodes comes up on the monitor and Striker says it must be Rhodes. What would we do without you Matty? Legacy dominates…kind of. Morrison is incredibly acrobatic.

Rhodes underrated in the ring. Striker says he’s the seed of the Dream. BAD IMAGE MAN! Kane of course is moving and Cole can’t tell McIntyre and HHH apart. MVP is 14th. Miz jumps him in the aisle and blasts him with the belt. Know what would be nice now? A shot of the ring. Oh there it is. Morrison hits a SICK springboard spinkick to the head of McIntyre. MVP is taken out as I’m pretty sure HHH is going to win here.

My guess is Shawn vs. HHH somewhere down the line because of Shawn’s incessant ego. Carlito is 15th and apparently he’s interesting. Yeah that’s nonsense if I’ve ever heard it. He hits a nice springboard reverse elbow to Legacy. That was nice. MVP will likely run in and attack Miz later. Nothing predictable at all there. HHH takes the Backstabber as do a lot of people. Holy crap he’s dominating. Sixteenth is Miz. Amazingly MVP doesn’t jump him. That’ll be next I guess.

The Skull Crushing Finale hits Carlito. The fans pop like a cherry pie for Miz vs. Morrison and here’s MVP to put himself and Miz out. Legacy has HHH in trouble and of course he doesn’t go out. Carlito hangs onto the rope and stays in. Number 17 is Matt Hardy to a huge pop. This crowd is awesome. To continue the trend he dominates and hits a bunch of people before Kane puts him out and Kane is out by HHH.

You really can see it coming. I hope I need glasses. Spinebusters all around. A hot crowd pops for him so that validates this I suppose. HBK is 18th and I think I feel a showdown of 1990 proportions coming. Rhodes and Carlito and DiBiase are gone. Ok we have Shawn, McIntyre, Morrison and HHH in there at the moment. Ok take out Morrison and the showdown is pretty clear.

Shawn has the second most eliminations in Rumble history apparently. Yep it’s showdown time and there’s the clock. It’ll be a jobber and…never mind it’s Cena. Vince the Survivor Series bombed with this main event so why wouldn’t this do it too? And of course he beats up DX. A double You Can’t See Me is booed to an extent. HHH stops an FU and takes a Pedigree AND HHH IS SUPERKICKED OUT OF THE MATCH! I am STUNNED as all goodness. TAKE THAT MELTZER!!!

Shelton is in now and I’m switching my bet to Cena. Shawn has put Shelton out like three years in a row or something. This is his eighth consecutive Rumble. Wow I wouldn’t have guessed that one. Cena ends Shawn’s streak and puts out Shelton. Holy Mania rematch Batman. Yoshi Tatsu is 21st. I like this guy for some reason. Of course Striker has a dumb name for him: the Poison Fist of the Pacific Rim. Cena dumps him in a few seconds and we’re back to Shawn and Cena.

Nothing overdone about that AT ALL is there? Ok Atlanta is allowed to do the WOOs. Big Show is 22nd. Show almost goes out but saves himself. Cena goes for an FU but it misses. Shawn has to skin the cat (what a name I tell you) because Chin Music misses. Mark Henry is 23rd. Well they’re having some big names in there at least. I still can’t get over HHH being out already. It’s a curveball if nothing else. Henry goes for a slam can can’t get it.

Why do I have a feeling he’s not the world’s strongest man? He gets the slam a bit later but then almost gets an FU. Masters is number 24. Have to have some jobbers I guess. He press slams Shawn and of course doesn’t throw him out. Instead he puts the Masterlock on Show and he gets tossed for it. Henry and Show go at it again as we have a clock. It’s R-Truth….AND HE PUTS OUT SHOW AND HENRY.

I guess there is a youth movement. It’s Truth, Cena and Michaels here. He shows his TNA connection by hitting Cena with the Stroke. The fans are chanting boring. This hasn’t been bad at all. Swagger is 26th as Norcal pops. This is his first Rumble. I wouldn’t have guessed that. Vader Bombs all around. NO! Stream went out! Never mind it’s back!

Kofi is 27th. There goes Truth. Jericho is 28th. Kofi put out Truth in case you were wondering. He follows that up by kicking the heck out of Shawn and then gets thrown by Cena. All three are down and here’s 29. HOLY CRAP IT’S EDGE! Ok it’s not really shocking but still cool moment. Oh yeah he’s a face. Just like he should be. Spears all around and we might not have a surefire winner now.

There goes Jericho and Edge is domination. Sweet the Edgecution is back! Fans are WAY into this. Shame Batista will be 30th. It would have made sense to just have it be Edge in at 30. Ok final four are Cena, Shawn, Batissta and Edge. Naturally Batista is dominating. Anyone of these guys could win. Edge spears him down and Cena FUs Edge so everyone is down. Shawn nips up to another great pop. That’s one of those moves that just plain works.

Shawn is dominating here and Striker screws up again by saying that Edge has had no vigor. Shawn is dominating here and this is exciting me. Cena gets kicked and si does Big Dave. Edge clotheslines Shawn to the apron and then gets superkicked back in. DAVE PUTS SHAWN OUT! The crowd just goes dead silent. That came from nowhere. This is wide open at this point. WOW I haven’t heard a crowd die like that ever.

That…might not have been what was supposed to happen. He goes nuts an goes back in, beating up referees. Could this be a Shawn HEEL TURN??? I certainly freaking hope so. More referees come down as Shawn looks freaking crushed. Striker says this is heartbreaking (no pun intended I’m sure) as he says Shawn has never achieved this. If he means beating Taker he’s an idiot. He’s also never achieved a good buyrate but we’ll ignore that.

Ok so it’s Edge, Batista and Cena. Cena reverses the Batista Bomb and Batista reverses the FU and there goes Batista! This would suggest Edge winning but I’m not so sure. He sets for the spear with those great visuals of his and it misses of course. Cena goes for a clothesline and EDGE WINS IT! YEAH!

Take that people screaming this was going to be predicable! Love that ending, even though it’s the same thing they did with Cena but not as exciting/sweet. This is what we needed too: a FRESH face that is going to get some POPS. Great move all around and a great Rumble match.

Rating: A. Very solid Rumble here. Edge winning was a very pleasant shock and I liked it a lot. They had the star power in there tonight and no Santino or Duggan or jokes like that who are just going to waste time and spots. The formula works great when it clicks and this was no exception. I was bored until HHH got dumped but it wasn’t awful before that. Once he’s gone though, it’s straight through the roof. Very good Rumble and likely in the top five ever of them.

Overall Rating: A-. I was going back and forth between B- and C+. The whole show was indeed nothing great, but there was nothing that bad really. The right people won, for the most part they won clean, Orton is a face…I think, Shawn is snapping, Legacy is OVER, and Edge is back as a top level face.

This was a very good show and if you want to say it was predictable, let me know so I can laugh at you. Fun show and worth checking out, just don’t expect a classic. Edited: what the heck am I thinking? This show was great. A-.

And so ends the history of the Royal Rumble.  I had fun doing this and I think I’ll be doing one off reviews now as it’s much easier and I can look around and have more fun and diversity with it. Anyway, thanks for reading. I appreciate it. I’ll be doing another of these for Wrestlemania so stay tuned.  Or logged or whatever the right term is.

Who do you all think will win the Rumble this year?

Royal Rumble 2009
Date: January 25, 2009
Location: Joe Louis Arena, Detroit, Michigan
Attendance: 16,685
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Tazz, Matt Striker, Todd Grisham

There are really no differences at all between this and what you see today other than a few face and heel changes. Everyone is here for the most part other than Christian I think. Yeah there’s just not much that’s changed since then other than DX reuniting. We have five matches tonight, one of which is the new Smackdown Champion Jeff Hardy in his first title defense against Edge, although someone has been trying to get him lately.

Also we have Cena defending against JBL in the token title match of the year. Other than that it’s just the Rumble which more or less was the most predictable match in history as all of one person was mentioned at all in the buildup to it. That being said, let’s get to it.

The opening video is the standard thing of all the Rumble winners and all of the logos but it’s cut off by Orton’s music and clips of him being a bastard to the insanely hot Stephanie. Vince gets kicked in the head to stun the crowd. Yeah, they’re not making it obvious at all who was going to win here.

The slow motion replay of the kick shows that it’s INSANE. There’s no pyro for the opening as it’s all serious and stuff. In other words, the fans get cheated to a special part of the show for Vince. Oh never mind there’s the pyro. Still kind of stupid though.

ECW Title: Matt Hardy vs. Jack Swagger

Jack was the undefeated rookie here, having won the title two and a half weeks ago. This is the mostly pointless rematch. Matt gets a great pop and I wonder why he’s never been pushed harder than he has been yet. It’s a shame that Swagger is being depushed, but to be fair tonight for the Little People Court Raw he had a good match with Cena so maybe the push is back. He has no pyro yet so that sucks. We even get the big match intros here.

Since it’s 2009, Swagger is a cowardly heel at the beginning. Hardy brawls for the most part as Striker points out that he can’t out wrestle him so why try? That’s a great point at least. We get a replay of a great right hand from Matt. That was sweet. Hardy is doing really well so you know how it’s going to end in case it wasn’t clear yet. Swagger works on the arm which is the one he uses for the Twist of Fate. I know because Striker told me.

See why he’s the best in the world today? Swagger is working the shoulder really hard here and uses some unique stuff, including a boot to the shoulder. That’s something I’ve seen a few times but rarely enough that it’s effective. I’m not sure if I like or dislike the big 2 signs in the front row for counts. They always disappear after the first match so I’m guessing someone takes it from them or they get tired of it.

Striker goes way too insane by saying who the last North Carolinian to win a world title in Detroit (Steamboat in 87). That’s saying a lot. This is a good match with a lot of close calls. They’re getting some time too so that helps a lot. Hardy goes into the post as it was already hurt. Swagger hits the powerbomb for the pin to retain and let us hear his awesome music. Hardy sits on the steps with his head in his hands. Remember that for later.

Rating: B. I really liked this. It was a decent length of about ten minutes and had a ton of close calls and near falls. The arm stuff was good and it played into the ending to give it some psychology. That gives it most of what makes a great match so this is easily solid for an opener.

Orton is here and no one is talking to him. They’re making this seem like the big deal that it’s supposed to be.

Raw Women’s Title: Melina vs. Beth Phoenix

Melina is gyrating like there’s no tomorrow and it’s working very well. Beth is with Santino here but it’s getting close to the end. Santina would be debuting soon enough to suck the life out of everything again. Beth is just freaking gorgeous. I love that backflip she does to get into the ring. Santino gets a massive chant, proving that no one cares about the women and care about comedy.

Thank you Vince for crippling wrestling and making the comedy more important. Beth very clearly calls a spot to Melina and then whips her in. Beth shows off her power by lifting Melina up with one arm. That’s just freaking scary. Beth’s thong is sticking out which is of course awesome. She gets a leg lock on Melina that’s in so deep that her foot is touching her head. That can’t feel good. Beth actually pulls the leg back to ram it into her head. FREAKING OW MAN!

They botch the heck out of something as Melina is trying to come back. Melina hits an INSANE move where she spins around Beth’s side to get the rollup for the title. That was awesome looking.

Rating: C-. There were far too many botches in there but the submission thing and the ending were both cool. It was your standard Diva match so that’s not saying a lot. Melina’s selling of her back was great here though and it helped the match a lot. Not bad, but still far from great due to the sloppiness. They had a submission match soon after this.

We recap the JBL vs. Cena feud, which is mainly about the JBL and HBK feud over the money or whatever. It was stupid and one of those “real” angles that never work for me. It’s like saying Shawn makes no money from wrestling or anything like that which is just ridiculous. Being conservative, let’s say Shawn makes a quarter million a year. That’s FAR more than enough to live a decent life, but he needs to be sold to JBL to make ends meet?

Shawn more or less lays down for JBL to get the pin. The problem that plagued this at the end was that it ended way too fast. It should have been at Mania instead of No Way Out. To be fair though, that wound up being the wrong choice as Shawn and JBL did what they should have done at Mania.

We see JBL and Shawn in the back and JBL says that if he wins tonight, Shawn is a free man and paid in full and can be in the Rumble. JBL leaves and Shawn looks in a mirror for awhile and then turns around to have Taker staring down at him. He says that sometimes you have to go through a lot to get to Heaven. Yeah they did the right thing.

Ad for Mania.

Raw World Title: JBL vs. John Cena

Cena was kind of casually mentioned in the package. Until the Taker cameo, I would have believed a title change here. The crowd is split on Cena as always. I would have actually believed them going with JBL vs. Shawn, but Taker switched me to reality. The idea here is that Cena is off his game because he has to keep his eye on Shawn. For instance, they’re on the floor and Cena ducks a clothesline but Shawn is in front of him and Cena gets ready to duck the superkick and JBL gets a shot in.

Never mind that the kick would have cost JBL the match but whatever. JBL had lost a bunch of weight at this point and actually looked like he was in very good shape. He lost probably 40 or 50 pounds and actually had a stomach. Shawn is more or less stoic on the floor. There’s a Ram Jam sign in the crowd, which is the finisher of the main character in The Wrestler.

We cut to a shot of Shawn about once every 30 seconds as Cena is more or less a pawn in this, which is ok I guess as this was just another title match for him. Cena has the STFU but due to Shawn standing there he gets nervous and JBL can get out. The Clothesline hits but it just gets two. There goes the referee and we have a bad looking double clothesline spot. Oddly enough we can see the ECW announce table over Shawn’s shoulder and there’s no Todd Grisham. That’s most odd.

Shawn gets in the ring and starts tuning up the band. He kicks Cena and JBL begins his second world title reign. Yeah I don’t buy that either. Oh of course he kicks JBL. Ok he kicks Cena too. He lays JBL on top of Cena as Cole says he doesn’t get it. That might be because Cole is freaking stupid. Yeah it must be. Shawn leaves and shakes his head as Cole tries to figure out the complexity of this.

Have fun Mikey boy as it doesn’t exist. Another referee comes out and we get two. Both guys are out as Cena kicks out so it looks like he’s spooning JBL. DANG that first referee has been out for a long time. He got ran into not freaking shot. Cena gets an easy FU for the pin. Oddly enough it has no name here and was called his move by Lawler in the replay.

Rating: C. Usual stuff from these two with the focus on JBL and Shawn like it should have been. That’s ok here though as it set up the big blowoff with them next month. Like I said Cena was more or less a pawn here and that’s all he should have been. This got JBL and Shawn much further along and it worked well. The match wasn’t that good but it rarely was with these two so what are you going to do.

Buy Legends of Wrestlemania and mess with history.

We recap Edge vs. Hardy which was the result of the Stairwell “Atrocity”. Basically, it seemed like someone wanted to hurt Jeff. There was that, plus him and his girlfriend being run off the road, and him having his face burned by pyro. I went to a house show a few weeks after that and he didn’t appear because of it. I’ve never seen so many kids look so sad. Anyway, Edge denied everything as he was the obvious most likely suspect. This is Jeff’s first title defense.

Smackdown World Title: Edge vs. Jeff Hardy

Wow. Back in 2000 or 2001 who would have thought that would be realistic? Jeff is WAY over. The celebration for him winning the title was absolutely perfect. My goodness I want to freaking shoot Vickie. Oh she’s Edge’s wife at the moment. It’s no DQ now also. Edge is flanked by Chavo. Edge gets speared as the bell rings, which is stupid as he didn’t need to since there’s no DQ. The WE WANT CHRISTIAN chant starts in about 10 seconds.

Christian would debut again in 16 days and he was already done with TNA and had made it known that he was coming back to WWE. You know the more I watch these shows, the more spots I see called by guys. I wonder if that’s just because I’ve seen a lot or if it’s because it’s becoming more of an issue with these young guys. After Jeff dominates for a bit, Chavo’s interference gives Edge the advantage.

Now we get some stupid hockey jokes after Edge slams his head into the table three times. Geez there’s another called spot. And now it’s weapons time as Edge brings in a chair which doesn’t work. While both are on the apron, Jeff hits a Twist of Fate which pretty much sucked. And there’s the ladder because Jeff is the Sabu of the WWE. Chavo makes a save but gets thrown off and jumped on. Jeff jumps off onto Edge.

I use the term jump loosely as he more or less falls and the splash turns into a headbutt. It looked ok but sloppy. Passable at least. This is the referee with the hitch in his count which is so annoying. Edge counters the Twist of Fate into a DDT which impresses JR. Why? It’s not like that move has never been countered before. That’s why it never worked as a big time move. Think of the leg drop or the Sharpshooter or the Stunner in the earlier days of it or the tombstone.

When one of those connected, it was OVER. Jeff and Edge never had one of those, which is what makes them look weak. Vickie comes out and breaks up the pin off the Swanton. Here’s Matt with a chair and you can feel it coming. The crowd just goes silent over the chair shot and the look from Matt is GREAT.

This was an awesome moment with Edge looking back and forth with an awesome what the heck just happened look on his face. The complete lack of commentary here helps a lot. Matt walks away stoically. This would lead to their two match series that sucked because they didn’t go anywhere near as insane as they could have.

Rating: B-. Not bad but not great here. They had their standard good match that went about 20 minutes. That’s all you need really at the end of the day. The real story here was of course Matt vs. Jeff which is fine as it was a great story that the matches couldn’t live up to. They went fine though here and that’s fine.

Ad for No Way Out, which is now just called Elimination Chamber.

Orton says he’s not worried about Vince. This was the start of the STUPID mental disorder or whatever it was. That could have worked if he never said he didn’t have it or whatever but the whole thing was just stupid. Jericho shows up and says good job on kicking Vince in the head.

We get a recap of all of the Rumbles which never gets old. This is the really cool one with the following stats, accurate as of coming into the 09 Rumble:

22 winners (in 21 matches, but remember Luger and Hart were co-winners)

598 competitors (this is odd as there was one match with only 20 entrants and I don’t think there are enough to knock out twelve people over the years, unless they’re counting all the times where a guy gets beaten up on the way to the ring)

36 people that Austin eliminated, a record that Kane will likely break someday.

11 people that Kane threw out in 2001 which is insane

11 consecutive Rumbles for Kane, which is awesome

1 woman ever for Chyna

62 minutes 12 seconds which is the official record I guess, even though if you listen to the commentary for the 92 Rumble Flair was in for about 70 or so, which was false.

2 seconds that the Warlord lasted.

3 times that Austin won, which is also a record

1, the number with the same amount of winners as number 30, which is insane when you think about it. Note that in the video for this they only show Shawn when talking about the number one spot.

27, which has had 4 winners (Studd, Yoko, Hart, Austin in 2001)

70 which is the percent that since 1993 that the winner has won the world title at Mania.

This was an AWESOME package that got me completely in the mood for a great Rumble.

Royal Rumble

90 second intervals this year. Rey has number one and Morrison number two. If they had any idea what kind of a classic they would have in the fall they would be amazed. Rey’s mask makes him looking like a member of the Klan. Ross and Lawler are doing the commentary which just makes this feel right. One thing I like that they’ve got going here is they have a big Mania 25 logo in the corner of the arena and everyone keeps pointing to it.

Miz and Morrison are of course tag champions here. Rey does an awesome spinning move around John to get to an arm drag. Number three is Carlito. He’s a face here as he’s part of the Smackdown tag champions which would be unified at Mania. Oh no wait it was before Mania because we had to have a Kid Rock medley. MVP, just having turned face is 4th. Khali is 5th as not a lot is happening. He of course dominates the whole thing and chops the heck out of them all.

I hated the match he had with Rey when Rey was world champion. It completely killed Rey’s credibility for months. Kozlov, still undefeated and with a decent amount of heat is 6th. He drops Khali in about 5 seconds. MVP and Carlito are both out now so it’s Rey, Morrison who has been hiding and Vlady. It’s HHH at number 7 to a roar. After a facebuster, HHH throws him out with ease. Orton is 8th and it’s on.

The clock came up very fast for him as I’m assuming HHH was afraid of being in there with two good workers like Morrison and Rey. Morrison gets a 619 and Cryme Tyme come out and flip a coin to decide who gets in and it’s JTG. The clock is going WAY too fast here as DiBiase is 10th. Morrison and JTG both go over but hang on and kick at each other in a cool looking spot and then DiBiase and Rey do it and then HHH and Orton do it. That’s either cool or stupid.

Jericho is 11th. Well no one can say that they’re sticking with small stars in the opening. Despite the star power, not a lot of interesting anything is going on, mainly because it’s so clear Orton will win. Mike Knox and the beard of awesome is 12th. Knox would somehow manage to get into the Elimination Chamber next month which blew my mind and sucked at the same time. Miz is 13th.

He was about to start making fun of Cena and becoming the awesome character that he still is to this day. Morrison takes a sweet RKO and then so does Miz and JTG. He gets stopped by a Pedigree as HHH throws out Morrison and Miz while Finlay is 14th.

In a SWEET spot, Rey goes over the top to the floor but walks on Miz and Morrison to stay alive. That was awesome. How in the world are we almost halfway done with this? Rhodes is number 15. Rey gets a springboard and Orton takes him down with an RKO. The lights go out and Taker is sixteenth. Taker is on one side of the ring and everyone else is on the other. He beats them all up and throws out JTG with ease of course.

The crowd is way into him. That’s why he’s still getting pushed. Gold freaking Dust is 17th. WHY does he still have a job? He has no gimmick and is slipping in the ring. He and Cody have a showdown and Goldie beats him up. This is being written on December 23rd. My wish for Cody: that he makes 1/10 of the impact Goldust made. He’s got a long way to go. Rhodes puts out Rhodes and Orton is very proud. Punk gets number 18.

That pop doesn’t exist according to Vince as he deserves to be jobbed to Cena in less than two minutes. He won the IC Title about two weeks prior to this and the Triple Crown in less than a year. That’s amazing. Vince disagrees apparently. Yeah I’m a Punk mark, get over it. He hits GTS on HHH which surprises me. Henry, still a heel and not yet the Kool Aid Man is 19th.

The ring is WAY too full here with twelve or thirteen people in there. Shelton, the US Champion, is 20th. Punk and Jericho are on the top for some reason and Shelton does a running double Downward Spiral to them, which is called a reverse DDT by JR because he’s an idiot. Regal is 21st and he’s the guy that Punk beat for the IC Title.

Mysterio puts Henry out which is of course perfectly fine. Kofi, still not a big deal at all but getting very popular very fast, is 22nd. Taker is bleeding which I’d assume is hardway and he throws out Shelton. Kane is 23rd. Rey is upside down and hanging on in a weird looking position. Lawler counts 12 or 13 people in there. Kane and Taker hook up for awhile for a double chokeslam on DiBiase. Punk puts Regal out. R-Truth is 24th.

There are WAY too many people in there and even more just laying around and doing absolutely nothing at the moment. That’s the problem with having people last a long time in there. They’re used to ten to twenty minute matches at most so this is the equivalent of a rest hold. Rob Van Dam is 25th to an EPIC pop. The whole match stops to watch.

Something that would crack me up is if they didn’t know he was coming. He does his top rope kick to Kane who just watches it happen. I know there’s no point in having him in there as there’s no way he’ll win, but he’s a WRESTLER and a former world champion. There’s his validation. Kendrick is 26th. He manages to put Kofi out and then be thrown out in 15 seconds. Van Dam is just so ridiculously over it’s scary.

Dolph Ziggler, still meaning nothing, is 27th. He runs into Kane resulting in a quick elimination. There are at least 14 people in there and most of them are doing nothing with maybe 4 really working in there. Ross actually says they’re trying to keep up with the action. Santino is 28 and breaks Warlord’s record by being clotheslined out in 1 second by Kane who was right there. Hogan got a running start to put out Warlord which explains the time lapse.

HHH and Taker go at it which is always awesome. Jim Freaking Duggan is 29th. REALLY? This is what ticks people off about the modern WWE. Shad can’t get in there? Primo can’t? Instead we put a 50 year old jobber in there instead. Yes he’s won before but we don’t wheel Luger out to be in there also.

Big Show is number 30, so here’s your final group. You may need a pillow as this might last into the night. The group is Rey, HHH, DiBiase, Jericho, Knox, Finlay, Rhodes, Taker, Punk, Kane, R-Truth, RVD, Duggan and Show. That’s 14 people. DO YOU THINK THAT’S ENOUGH? Well since they’re all in here let’s get rid of them. Everyone stops except Duggan who keeps punching someone while everyone else stops to watch which looks really stupid.

He and Taker have their requited showdown and Kane does the required run in to stop it. Show puts out Duggan. Jericho jumps on Show which is amusing now. Truth gets thrown out by Show after a beating. Show throws Punk over three times and then knocks him out with a right hand. Punk’s selling is masterful. You know, the selling he demonstrated when he tapped to Cena in 2 minutes at the Slammies because that made SO much sense right?

Show puts out Knox and Rey as Horny comes in for no apparent reason and then Kane eliminates Finlay. Van Dam nods at a referee which I’d assume means something. Show and Taker go at it of course because that has to happen at least once every six months. Yeah Van Dam goes out soon after so I’m assuming a referee signaled that he was next out or something. I’ve always wondered how they knew when to do that.

Taker puts out Jericho and we’re down to seven. We’ve got Legacy, the big trio and HHH. There goes Kane, shocking no one as he jobs first. Legacy goes after Taker which is surprising. Taker counters with a double clothesline and a chokeslam for Orton. He doesn’t throw him over because he has to win though. Taker and Show have a boxing match or something resembling one. Taker has somehow shrunk from 7’0 to 6’11 to 6’10 to now 6’9 over the years.

Orton tries and RKO but just gets shoved off which never gets old. Taker and Show fight on the apron and Orton puts Show out who then pulls Taker out. Priceless being caught in a double choke by Taker made me imagine them in the locker room and Taker saying boys I’ve got cups older than you so sit down. That leaves us with Legacy and HHH as it’s all about him again.

This is a step down from HHH, Batista, Cena and Kane from last year. You ever notice how HHH is ALWAYS around near the end of these things? He was close in 98, won in 2002, 3rd in 2006, 2nd in 2008 and 2nd in 2009. That’s most interesting isn’t it? He of course throws out Legacy and then Orton dumps him for the completely inevitable win. Massive posing takes us out.

Rating: D. This just wasn’t that good. WAY too many people and WAY too much laying around just drained the life out of it. Van Dam coming in was great but Orton was so clearly the winner here that it sucked the life out of it. That’s something I burned Sly on once as he said that this was one of the best Rumbles ever and then slipped and said that the way you determine a good Rumble is by saying anyone could win.

I asked who else could have won in 09. I’m waiting on a reply to that and it’s been nearly a year boss. Anyway, this wasn’t interesting to me back then or now as it was just about HHH vs. the world and that’s simply not interesting. Of course, they would feud for the majority of the year and kill Raw in the process, but Vince is in love with Orton despite what ratings say so there we go.

Overall Rating: B+. Rumble aside, this is a great show. You have four solid matches with drama and title changes and storyline advancement. What more could you ask for out of this thing? I really liked it and it came out very well. The Rumble itself was pretty bad but then again so was Raw as a whole this year. As for the show, watch it but stop the DVD before the Rumble but after the Rumble package.

So that’s the Royal Rumble up til now. Since this is December 23rd, I have no idea what the 2010 card is going to look like so I have no predictions. Overall, the Rumble is the epitome of hit or miss in the company as some like 92 and 04 are classics and great matches while some like 95 or 99 make you long for a 2000 WCW PPV. It’s been able to make stars like Benoit and Shawn while at the same time some have won it and then done nothing like Duggan, Studd and that Austin guy.

It’s the most unique battle royal in wrestling and it’s the real start to Mania which is what it should be. That first three months or even four months of the year is predicated on this one match and other than one year it’s always been at least a 40 minute match so you’re in for a long one. This is definitely something special, and to think it all started so Vince could screw Crockett. Anyway, tomorrow is the Rumble and I’ll likely be pumped.

Sheamus is currently world champion and I still can’t get over that. Anyway, thanks for reading this and I hope you liked it. That wraps up the big four but I’ll be around with random reviews and some stuff from other companies so keep reading or start if you haven’t read this. Wait what?

Royal Rumble 2008
Date: January 27, 2008
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Attendance: 20,798
Commentators: Tazz, Jonathan Coachman, Joey Styles, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Jim Ross

You think that’s enough commentators??? Anyway, this is kind of a forgotten show other than the ending, which to be fair was completely awesome and shocking to say the least. Cena is out with an injury here and likely is going to miss everything until Mania, which sucks but that’s the way it goes. I was just starting to get into WZ around this time so that should give you an idea of what was going on back then.

Anyway, other than that we have Edge vs. Rey and Orton vs. Jeff Hardy, as he begins his year long quest for the title that truly was awesome on a lot of levels. The Rumble and the fact that this is in MSG of course are the reasons to watch the show, so let’s get to it.

The intro is as standard as you could possibly imagine, with the guys getting on a New York subway and then all of the Rumbles being mentioned, especially the big ones. Except for 04 because Benoit doesn’t exist.

Ric Flair vs. MVP

This is a career threatening match, as Flair’s next loss would be his last. This means that it’s about as obvious as the fact that Becca has balloons under her shirt that Flair isn’t losing here. Since we’re in MSG tonight, we have the altered entrance ramp. Also, we have an annoying theme as with every time the name of a guy is shown on screen, it looks like a subway going down the tracks, complete with loud sound effects.

Because you know, that’s what I need over Flair’s music: train sounds. Flair says it’s an honor to wrestle many times in MSG and that he debuted here 32 years ago. That’s just freaking scary. MVP’s music cuts him off. He’s US Champion here. Fans are clearly all over MVP. The age difference here is insane. Flair’s chops are always great for some reason. It makes me smile watching him for some reason.

To put Flair in perspective, when he first won the US Title, MVP was four years old. Flair had debuted before MVP was ALIVE. Think about that. MVP is 37 years old and 35 here, and Flair has been wrestling since before that. That’s insane. MVP actually busts out a crossface chickenwing as I’m happy already. Flair goes for the legs, which if nothing else is the one thing he’s never changed over the years.

MVP gets the Drive By and the easy pin. Wait what? Yeah he got the three, but Flair’s feet were on the ropes. You could hear the crowd just go silent in a split second which was awesome. Flair goes for a quick rollup but gets two. It amazes me that a man in his 60s has this kind of charisma.

It really is impressive. Flair counters the Playmaker into the figure four for the tap out. That’s the thing here: Flair beat MVP clean, which makes MVP, a champion, look weak. That’s not good at all, but I get that Flair’s career ending is FAR bigger than his title reign.

Rating: B-. This was a fine match but like I said I don’t like the booking here. A DQ or count out would have been fine, not a clean submission though. This was really a basic match but it worked fine. It’s nice to see someone get a clean win for once after a decent back and forth match. WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE THIS ONE THOUGH? Ok so I shouldn’t be that mad, but it’s still annoying.

Vince and Horny are in the back where Vince is explaining the history their family has at MSG. He says Horny has to win as Finlay comes in. Horny gets really excited. Back up an erase that. It’s fairly obvious where this was going.

Chris Jericho vs. JBL

JBL had cost Jericho the title at Armageddon because Jericho had bumped into him. That started the feud that led to this. It included an instance where JBL more or less tried to lynch Jericho and hurt his neck and throat badly meaning Jericho couldn’t talk for awhile. This is clearly a long time ago as Jericho has only won the IC Title seven times here. JBL is freshly out of his short retirement where he was a commentator.

Jericho looks odd as heck with the long tights now which is weird as he wore those for the majority of his career. JBL had called out Jericho’s kids and said their dad was a coward to make this personal. Jericho keeps spearing JBL but the punches he throws are pathetic. Jericho works on the back which makes sense here as JBL retired earlier because of a bad back. After a brief skirmish on the floor we go back in and JBL hits the best looking Hot Shot that I’ve ever seen.

JBL has lost a lot of weight at this point and looks a lot better. The fans are rapidly getting on him though. Jericho hits the post on the floor and he’s bleeding but not terribly. This match isn’t that good. It’s like they’re trying to find a story out there and it’s just not working at all.

We’re back on the floor again and Jericho is in control now. As JBL tries to set up a table, Jericho just blasts the tar out of him with a chair to get the DQ. That was an awesome shot. Jericho pulls out a rope and gets back at JBL for trying to hang him. Bradshaw is down for awhile after it. The beating got a great reaction for Jericho though.

Rating: D+. This just wasn’t very good at all and it was a mess most of the time. I get the part about trying to beat up JBL from Jericho’s point of view, but this was just all over the place and didn’t work well period. The ending made a lot of sense as Jericho didn’t care about the win but just hurting JBL, so I’m fine with that, but this just wasn’t very good at all.

Ashley, who is in need of a cheeseburger or something like that is looking for Maria but Santino cuts her off and says she’s not doing Playboy. Yeah she is.

Smackdown World Title: Rey Mysterio vs. Edge

Rey got this shot just by winning a Beat the Clock challenge. I’m really getting tired of people getting shots over things like qualifying matches. There are no personal feuds anymore. Orton vs. HHH got close I suppose but Orton had the title match anyway. Edge is with Vickie here and oddly enough comes out first. This was around the time when there was an attempt at having a stable called La Familia and it just failed completely.

Nothing came of it and it bombed completely. Granted that could be because it was Edge, Hawkins and Ryder, Chavo and Bam Neely with Vickie Guerrero. That’s not exactly Flair, Blanchard and the Andersons. Heck that’s not Flair, Windham, Anderson and Roma. Rey is seen just standing there waiting on his entrance which hurts things a lot. Rey’s mask looks like that of a Trojan. Where does he find these things at?

His Mania masks and outfits could work wonders as a drug education program. “Kids, do drugs and you might wind up as a short Mexican wrestler with tattoos who dresses up like the Joker.” The idea of X hearing that as a kid would explain so much. The roles are messed up here as Rey is booed out of the building and Edge gets a great pop. We hear Edge’s very impressive resume to start us off. Rey botches the heck out of rana and gets booed out of the building again as a result.

Oh man the heat on Rey is great. Actually isn’t that bad? I’m not sure. The referee catches Hawkins and Ryder about to cheat and throws them out. If nothing else Ryder can go and listen to his radio. He needs an education on how to be a lackey so maybe it taught him everything it knows. It’s 315am and I’m tired. Give me a break.

Rey’s leg is hurt. It’s so weird to hear these references to recent events and hear things that you remember. This was almost two years ago. That blows my mind. Edge starts working the knee which again makes sense here so you can’t argue that at least. The referee is good here as he checks on Rey a lot but never gets in the way. That’s a nice little touch in there.

Rey’s quick stuff is just completely insane. Also he’s selling quite well here so I’m rather pleased with him here. In a nice touch, Rey kicks Edge in the face but uses his good leg. That’s very smart as he has enough to stand on the bad one, which while a bit of a stretch is believable, but he gets offense in and stronger offense than he would by using the weak leg. That’s not bad at all.

And there goes the intelligence as he goes up top and does a double stomp. Rey, your lack of intelligence disturbs me. In a cool spot he makes up for it though in a unique spot. With Edge on the floor, Rey gets a hobbling start but slides face forward so his arms go first and grabs Edge by the head for a tornado DDT. That’s very smart because he protects the leg. That my friends is psychology.

Rey hits a splash from the top after the 619 but Vickie pulls the referee out after jumping out of her wheelchair. Rey goes for another 619 but Vickie jumps onto the apron and he kicks her. This of course would put her in the wheelchair for months. Rey stops for a second to go oh crap and when he hits a springboard, Edge hits a great spear for the pin. Vickie gets the big sympathy thing from Edge as she is wheeled out.

Rating: A-. I really liked Rey here and for the life of me I don’t get the crowd. To be fair though, New York is the mother of the smark towns so that is your likely answer. This wasn’t bad at all for a token title defense. It came off pretty well with the knee being a great point to work with. Rey impressed me a lot here with some of his innovations to protect his leg. This came out very well and I liked it a lot, Vickie aside.

Flair comes out of the shower and Kennedy is waiting on him. He says he would love to beat Flair. Shawn makes the unneeded save with a great line of “kids these days”. Shawn makes fun of himself which is always great stuff. Batista shows up as does HHH and it’s awkward. I know this because they tell us it’s awkward. Shawn of course pushes his new shirt.

Orton and Hardy are getting ready.

Maria, looking mostly hot comes out for the first ever HD Kiss Cam. This goes on for like 90 seconds and is just annoying. Ashley comes out for no apparent reason. Good night she’s disturbing looking and gets no reaction. The mention of Maria in Playboy draws out Santino in a JEALOUS RAGE!!! He has someone under a cover too. There’s a jobber joke there somewhere.

I love how Santino makes fun of the New York teams here but earlier this year he did the decent jersey bit. He says the Giants will choke in the Super Bowl. Considering what happened, that’s just hilarious. I’ll give him this: he can draw cheap heat like no one not named Mick Foley. Under the sheet is of course Big Dick Johnson in Patriots apparel. In other news, X is defecting to the Jets. Ashley looks like the pole she belongs on.

Mike Adamle does the intro for the video package, famously calling him Jeff Harvey. We go to the video package, and easily this is one of the best ones the company has ever put together. Instead of just highlighting the three weeks leading up to the match (it was 6-7 here so that helped a lot) they show miniature bios of Jeff and Randy and their roads to getting here, with Jeff’s set to Rooftops by the Lost Prophets and since that’s one of my favorite songs it helps a lot.

They then have a thing where they jump back and forth between two segments on Raw: Randy punting Matt while Jeff is in the ring and Jeff’s INSANE dive onto Orton off the Raw set that was a legit scary thing. The problem was simple though. As Norcal put it after that, “Man, is Jeff gonna jump off the roof at the Rumble?” That summed it up right there: how could Jeff top this? Either way, this has me way into the match that I know the ending to and took place nearly two years ago. That’s very impressive.

Raw World Title: Jeff Hardy vs. Randy Orton

The key to this whole match is simple: Jeff could win. That was the whole thing anyone could talk about on WZ leading up to this: Jeff could win. Jeff is IC Champion here. Orton doesn’t hear voices yet. We get the big match intros which work well here. There’s no crowd confusion here which is a plus. They do the stupid bell ringing twice thing so in other words the match isn’t going on right now but whatever.

It’s a really basic thing to start but Orton is playing to the crowd really well now that he’s in control. Jeff gets a great baseball slide and Orton hits the barrier and his head looks like it’s not attached. That looks awesome. Ross is WAY too excited over this match. Orton tries to leave with the belt as he draws great heel heat. He’s a lot better here than he usually is.

In an unintentional great visual, the belt is on the ground and Jeff is down stretching his arms out and he can’t reach it. I don’t think he knew it was there but it looked great. Orton busts out the Orton Stomp just to tick me off a bit. It’s an old Ronnie Garvin move so no wonder it annoys me.Orton’s offense has been kind of all over the place and there’s been very little flow to this.

It’s been more or less a long brawl, although to be fair we’re 8 minutes in which from what I’ve seen is about half of the match so there’s time left. And just as I say that Jeff makes a comeback and we hit the floor again. Back in the ring, Jeff takes a GREAT shoulder post shot. That might have been the best I’ve ever seen as he freaking dives for it. This just isn’t that interesting of a match.

I think the problem simply is that the buildup was so awesome and then at the end of the day, it’s going to be a Randy Orton match which means it’s likely not going to be that good. Jeff comes back with an awesome looking Whisper in the Wind, which is my favorite Hardy move. It more or less ended with his leg slamming into Orton’s head so it almost looked like it ended with a Fameasser or a leg drop.

Granted it was completely by accident but whatever. Orton gets out of the way of the Swanton a bit later but gets sent to the floor. Jeff completely misses a top rope moonsault that at least they cover up with a quick camera cut.

Jeff more or less landed next to Orton which they of course show on a replay because the camera people are freaking stupid at times. And we go back in and Orton counters a Twist of Fate into the RKO to end it. I get that the move is supposed to come out of nowhere, but that ending came out of nowhere and not in the cool exciting way but in the that felt like it was bad way.

Rating: C-. The problem here like I said earlier is the hype. The hype here was off the charts and they simply weren’t going to be able to live up to it no matter what. That’s where this match lost it and that can’t be blamed on Orton and Hardy. That being said, this just was kind of a mess.

It’s not awful, but it’s a letdown and just not very good. Hardy wasn’t ready yet, but this was a good test for him. He would chase the title all year (minus the three month suspension for being an idiot and getting high) before winning it in a SHOCKER at Armageddon.

Royal Rumble

They actually have Michael Buffer doing the ring announcing. That’s awesome. He just sounds right doing this to say the least. Taker is number one and Michaels is number two, because it’s completely realistic to think that two guys that were numbers the last two last year would be numbers one and two this year. Buffer messes up his name though. He says it right but he sounds like there should be something coming after it.

They say a few people have come in at number one and won the match but they don’t say who, obviously due to the suckitude of Rey’s win. That’s all it could be right? We’re into minute number three of Taker’s entrance at this point. BIG old pop for Shawn. Well we know they’re not going out first. Did I mention all 6 guys are calling the Rumble this year? Yes because we need two guys to scream about everything, two analysts that aren’t that good and two idiots.

Santino is number three because two Hall of Famers aren’t good enough and we need comedy. Shawn kicks him in the face and Taker dumps him out. Well at least it was the right decision. Intervals are 90 seconds this year. Shawn counters Old School because no one has ever done that before. Khali is number four to a groan. Taker jumps him as the announcers point out how he used to knock Taker around, yet neglects to mention that Taker put him out with relative ease last year.

The smart crowd of course goes into the You Can’t Wrestle chant. Taker puts him out in about a minute for the second year in a row. Hardcore Holly, who is a tag champion here along with Cody Rhodes, is number five. It’s an even numbered year so it’s time to push him again. John Morrison, just starting to get over as a tag wrestler here, is number 6. Shawn and Morrison need to be given 20 minutes one day to just tear the house down.

Dreamer, who asked for his release today, is number 7. These intervals are WAY shorter than 90 seconds. Batista is in maybe a minute later. Taker and Batista have the big showdown that lasts just a few seconds before Dreamer goes after Batista and gets thrown out. They reference the clocks going fast as Horny is 9th. Oh screw it. He goes under the ring as Batista spears Taker.

We’ve got Holly, Horny, Morrison, Shawn, Batista and Taker in there. Ok, that might have been 45 seconds this time. Chuck the stupid biker Palumbo is 10th. It was another vain attempt to make him mean a thing and it failed completely. He’s just turned heel and no one cared in the slightest. He was feuding with Noble of all people and couldn’t beat him. That’s saying a lot.

Taker throws Morrison but he makes a nice save to stay in. Amazingly, Noble is 11th, just after his rival Palumbo. He’s gone in about thirty seconds thanks to Chucky. Punk, who would win the world title in the summer, is number 12. He just lost the ECW Title a few weeks before this to Chavo but would win MITB at Mania. He puts Palumbo out just before Rhodes is 13th. Umaga is 14th and nothing at all is going on here.

He’s got the incredibly bright red tights on here and he puts Holly out after shouting a lot. This is just terribly boring. Snitsky, amazingly still with a job, is number 15. Rhodes and Punk almost gets him out but that fails of course as Rhodes isn’t over yet. Morrison and Punk go at it renewing the real rivalry as Miz is number 16.

Taker and Umaga, who were supposed to feud about a dozen times but never did for whatever reason, fight for awhile until the minute passes and Shelton comes in at 17. Michaels kicks him out with ease. Well ok then. After about 30 seconds, Jimmy Snuka is 18th. Seriously? That’s the best you can come up with? He looks AWFUL. This is what I don’t like about WWE.

Shelton, a young guy with talent is in there for 15 seconds and Snuka gets a few minutes. What’s the point in that? Taz says that Snuka and Miz live two complete lives. He then throws in different, which helps because I thought they were the same person there for a bit. Nice job clearing that up there buddy. In at number 19 is Roddy Piper of all people. WHY?? To be fair he gets a great pop and looks decent.

Oh good night he took his shirt off. He needs to keep that freaking thing on. Old worlds collide as Piper and Snuka fight with everyone else stopping to watch them fight. Ok, the clock might have made it 30 seconds there as this is ridiculous. Piper is awesome but not in the ring in 2008. Kane comes in at 20 and I think you know the drill. He puts Piper and Snuka out to thankfully clear out the WAY to crowded ring a bit.

It’s still way too full but that’s a lot better. We get a big mess with Shawn, Taker, Snitsky and Umaga as Carlito is 21st. Shawn might have a broken nose. 22 is…Mick Foley? Well, I guess it makes more sense than Snuka and Piper. He gets a HUGE pop. He and Horny qualified together a few weeks before this. They’re chanting his name so I can actually accept this one to an extent.

At the moment we have Taker, Shawn, Morrison, Batista, Horny (under the ring), Punk, Rhodes, Umaga, Snitsky, Miz, Kane, Carlito and Foley. See what I mean about it being too full? To be fair though, that’s an awesome list of people for the most part. Kennedy is 23rd to a freaking ROAR. If he could have stayed healthy and been used right, he could have been a huge deal. Ok no he wouldn’t have been but when he was hot he was very hot.

Freaking Big Daddy V brings the combined talent in the ring down about 1000% though at 24. Snitsky is put out by Taker but he turns around into Sweet Chin Music to eliminate him but before Shawn can turn around Kennedy dumps him. That was fast paced if nothing else. Taker beats on Snitsky because he’s ticked off. Kane beats on BDV who isn’t wearing a shirt and is therefore disturbing. Rhodes is thrown over but skins the cat to stay alive.

WHO CAME UP WITH THAT NAME??? Did wrestling promoters like to skin cats or something? Just a freaking weird choice for a name. Mark Henry is 25th. Miz is in trouble and Horny pops out to pull him out. Punk takes a double headbutt from Henry and V. That can’t hurt that bad as both are hollow.

And here we have the proof that the ECW Title means nothing as Chavo is number 26. He’s a world champion and can have any title shot he wants if he wins. So, could he fight himself? Edge and Orton aren’t in here, yet he is. There’s all the proof you need that the ECW Title means nothing. Kane puts Morrison out. Horny tries to do the same thing to Henry that he did to Miz and he gets pulled back in.

The two big black men try to decide who gets to eat him but Finlay jumps the gun to save him. He uses that club and gets disqualified for it which is nonsense and Horny leaves with him, as both are gone. Elijah “Deangelo Dinero” Burke, who I swear to you has talent and potential even though I’ve never seen it but everyone says he does so it HAS to be true right? Chavo puts out Punk. Don’t worry Punk fans as he would have a much better year in the future.

Batista goes under the bottom rope to the floor. HHH is 29th and so it begins, as everyone starts wondering who number 30 is. There goes Rhodes. Big Daddy V follows. He puts out Foley which is still an awesome sight. This has been way over 90 seconds as to the next entrant. Burke is gone. Umaga takes a Pedigree and there’s the clock.

In easily the biggest Rumble shocker of the all time and arguably one of the biggest shockers in wrestling history, JOHN CENA IS NUMBER THIRTY! He had gotten hurt on October 1st and it was said he would be out until Mania at the least. This was easily the best kept secret in the company probably ever as NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE saw this coming. The LD more or less exploded at the time and with good reason.

This was EPIC. MSG has goes silent and then erupts in about 4 seconds as even New York is stunned. Everyone stops dead in the ring as I wonder who actually knew about this. Oh before I forget the final group is Batista, Umaga, Kane, Carlito, Kennedy, Henry, Chavo, HHH and now Cena. Carlito and Chavo are out in seconds thanks to Cena as the winner is about as obvious as possible now. Henry is out now and there’s your showdown as he walks into HHH.

As they fight you can see Chavo running to the back which is very odd. Batista spears the heck out of Umaga as Kennedy is put out by Batista and then he does the same to Umaga, to make the final four Batista, HHH, Cena and Kane who is put out to get us to three. The IWC was about to commit mass suicide at this point based on these three being the finalists. All three do their taunts to each other and it’s on.

Batista is put out and we’re down to two. And there it is, as Cena becomes the most hated man in New York City in less than ten seconds. Well he is from Boston I guess. In the most predictable elimination in Rumble history, Cena FUs HHH out to end it and go to Mania, even though he would lose in a triple threat that really should have just been HHH vs. Cena. Posing closes the show.

Rating: C-. And most of that is for Cena. This just wasn’t that good of a Rumble as there were too many spots near and after the middle that were just boring beyond belief with nothing of note happening. It was ok, but nothing great at all. Cena’s return is absolutely awesome though and makes the match on all kinds of levels. It’s ok, but there are far better Rumbles.

Overall Rating: C+. I liked it. It’s not a terrible show by any sense of the word, but at the same time, it’s certainly not great. There’s no truly great match on the card but it’s fine for what it is. Cena returning turned the company upside down and more or less reset the whole road to Wrestlemania.

Hardy and Orton is ok but not great at all. There’s decent stuff here, but with just five matches it’s a bit hard to get behind. Check it out for Cena’s return and that’s about all, but don’t avoid it if that makes sense.

Royal Rumble 2007
Date: January 28, 2007
Location: AT&T Center, San Antonio, Texas
Attendance: 13,500
Commentators: JBL, Michael Cole, Tazz, Jerry Lawler, Joey Styles, Jim Ross

Well, there are two main differences here. First off is ECW is back. They’re still complete and utter crap as they tried to be a legit place and not AAA, so take that for what it’s worth. The other thing is Angle is gone, having went to TNA where he still is today in a SHOCKER. That’s not hyperbole either as it legitimately was a stunning turn of events. This was the first real step for TNA to show that they were legit and it’s still an awesome moment to this day.

As for the people still on Vince’s payroll, we have Batista vs. Kennedy and Cena vs. Umaga in a last man standing match, both of which are of course for the titles. If nothing else these are perfect Rumble title matches so let’s get to this show. Also, something historic happens here which I’ll get to later on.

The intro is the standard thing about the title matches and the Rumble, with the main focus being on the Rumble and Cena. That’s fine. They do however mess up and say that the Road to Mania has been around for 20 years now. No it hasn’t, as the Mania tie in didn’t become official until 93. Look back at the first two shows: Duggan won, and wound up losing in the first round of the tournament.

In 89 Studd won and was a guest referee at Mania. This may be relatively common knowledge, but just in case someone here hasn’t noticed, Vince likes to rewrite history every now and then. This is being billed as the most star studded Rumble in history. I haven’t looked at the entrants but I’m guessing that’s not true given some of the shows I’ve seen. Oh and the ECW guys are Extremists here.

Hardys vs. MNM

Melina is amazing looking to say the least. I know I often say that there’s no real point to this feud, but in this case there really isn’t much of one. MNM had broken up as the Hardys had reunited but rather than as a team they’re more like two singles guys teaming, which I usually hate but the history together makes it ok.

The Hardys were on a Survivor Series team together so they restarted the team and for the awful December 2 Dismember show (we’ll get to that someday) they threw out an open challenge which MNM accepted. This was supposed to be a one night reunion so the next month when they teamed up again in a 4 team TLC match, Mercury took one of the sickest bumps ever which was completely by accident.

Paul London did the seesaw thing with a ladder where he jumped on one side to launch the other up and the corner slammed into Mercury’s face and completely shattered his nose and part of his eye. It looked awful and he’s still got a protective mask on. Jeff is the IC Champion here. Oh and they’re the Hardys, not the Hardy Boys. You can really see the strides Nitro (Morrison) has made here and it’s impressive. Apparently Matt has a dislocated jaw.

They actually bring up a decent point here as they say that since Matt has a bad jaw, he hasn’t been able to eat solid food and might not have his peak energy. For once, that works. Jeff’s pop is epic. The beauty of the way the Hardys fight is that even if they botch the heck out of most of what they do, it fits their style and it could be believable that they meant to do that. Melina is letting loose those screams which I actually like.

Ross says he hasn’t made a lot of women scream. I’ll leave that one up to you guys. Jeff is so spotty that it’s insane. I usually don’t notice it, but DANG he’s bad here. This match feels like they were told to go out there and have an epic tag match rather than just having one and that’s not a good thing. MNM is ok, but at the same time this match is just sloppy and that’s hurting it a lot.

The crowd is about half into this but at the same time they’re not into it if that makes sense. Ross mentions that this is a one fall match to open the show. Why don’t they have more 2/3 falls matches? Those can be fun when they’re done right but you never see them again.

Matt gets the hot tag to start completely dominating the match. The usual double finisher ends it which was really quite lackluster. Oh and apparently Matt is on Smackdown and Jeff is on Raw, completely going against the theory of the freaking brand split as it comes closer and closer to dying every year.

Rating: B-. This just wasn’t that good. I like that they were trying to have a big time tag match, but these teams just weren’t clicking. It was FAR better at December 2 Dismember, but I think here that they were trying to top that match which was just a bad idea. This match was all kinds of sloppy and the ending wasn’t anything special. This was ok at its best and too long at its worst.

We go to the back where Teddy Long and Coach are running the drawing and Kelly is there barely dressed. Edge shows up, leading to him calling Coach Coacher and Coach calling Edge Edger. Take me now. Kelly was still an exhibitionist at the time and loved to tell everyone that. Rated RKO were the tag champions here so Orton shows up. Let the gay jokes begin. King Booker shows up to make fun of them as this is just rather stupid and unfunny.

Ad for the All Grown Up Wrestlemania, which was a campaign I actually liked for a change.

Thanks to a band we’ve never heard of for a song that has no bearing on the show and won’t be heard again.

We recap Test vs. Lashley, which more or less consisted of Test “dominating” ECW and wanting a title match because of it. There was a triple threat with RVD in there somewhere too that meant nothing at all. Test is apparently an impact player.

ECW Title: Test vs. Bobby Lashley

Take a wild guess as to how this is going to go. Just take a guess. Test was a guy that Vince kept trying to push but it never worked. That might have had something to do with Test having all the momentum in the world and Vince pushing Big Show instead back in 99 when Austin left. Oh yeah Big Show is gone now too. Lashley was another guy that Vince was seemingly ready to pull the trigger on but never got to do so which kind of sucks.

Lashley does the Lesnar entrance where he jumps to the apron and the pyro goes off. That would be more impressive if X-Pac wasn’t the first guy to do it often. There’s no big match feeling here at all. This is as basic of a match as you could imagine. It’s like they were reading a book about how to have a power vs. power match.

Lashley dominates for awhile, Test sends him into the post, Lashley gets a short comeback, Test hits the big boot and Lashley kicks out, so Test walks out. Seriously, that’s the entire 8 minute match.

Rating: D-. What in the heck was the point of this? What was the point of ECW as a whole back then? When did we reach the point where ECW had a back then? Anyway, this was really weak as there was just no point to this whatsoever and the match completely failed. Lashley wasn’t that solid yet and Test didn’t help matters in the slightest. This didn’t go well at all and it showed badly here. Horrible match with a stupid finish.

Cena is in the back getting looked at by the doctor. Umaga injured his ribs the Monday before. Vince comes in and says that Cena won’t be able to forfeit as Cena can’t see him. I really hate Vince at times.

No Way Out promo. My goodness that was an AWFUL show.

We recap Kennedy vs. Batista. The idea here is that Kennedy has beaten 6 world champions in a year, so he’s getting a title shot here. Kennedy won a Beat the Clock Sprint to get the shot. I’ve always liked that idea, at least to an extent. I think Kennedy stole Norcal’s shirt.

Smackdown World Title: Batista vs. Mr. Kennedy

Kennedy cuts a promo before the match saying exactly what you would expect him to say. Kennedy had no official move yet so he’s unlikely to win. I think it was a neckbreaker or a DDT or something like that but he changed it every week. JBL keeps trying to offer analysis and keeps yelling at Cole for interrupting him which gets funny. At least it’s not Joey Styles because he would have a black eye from it.

Kennedy uses a weird looking leg lock. Imagine a figure four, but with the guy that’s in it on his stomach. It looked rather awesome. A knee to the leg causes JBL to declare that’s how you win a world title. I thought it was by getting a pin or a submission on a world champion in a title match but what do I know? This is mainly Kennedy working on the knee, which is smart but it’s the safe way to go.

With Kennedy being allegedly the future of the company, shouldn’t he do something that’s a bit more interesting or fresh? Batista makes his comeback, actually selling the knee (PAY ATTENTION TAKER!) and goes for the Bomb. It doesn’t work though as Kennedy shoves him into the referee.

He gets a low blow and the neckbreaker but we have no referee. There’s a very loud and very noticeable Kennedy chant, which thankfully was listened to this year as he would win MITB. However, due to about 1000 injuries nothing would come of it. Batista hits the Batista Bomb for the easy win. JBL freaking out over it is kind of funny.

Rating: B-. This was pretty good for what it was I thought. It wasn’t supposed to be a classic showdown but rather a token title defense for Batista so that he could manage to get something else under his belt and get Kennedy the title shot that he had earned. There’s nothing at all wrong with that and it worked. The match itself wasn’t that great, but the point here wasn’t to have a great match but to make Batista and Kennedy look good and that’s what happened.

Hornswoggle shows up to pick his number. He beats up Coach after getting one. Oh looks it’s Khali and Horny because that joke never gets old. He takes three of them and leaves two, allowing Kelly to make a joke and Ron Simmons to show up to validate his existence.

The Marine is on DVD.

Mania promo, set to Ladies and Gentlemen by Saliva. They actually mention that at their concerts. Saliva is in the crowd.

So Umaga had been an unbeatable monster that challenged Cena for the title at New Year’s Revolution but lost so naturally he gets another title match at the Rumble. The idea is that Cena could barely keep Umaga down for three so ten is impossible. Umaga crushed Cena with a splash through a table at Raw. You know, I wonder how you can have more than one last man standing match. Wouldn’t that mean there have been more than one last men standing, which is impossible?

Raw World Title: John Cena vs. Umaga

The end of the video package sounded like Taker’s music for some reason. Ok I’m back now, as Lillian with her hair pulled back and more or less wearing a swimsuit as it’s a top that ties behind her neck and one of those nearly invisible skirts she wears. Lawler says that Umaga reminds him of King Kong. You know, the guy that lost in the end. The start is of course, Cena getting his teeth kicked in by Umaga because he’s injured and can’t breathe.

And you know, because Umaga is a monster and Cena is the second coming of Hogan so naturally he has to be beaten down to get us to the big comeback at the end of the match. This was around three months into Cena’s year long reign that made him the most hated man in wrestling. On a completely unrelated note, Lee, Ricky and I joined the forums about three weeks before this show. Umaga puts the steps into the ring but when Cena lifts them, it’s an amazing feat of strength.

He throws them at the Samoan, but here it looks awful as the camera shows perfectly the Umaga takes it on his hands. When Kane did the same spot a few months ago, it looked and sounded great. This looked like them trying to replicate it and failing miserably. We get a bearhug, which at least makes sense here. The fans want tables. I could go for a nice lawn chair actually.

The steps are put up in the corner and Umaga does the hip ramming but misses which would actually hurt. That and a step shot gets a 7. The announcers are completely pro Cena here and aren’t even trying to be diplomatic. The formula here is Cena gets beaten up, Umaga dominates, Cena hits a big move to draw even then Umaga puts him down again. The genius that is Cena figures that the Five Knuckle Shuffle is better than slamming Umaga on the steps.

He goes for an FU but in a SICK looking spot, Umaga falls forward and Cena’s head apparently slams into the steps being crushed by Umaga’s fatness. That’s just as painful looking. On a second look it might have landed on the part of the steps with nothing there but still it looked great. That gets 9 and also a LOUD Cena sucks chant. After taking another beating, Cena hulks up but takes a Samoan Drop to put him back down. I really hate the Spike.

It was just freaking stupid on so many levels that it’s unreal. Seriously, look at Umaga and the stuff he does, and then his finishing move is a thumb to the neck. That’s just freaking DUMB. Ross calls Umaga Youmaga, so maybe that’s where Regal got that from. He hits the post so Cena nails him with a monitor as Umaga decides to take a nap there I guess.

Cena is bleeding from the step crushing by the way. We hit the floor so Cena hits post. The no selling by Umaga is getting a bit annoying but it’s quite bearable. At least they have their stereotypes right here as nothing is hurting his head. With Cena draped over the announce tables, Umaga gets a running start and runs down the tables to go for a splash on Cena which of course misses.

I’m glad as if Cena had gotten up from that it would have been completely ridiculous. That gets a LONG 9 which the fans boo the heck out of. For some reason Lawler thinks you have to be in the ring to answer the ten, which is just stupid but it’s Lawler so it’s expected. Estrada gets some metal thing and takes the ring apart to hand Umaga the turnbuckle, as in the part that hooks up to the post. Of course Cena ducks and hits an FU.

Thankfully he’s up before the referee starts counting as it would have been ridiculous if he stayed down. However it gets dumber as after a metal shot puts him down, Cena puts the STFU on Umaga using the ropes to choke him out.

For some reason Umaga completely no sells the first attempt and is up almost immediately after Cena lets go but Cena does it again to keep him down for ten in what I would assume was miscommunication. That’s your lesson for the day kids: it’s ok to take a rope and tie it around a guy’s neck for about 20 seconds until he stops moving and breathing, as long as you keep your title!

Rating: C. This was about as much of a textbook example of a last man standing match as you could have asked for. What I mean by that is that it was about as safe of one as you were going to get. I don’t think anyone bought that Umaga was a legit threat to the belt so take that for what it’s worth.

The match is certainly ok, but it’s little more than that, which I guess is to be expected in something like this. It ended this rivalry though and gave Cena another successful title defense so that makes up for some stuff I suppose. Not bad, but not great at all.

Commercial for Mania.

Flair draws his number.

Royal Rumble

Lillian is amazing, period. Flair is first, continuing his horrific run of luck for Rumble draws as this is the 3rd time that I can think of where he draws in the first 3 spots. Finlay is number two which is certainly an odd pairing. History is altered again as Flair has now not made it an hour in 1992, despite according to Monsoon making it about 70 minutes that year. We have 90 second intervals here in case you were wondering.

Cole makes it sound like this is for the title. It’s not, which is why it’s a bad idea. Kenny Dykstra, who allegedly was a great talent which I never saw, is 3rd. He and Flair were feuding I think. He was a year old when the first Rumble happened. That’s just scary as Flair was like a 5 time world champion back then. Finlay is heel here in case you were wondering. Matt Hardy is 4th. Lawler, JBL and Cole are doing the commentary here.

Since there’s no JR they can actually get words in edgewise. JBL says this is the closest thing in wrestling to an endurance contest. Other than you know, the iron man match which is an endurance contest. Edge is 5th. The first five have been Raw Smackdown Raw Smackdown Raw. That’s rather odd. Flair goes through the ropes and goes to get a chair. He and Edge have been feuding for awhile too. Does no one like Flair?

Flair goes out and then Dykstra follows him as Dreamer is 6th. You know what the chant is already. Finlay knocks everyone down and oddly enough is dominating. JBL says Lawler hid for 30 minutes in 1996 because he thought there was a young woman under the ring. That actually made me laugh. Sabu of all people is 7th. Naturally he gets a table which Cole says he’s made a career out of.

That’s either a thinly veiled insult or a general observation. Given that it’s Cole, I’d say it’s the later as I don’t think he’s intelligent enough to know how to thinly veil something. He makes up for it by knowing all of Sabu’s attributes which is actually impressive. Helms is Gregory Helms, still the Cruiserweight Champion that he became last year. We have Finlay, Hardy, Edge, Dreamer, Sabu and Helms at the moment.

We get our second Sabu chant in less than three minutes which makes me shake my head very hard. Helms has been wanting to stop being a cruiserweight at the time. In other words he wants to have a career. Shelton is 9th. They tease about 4 people going through the table but no one goes through it. Lawler points out that if used right it could save someone, which is actually true.

Kane gets us to double digits and of course we hear about all of his records, including most consecutive rumbles and 11 guys thrown out. And yet he can’t get a 4 week world title reign. Dreamer and Sabu are tossed easily, with Sabu being chokeslammed through the table. Well at least they made it quick. CM PUNK is 11th. Good night I hate how far they’ve depushed him lately.

He was supposed to have a twenty minute war with Lashley to end the Elimination Chamber at December 2 Dismember so that both guys would be made at once. Heyman thought that up. Punk was also supposed to make Show tap out in that match in about 5 minutes. Show, who was losing the title to Lashley anyway, had no problem with that and since he would be leaving in two days anyway had no problem putting Punk over really strong on his way out.

Vince of course HATED this and had RVD pin him first, leaving the likes of Test and Hardcore Holly, you know, REAL MAIN EVENT GUYS to battle it out instead. Naturally the fans HATED this as Punk was incredibly over and no one wanted to see Holly and Test in a main event. Vince of course blamed Heyman and he was fired as a result.

Punk would get the ECW Title in October and begin the biggest launch in company history, breaking the record for fastest time to win the Triple Crown, with the ECW title thrown in as a bonus. He has since tapped to Cena in 2 minutes at the Slammies and who knows what else as we’re 9 days from Christmas when this is being written and you’ll read it in about 5 weeks.

King Booker is 12th, about ten months before jumping to TNA. He puts Helms out in about 4 seconds. Super Crazy is 13th. Nothing happens. Jeff Hardy is 14th and hopefully something happens here. The Hardys of course work together and hook a move called the Spin Cycle on Crazy before fighting Kane which I like for some reason that I don’t understand.

Sandman, to a song that sounds nothing like Metallica is 15th. He gets a great cane shot to Jeff and a few others but Booker puts him out in about 15 seconds. Thanks for that. Orton is 16th. He and Edge, the tag champions, put out Crazy and the Hardys inside of a minute. In at 17 is Benoit, in his final Rumble. He’s US Champion here because that’s all he’s ever done. The announcers talk about Punk like he’s a jobber or something.

Oh I forgot he was on ECW at the time. RVD is 18th, just about to be gone from the company. He would be gone I think in June. Kane puts Booker out so he goes back in and puts Kane out. They fought at No Way Out and that was the end of it. They fight for awhile until Viscera comes out at 19th. He’s wearing white pajamas so there we are. Nitro is 20th. Nothing of note is going on here.

More or less it’s just a lot of guys making sure that they get close to being thrown out without actually doing so. Kevin Thorn, the guy that just never got pushed is 21st. Shelton gets insanely close and keeps off the floor which is indeed impressive. Oh for the love of heck Hardcore Holly is 22nd. Still, nothing of note is happening with far too many people in the ring at the moment.

Shawn Michaels, still of DX, is 23rd to blow the roof off the place. With EVERYONE else trying to get Viscera out, Shawn puts Finlay out. A superkick to Viscera allows everyone else to put him out. He puts Shelton out too. They actually imply that Holly could win as Masters is 24th. I’ve actually liked his face turn recently, and not just because I find him attractive. Nitro is out thanks to Benoit.

Oh yeah HHH is out with an injury again and wouldn’t be back until Summerslam. Chavo is 25th as this is somehow only his 3rd Rumble ever. Benoit puts Thorn out. I’ve spelled his name wrong both times I’ve mentioned him in here. MVP is 26th and he’s not quite a medium sized deal yet. He and Kennedy had been feuding with Kane and Taker. Masters is out. Every time Van Dam has been in the Rumble, he’s made the final 6. That’s not bad at all.

Carlito is 27th which is where 4 men have won from which is rather impressive. Shawn hangs on like someone that hangs on rather impressively. Khali is 28th and he’ll likely get rid of a bunch of people. Yep, there goes Benoit and Holly. He would win the world title in July once Edge got hurt…again. He chops the tar out of everyone and Miz is 29th. Good night did he ever come a LONG way since then. He has the same music too. Yeah he’s gone in 5 seconds.

Van Dam is out. Punk is the 5th in a row for him. Carlito is number 6. Chavo makes 7. They say that no one can beat Khali as Shawn beats on him to no avail. I think it’s about as obvious as possible who 30th is here, but it’s going to be awesome no matter what. Cole: “no one can stop Khali.” JBL: “we have our Wrestlemania main event.” Lawler: “if I were number 30 I’d have second thoughts. GONG! All three: “OH YES!” Taker power walks to the ring and it’s on.

Final group: Khali, Taker, Shawn, Orton, Edge, MVP.They slug it out and after a bad clothesline, Khali is out. Somehow Taker looks small next to him, and that’s just scary. Since Khali wiped everyone out, we have 5 people left: MVP, never mind he’s gone so the final four are Shawn, Taker, Edge and Orton. They really are getting good at this final four thing.

Orton pops Taker with a chair and Rated RKO double team him. Edge of course goes for the double cross and this somehow allows Shawn to take an RKO. Taker is bleeding. We get a mini handicap match with quite a few chair shots in there. Ok it’s more like two but whatever. They go for a conchairto but Shawn comes in for the save and the double elimination to set up the old school explosion.

Both guys are down though, and you know what’s coming. Taker sits up, and then Shawn nips up a few seconds later. Lawler says he isn’t sure if this has ever happened before. Oh I give up. We get my favorite Taker spot as he throws Shawn into the corner. The fans are way into this. This turns into of course a great one on one match. They fight on the apron with Taker showing off by barely hanging on much like Shawn would do.

They go back and forth with some great stuff as neither guy can keep the advantage. Shawn gets ahead for awhile but Chine Music is blocked to set up a chokeslam. Tombstone doesn’t work though and Taker gets kicked in the face. He goes for a second one, but Taker moves and puts Shawn out, to become the first guy from the 30th spot to win the thing.

That’s not great odds for the luckiest spot in the match. Taker poses for a LONG time to end the show, which is fine. The fans are uh, not thrilled with Taker putting out Shawn when he was that close to winning, and Shawn was in the main event of Mania anyway so it makes even less sense.

Rating: B. The ending makes this whole thing as they let the old guys go out there and prove that old school is better than the young guys. Having the two mini matches at the end was a nice little touch. There were far too many dead spots in there though which screwed things up.

The lineup ws good though and it was nice to see the ECW guys not really do much as they didn’t need to, other than Punk. This was fine though and the ending was great so that helps a lot. It could have been better, but I liked it.

Overall Rating: B. While nothing here is great, there’s only one bad match in the ECW Title match which at least is short. This kind of sums up the company as a whole around this time: not bad at all but nothing that jumps off the page that’s great. Taker would go on to win his second world title at Mania, ending the run there against Evolution by beating Batista.

When you think about it, you realize how freaking insane the Streak really is. Anyway, this was a pretty good show but not great. If you like the modern WWE you’ll like it and vice versa, so there you go.

Royal Rumble 2006
Date: January 29, 2006
Location: American Airlines Arena, Miami, Florida
Attendance: 15,000
Commentators: Joey Styles, Michael Cole, Tazz, Jerry Lawler,

The main changes are Batista and Cena. They’ve more or less taken over the company as the biggest things in the world. Except for Batista because he’s out with an injury. Edge is the current reigning world champion though as he had more or less stolen the title at New Year’s Revolution. He’s got his rematch with Cena tonight. On the other side, Mark Henry is main eventing the show. I give up.

The other main issue is of course the death of Eddie Guerrero, which there’s been more than enough written about already. Other than that, there’s just not a lot going on here. This more or less is the first Rumble of what would be classified as the modern era, so let’s get to it.

The intro is just a recap of the major feuds. For some reason, Angle vs. Henry gets the most hype. Naturally they push Raw vs. Smackdown again. Edge is the Rated R Champion now. Lita’s stomach is the thing that dreams are made of. I’ve always wanted to say that. For reasons that no one will ever comprehend, the theme is Roman or something, which meant nothing and no one wanted to see. Stephanie in Roman clothing was nice though.

Cruiserweight Championship: Cruiserweight Open

This is the standard thing they were doing back in the day as they had completely given up on having any kind of storylines or flow to the division, so they just said screw it and threw everyone into one massive match where everyone is legal at once. In this, you have to be either the current Champion or a former champion. The participants are Kid Kash who is the champion, Paul London, Nunzio, Funaki, Gregory Helms and Jamie Noble.

London is wearing a gold mask for some reason that was never really explained. Helms is a surprise here. Oh geez there’s a Roman theme again where they have guys opening the door where people from out of the back from. It’s kind of like KOTR 96 for those of you that have seen that. Helms is from Raw here so he’s an outsider or something like that. Shockingly, the match is a huge mess to start as there are no tags or anything like that. Screw that order stuff.

London’s dropsault is stupid when it’s just one person but it’s cool when there’s two. It’s completely not effective but it looks good. Heck Rock won a bunch of world titles like that though so who cares? London looks like Tajiri for some reason. This is a pure spotfest here with nothing resembling flow or a story or anything like that, which makes sense I guess. At least they didn’t try as that would have been really stupid.

In a nice spot, Funaki whips Noble in and he launches a suicide dive through the ropes to take out two guys. You can tell a lot of these spots are preplanned but that’s fine as it’s working pretty well for what it’s supposed to be. With almost everyone else on the floor, London goes to the top rope and throws a shooting star press to the floor, more or less missing everyone and just slamming into the floor.

It looked PAINFUL and the fans give him a well deserved hokey smoke chant. In a cool spot that I haven’t seen before, London and Helms are on the top and Helms hits a swinging neckbreaker to get us back on the mat. It looked a lot better than it sounds.

For those of you that don’t know, Kash was a fairly big deal in ECW but other than that he’s been a minor player at best. The steps in the background are orange here so it looks like a bunch of empty seats. They get really fast in a hurry but it gets cut off too fast as Helms hits a Shining Wizard to Funaki for the pin.

Rating: B-. Now before everyone jumps on me, this isn’t the same kind of grade that I would give a normal match because this wasn’t supposed to be a standard match. This was designed to be completely insane and all spots to get the crowd awake and it worked fine. That’s the point of this and it did its job, so it gets a decent grade. There is no story to something like this and there shouldn’t be. Helms would hold the belt over a year.

Vince and Teddy long are around the Rumble drawing and Vince tells Long to leave. Naturally there are three hot women there. Orton and HHH come in and draw their numbers. Orton is happy and HHH hates his. Sex jokes abound as these two continue their eternal battle that never goes anywhere. Victoria looks incredible.

Trish is getting ready to be the referee. Mickie James says she loves her, and we have a lesbian stalker angle.

Mickie James vs. Ashley Massaro

For no apparent reason, this isn’t for the title as Trish is the referee and the champion here. They would have a decent match at Mania. This is back when Mickie was not only insane but also wore ridiculously awesome skirts. Ashley was one of the biggest flops in wrestling history as the winner of the Diva search who was just awful on a lot of levels. If nothing else we have Lillian, Mickie and Trish in the same ring. That’s not bad at all.

They have a headlock and actually go to the floor without breaking it up. That’s hard to do. Ashley can’t even lock up right. That’s almost sad. What’s sadder is that Joey has to say she’s a superstar. Oh yeah this was also when Mickie would scream her head off, which I’ve always liked for some reason. Ashley tried at least so I’ll give her that. The crowd is completely dead by the way. Mickie’s figure is flat out mesmerizing.

This is so odd to see someone with so much talent like James and someone with so little in Ashley. The thing here is that Mickie loves Trish but Trish trained Ashley. There are far too many bad submissions being done here to have a coherent match too. Ashley goes on offense and while it’s really bad, she’s trying. You can tell the different between someone that just doesn’t want to be there and Ashley, while bad, is trying.

However, her offense is either so limited or the fans like Mickie so much that they completely turn on her and boo her LOUDLY. Mickie powerbombs her out of the corner and Trish is really hesitant to count it, which is either part of the angle or then just giving up and saying let’s try to save some face here and just ending it early. Either of those would be believable to me.

Rating: C-. And that’s as generous as I can be. Ashley was bad here, but she was trying as hard as she could and I can easily respect that. Now later on when she just didn’t care, screw that. The fans turning on her like that annoyed me, but I can get what their point was. This was really just to set up Trish vs. Mickie, which is fine.

We see Helms at the WWE Interactive area, which means he’s chatting on WWE.com, which WCW had about 10 years prior to this.

More Rumble drawings with Rey and Big Show. It’s preceded by Vince checking the girls’ tattoos which is just annoying and stupid. In a funny bit, Show can’t get his hand in the tumbler to get a number out. Show is pleased and Rey is…oh screw it. They’re talking about Eddie again, which draws a huge chant and gives away the ending to the Rumble. Ok, before this comes up later, let’s just get it out of the way now.

The WWE needs to understand something. No wait, actually wrestling in general needs to understand something. When a wrestler dies unexpectedly, it doesn’t make them better. Eddie was indeed a very good if not great wrestler, but based on the things you hear about him now, you would think he was Ric Flair. He’s more about the level of Randy Orton or so. However, the undisputed champion of this is ECW with Louie Spicolli.

He was the epitome of an ok if not decent wrestler that was all of a sudden great after he died from a drug overdose. He simply was not as good as people made him out to be. For all of you ECW marks out there, show me ONE very good Spicolli match. It doesn’t even have to be great.

Show me one time where he had a great match. What was my point here? Oh yeah. Eddie was very good, but he only became considered great after dying. “KB you don’t know anything. He won the world title!” Yeah well this is 2 days after TLC and Sheamus is world champion so the belt really doesn’t prove all that much does it?

JBL vs. Boogeyman

The idea here is that JBL is terrified of Boogey. Oh and Boogey bit the “mole” off of Jillian’s face. She’s his assistant here or something like that. My goodness JBL has fallen far since winning the world title less than two years before this. It continues to amuse me when someone like Boogeyman is weighed in. And now I’m annoyed. I’ve never liked the Boogeyman character for one reason: he makes a mockery of wrestling.

Now yes, there’s a lot of stupid characters and while I tend to dislike the majority of them, when they can have a decent match, it’s almost acceptable. Boogeyman couldn’t do that, so when he does stuff like eat worms, then spit them up and spit them down into Jillian’s mouth, I have no use for him at all. It continues to have stupidity attached to it as we have to hear about how disgusted the announcers are.

Seriously, the Four Horsemen are in the same business as this guy. That’s just ridiculous. Thankfully, this lasts about a minute and a half, as after a stupid brawl where Boogey sells nothing at all, JBL misses a Clothesline and somehow slams into the post in a completely awful looking spot. A pumphandle slam ends it.

Rating: F-. This would usually be an N/A, but this was just a complete and utter waste of time. Seriously, why did this need to happen? I know it took less than 5 minutes, but really, there was NOTHING else we could have used that for? I hate gimmicks like these, I truly do.

Vince hits on the girls more and you can see they hate it. Shelton’s mama shows up. This was a freaking stupid gimmick where Shelton’s mom showed up to make sure he was taken care of. It was some comedienne that no one has ever heard of in a fat suit. You figure out how well it worked. Melina shows up and gets hit on too. Mama prevents him from hitting on her.

MNM, Joey Mercury and Johnny “Morrison” Nitro show up to draw as well. Both seem fairly middle of the road with their numbers. Melina says they’ll eliminate Shawn. We finish this long segment off with more Vince hitting on the girls. They eventually became a stable called Vince’s Devils. Yeah it went nowhere.

Before the Rumble starts, we have the Spirit Squad. Now for those of you that weren’t around for these guys, they were male cheerleaders that won the tag titles from Kane and Big Show. Amazingly everyone said the only one with talent was Kenny Dykstra. The one known as Nick became known as Dolph Ziggler. What does that tell you? Lillian is jaw dropingly hot here.

Royal Rumble

Lillian flubbing her lines is somehow sexy. How is that possible? HHH is number one and Rey is number two. Well you certainly can’t say they’re using no names to start us out. This is big match that’s never happened before. Oh the intervals are 90 seconds here. Oh here we go Rey is driving a lowrider. HEY, WE GET IT ABOUT EDDIE! I wouldn’t be so annoyed about it, but seriously, he brought up Eddie in the BATISTA feud.

Oh look he draped an Eddie shirt on the car. This is freaking ridiculous because it’s obvious Rey is going to win here for the sake of “honoring Eddie.” Rey’s entrance reaches Taker levels of time. He does the ten punches in the corner and looks up before he does it. This is freaking ridiculous and we’re just hitting number 3 which is Simon Dean. Cole, who is doing the commentary with Lawler, FREAKS because a Smackdown guy is attacking a Smackdown guy.

They team up and eliminate him easily. Have I mentioned that I hate the Bronco Buster? Psicosis of the Mexicools is 4th. They were a team of Mexican stereotypes who rode lawnmowers. I wish I was making that up. Rey counters a Razor’s Edge to put him out with ease again so we stay with those two guys. Number 5 is Flair of all people. He trips coming into the ring as Rey is down for no apparent reason.

Flair and HHH hammer on each other for awhile as I think HHH is a heel here. Oh yeah he would be. That was a stupid comment. He and Flair feuded over the IC belt of all things in some decent matches. You know for a guy that was allegedly the biggest ladies man ever, he used a lot of testicular claws. He’s gone soon after and we’re back at 2 people. Big Show is 6th so hopefully we get people in here for awhile.

He’s mad at HHH also, which is still going on today, which works as it’s been less than five years ago so a feud can easily go on that long. Naturally Show dominates here. With an eyeroll from me, Coach is number 7. Why did he always get spots in the Rumble? Show puts him out in about 30 seconds. Show demonstrates his intelligence by having HHH above his head twice and not even getting close to the ropes.

The announcers say that Coach might have set a record for shortest time in the Rumble. That’s so stupid I’m not even going to bother making fun of it. Lashley is 8th and they say he could be a dark horse. Can I get a rim shot? He’s a rookie phenomenon here, meaning that his career wouldn’t mean much since Vince refused to ever pull the trigger on him, even though he tried. In an impressive move, he gets a backdrop on Show as Kane, who is currently tag champions with Show, is 9th.

He and Lashley square off in a match of two guys that will never win a world title in WWE again. In a very impressive looking spot that wasn’t really that impressive, he hits the Dominator on Kane. Rey has been down WAY too long for no apparent reason. Sylvan, playing a gay character who doesn’t actually say he’s gay is 10th. He’s the fashion consultant or something. Yeah he’s gone in about 30 seconds.

Show and Kane hit a double chokeslam on Lashley and throw him out. So HHH and Rey are more or less just laying on the mat for about 5-6 minutes at a time which is again, stupid. HHH puts Kane and Big Show out, thus reaffirming his theory that he could out fight God if he had to.

Carlito is 11th, as other than the first two guys, no one has lasted 10 minutes yet. I really don’t like this theory of only having a few guys in there for the majority of the match. The Rumble should have about 6-7 guys in the ring for the majority of the match. It’s just right and it allows for things to not be too boring but also not too weak. Benoit is 12th as we’re picking up a bit.

He chops and suplexes the heck out of everyone just because he’s Chris Benoit and they’re not. Carlito gets a crossface for good measure as Benoit is freaking awesome. He and HHH fight over a suplex with Benoit on the apron which was cool looking if nothing else. The Canadian fights out of that and hits the headbutt on HHH so Carlito can get back up. Booker is 13th and the US Champion at the moment.

He’s wearing long tights which looks odd indeed. He would become king in a few months. Yep Booker is gone already, naturally by Benoit as those two were eternally joined at the hip for some reason. Apparently 20 minutes or so is a long time now. So the most we’ve had is what, 5 people I believe?

Mercury of MNM is 14th and since he brings Melina with him, he’s awesome. I love the way they carried the belts as they hung them from their pants so they swung between their legs. It’s original if nothing else. Mercury really is underrated in the ring. He’s a lot better than people realize. Cole brags about setting ratings records on UPN. That’s just hilarious. Tatanka is 15th to ZERO reaction.

He returned for a few months and no one, I mean NO ONE cared at all. His offense has somehow gotten even more generic if that’s possible which I didn’t think it was. The fans do the Florida St. Seminole chant to try to validate his entrance. Nitro is 16th. More commonly known as John Morrison if you’re not familiar. Tatanka beats on him, which somehow validated Matt Hardy and Tatanka vs. MNM on PPV in a non title match. You read that right.

The fans chant Eddie to just tick me off even more. Only Vince would manage to use death to push storylines. Trevor Murdoch is 17th. To recap we have HHH, Rey, Carlito, Benoit, Mercury, Nitro, Murdoch and for some reason Tatanka. Cole takes a lull to mention that Rey is dedicating this match to Eddie. Eugene is 18th, and is booed out of the freaking building. He’s a classic case of a comedy character being used badly.

Rey hurts him to get a solid pop. For the love of goodness Animal of the LOD is 19th. Seriously, who picked these people? Oh apparently the new LOD are the long time rivals of MNM. You know, the team that’s been around for a few months. There are WAY too many people in there right now. RVD is 20th to a HUGE pop. Thankfully for the first time in history the company listened to the pop and made him world champion in June before he smoked his way out of the main event.

Oh yeah this was the summer that ECW returned. He cleans house of course. MNM is doing the Demolition thing of teaming up on everyone which is smart. Animal is out thank goodness. Orlando Jordan is 21st and I somehow manage to lose even more interest in this match. There are FAR too many people in the ring at the moment. Chavo is 22nd. Ok, him I have no problem with doing the pointing thing. There’s your difference between Chavo and Rey.

Chavo won a match with JBL on the Eddie tribute show, pointed to the sky a few times, and started using the frog splash. He’s mentioned Eddie a few times over the years, but for the most part he’s just said that he’s a Guerrero which he would have been no matter what. He had one angle with Rey over the Guerrero name, which made sense when you thought about it. That’s perfectly fine.

Then you have Rey, who used the splash, drove a lowrider, blew one up, pointed to the sky and dedicated about a year’s worth of matches to Eddie, using him as an angle and getting the world title because of it. He still mentions Eddie for storylines 4 years after Eddie passed away. There’s paying homage then there’s just being freaking ridiculous. What does Chavo get for being more humble about it? He lasts a minute here while Rey lasts an hour.

Of course Chavo shouldn’t have won or been in the last group or anything, but would 10-15 minutes have killed anyone? Seriously, Tatanka can get a long time but Chavo can’t? Matt Hardy is 23rd. There’s like 12 people in there right now and it’s absurd. You can’t see a thing in there at the moment either. Tatanka FINALLY goes out as Super Crazy is 24th. What is the point of half these guys being in here?

Shawn is 25th to a nice pop. He gets pyro when he comes out which is odd in a Rumble match. He ends Murdoch to thin the ranks out a bit. Chris Masters, who is more or less a newcomer at this point, somehow gets pyro also at 26th. I’m not even bothering to try to tell who all is in there at this point. Nothing of note is happening anyway. Viscera, currently the world’s largest love machine is 27th.

He puts out the far more talented Matt Hardy, but not before giving him the Visagra, which is where the other guy is on his stomach and Viscera gets on top of them and gyrates his hips. Yeah it’s worse than it sounds. Shelton is in next along with his mother. This is somehow stupider than I thought it was going to be. Eugene is gone, leaving a huge pool of sweat on the mat beneath him.

They’re really speeding up the intervals here to get through this. Goldust, who is returning for like the 12th time is 29th. That leaves Orton as number 30. Rey puts Crazy out as Orton comes out last. Ok, so your final group is Rey, HHH, Carlito, Benoit, Mercury, Nitro, RVD, Jordan, Shawn, Masters, Viscera, Shelton, Goldust and Orton. Yeah that’s not too many people at all. Screw the sarcasm. YES IT’S TOO MANY FREAKING PEOPLE!

Geez do you think 14, or just under half of the people being left at the end is enough? Why don’t we just get rid of the whole unique aspect of the freaking match and make it a regular battle royal like the classic World War 3 series that WCW used to do? Those things went great didn’t they? Dang it Vince how hard is it to book a freaking Rumble? You have about 7-8 guys in at the end, 5-6 of them are big names and two or three jobbers.

Three are legit contenders, three are dark horses, and two are jobbers. There, that took 8 seconds to come up with. Orton puts Benoit out which Cole says is a rematch from Summerslam two years ago. More like a year and a half but who cares about facts? Carlito and Masters put out Viscera and then Carlito throws out Masters. Goldust takes forever to set up Shattered Dreams but at least manages to kick that turnbuckle really well.

RVD puts him out just before Orton puts out Jordan. Shawn and HHH go at it to keep the balance of the universe in order. Shawn puts out both of MNM within 5 seconds of each other to further kill the tag division which HHH and Shawn are the current champions of as of this being written. Sweet Chin Music puts out Shelton as Shawn is on a roll. Vince’s music hits as he and Shawn were feuding at the moment. He distracts Shawn so Shane can put Shawn out.

That leaves us with Rey, HHH, Carlito, Orton and RVD. Well I’m glad they took their time getting rid of the people. Shawn goes after Shane but HHH stops him but gets chin music. HBK chases the McMahons out because he’s a face and they’re heels. Van Dam puts Carlito out to give us our final four of Rey, HHH, Orton and RVD. RVD was returning so he wasn’t going to win.

HHH and Orton were possible and Rey was the clear winner so there we go. They split off with HHH vs. Rey and Orton vs. RVD. The faces hit some nice double team stuff to hurt the heels. Van Dam shows how stupid he is by going for a Five Star and gets put out. Orton and HHH get together for no apparent reason other than to beat up a guy that’s 5’5. However, Rey is empowered by the memories of a guy that he feuded with so he takes them both down.

Orton fights HHH. In other news, the sky is blue. Rey puts out HHH and it’s officially inevitable. Rey gets beaten up by HHH to just further make us take note of how awesome Rey is. Orton acts cocky and yeah Mysterio is going to Mania. Orton would get in and make it a triple threat where Rey would win the title and of course, dedicate it to Eddie since that’s all he’s allowed to do.

Rating: D. Eddie oversaturation aside, this Rumble sucked and it sucked hard. The booking was way off here as there were far too few guys in the ring at first and far too few in the end. The Rey thing annoys the heck out of me as people like to say RIP Eddie, yet they have zero problem with his history being exploited for the sake of bad storylines. Rey was passable as champion, but let him get there on his own and not because a guy died. That’s just stupid.

Other than that, WAY too many jobbers and fillers in there, which kind of reflects on the company as a whole. Seriously, why did Booker and Lashley stay in there for just a bit? To be fair, Booker was hurt so that might explain it. Either way, this match was awful in a lot of ways and I hated it quite a bit.

Rey is happy with his win.

We recap Cena vs. Edge, which was a result of the first cashing in of the Money in the Bank in a truly shocking moment. This was a huge thing as Cena was completely dominant and everyone was TICKED when he held the title again after the Elimination Chamber.

But when Vince’s music went on, everyone knew what was coming and it was awesome. Naturally Cena insisted on a rematch and talked about respect and having the title mean a lot to him. This was also the reign with the live sex celebration that apparently made Edge’s career better than Taker’s.

Raw World Title: John Cena vs. Edge

So the scaffolds from the ceiling begin to lower. Smoke and lights and pyro go off. Styles says it looks like a spaceship. Yep, Cena is getting a special entrance that of course looks awesome. More or less his feet are where the top of his head would be if he was walking normally. Yeah there’s nothing at all that’s being implied about who wins here at all. Lita of course looks completely amazing. If nothing else I’ve heard Edge’s theme live so that’s cool.

For the love of all things good and holy, change the spinner belt. The W is spun almost halfway around and it just looks stupid. It starts off with their standard stuff which is traditionally good. Cena starts off in control but thanks to Lita Edge hits a spear into the steps, which more or less proves that he desperately needs a new finisher. We go into the crowd for just a bit but it goes nowhere. Cena dives in to beat the ten count which if nothing else looked cool.

Edge goes old school with his spinning heel kick. Why is Joey Styles the only commentator that mentions the referee’s names consistently? Cena can sell really well if nothing else. Good night Lita’s chest is amazing. The announcers get into an interesting argument: who is the better technical wrestler? That’s a most interesting question that’s going to get a thread soon. Edge’s facials remain awesome as ever. The crowd is fairly loudly booing John here.

Edge chokes Cena so of course despite being put in a hold that should kill him or would end any MMA fight, he gets up with ease. Both guys are down so we get another few shots of Lita’s chest to fill time. Following some botched interference from the hot chick, the FU and STFU give Cena the belt again. That was abrupt.

Rating: B. Eh, this was what it was. Cena and Edge work together just fine so their matches are almost always passable. Edge was more or less given the title as a test run and that’s fine. He got his name in there and that’s what counts. Cena was definitely the right choice to have the belt going into Mania so I have no issues with the booking here. The match was fine and it came off well. It’s nothing great but it’s fine for a title change that goes 15 minutes.

In case you were wondering, Rey is still happy that he won.

We do a very quick, as in about 10 second long recap of Angle vs. Henry, which consists of Henry breaking the ankle lock, which had been done by about 15 people up to this point, but it’s impressive here because of POWER. Angle was a transitional champion if there ever was one.

He took over when Batista got hurt (shocking isn’t it?) so he’s held the title less than three weeks at this point. Angle does his usual solid promo and then comes back to tell Henry he sucks. That’s what makes Angle better than most. He would head to TNA later in the year and be a huge coup for TNA.

Smackdown World Title: Kurt Angle vs. Mark Henry

So Daivari used to hang out with Angle but he dumped him for Henry for no apparent reason. Soon after this Khali would show up. Yeah Angle is introduced as the new World Heavyweight Champion here. That’s the beauty of having guys like Angle or Shawn on your roster.

If something like an injury happens, you can throw the title on them for a quick fix and because they hang around the upper midcard with occasional main event matches, it’s perfectly believable to put the belt on them and no one really had a problem with Angle as champion. We get a fairly long feeling out period, but Henry catches Angle in position for the World’s Strongest Slam. Naturally though instead of slamming him though, he throws him to the floor.

More or less Henry beats the tar out of Angle for awhile as you would expect. Good night Henry you’ve been in the company ten years at this point. Don’t you think it’s time you learned some new offense? I mean really, we know you can slam, club, punch and squeeze. LEARN ANYTHING NEW. Angle gets a bad German, but to be fair, look what he’s working with. Angle Slam gets two. Henry powers out of the ankle lock using the same counter that everyone else uses to knock the referee down.

Angle gets a bad chair shot to Daivari and takes it into the ring. The chair is bent which always looks cool. Angle goes Hogan and cheats but remains a face. Two decent chair shots put Henry down but the fans are more or less dead here. They of course get two which gets a decent pop. I really don’t get the point of the chairs this early in the match. Angle pulls the turnbuckle pad off the middle turnbuckle and sends Henry’s head into it on a reversal for the pin. Really? That’s the best you’ve got?

Rating: D-. I have no freaking clue what they were going for here, but it was just an epic failure. Henry had no business being in there but he came off looking like a far bigger face than Angle did. It was really short, and I have no idea what the point was of this main eventing the show. Oh wait. Now I get it.

A gong goes off and the lights go purple. Ok, Taker has druids and a horse drawn chariot. That makes up for the main event. He signals that he wants the belt and sets off lightning. The ropes fall to the ground and the ring collapses as Angle holds the belt to his chest as we go off the air. Ok, that was freaking cool.

Overall Rating: C-. This was a very lackluster show. I know a lot of people will love the Eddie tributes etc. but I HATED them. One or two points to the sky and some frog splashes are just fine but seriously, giving the Rumble and ultimately the world title to a guy over Eddie? That’s WAY too much. Other than that, there’s just nothing special here at all. Edge and Cena is pretty easily the match of the night.

This show really was more about setting up for the future though, as Cena had to get the belt back and Angle had to get set up with Taker, which they managed to accomplish both. This really started setting the table for Mania, so that’s fine, but the show just wasn’t that interesting. Not recommended at all really, although some people might like it.

Royal Rumble 2005
Date: January 30, 2005
Location: Save Mart Center, Fresno, California
Attendance: 12,000
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, Tazz, Jim Ross

Before I get going, this is the Rumble where the promo was designed after West Side Story. The tag line was “All the rumbling, minus the dancing and singing.” Again I say, WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE THESE PEOPLE ON??? It’s not the scariest part that these people are agreeing to put this on, but that someone THOUGHT THIS UP and GOT PAID TO DO IT. I mean come on now. WEST SIDE STORY???

This is supposed to be one of the biggest fights of the year and it’s WEST FREAKING SIDE STORY??? ANYWAY, the rest of this show looks pretty weak other than the Rumble. Other than another year passing, we’ve seen the rise of Batista and Cena, who are all of a sudden the hottest guys in the company.

HHH is world champion in a stunning revelation and is facing Orton tonight, allegedly in his last title shot. Say it with me: HA! We also have JBL defending against Show and Angle in a match I completely don’t remember. Oh and Edge is back and an Achilles enthusiast now. Let’s get to this.

Our opening video talks about how the legacy of the Rumble continues tonight. That’s fine. We shift to an alley where we have Raw and Smackdown dressed like it’s the 1950s and singing about fighting each other, with one line being: “We’ll step into the ring and reach an understanding. When the smoke has cleared I’ll be the last man standing.” Please, I beg of you now, end my life so I don’t have to listen to this anymore!

Edge vs. Shawn Michaels

Edge has been using Metalingus for 5 years almost? Methinks this might be dubbed. Oddly enough the same band is doing the theme song for the PPV. At Taboo Tuesday, Shawn had gotten voted into the title match instead of Edge, so we get this as a result. Ross calls HBK a first ballot Hall of Famer. Who makes the ballots for that thing? I want that job. My first step: shorten the class size to like 5.

We start off fast, shocking no one. They already reference the 95 Rumble so at least they’re starting it early. To kill some time we list of some of Shawn’s accomplishments because we have to do that at least once a week. The heel heat that Edge is already drawing is really impressive. In a painful looking spot, Edge hits the Edge-O-Matic on the floor. That can’t feel good, which I think is the point. The crowd is hot tonight so that’s good.

Within maybe 30 seconds of each other, Lawler says that Edge has never gotten a world title shot and Ross says if Edge ever starts doing shampoo commercials he’ll be perfect. For those that have no clue why this is interesting, both of those things not only happened, but they both happened in 2002. Yeah I need a life don’t I? After Shawn comes back for a good while we hit the floor where Edge hits a spear.

For the love of mangoes he needs a new finisher. This is kind of an odd choice for an opening match. They’re both big names, so why not save this for a bit later? I guess because with only five matches on the card there’s no other place to put it. Edge tunes up the band but instead throws out the spear for two. Edge counters Sweet Chin Music into a SWEET electric chair that gets two. Edge is having a mental breakdown over this and his facials are still epic.

He counters a sunset flip into that weird kneeling Sharpshooter thing he would do that was always weird looking. The hold looks just completely awful when you look at it for more than three seconds. Shawn is in it over a minute and doesn’t tap which is fairly cool I suppose. Edge finishes with a reversed rollup and uses the ropes for a pin. I like that ending. Edge’s reaction of completely freaking out and screaming I DID IT was just awesome.

Rating: B. It took me awhile to figure out if I liked this match or not. The ending made it for me though as Edge getting the win was a big deal. Shawn definitely didn’t need a win here while this was Edge’s biggest win of his career at this point. The ropes at the end helped a lot too to play up Edge as a heel. This was a very good match overall with the booking being especially good.

We go to the back where Bischoff and Long, who more or less is the same character that he is now. Torrie and Christy are running the number draw as Eddie and Flair come in, both dressed like kings. Eddie starts to reach in but Flair stops him. He dances a bit and says 16 times.

Eddie pulls his hand back and lets Ric go first. That was great to me for some reason. Ric is thrilled with his number and Eddie is upset. Ric brags and then Eddie hugs him. Flair shows the girls his number and realizes Eddie stole his and chases after him. That was a lot better than it sounds.

Heidenreich is in the back, talking about how he hates caskets. Snitsky comes up and says he knows Heidenreich hates caskets, but they like each other and Snitsky has an idea. There are more gay overtones here than there were with Piper and Bob Orton, and that’s saying A LOT.

We recap Taker vs. Heidenreich (Jon, because that takes too long to type) which more or less was Heyman bringing Jon in and them fighting a bit. Jon was supposed to be some big tough fighter or something but he was bland as all goodness and it bombed badly.

Heidenreich vs. Undertaker

This is a casket match. They actually start with wrestling stuff, shocking the heck out of me. Taker keeps using headlocks to drag Jon to the casket. That’s really smart as it freaks Jon out. Jon is kind of an MMA/street fighter kind of guy but he’s just not that good at it. In an awesome spot, we’re in the corner with Jon throwing punches at Taker. Taker grabs the ropes and throws his legs up to tie up Jon in a triangle choke while still up in the corner. That was awesome.

Tazz points out why Cole is messing up the names of the moves which Cole gets annoyed with. For some reason the fans start booing the heck out of the match. Oh Snitsky is here. They double team Taker with a double suplex and Jon somehow manages to botch that. Do you have any idea how hard it is to mess up a move like that? Kane is in the casket. This was supposed to be Taker’s match at Mania. I’m glad they went with Taker vs. Orton instead aren’t you?

The announcers are of course stunned at someone hiding in a casket, despite Taker having done it about a million times. Jon moves the casket away from the ring for no apparent reason. Taker is back to beat on him some more as we have a Christian Coalition sign in the front row. TNA is already spreading. They’re on PPV at this point so I guess it’s possible, even though Christian was still in WWE at this point so ignore me.

Apparently Taker’s knee is hurt or something like that. Jon pulls back the mat as this match is a train wreck at this point. With Taker laying on the floor, Jon gets a running start with the casket to ram it into Taker. Granted he was almost under the ring so it actually would have been easy to get out of the way so there we go. Jon goes to his finisher: a cobra clutch. Are you starting to see why this guy was such an epic failure?

Naturally as Taker is put in the casket, he gets an arm out. This needs to end, like NOW. Jon uses a Boss Man Slam which Cole says Taker nailed him with. Yeah they botched that call something awful. The crowd really isn’t that interested either. Jon rolls him to the casket and in the EXACT SAME SEQUENCE, Taker gets out. After a REALLY bad chokeslam, the tombstone finally ends this.

Rating: D-. This was just bad on a lot of levels. There were all kinds of blown spots and the Snitsky and Kane run in was completely pointless. What’s the point in booking Taker in these matches if he never loses them? Jon was supposed to be Taker’s arch rival. That’s just funny. At least this finally ended this awful feud so we don’t have to put up with it anymore. This was really bad.

Ad for Mania.

In the back, Long wants Eddie to give back the number. Eddie’s face is priceless on this. Evolution shows up and demands it back, but Eddie gives it up. He’s also made to give back Flair’s wallet which Flair didn’t know about. Why aren’t these guys ever sued? Anyway, Batista says he needs to go get his number and he’ll be right back. HHH says they have to plan something. Batista says it’ll only take a minute and HHH orders him to stay. This doesn’t go well. Well at least they didn’t try to be subtle.

Christian and Tomko are ready to pick their numbers. He’s happy with it until Cena comes in to a huge pop. They have a battle rap that goes nowhere. The best part is when Christian asks Tomko for a beat and Tomko just says no. Cena makes gay jokes and the crowd pops for no apparent reason.

JBL is champion. Angle wants to be champion. Show wants to be champion. If that’s not validation for a triple threat I don’t know what is.

Smackdown World Title: Big Show vs. Kurt Angle vs. JBL

Angle and JBL had a last man standing match on Smackdown apparently so they’re both sore. JBL with the limo was always cool. Show is the odds on favorite apparently. They did a double knock out on Smackdown. This is in the middle of JBL’s reign of doom where he held the belt for almost ten months. They need to get that belt back. It just looks awesome. Apparently there’s a petition to get rid of Teddy Long.

Angle hides on the floor which is a smart idea. They’re broadcasting in New Zealand apparently, so there you go Shadow! Show chops people quite a bit. Show is more or less dominating here. We have steps set up leading to the table which is a bit odd. Show sets for a chokeslam on JBL through it from on top of the steps, but Angle low blows him and a monitor shot puts Show through the table so it’s Angle and JBL at the moment.

The two of them fight it out in the ring to kill some time for Big Show to get back. Geez Show is huge compared to when he was the Giant still. That guy could have carried a company but he had to get all big and fat and slow and it didn’t work at all. Show gets back in and beats both guys up again and looks ready to win, more or less guaranteeing that he won’t. Just as I say that, the others team up to put him down with a combination Clothesline and chop block.

Show hits a chokeslam but JBL gets the foot on the rope. Show is actually moving with something resembling speed. And there goes the barricade as Show puts JBL through it. We cue up the run ins as Jindrak and Reigns come in to take out Big Show while the Cabinet gets JBL up and gives him a chair.

It isn’t used though as Angle walks into the Clothesline for the pin to keep the title as the fans boo the heck out of it. They don’t have much to boo about as he got a clean pin. Show got robbed apparently and would get a barbed wire cage match the next month that had a cool ending.

Rating: B. While I hate triple threats, this was pretty good. There was a flow here that you don’t often see in them as they kept one guy down for a good amount of the match in Big Show, which is definitely a good idea given how big he is and that he was the favorite. While it’s no classic, I like this one I think. It’s better than most I’ve seen if nothing else.

Batista won’t get rid of Long via the petition. He threatens Carlito who swallows the apple. In a continuous camera shot we go to the place where numbers are drawn and the GMs are arguing. Apparently Evolution is barred from ringside in the next match and Batista wants to tell HHH. You can see the turn a mile away.

Promo for Mania. It’s the Hollywood one this time.

Ross and Lawler talk about the PPV theme song and the Raw main event for no apparent reason.

We recap it as they had been feuding for months yet they kept going at it anyway. Who would have seen that? Orton allegedly wasn’t allowed to have another shot but of course he’s getting it again here. Orton got cheated out of the title at New Year’s Revolution by Evolution so he gets the shot here. I love how these guys have been feuding for almost five years over a team that existed for all of two years.

Raw World Title: Randy Orton vs. HHH

Orton is the somewhat over face here. He was far more over about 4 months ago but because he was over, HHH was clearly the better choice for the belt than the young, over hotshot that was getting better and more popular every time he got in the ring. Orton goes for an RKO and HHH throws him over the ropes. Why couldn’t it injure him like it did in I think their second last man standing match? Orton used to have this weird style of punches that he’s using here.

I’ve never been able to get into it either. Oh and Orton has a bad knee of course. He swears about 7 times in 5 seconds in a nice touch. Why does something tell me that this will be by far and away the longest match of the night outside of the Rumble? HHH is already using the figure four because he has to be the new Ric Flair in every single way he can be. So we start fast and now HHH has decided to slow things down.

Did I mention that I really hate this match and rivalry? If there’s ever been a guy that has changed so completely over the years, it’s Orton. He’s almost unrecognizable both as far as looks go and the way he works in the ring. It’s a total contrast. Orton is bleeding badly from the lip and looks a lot like Ted DiBiase in that shot. He counters a Pedigree as I just couldn’t care less about this match.

There’s just something that’s always been missing between these two when they got at it and it’s always hurt this match. Granted this is better than most of their future matches, but the problem is already coming clearly here: they want this to be some epic encounter but at the same time, nothing ever comes of it and that’s not a good thing at all. Orton takes a shot to the head and looks like he has a concussion that I think is faked as they keep getting shots of it.

Dang it the referee went down. This match just needs to end and it needs to do so now. It’s hammer time as I’d advise you to make your own jokes. We’ve hit the part of the match that always happens between these two. There comes a point where it’s always about the hammer and not about the wrestling at all. This is where these matches lose it for me as I just freaking don’t care anymore about them.

Why does everything have to follow the same formula of a long match leading up to one moment where the hammer is the key to the whole thing while the referee is down? It always comes to this and it’s just boring to say the least. Also, get some referees that can take a freaking hit. HHH gets the Pedigree and the academic pin to thankfully end this with HHH STILL having the belt.

Rating: D+. This was the same match you’ve seen from these guys a dozen times but with Orton as the face. HHH was clearly going to win and it was to have a title match on the show and nothing more. There was no point to this at all and it just wasn’t interesting whatsoever. HHH and Orton simply can’t have a great match and they need to stop trying like they seem to have done.

Nunzio gets a spot in the Rumble and Angle steals it from him and says it’s his unless Nunzio wants to fight for it. Ok then.

JBL and the Cabinet come into the drawing room celebrating with champagne and Long says there’s a barbed wire cage match at No Way Out. JBL’s face is great here.

Ross and Tazz are doing the commentary for the Rumble again.

Royal Rumble

Eddie is number one and Benoit is number two. Not a bad way to start. Benoit is rocking the teal here. Dang Benoit has bad luck as he was first last year. This is borderline chilling when you think about it. Naturally, this is a technical showcase which is what it should be. Daniel Puder, perhaps the most worthless wrestler in a long time, is third. His theme song is Getting Away With Murder. Talk about chilling.

It should be noted that the runner up in the Tough Enough show that Puder won was the Miz. Talk about two different career paths. Geez. Puder gets on the mic and says he’s great. Was there something in the water at that Tough Enough show? Naturally the two former world champions beat the living tar out of him. More or less they just spend the 90 seconds chopping and suplexing the heck out of him as Holly, the rookie hater, is 4th. This should be great.

He gets in and asks if he can have some fun with Puder too. He’s had zero offense. This really is quite funny. Even Holly is over because of this. Think about that for a bit. Holly throws what’s left of him out as Hurricane is 5th. Benoit and Guerrero throw out Holly since he’s useless again to get us down to three. They team up and Eddie tries to throw Benoit out and they’re at it again. Hurricane is out as Kenzo Suzuki, another completely worthless human being is number 6.

This Rumble feels like it hasn’t even gotten started yet and since we’re 1/5 of the way through, that’s not good. Again they double team the other guy until Benoit tries to throw Eddie out. Edge is in at seven. Rey is eighth as nothing at all is happening. Kenzo is out almost immediately. It’s not a good sign at all when you have four world champions in the ring and there’s just nothing going on at all. I mean it’s just boring for some reason.

The Guerrero vs. Mysterio feud was coming soon and it would be Eddie’s next to last major one. Shelton Benjamin, the IC Champion, is number 9. He hadn’t had his big match with Shawn yet to really get him over but it was coming. At this point he was just a guy with untapped potential rather than now as a guy that no one takes seriously with untapped potential. He would finally break out soon after this at MITB at Mania.

Booker takes us to ten as the least successful wrestler out of the 6 in there is Shelton Benjamin. They’re blowing their load too fast here as Tazz messes up by saying that Booker vs. HHH was last year. Benjamin might have gone out but we’re looking at Bischoff who just showed up for no apparent reason. We continue the insane star power in there with Jericho at 11th. He’s WAY over with a huge Y2J chant.

Hey looks here’s Teddy Long as Vince continues the theory of keep pushing the Brand Split until people accept it so you can say it was a good idea. Luther (for admin) Reigns comes in at 12 to break that streak. There are way too many people in there right now. Now we throw every man for himself out the window as Raw and Smackdown get on different sides for four one on one matches that consist of Rey vs. Jericho, Benoit vs. Reigns, Booker vs. Edge and Eddie vs. Shelton.

This is kind of cool but kind of stupid as it’s turning the Rumble into an even bigger gimmick match than it usually is. Muhammad Hassan, the most controversial wrestler perhaps of the millennium, is number 13. Everyone stops cold for this. His manager is more commonly known as Sheik Abdul Bashir in case you didn’t know that. In a humorous bit, everyone jumps him at once to a great pop. Rey gets 619 and then almost everyone picks him up and throws him out as a group. That was great.

Orlando Jordan is number 14 as this needs to stop being so gimmicky. Tazz tries to compare Orlando Jordan to Shelton Benjamin. That’s just amazing. In a TERRIBLE shot, Shelton is choking Jericho with his feet and Jericho has to grab the foot to move it to his throat. It looked terrible. Scotty is number 15, apparently returning from a tumor. Hassan keeps up a tradition of beating up Scotty on his way to the ring. That has to be what, three times?

So for another year, Scotty doesn’t get into the match. Charlie Haas is 16th. How in the world did he get a chick like Jackie Gayda? Booker throws out Luther (for admin) and Orlando with ease. Booker goes for a spinaroonie but Eddie jumps him to put him out. We have Benoit, Guerrero, Shelton, Edge, Jericho, Haas and Rey in there at the moment. In yet another chilling line, Ross says Benoit and Guerrero are still alive.

Rene Dupree and the poodle is seventeenth to insane heat. The World’s Greatest Tag Team reunites for all of a second with Shelton then going for a Stinger Splash, actually called that by Ross, and Edge dumps him. Simon Dean is 18th as the Rumble is legal. While he’s warming up on the floor, Edge throws out Eddie to great heat. Shawn is 19th. He hammers Edge before casually turning around to clothesline Dean out. Eddie gets a huge chant as he leaves.

Ross says that Edge is trying to corner Rey in a corner. Shawn throws out Haas which gets no recognition as Ross thinks it was Dupree. Angle is 20 and he comes in and stays insane since saying going insane wouldn’t make a lot of sense. Shawn misses a superkick but hits the second to put Angle out in a shocker. Angle is TICKED. Currently we have Benoit, Edge, Rey, Jericho, Dupree and Shawn in there and they’re joined by the Coach of all people at 21.

This is the thing I hate about rumbles like these: what’s the point of putting him in there? Was there no one else on Raw that could have gone in there at all? I mean you couldn’t throw Lawler in there who at least was a wrestler? Rey almost puts Jericho as Jindrak comes in at 22. Angle runs back in and beats up Shawn and throws him over the top. Shawn is bleeding and apparently is out now, setting up their Mania 21 classic.

Number 23 is Viscera who still has no one that cares about him. At least he’s got a shirt on here. Paul London is 25th and he slides in so fast that he almost goes out the other side. Dupree does that stupid French Tickler dance and Jericho puts him out for it. Cena is 24th to a MASSIVE pop. Tazz likes him way too much.

He was just about to shatter the glass ceiling as he would win the world title at Mania from JBL. He manages to backdrop Viscera to eliminate him. I don’t care if you like Cena or not: he has SCARY strength.

Snitsky is 26th. London jumps him and in a video that’s become popular on the internet for obvious reasons, Gene clotheslines him so hard that London got spun backwards which I don’t think was planned. Kane is 27th, causing Tazz to freak over the way that Ross has to put up with these explosions. As someone that’s been surprised by his pyro, I feel his pain. Kane cleans house of course and there goes Jindrak.

A shirtless Coach tries to jump him but Snitsky saves him. London goes out on a stretcher. Batista is 28th and the pop is epic. They were pushing him to the moon around this time and it clearly was the right decision at the end. There goes Snitsky. Kane continues his tradition of getting beaten up by Batista, this time taking the powerbomb. Batista puts out his third guy by throwing out Jericho.

Christian is 29th, finally with the Just Close Your Eyes theme whose current version I’m completely addicted to. Cena goes off on Edge to show off their future great feud. Cena gets a half F5 half FU to Kane to put him out. Flair is number 30, making the final group Benoit, Edge, Coach, Batista, Cena, Christian, Rey and Flair. So other than Coach, all world champions in some company. Not bad at all. Flair throws Coach to Batista for a spinebuster and Flair throws him out.

There goes Christian. He and Edge were both wearing purple. Benoit and Flair have a chop off. Flair and Batista do the same thing to Benoit that they did to Coach. Flair tries to throw out Batista and it doesn’t go well. Rey and Edge knock Batista down with a double dropkick. Edge puts Flair out and your final four are Edge, Rey, Cena and Batista. Not bad at all. Edge hits a spear on Batista and Cena but Rey avoids it.

619 hits but Rey goes too fast and goes over and a spear puts him on the floor. Batista and Cena put Edge out to get the dream match for the final two. The crowd reacts to this in a great way. This has to headline Mania someday. Cena gets him up for the FU but Batista gets out. Cena is put up for the Batista Bomb but they go out at the same time in an homage to the 94 Rumble. Screw the homage part. It’s the same finish, but to be fair that was 11 years ago so I think it’s ok.

The referees argue over it until Vince comes out. He slides into the ring and hits his legs on the apron, ripping his quads and knees apart. He tries to stand up and just crumples to the ground in agony. Instead of screaming in pain or whatever, he sits on the mat leaning against the ropes and does his thing. Batista clearly is about to lose it. Think about it from his perspective for a minute.

You’re wrestling in the main event of the Royal Rumble, one of the biggest shows on the year and you’re in an angle that’s going to send you to Wrestlemania, and your boss, a billionaire, is sitting on the mat after collapsing and ripping his legs apart, not to mention the epic adrenaline rush you must have just been on. Think about that for a minute or two. Anyway, Fink says Vince ordered the match to be restarted.

This translates into Cena vs. Batista. Shouldn’t that mean Benoit and Guerrero come out again and we do the whole Rumble over? That’s what it sounds like to me. Anyway, Batista throws Cena over and then Cena throws Batista over before this is said which is just stupid, at least from Cena. FU is countered and after a spinebuster, Batista throws him out for the easy win.

Rating: B-. I’ve seen far worse I guess. This match never really seemed to get going for my tastes. Now to be fair while it was clear that Batista was the winner before the match even started, they did have Cena out there as a potential winner along with Edge who was a new main event guy, so at least they tried.

I just couldn’t get into this as there were too many things where the match more or less stopped for something. Also having the huge rush of talent in the first third hurt later parts of the match where those guys could come out. It was good but it could have been a lot better.

Overall Rating: B-. There’s some good stuff and there’s some bad stuff here, but the good is more prolific than the bad here. This was a lot more about changing the guard by launching Batista and Cena into the next level which makes it a bit awkward but that’s ok I think. They were the right choices and this was a great way to do the change. I like the show overall, but the second and fourth matches leave a bit to be desired. Not bad, but don’t expect to be blown away.