Well, now that I've had a few days to digest the Royal Rumble and the subsequent Raw, I believe it's time for a review of sorts.
Edge defeats Dolph Ziggler to retain the World Heavyweight Championship
When I look back at the Rumble Pay-Per-View as a whole, in terms of matches in their entirety, this was by far the best match of the night. Edge and Ziggler fought tooth and nail for over twenty minutes, with plenty of twists and turns along the way. Playing up the fact that the spear was banned only made me wonder more how Edge would claim victory (since I did pick him to retain the title). Besides using a different finisher (which happened anyway), the ending was about the only way I could see Edge being able to use the spear to assist with a victory. With both the referee and Vickie Guerrero knocked out, Edge took his opportunity and hit Ziggler with the spear, then, as an homage to his former storyline brother/now best friend Christian, finished Ziggler off with an Unprettier (I refuse to call it by its new WWE name, the Kill Switch). Also, props to Matt Striker for forgetting to call it the Kill Switch, though I'm not sure he deserves props for likely screwing up the name of the finisher. All in all, this was an excellent match, and really the best chance of starting the PPV with a bang.
The Miz defeats Randy Orton to retain the WWE Championship
Two World Title matches, two dirty finishes. Except in this match, the Nexus was involved in the foul play. With the four underlings distracting the referee, Orton tossed Alex Riley, Miz's lackey, over the top rope and into the Nexus, taking them all out. But what really confused me was how the referee took his bump, falling away from the Nexus well before Riley landed on them, and acting as though he'd been hit with a sledgehammer to the gut. This allowed CM Punk to show up, hit Orton with a GTS (after Orton had hit Miz with an RKO) and drag Miz onto Orton's prone body, where the ref counted the pinfall. The match itself was okay, but when you have The Miz in a main event, you're not going to get as high quality a match as you would with a Rey Mysterio or an Undertaker. He's just not good in the ring. Orton is fairly "meh" himself. And, unless I completely missed something, no explanation was given as to why the Nexus interfered in the match, either at the PPV or on Raw the next night. I'll make one up: CM Punk figured that he was a shoe-in to win the Royal Rumble match, so he attempted to assure that he would be facing a weaker opponent at Wrestlemania by helping Miz win. But I suppose we'll never know. Just like when the Nexus interfered in the Buried Alive match between Kane and the Undertaker last year. No explanation given. I guess they just felt like it.
Eve Torres defeats Nattie Neidhart, Michelle McCool, and Layla to become the NEW Diva's Champion
I do believe we can toss this pick out since no one was in the know about Eve being added to this match. It was still a pretty decent WWE women's match, for what it's worth. I read a report that Amazing Kong was backstage, both at the Rumble and at Raw the next night, and I was praying that she would debut during either this match or the tag team match on Raw the next night. Alas, I was again disappointed. Wouldn't the tag match have been the perfect time for her to debut on WWE programming, just appearing and destroying all four women? It would have been awesome, I think.
Alberto Del Rio wins the Royal Rumble Match
I suppose when a wrestler talks about something being his destiny, you bet on it happening. Yes, I realize picking John Morrison to win was about as insane as picking Kofi Kingston to win it, but hey, I had to have one crazy pick that obviously wouldn't happen. I will say one thing, though: the first half of the Rumble match was easily the best half of any Rumble match I've ever seen. Of course, it also happened to have the talented half of the roster entirely contained within it. I'm sure seeing CM Punk and Daniel Bryan Danielson start the match and beat the shit out of each other was every Internet fan's wet dream match. Let's go through the match quickly (or about as quickly as I can be):
John Morrison had probably the most spectacular spot of the night, when he was knocked off the ring apron but hit the barricade and clung to it like Spider-Man. He hoisted himself to the top of the barricade, did a little balancing act, and leaped from the barricade to the steel steps at the corner of the ring. Truly amazing stuff.
Chavo Guerrero hitting nine consecutive suplexes on four different men was awesome in and of itself, and he got a pretty good crowd pop for it.
Watching Tyler Reks get tossed out in about ten seconds made me smile from ear to ear.
Seeing the Great Khali return made me cry. The man can barely walk now. He reminds me of Kevin Nash.
I will freely admit that I got a little nostalgic when Booker T's music hit, and he came down to the ring just like old times. Thankfully WWE Creative decided not to revive the King Booker gimmick, which, while funny at times, was on the whole more annoying than entertaining. Sure, he got dumped out in about a minute, but he hit all his signature moves and got a huge crowd reaction when he did the Spin-a-roonie. I marked out for that.
Unfortunately, the match took a turn for the worse after Booker's elimination, as John Cena came in, cleaned house, and eliminated the four remaining members of Nexus and teamed up with...sigh...Hornswoggle for way too long.
Speaking of Nash, he also made a return to the WWE under his Diesel gimmick. While I wasn't as enthused as I was about Booker T's return, the crowd in Boston sure loved seeing Nash. I was surprised he got such an enormous crowd reaction. I think it was the biggest reaction of the night. And, as I figured, he was eliminated the only way a 50 year old man with wet noodles for legs can be: by missing a big boot, getting crotched on the top rope, and having someone shove him to the floor.
Looking at the roster of the Royal Rumble match, it appears that several people who were named as participants did not, in fact, participate. Darren Young, David Hart Smith, and Primo were nowhere to be seen. And who were the nine unannounced entrants? Chavo Guerrero, Tyler Reks, The Great Khali, Booker T, Hornswoggle, Dolph Ziggler (HUH?), Kevil "Diesel" Nash, Alex Riley, and Randy Orton (BWAH?). So we have two total jobbers, a two giants with no knees between them, a midget, a lackey, the two guys who lost their respective World Title matches earlier in the show, and an old black guy. Awesome. Obviously, none of the people I picked to appear did, though I still think that, if nothing else, Triple H should have returned to eliminate Sheamus. Maybe he will at the Elimination Chamber PPV. Or maybe he'll never come back. Nah, he has a movie coming out, he has to return.
Now, if you'll look at the order of appearance, the only person in the first half of the Rumble that could be considered main event level talent is CM Punk. And since most main event-level talent in WWE is below average as far as in-ring talent goes, the second half of the Rumble was far inferior to the first half. Which is a shame, since you really want your shows to end on a high note instead of languishing in the doldrums of futility. Hey, that's a pretty good song lyric right there...anyway, the show was okay overall. The World Heavyweight Championship match was the best match on the show for sure.
Now, let's look at the two matches set up for the Elimination Chamber show in a couple of weeks. We have the Raw Elimination Chamber, which will determine the WWE Champion's opponent at Wrestlemania (since Alberto Del Rio chose to face the World Heavyweight Champion at Wrestlemania), and we have our WWE Championship match: The Miz vs. Jerry Lawler. Wow. I never would have expected Jerry Lawler to be main eventing a PPV in this day and age. I still must give the man credit: he can still work a match at 61, which is more than I can say for just about any other old wrestler currently out there (with the possible exceptions of Terry Funk and Johnny Saint (go look him up)). Though I was expecting him to be part of the Elimination Chamber and cede his spot to Triple H, which also would have been a fine way to reintroduce Triple H to WWE programming. But Creative has let that golden opportunity slip through their fingers. And we now have an Elimination Chamber match featuring John Cena, John Morrison, R-Truth, Randy Orton, Sheamus, and CM Punk. It's a (mostly) stacked match, but it's tough to imagine anyone other than Cena or Orton winning. Mostly because it's nigh impossible to imagine Jerry Lawler winning the WWE Championship and defending it in the main event at Wrestlemania.
Now, what remains to be seen is what purpose the Smackdown Elimination Chamber will serve. Will it be for the World Heavyweight Championship? Will it just be one for the hell of it? Or will there be one at all? I'm sure the answers will be revealed on Friday night.
Well, I suppose that will do it for Episode 8. On a much more positive note, I ordered CHIKARA's Season 10 opener, Chaos in the Sea of Lost Souls, today, so it should be arriving in the next few days, and I can give a full and proper review of it. So stay tuned for that one. I will catch you all next time!
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