(Just so there is no confusion, the title is meant to criticize the Royal Rumble match and not the Royal Rumble PPV entirely).
There are so many adjectives that I could use to describe the main event of last night’s show. So many emotions that I could relay to you to depict how I felt about the match. However, I don’t think it could be accurately quantified with mere words, but I can tell you one certainty. Last night, the Royal Rumble became the Royal Fumble. There were sky-high expectations coming into the match. Video packages aired each week, reliving some of the Royal Rumble’s greatest moments. This was billed as possibly being the biggest Rumble match in history. With names like The Undertaker, Goldberg and Brock Lesnar headlining the Rumble, the claim certainly held some water. However, at the end of the night’s festivities, while the crowd cheered for the eventual winner of the match, Randy Orton, it was adulation out of relief, and not of enjoyment of the match. There are so many ways to dissect this, but let’s try.
- Big Cass was an interesting choice to start off the Rumble match, but since his entrance always requires talking, it wasn’t all that surprising. Chris Jericho coming out at Number 2 signaled to me that he was going to be the event’s Iron Man, because he traditionally lasts towards the final stages. WWE’s first mistake here, in my opinion, was how they booked Braun Strowman. Braun Strowman had been receiving a monster push up to this point, dominating everyone he’s come across with on the RAW roster, winning a feud against Sami Zayn, and making a name for himself by costing Roman Reigns the Universal Championship, which is bound to lead to a feud between the two. He finished with the most eliminations in the Rumble match, with seven, to no one’s surprise. This made it all the more confusing as to why he spent such little time than expected in the Rumble match, and how he was practically single-handedly eliminated by Baron Corbin after some weak hits by Sami Zayn and Tye Dillinger. It does make Corbin look strong yes, but it’s not like he had the monster push Strowman was getting. He’s just now beginning to be relevant on the Smackdown roster. Strowman only spent 13 minutes and 11 seconds in the Rumble. Kofi Kingston and Rusev spent more time in the Rumble match than he did. He eliminated The Big Show and Mark Henry by himself. Wouldn’t it look better for him if he were to get eliminated in a joint effort? Maybe The New Day and The Wyatt Family all gang up on him? While it doesn’t ruin his character much, there was no sense in how he got eliminated, and why he didn’t last towards the end to spice up the drama. Hell, with the impending feud with Roman, it would probably make the most sense just to have him come from the crowd and eliminate him, and skin the cat that way.
- My next beef comes with the order of the superstars and how they were introduced. This is being billed as the “biggest Rumble of all time”, yet they foolishly decided to pack in all of the big names together towards the very end. The first ten or so superstars, I didn’t mind when they come out. They had the United States Champion and very popular Jericho come out at 2 and they also had one of the big names in the match, Braun Strowman come out at the number 7 slot. However, with the big names and potential surprises that people were expecting, they did a poor job of balancing out the star power in the second third of the Rumble match. The second third consisted of all three members of two tag teams (The New Day and Sheamus/Cesaro) Rusev, Baron Corbin, The Miz, Dean Ambrose, James Ellsworth and Jack Gallagher. Now, guys like Ambrose and The Miz are certainly top tier, and the jury’s still out on Corbin, but I believe WWE needed one of those marquee names to make their appearance there. At the very least have The Wyatt Family come out there with Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt to add more star power. The crowd was visibly deflated after consistently waiting for one of those names to come out and the match just went on and on and on.
- It was borderline criminal how WWE booked Undertaker, Lesnar and Goldberg. Brock Lesnar didn’t come out until number 26, and while he did come in like a house of fire, it wasn’t anything we haven’t seen him do before. German Suplex, F-5, repeat. Then Goldberg came in later at 28. As soon as he came in, he spears Lesnar, and chucks him like he’s nothing. So let’s see, Lesnar loses within two minutes to Goldberg at Survivor Series, and then Goldberg eliminates Lesnar like he’s nothing. Why, oh why, should we now be convinced that let alone Lesnar, anyone, can defeat Goldberg? I mean, Lesnar lost to Goldberg over a decade ago, but at least that match had competition. You’re trying to tell me a Brock Lesnar who is still well in his physical prime can’t keep up with fifty-year-oldld Goldberg? Give me a freaking break. I wasn’t anticipating Goldberg coming out anything earlier than 25, because it’s clear that WWE is hesitant to put him in the ring for extended periods of time, and he seems to get visibly winded after doing minimal work. I mean the man was in the Rumble for less than three and a half minutes. The man only worked about 2 minutes of a squash at Survivor Series. So since Goldberg’s big return, we’ve had only about 6 minutes of him actually doing things in the ring. Lesnar out of Undertaker, Goldberg and he would do the best with an extended period of time just because he has the stamina.
- The Undertaker then teleported to the ring using Instant Transmission at Number 29, and he tossed around a couple of superstars and then just eliminated Goldberg like he was nothing. Yeah, the man that single-handedly eliminated Lesnar, turns out, can also be easily distracted and easily chucked over. If you haven’t noticed by now, all of these big names are being used in short increments and they are just rushing right through everything instead of building up any sort of segment. In addition, and this bugs the hell out of me, and a person (sorry I forgot your name) pointed this out in the comments section under my full review of the PPV column (if you haven’t read it yet, what are you doing?). He felt like WWE completely killed the suspension of disbelief in the Owens/Reigns match. He referenced how Owens used William Regal’s trademark Brass Knucks (which has been known to knock out people with a side swipe) and Owens, a big man at that, does a running punch square to his face, in addition to all the other punishment that he took before that point, was able to kick out. Well the Rumble match sort of had something similar to that. The Undertaker took a spear from Goldberg, but within like 30 seconds or so, he got immediately right back and threw him out. Like, Goldberg’s spears are supposed to be something crippling that should keep someone down for a good amount of time, and I just didn’t appreciate that no selling act.
- The Rumble match also featured spots occupied uselessly and foolishly. I didn’t mind the Jack Gallagher stuff as much, because while I never understood why Cruiserweights are eligible to enter the Rumble match, at least someone from that division was represented, so I didn’t really care all that much. James Ellsworth entering the Rumble was also not surprising, but I was hoping that they wouldn’t bother doing anything with him because it’s clear that he wasn’t going to do anything except maybe provide a few seconds worth of laughs. However, the entry that got me the most frustrated, in some ways even more so than Roman Reigns (I’ll get to him later), was Enzo Amore coming out at 27. Look at this logic. You have Lesnar come out at 26. Goldberg comes out at 28. Undertaker comes out at 29 and Roman come out at 30. Why in the holy hell would you put Enzo Amore, who’s pretty much another comedy relief guy, jammed in between the premiere names of that Rumble? If all he was going to do is look silly by seeing Lesnar in the ring, thinking he could take him on, and just be subjected to quick elimination? Especially after the crowd is expecting something big towards the end after about 40-50 minutes after not having any of the big names appear prior? It’s not even Enzo himself. The point is he shouldn’t have been put in that situation because he wasn’t going to get a positive reaction. It was similar to how the crowd booed Rey Mysterio in 2014 because he wasn’t Daniel Bryan. You’d think WWE would learn from their mistakes and not put crowd favorites into a position where’d they be subject to being booed.
- Now everyone’s favorite moment of the night, Roman Reigns being the surprise of the night as the final entrant of the Rumble. Now, there is a history of people who are in world title matches entering the Rumble match later that night. Names like Randy Orton and Dolph Ziggler in 2011 and Kurt Angle in 2005 come to mind. However, I never understood the logic behind that. I mean, at least in 2005, Kurt Angle attacked Nunzio backstage and took his spot. By doing so, he got eliminated in short order by Shawn Michaels and that in turn started the build towards their match at WrestleMania that year. When I saw Roman’s face, I instantly saw Vince flipping the bird, because that’s what that was. How do you have someone enter the Rumble match when they have a world title match prior? Did they not consider the scenario in which they won the world title they were competing for? I mean, if you’re going to put Roman in the match fine, but at least do a backstage segment or an ambush. Don’t just bring him out because he’s Roman Reigns. Him eliminating The Undertaker clearly didn’t go well with the crowd, but I just don’t like how quick and visibly forced it was. It appears that Roman Reigns and Undertaker is the match they will do for WrestleMania. Now, if I was booking it, I’d personally have Undertaker eliminate Roman Reigns, and then have Roman come back in the match and chuck Undertaker over the top rope. Fans are going to boo him anyways, especially more so because he’s facing a widely respected Undertaker. Might as well give him a reason to be booed now yes? I wasn’t so much mad that Roman entered at 30, but more so because of the fact that WWE hasn’t seemed to learn its lessons in recent Rumble history.
- A good Rumble match consists of a lot of things, but one of them is the shock value. I hope they weren’t on banking on Tye Dillinger to be the headline surprise. I also certainly hoped that they didn’t qualify Ellsworth and Gallagher to be shocking as well. Because being a surprise in the Rumble match is what makes the Rumble match one of my favorites. The sheer unpredictability of it. Behind every number is a surprise. It could be anyone, but this year, we were left disappointed in that regard. I thought I saw a little foreboding sign early in the Rumble match. The No. 3 slot in the two prior Rumble matches featured Bubba Ray Dudley in 2015 and AJ Styles in 2016. Both of them were TNA alumni, but both of them were complete shockers that no one else was expecting. I was interested in the sake of curiosity who would be the No. 3 entrant this year to see if there would be a pattern. Unfortunately, what we got was Kalisto, a man who lost within 2 minutes in his last match against Ziggler last week. Names from those from NXT like Finn Balor or Samoa Joe to former veterans from Kurt Angle to Shelton Bejmamin were thrown out there to make a return to the match and fortunately, none of them appeared. I was anticipating that at least one of those names would make an appearance in some capacity in that match, but it looks like they’re going to wait this thing out more, especially with Joe, who was seen attending Takeover: San Antonio.
Now, Randy Orton is someone I’m a huge fan of and a man I’ve always admired, so of course, I had no problem with him winning the Rumble. He’s certainly a better alternative than Roman Reigns, but this Rumble PPV was heading into all time great territory. Couple in two fantastic (one legendary) world title matches, some good placeholder matches in the RAW Women’s Title match and Cruiserweight Title match, and a delivery on the potential historic Rumble match, and you have yourself one of the greatest PPV’s of all time. Unfortunately, WWE dropped the ball. The rumble became a fumble. I don’t even think it needed the surprises to be a great match. If you just book it right throughout, maintain a balance throughout the rumble to keep the people invested and be wise with the talents you use, then you have yourself a good Rumble match. This year’s edition had none of those and was hugely botched effort in front of over 50,000 at the Alamodome. Now I’ve seen far worse Rumble matches in the past (most recently in 2014 and 2015), but what gets me kind of amped was that it displayed some of WWE’s worse habits, one of which was not learning from past mistakes.
If there is only one positive I can take away from the Rumble, it’s that some of the WrestleMania matches have slowly started to take form, though a lot of it is still up in the air. I also thought that storylines with The Wyatt Family, some of the action of Sheamus and Cesaro and the craftiness of Y2J were other positive highlights, but I was left deflated in the end. I gave the show a thumbs in the middle, leaning up for the greatness of the world title matches, but the supposed “biggest Rumble ever” became the biggest disappointment. What a shame. Don’t get me wrong, I thought the Rumble PPV overall was great, and despite Cena winning the WWE Title and Orton winning a Royal Rumble in 2017 seems to be an omen WWE’s heading back to old times, I enjoyed myself for the most part. But that doesn’t mean WWE can be immune to criticism, and there’s no doubting the blown opportunity they had last night.
One last thought comes to mind, does WWE hate Roman Reigns? Vince is so obsessed with trying to get fans to accept Roman, yet WWE insists on putting him in situations that will certainly make the crowd hate him? It’s as if WWE has forced themselves to turn Roman heel, which is the only way to save him if that’s their concern. In addition (sorry, all of these thoughts seem to come on the fly), you end Monday Night RAW with Undertaker, Goldberg and Brock Lesnar in the same ring at the same time for the FIRST time ever. It was a brilliant tease and a great way to build hype for the Rumble match. I’m sure we were all expecting the big names to fight against each other in one on one matchups or confrontations we wouldn’t otherwise see, but what did we get? Strowman gets eliminated way too early. Lesnar comes in, does his usual thing, then Goldberg comes in, spears him and tosses him out like a jobber. Then, Undertaker comes in, and just pushes Goldberg over the top. Like, really? That was the best they could do? Even if it was for like 1-2 minutes, you couldn’t have your big names fight it out, maybe in the final six or final four to build up that anticipation? I don’t know man. Can’t win them all, I suppose.
How did you feel about the Rumble match? Did you have anyone you were expecting to enter? Agreed with the winner? Let me know how you felt. Until next time.
