With WWE Royal Rumble 2019 concluded, it’s time to look back on what happened and assess the damage, praise the positives and talk about what went down.
Per usual, at the end of this post, you’ll see my regular Smack Talk Pay-Per-Viewpoint post-show podcast, which reviews the event in more detail, but for those who want a more condensed version of my thoughts, I present to you my “quicker than a hiccup” reaction to the different parts of the evening:
I thought it was interesting that they teamed up two people from separate teams, and part of me is glad they at least didn’t entirely ignore this division, but this struck me as almost worse in some ways than if they had all just been missing from the card entirely. Dawson suffers another loss, the tag division still looks like crap and they gave them the worst spot of the night (even though I’ll admit that there’s no other spot for them on the card). It’s just like someone cooking you a crappy meal and saying you should be happy to eat something at all, when you know they put no effort into it. Funny that the camera man fell down.
Very surprised at the title change. I didn’t think that would happen at all, especially with it being on the pre-show. Hopefully, there’s an actual plan to the future of this title and Nakamura and we don’t run into the same problem as what the past bunch of months have been. I have my doubts. Also, this secures my suspicions that they only put the belt on Rusev to get people excited as an emergency switch during that initial two-week stint of them “apologizing” and promising “change”, even though they’ve not done any of that, really. Rusev’s title win was a temporary distraction to shut some people up until WWE felt the waters had calmed down a bit.
Good match, but nothing that’s going to convince people who don’t watch 205 Live to start watching it, sadly. Murphy clearly needed to retain. All of the guys are talented, but he was the standout and he’s the one who needs to keep that belt for the time being. Also, lots of knees going around these days.
I honestly wasn’t able to devote a ton of attention to this, so I don’t have much to say about it. I’m glad Asuka won in a fashion that helps her credibility, particularly as it did nothing to hinder Lynch’s momentum. Thumbs up.
The more interesting story to me heading into this was “what will happen after Royal Rumble if Miz and McMahon win the titles” rather than “I wonder if Miz and McMahon will turn on each other”. As such, I’m glad the titles changed hands. The Bar are fine and all, but they’re never anything particularly special to me as champions, and while this match wasn’t anything to write home about, it’s heading in a more intriguing direction.
Good match. No complaints there. The post-match stuff went on far too long and got very annoying to me. I don’t know what wires were crossed there, but that was all bothersome to sit through. What preceded it was rock solid, though.
This was my least favorite match of the night. I thought it was incredibly bland and I’m not in the slightest bit interested in this whole Bryan and Rowan pairing.
WWE wants me to be super interested in what this all means and excited to see the next step in the storyline. They’ve failed at that. Instead, I just rolled my eyes and said to myself “damn it, this Styles/Bryan thing still isn’t over and now we’re just gonna get Styles vs. Rowan and The Bludgeon Brothers against The Good Brothers and such to stretch this out.”
I just don’t care.
You all know my thoughts on Brock Lesnar from 2017 and 2018. I don’t need to repeat all of that in 2019. Suffice it to say, I shut my brain off now when anything involves him.
For more opinions on the show as a whole, check out the latest edition of the Smark Out Moment wrestling podcast SMACK TALK as the panel reviews Royal Rumble with our immediate reactions following the event before the dust has fully settled.
Make sure to subscribe and leave your comments and ratings!