Royal Rumble Review

Even despite its ‘pre-arranged’ results, one thing that makes wrestling Pay-Per-Views entertaining is the element of surprise. No event succeeds in the element of surprise more than the Royal Rumble.


Usually a PPV filled with entertaining title matches, a bitter rivalry, then culminating in the always enthralling, highly interesting and sometimes amusing 30 man over-the-top-rope ‘Rumble’ itself.

This year, the event started with a triple threat match, inside a steel cage, Daniel Bryan defended his World Heavyweight Championship against the two giants of the WWE, Mark Henry and Big Show. The match itself was rather bland, as are most matches with Mark Henry, then ended with Bryan being held up over the top of the cage by Big Show before breaking free and hitting the floor. Retaining his World Championship.

The first match was a slight letdown, yet a predictable ending. The PPV didn’t get much better with the Divas 8 person tag match and a squash win for Brodus Clay over Drew McIntyre.

Next up was John Cena and Kane. After weeks of being tortured and beaten by the maniacal Kane, and seeing Zack Ryder being hospitalised on this past Raw. The match itself was a bit back and forth, and ended with Kane standing over a beaten Ryder, a beaten Cena and a hysterical Eve.

The ending, again predictable, was, however understandable with Kane needing to be billed as a monster, and the programme between the two needing to be extended until Elimination Chamber, before Cena diverts into a build-up to his Wrestlemania showdown with The Rock.

The prequel to the Rumble match was the WWE Championship match between CM Punk and Dolph Ziggler. A match with great potential, two great workers, with the ability to put on great matches. With all these ingredients, the match ended up in the biggest disappointment of the night.

With the emphasis of the match revolving around the issues between CM Punk and John Laurinaitis, the Raw General Manager. With Ziggler, arguably the companies best young star becoming overshadowed, and being the third party in a match he could of made a ‘Match of the year’ candidate.

Then the ‘Rumble’ itself, started with Miz eliminating old nemesis Alex Riley, then seeing new nemesis R-Truth enter at number 3. The rumble was a mundane beginning, and a mundane middle, waiting for the big names to enter the match.

Eventually Ziggler, Sheamus, Wade Barrett (the most underused wrestler in the Rumble), Chris Jericho and hometown hero Randy Orton all entering, after a few cameos from the commentators, Ricardo Rodriguez and the return of Road Dogg.

The field was left for 4, Sheamus, Jericho, Orton and Big Show. Orton defied Rumble protocol, eliminating Show on his own, with most year it taking 4 or 5 people to throw him out.

Jericho then threw Orton over the top rope in the immediate aftermath to Big Show’s elimination, thus leaving Sheamus and Jericho to battle for the main event of WrestleMania.

Sheamus and Jericho both went into a contest of near eliminations, both hanging on for dear life, with the thoughts of “who’s going to win”? Changing every second. It seemed for long periods like the returning Jericho was going to win, then all of a sudden it seemed Sheamus, undergoing a massive push, and becoming a major face of the company, was going to win.

Eventually Sheamus did win, setting up, I would envisage a ‘Mania showdown with Daniel Bryan. The Rumble match itself was average, could have been a lot worse, but at the same time, didn’t hit the heights of ‘Rumble’ matches with returning superstars and debuts of future ones.

The PPV was poor, lets not kid ourselves, a Pay-Per-View with huge potential was mismanaged, underused and far, far too predictable.