Well, it’s the 2009 edition of the Royal Rumble and… well, I barely remember a bloody thing about this one, so we might as well get it over with.
ECW Champion Jack Swagger defeated Matt Hardy to retain the title while a young Tony Khan watched and thought “In ten years, I will open a wrestling company and sign these two to a contract.” This was fine. Obviously, the story with Matt having to deal with a bad arm while fighting this submission guy adds a bit of intrigue and the action was pretty good. Not the most exciting thing at the time, but otherwise a perfectly fine opener. I enjoyed this one.
Melina defeated Women’s Champion Beth Phoenix to win the title. This was Beth doing all the clubbering until Melina gets a roll-up for the pin and the title. Not quite “designated bathroom break” depths, but still not quite as good as it could have been between two fairly decent women.
World Heavyweight Champion JOHN CENA (who did not replace the Big Gold Belt with a spinner) defeated JBL to retain the title. For a bit of context, Shawn Michaels was “working” for JBL because he needed money and the build towards the match was about whether Shawn would help JBL win the title or not. Long story short; after a fairly boring match, Shawn turns on JBL and Cena “overcomes the odds” or whatever to retain the title. Meh.
Edge defeated WWE Champion Jeff Hardy after brother Matt hit Jeff with a chair to retain the title. Match started off slow, but eventually got better until the finish, which, by the way, it was supposed to be the returning Christian (back from TNA), but they switched it to Matt Hardy so that it wouldn’t be predictable or something… but then we already had the Matt vs Jeff thing before and it sucked so bad it never stuck. Sometimes, predictable is okay if makes sense.
Randy Orton wins the Royal Rumble in what was a pretty average Rumble with not a whole lot going on. The only highlight of the show seems to be after Randy does the obligatory Wrestlemania sign pointing gimmick and the sign doesn’t explode on cue… and he gets upset because it doesn’t explode on cue… and it takes him several pointing sessions before it finally explodes. I don’t know… was Kofi handling the fireworks display this year or something? Was this his way of getting back at Randy for calling him stupid and killing his push.
Yeah, this was pretty dull. The undercard was kinda meh, the title matches were somewhat watchable to a degree, and the Rumble match was also boring, feeling like one hour-long resthold… considering who won it, I guess it makes sense. Again, skippable.
dtm666 