So let’s get this out of the way right off the bat, yeah?
TNA World Champion Joe Hendry came out at #15 to a massive pop and 70,000+ people in the George Lucas Oil arena in Indy were singing his song. He got a few licks in while Sheamus was in the corner entertained by the whole thing before Jacob Fatu came along and knocked Joe out, which upset Sheamus tremendously. And then Roman Reigns came along at #16 and eliminated a couple folks. Joe tries for a shot, but gets speared and tossed for his trouble, with some mild heckling from the audience… well, that went as well as I expected… but yes, Joe Hendry was at the Royal Rumble, he had his time in the sun, and people cheered him on. Nothing else on this show matters and we can all move on with our lives.
But… if you really want to know about the rest of the show, you can read about it after the break, but I’ve very little to say.
Charlotte Flair made her big return to win the Women’s Royal Rumble, which had no real surprises other than Trish Stratus and maybe Nikki Bella if you haven’t been following the usual noise. Alexa Bliss also made her return from maternity leave and contract disputes, but I was tending to the dog and missed her entrance, so count that as another surprise. Jordynne Grace made her WWE debut here and eliminated someone at least. There were a couple convoluted spots here and there – most notably towards the end where a bunch of women were piling up on the side of the ring (the apron) so that Nia Jax could come along and push them all off… oh, and also those same women tried to push Nia out and she just repelled them all. So that was weird. But yeah, I honestly wasn’t into this one, mostly because the winner of the match was a foregone conclusion and nothing else really mattered. Let’s be honest; they’re not bringing back Charlotte Flair after a long hiatus just so that she can lose in the Rumble. Once I heard she was in it, there was no doubt who was winning this one and sure enough, here we are. Whatever. Not the worst Rumble match; it was largely there, but… not exciting in the least. Better luck next year.
A couple side notes worth mentioning, though; the Rumble matches now have a graphic on the bottom running throughout, bringing up various stats and also keeping track of who’s still active in the Rumble match. I think this is a new thing that they’ve added and you know what? Other than the missing gap on the bottom right corner, this is a neat idea that I wish had been implemented sooner because it not only helps the audience keep track of what’s going on in the match, but it also gives the show a bit of that sports-like presentation that makes it seem important.
Meanwhile, on a less than positive note… a lot of the entrance music is fucking horrible. Just bland, forgettable, and totally generic. This hurt the women the most because there wasn’t a point where music would hit and I would go “Who?” I don’t know who’s doing the music for these people or who’s doing the licensing, but shitcan those people posthaste and bring in someone who knows how to make good entrance music for talent. Barring all the big stars who have been around for decades now, but when the two biggest reactions come from people coming out to their TNA music, you’ve done and fucked up, son.
Finally, LOL at Michael Cole at claiming that the luxury box folks were excited for the surprise entry of Nikki Bella and then giving us a close up of two people who couldn’t be bothered to care about her surprise entry… the more things change…
WWE Tag-Team Champions Johnny Gargano and Tomasso Ciampa defeated the Motor City Machine Guns in a Best-Of-3-falls match (2-1) to retain the titles. The last fall saw outside interference from the Street Profits, who attacked MCMG to make them lose and then attack the champs to be dicks. This was a nothing match. They did the best they could, but the crowd simply didn’t care. Maybe they were too deflated with the Charlotte win… maybe we can blame her for this match not having any heat or something. Either way, this would’ve been fine for a Smackdown or something, but I guess we really needed another match to fill the void.
Hey, you know what? I’ll take a dull match if it means not having to sit through a half hour of shitty commercials. Fuck off with that noise. This is almost as bad as sitting through shitty unfunny skits booked to pad the show.
WWE Champion Cody Rhodes defeated Kevin Owens in a ladder match to retain the title. So I guess there’s no more Winged Eagle. There were a couple brutal spots here and there; mostly bodies landing on ladders in awkward means including one last drop of KO through a ladder via Alabama Slam that broke the ladder and allowed Cody to win the match. Sami Zayn was out there, no doubt conflicted over his friend getting abused by this American person, but not doing anything to prevent said American person from winning the match… and so a couple days later on RAW, KO thanked his friend for showing up by giving him a package piledriver. Thanks for coming, Sami.
Jey Uso wins the men’s Royal Rumble, which actually turned out to be the better Rumble… and not just because Joe Hendry was in it. Actually thinking about it, Hendry felt like a checkpoint of sorts between the first half full of all the spares and the latter half where they saved all the heavy hitters for last. And let’s not kid ourselves here; the back end of the Rumble had so many potential winners on hand that any of them would have been good choices. I groaned at the bait-and-switch where one job guy was beat up and replaced with some YouTube dork – probably one of Logan Paul’s buddies, so fuck him. I’m also quite shocked that for all of their attempts to make him into a viable contender for the WWE title, they did not have that Solo guy come out, opting to feature Jacob Fatu instead… and good on him because that guy is a monster and could potentially be a big deal in the near future.
As far as Jey Uso winning the Rumble… hey, you know what? I’m down with that. The people seem to like him, he gets good reactions, he’s apparently selling a lot of merch… and most of all, it’s someone new being elevated into the main event picture. So, yeah, let’s give Jey that rocket ship to fly to that next level and see how it goes. If it works out, great. If it doesn’t, well, at least they tried. I’m sure some people would rather see some other names have gotten the win… but you know those guys are just going to be in Elimination Chamber anyway, so really, what does it matter?
Oh, and to the people crying about CM Punk not only NOT winning the Rumble, but also being eliminated by LOGAN PAUL… yeah, do me a favor. Cry me a river… but keep it on your side of the border or else I might have to charge a tariff or something.
So yeah, I would categorize this as a largely fine show based mostly on the back end. The first half of it was a little long in the tooth with a ho-hum tag match and a predictable Women’s Rumble, but the ladder match and the Men’s Rumble picked up the slack and made this an enjoyable watch. The fact that it was four-and-a-half hours long and yet didn’t feel like a total sloth to sit through (again, those fucking commercials) should be a credit to the pace and overall excitement being generated over the product. Most importantly, the Rumble left us with some potential match-ups that could come to fruition either around Mania season or pehaps a little beyond that… and that’s what any good Rumble should do; tease potential future match-ups and get you excited for them if or when they do happen.
Anyway, we’ve got Elimination Chamber in March from Toronto, so that’s something to look forward to. And then next year ought to be exciting… because it’s the return of the OIL RUMBLE FROM THE BENEVOLENT AND PROGRESSIVE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA!
Fuck.
dtm666 