We’ve just set off on the Road to WrestleMania kids, and we’re making a few stops to pick
up your favourite part-timers.
Brock Lesnar won the men’s Royal Rumble.
Ronda Rousey won the women’s Royal Rumble.
Shane McMahon was the biggest surprise turn.
But daddy, he’s really warm and is sweating over the back seat.
Quiet, child - his father owns the company.
Maybe they shouldn’t have released half their roster?
But WWE’s going to WWE, and here’s my review of the 2022 Royal Rumble PREMIUM LIVE
EVENT in about 10 minutes.
Before we get into my review, though, it’s the biggest time of the year to be a self-hating
WWE fan!
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to us here at WrestleTalk, so you can vent and shout and critique how frustrating WWE
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Do people still cinnamon, Richy?
There was no pre-show match, which made the first hour of my watching feel like a waste
of time, but the main card opened on a huge return right off the bat: the WrestleMania
sign.
Ronda Rousey return confirmed already for their forever feud.
As per Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman’s reported backstage demands, his matches either go on
first or last to hammer home his main event status, and with two Rumble matches to fit
on this show, Roman vs Seth Rollins got the opening slot.
And for 15 minutes there, I was all ready for this to be a top to bottom fantastic show.
Roman made his entrance first despite being the champion, but it was all for the awesome
nostalgia pop of Shield Seth making the Rumble’s second surprise entrant.
Rollins entered through the crowd to the Shield music, wearing the tactical gear and making
me feel like it was almost a decade ago again.
God damn, where did the last ten years go?
It was an awesome way to start the show and, specifically, this match, as it was all about
Seth, Roman’s former brother, knowing exactly what to do to mind f him - including a Shield
style powerbomb through the announcers table just four minutes into the match, while Pat
McAfee is like, thanks guys, I’ve now got to commentate on another four hours of PREMIUM
LIVE EVENT with no table.
Roman and Seth battled like they had all finishers available from the start.
Buckle Bomb, Stomp, Spear, Spear countered into a Pedigree.
Another Spear, but whatever Roman throws at him, Seth still cackles like the Joker trying
to Fist Bump Reigns.
It was 15 minutes of high action, drama and character work.
So of course it ended in a DQ.
But not all DQs are bad.
Sometimes, when you’re telling an appropriate long term story, it’s the right thing to
do.
Roman refused to break the Guillotine despite Seth getting to the ropes.
The referee called off the match and the crowd booed heavily.
But I’d argue they were booing Roman the heel rather than WWE the company here, especially
when Reigns properly snapped, getting a chair to whack Seth from behind in a mirror image
of when Rollins betrayed the Shield all those years ago.
Suddenly, the post-match became about Roman’s psyche.
About his own crisis of Ego when going up against his former head of the table.
Crucially, it made me want to see the story continue, because Seth not only got the DQ
win, he got the psychological one too.
And then the Women’s Rumble was one of the top five they’ve ever done.
Sasha Banks came out at number one dressed as a Pokemon or something - I don’t know,
I don’t watch anime - to be met by former QuizzleMania champion Melina at Number 2.
This was the template most of the match took: one or two current stars, with nostalgia returns
spread neatly between.
Kelly Kelly with her arms still up in the air, Michelle McCool, getting that Undertaker’s
wife push, Sonya Deville, Cameron, Brie Bella, and Brie Bella again!
I’m seeing double, four Bella Twins!
IMPACT Knockout’s Champion Mickie James, one of the best nostalgia returns of all time
- Ivory in her Right To Censor gimmick cutting a promo on all the lost little girls in the
ring - Alicia Fox, Summer Rae, Sarah Logan with the gay meat, Lita, Might Molly, and,
of course, the match’s not-so-surprise winner, the returning Ronda Rousey,
That’s 14 nostalgia or surprise entrants, which not only lent the match their legend
status star power, it also condescended the active competitor entries into feeling like
legit challengers - with the Rumble making Sasha Banks, Liv Morgan, Bianca Belair, Naomi,
Rhea Ripley, Charlotte Flair (obviously), and Shayna Baszler feel like they could win.
Until Rousey showed up, of course.
Perhaps I just feel this way because of how utterly uninspiring the men’s line-up was,
but the women’s Rumble felt that any number of people could and should win.
Even Ripley, who’s been booked into oblivion on Raw for years, felt renewed here chucking
out both women’s tag team champions.
There were some excellent spots too - with the Ivory promo, Mickie going right for McCool,
reigniting their Piggie James feud, Brie Bella leading the crowd in Yes chants - Bryan Danielson
in the men’s Rumble confirmed - Alicia Fox seemingly immediately botching a spot with
Natalya, Sarah Logan and Liv Morgan getting an emotional Riott Squad beat together - Ruby
Soho in the women’s Rumble confirmed - Lita brawling with Charlotte Flair, Ronda’s return,
Shayna getting a moment with Rousey, Belair’s ironwoman performance, and Nikki Almost a
Superhero jumping Molly Holly on her entrance and eliminating her.
The only criticisms I really have are that they should’ve given Liv and Logan a bit
more together, and Banks should’ve lasted longer to interact with Belair, who entered
right after Sasha was eliminated.
And, I guess, the ending.
Not that Ronda won, because I think that’s great.
It’s a huge return, she’s great to watch and it’ll bring mainstream attention onto
WWE when they need it most.
It’s who she finished the Rumble with.
Not Shayna or Belair or Ripley… but already SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair.
Likely meaning they’ll be having the WrestleMania match.
Speaking of, yes Ronda did point at the WrestleMania sign hard afterwards.
In fact, she pointed at it so hard, the sign legitimately caught fire.
That fancy pyro me and you saw at home was actually a very real fire hazard in the building.
Fans seated under the sign were reportedly evacuated from their seats, the sign was brought
down, put out with fire extinguishers and raised again.
Unfortunately for Becky Lynch and Doudrop, it was just another obstacle in their uphill
struggle.
It was heel vs heel, Doudrop was never built up as a serious contender, the crowd were
recovering from an action-packed Women’s Rumble just before and the WrestleMania sign
was on fire - this was a fine match, but all the above sapped the life out of it.
Becky won with a Man Slam off the second rope.
Brock Lesnar vs Bobby Lashley was never a match that was meant to happen, despite being
20 years in the making.
Brock was only WWE Champion because Roman got covid for Day One.
But despite that, the hype was real.
It’s a never been done before dream match of two wrestlers with eerily parallel career
paths.
Two legit MMA guys with heavyweight hoss power.
And it was alright.
The match never lived up to expectations.
It went ten minutes and had all the usual Heyman finisher pacing - suplex, spear, F5,
spear, suplex, suplex.
Which was cool, but I’d actually seen this match at WrestleMania 33 with Brock vs Goldberg.
The referee got knocked out, Brock got a visible pin, but Roman came down and sided with Heyman
again to knock out Lesnar with the belt.
Lashley rather weakly won the WWE Championship, but it all went according to plan.
Where Heyman sides with Lesnar to help him win the title to then turn on Lesnar so he
loses a title.
It’s a weird plan, but it is a plan.
I think there’s some psychological benefit there?
That was followed by Edge and Beth Phoenix beating Miz and Maryse in a match designed
around Maryse running away from people, but then hitting a top rope hurricanrana which
was actually really cool.
Stereo spears and Glam Slams from the Grit Couple to win, and hopefully now Edge can
have a feud we actually want to see now.
And then came the most boring and thus worst men’s Royal Rumble match since 2015 when
Roman won.
It started off promising with AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura coming out as numbers 1
and 2 like it’s New Japan 2015.
But then that was it.
For about 50 minutes, I sat there in 90 second intervals waiting for something interesting
to happen, as midcarder or badly booked former main eventer came out one after the other.
In the opposite to the women’s match, the men’s Rumble felt like 90% filler, packed
out with lower midcarders and tag teams.
After Styles and Nakamura we had, in this order, Austin Theory, Robert Roode, Ridge
Holland, Montez Ford, Damien Priest, Sami Zayn, Johnny Knoxville, Angelo Dawkins, Omos,
Ricochet, Chad Gable, Dominik Mysterio, Happy Corbin, Dolph Ziggler, Sheamus, Rick Boogs
and Madcap Moss.
There’s a lot of people there I really like, but do I buy them as legit Rumble winners?
No.
They’re nowhere near.
At some points, I thought I’d accidentally started watching Survivor Series’ Rock commemoration
Battle Royal to win a Pizza Hut.
The star power picked up slightly afterwards, with Riddle, Drew McIntyre, Kevin Owens, Big
E and Randy Orton coming out, along with celebrity entrant Bad Bunny and surprise entrants Shane
McMahon and Brock Lesnar, but they were too little too late.
It didn’t help that the spots didn’t work either.
Omos’ big giant stuff simply hasn’t gotten over.
Knoxville only took a Frog Splash rather than a proper Jackass worthy stunt.
And, in the most encapsulating image of this Rumble, Kofi Kingston’s daredevil escape
bit was botched, when his feet touched the floor when he was meant to hold onto the barricade
- somewhat derailing the next few minutes, especially when Big E came out two people
later.
You remember Big E, right?
He was WWE Champion four weeks ago.
Lesnar came out at Number 30, and dumped out everyone to win - where the final four where
him, McIntyre, the boss’ son and a celebrity rapper.
Who negotiated a final spot in the Rumble at such short notice if Heyman is no longer
Brock’s manager?
Expect that question to never be addressed.
This is what happens when WWE only care about one story in their whole men’s division.
Both top titles and the whole men’s Rumble was designed purely to build one match: Lesnar
vs Reigns.
And it’s a decent story, but it means it’s hard to care about anything else.
And just to hammer home how little WWE cares about its fans enjoyment?
Here’s a Reddit post from itsnotaboutthecell, who was at the show.
“We were seated under the Wrestlemania sign.
After the Women’s Rumble winners fireworks the back of the sign caught fire and had some
light cinders going for a while, they asked us all to clear the area.
Eventually we were able to return to our seats.
As the Men’s Rumble was starting the WWE staff came around and said that as the Rumble
approaches it’s end that we would need to clear out of our seats.
This perfectly sums up our experience - that it was more important to get a shot for TV
than it was to protect your paying customers live attendance.”
Maybe just don’t do the pyro?
What did you think of the Royal Rumble?
Let me know in the comments.
68% of you are easily pleased, voting for SETH DID THE SHIELD ENTRANCE!
In our poll on a pole match on the community tab.
After a great opening with Reigns vs Seth and the women’s Rumble, the show collapsed
into its own mediocrity.
After Day One, I was excited about where WWE were going.
Here, I don’t care.
And that men’s Rumble fell far, far short of the great matches we’ve had in recent
history.
A very, very disappointing 2 out of 5.
But WWE aren’t alone.
We too at WrestleTalk are repetitive - because for the second year in a row, in a genuine
tombola where we randomly assign numbers, Andy Datson and Adam Blampied won our Jamble
matches, which is over a one in a hundred chance of happening again.
They’ll fight for the Jampionship at WrestleJamia!
Watch the insane live reactions from the show…