In this WrestleTalk News, we’ve got the reported real reason this year’s Royal Rumble
was total pants, who the original winner was supposed to be, Oli Davis’ review of Monday
Night Raw and more.
Subscribe and enable notifications to always on for daily wrestling news videos.
They’re better than this year’s Men’s Royal Rumble.
Promise.
As Adam Blampied put it in his most recent booking video, the Royal Rumble is usually
the most Rumbliest time of the year; the PPV most fans look forward to - perhaps even more
so than WrestleMania.
However, this year’s event failed to deliver.
Particularly the Men’s Rumble match, which featured little action, little surprise, little
intrigue, and an uninspiring victor.
It was reported yesterday by PWInsider that backstage morale following the show was very
low.
The day was reportedly very stressful for the wrestlers, as plans for the Rumble match
were being changed constantly, and there was also major frustrations with surprise entrant
Shane McMahon who “tried to book the Rumble around himself” according to Ringside News,
who also add that he “openly buried” producer Jamie Noble.
And an interesting report from PWInsider might also give us a bit of colour around why the
Rumble felt so grey.
In the past few years, the person who has arranged all the cool spots in the Rumble
- importantly making sure everyone gets individual moments to shine within the overall story
and get themselves over - is Triple H. According to PWInsider, several wrestlers they spoke
to backstage have pointed to his absence as a big reason why the Men’s Rumble wasn’t
as good as previous years.
Triple H hasn’t been around WWE since September last year when he had his cardiac event, which
was reportedly “very, very serious”.
Since then his cool and gritty baby NXT has been rebranded to the new and improved ‘how
do you do fellow kids’ NXT 2.0, all of his backstage team have been released, and all
of his hot prospects for future WWE stars were also fired.
It was reported recently that, when he does return to the company, there are no plans
for him to be involved with NXT creative moving forward.
The constant changing of plans around the Rumble have also started to come out, with
PWInsider saying they were told that Riddle was the frontrunner to win the match, with
Randy Orton also considered.
Now it should be noted here that Mania season is a common time for misinformation to be
fed from backstage to wrestling journalists as a way to a) to keep Mania plans as secret
as possible but more importantly b) discredit them for future reports.
And given that Riddle had zero story going into the Rumble as a single’s guy - in fact
tied up in a tag feud with Orton against Alpha Academy - I personally question the idea that
Riddle was considered to win the Royal Rumble.
For what it’s worth, however, the very reliable WrestleVotes tweeted yesterday that “only
a handful of creative members” want to split RKBro for a Mania match, adding that if the
match ever happens it should be for the WWE Championship.
So maybe there is some truth in PWInsider’s report.
But what happened with Riddle on last night’s Raw?
Let’s find out in Oli Davis’ review.
Just before that, yesterday’s video was sponsored by the awesome zombie survival game
Undead World.
We’re trying to get to 100 installs of the game, and we’ve already hit 80!
- check out our progress bar below!
- so support WrestleTalk and download and play it for free on Android or iOS.
Make sure to use our links below to get 1,000 free diamonds to kick off your gameplay.
Make sure to enter the code WRESTLE for an extra 500 diamond bonus too!
Now hop in my zombie-proofed apocalypse vehicle, as we’re going to run a load of the undead
down on the road to WrestleMania - as now it’s time for my review of Monday Night
Raw… in about 5 minutes.
Adam Pearce opened the show to tell us everything we just already saw in a video package anyway
- cheers Adam, really helpful of you! - and then made an announcement of actual substance:
new WWE Champion Bobby Lashley will be defending his title in Elimination Chamber (in Saudi
Arabia).
This forced Bobby to come out while he was midway through trying on Seth Rollins’ wardrobe
to trash Brock Lesnar - who was actually there in the building to come out too.
Guys, I don’t know if we can call Brock a part timer anymore.
Lesnar looks like he’s having so much fun right now, and his onscreen terrifying happiness
is infectious.
Imagine the complete opposite of what Ronda is doing.
Because that.
He said Lashley only won because of Roman Reigns - who he confirmed he’d be challenging
at WrestleMania - but by the time the most stupendous of premium live events rolls around…
it’s going to be title vs title.
He wants in on the Chamber too, and then closed the segment with a lot of naughty words that
had to be censored.
Just two entrants confirmed, and the Chamber is already must-see.
This was a fantastic opening segment as it did what angles are meant to do: really make
me want to see a match.
Unfortunately Vacant lost out on the Chamber’s four other spots throughout the night thanks
to a series of qualifying matches [MATCH GRAPHIC] - giving a large portion of this episode actual
significant stakes.
Seth Rollins got automatically entered first based on his DQ victory at the Royal Rumble
- which led to some fun terrible heel planning from Kevin Owens, who tried to get Rollins
to reject his place unless KO got automatically added too.
Seth and KO continue to be one of the best acts in WWE.
Side note: the graphic for their KO Show segment made it look like Owens was going to have
the WrestleMania sign as a guest.
Which is a brilliant idea.
Instead, KO had to qualify in a terrific match against Austin Theory.
Since being drafted to Raw, Owens has consistently put on match of the night contenders, and
WWE have been doing a great job of steadily building up Theory in long matches against
established stars.
And, shockingly, Theory won.
I would’ve had Austin valiantly lose and get over in defeat here, as I think people
want to see KO and Rollins in the Chamber more, and a win over Owens at this stage feels
too soon for Theory.
But it was still very well done: having Theory kick the middle rope into KO’s prizefighters,
getting over Austin’s gimmick that he’ll do anything to win and thus please his sugar
daddy Vince McMahon.
Presumably Owens will now re-enter his Damien Priest program, who wasn’t on this show
at all.
Riddle and Chad Gable’s 50 lap scooter race around the arena was somehow again very entertaining.
They had updates peppered through the first hour of the show, but then Otis wiped out
Riddle just before the finish line for Gable to win thanks to his Olympic speed suit for
zero air drag.
It’s like he’s wearing nothing at all.
Nothing at all.
Stupid, sexy Gable.
This turned into another great Chamber qualifier of Riddle vs Otis.
Riddle made Otis look awesome, bumping around for his for the majority of the match, but
he won in the end with a Floating Bro and a leg hook to win.
And the final spot was decided in AJ Styles vs Rey Mysterio.
Which is no longer a pay-per-view calibre match.
It’s premium live event quality.
They shook hands at the start - giving AJ’s 2nd fiddle to Omos goofy heel schtick a hard
reset after the last year - and they then put on a super quality TV match.
This was incredibly solid, with seamless reversals, a great back and forth final third, with AJ
rolling through a Rey crossbody into a Styles Clash to win.
Meaning the Chamber match is Lashley defending against Lesnar, Rollins, Theory, Riddle and
AJ Styles.
God damn it WWE, putting on genuinely great matches in morally compromised countries.
I don’t know how to feel!
Elsewhere on the show, Rhea Ripley beat Nikki Delusional Super Villain clean, seemingly
putting an end to their month long rivalry.
So expect them to feud repetitively until WrestleMania.
Alexa Bliss is still talking to a psychiatrist about Lily.
Expect these segments to run repetitively until WrestleMania.
Bianca Belair beat the other half of the women’s tag team champions Carmella after defeating
Zelina Vega last week.
Expect Belair to keep getting nothing wins until they find a way to pit her against Becky
at WrestleMania.
Veer Mahaan is still coming to Raw.
He said ‘soon, I will strike’.
Expect him not to strike until after WrestleMania. 43.
The Miz played mindgames with Rey while beating Dominik.
Angelo Dawkins beat Dolph Ziggler.
But, far more impressively, Angelo Dawkins won in his hometown.
And the main event angle saw the return of Grumpy Ronda Rousey, who came down to the
ring looking like she did not want to be there, cut a disinterested promo about choosing either
Charlotte or Rebecca to fight at Mania, and then judo threw Lynch, who was wearing the
shirt of a 17th centry dandy, to the ground.
It’s all frilly collars and sleeves, Lynch, that’s like a red rag to a bull for judo
throws.
Ronda was pretty horrible here, like she was only here for contractual obligations.
She’s the Matrix Resurrections of Rumble winners.
It’s almost like WWE knew that, though, as after Rousey said she’d announce her
Mania match on Friday’s SmackDown and stormed off, Lita’s music hit to set up a match
of her vs Becky at Elimination Chamber (in Saudi Arabia) in a Battle of the Redheads.
Sorry, Eva Marie.
That is not how I expected this night to end.
Full credit to WWE, the Saudi stuff still feels icky, but you can’t deny they’re
actually doing big time women’s wrestling there.
The moral offset is far from balanced, but it’s a little less 100% money grabbing sellouts.
What did you think of Raw?
Let me know in the comments.
66% of you went for Moral Dilemma: Elimination Chamber Actually Looks Awesome in our poll
on a pole match on the community tab.
This was a great post-Rumble episode, following up on the premium live event angles while
clearly setting up an exciting build to Elimination Chamber and WrestleMania.
The qualifiers imbued matches with meaning, the Lesnar and Lita stuff was great.
It was only the Rousey angle that fell flat.
This week’s Raw is… something different.
I’ve rated wrestling shows out of 5 for as long as I’ve been making videos.
But since AEW came around, some of you have gotten frustrated with the way I grade them.
I rate Raw shows against all other Raw shows, and AEW shows against AEW shows, I don’t
grade them against each other.
Which means, some weeks, both programmes could get the same rating, and everyone gets mad
and says ‘how can you say Maryse murdering Beth Phoenix with a brick is the same quality
as AEW Beach Break!?!’
I answer, because I’m not grading Raw against that.
I’m grading Raw as a WWE show.
But people don’t care so I’ve made an overly complicated percentage ratings system
purely based on my subjective enjoyment which you’ll probably all say is unfair and exhausting
to grade Raw on AEW’s scale now.
I’ve gone back to the start of the year and I’ve given a % score based on every
episode of wrestling I’ve reviewed so far.
I’m still finding my range, so some of these might change over time.
But for now: this is what it looks like.
Yeah.
Pretty arbitrary.
But this is the best, consistent method I could come up with.
And this week’s Raw was pretty damn good, so I’ve given
it 72%.
Now go watch the 10 Worst One-Time Wrestling Attires ever.