WWE Royal Rumble 2017 Not Live Blog

ER: Okay didn't realize this show started at apparently noon, so I'm already in a deep pit of lateness.

1. Nikki Bella/Naomi/Becky Lynch vs. Natalya/Mickie James/Alexa Bliss

ER: So weird that they had Natalya as a babyface for so long. Anybody who has watched Natalya for a minute realizes she's a much better heel. Of course, Nikki seems like a better heel too. Hmmm. We get a convoluted suplex train. And Becky takes a mean bump into the railing. Later, she whiffs on an enziguiri. Lynch giveth, and taketh away. Naomi is a great hot tag and all her big offense looks nice, big springboard dropkick and the split legged moonsault to finish was apt. Still this match was a major flop. All these supposedly hated feuds all got dealt with in a rushed and inconsequential match. Mickie James returns and is already hardly used in a six man, Nikki hardly goes after Natalya, just a pointless trios.

2. Sheamus/Cesaro vs. Luke Gallows/Karl Anderson

ER: I dig how this starts with Cesaro dishing flying uppercuts, cool double teams (that rolling senton with double stomp!), but Anderson steals my hard in this match. He gets a lot of shit online it seems, but he was awesome here. His shotgun kick looked great, all his other kicks looked great, his roll up "hold the ropes" sneakiness was done really well, just really liked how he worked opposite both guys.

3. Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax

ER: Liked some of Nia's big power offense in this, and LOVED her awesome standing submission, and Sasha'a flying knees off the top, but was really hoping for more here. This was too brief to be anything but angle.

4. Bayley vs. Charlotte

ER: This starts a little sloppy with a little rope running cross up and then a kind of sloppy rana through the ropes to the floor. But Bayely is really great at being tossed around by Charlotte and makes all of her "I'm going to take your head and throw it towards the mat" offense look good. Bayley does a 18 rope jump crossbody that is ridiculous but also kind of awesome. Bayley's elbow drop is real great and they wisely show it in slo mo, looked killer. Charlotte gets busted open and the ending was pretty great, with that face buster on the apron looking nasty, but also coming off not totally "clean", so Bayley shouldn't be hurt by it.

5. Kevin Owens vs. Roman Reigns

ER: I kinda enjoyed the crowd brawling, Steen was good at bouncing his face off things. The chair set up makes me nervous. Nobody should go through that. I do like both men getting caught with moves because they were busy setting up props. That makes sense. The table spot looked insane and Reigns takes a brutal header into a chair in the corner, and I LOVE Jericho dropping the knux to him. That's beautiful. You knew someone was going through those damn chairs and it least they made the most of it with all the camera angles.

6. Neville vs. Rich Swann

ER: I don't know how well these two will match up but I do love Neville as a heel. Neville does a nice job of occupying himself during Swann's kick combos, which is all you can really ask. He's really great at getting in position for Swann and Swann gets impressive height on his stuff AND lands with a nice thud. And that's all you can really ask from Swann. The match was perfectly fine and I liked the ending sub, overall it was fine junk food.

7. AJ Styles vs. John Cena

ER: This should be a good one, and it starts out meeting those expectations, with Cena throwing some neat stick and move punches and Styles just flying around like crazy. Huge back body drop, big pancake bump, slick rana, both guys working super hard. Loved Cena throwing big ol' soupbones while AJ was on the top rope. Cena is really tightening things up here and AJ is a total bump freak for him. Admittedly I was talking with friends while this match was happening, and I really liked a lot of what I saw. But my focus was assuredly not 100%. For all I know I could rewatch it and end up hating all the transitions and kickouts or who knows what else. From watching it distracted, it felt like a great match. But it's going to need a rewatch to be certain.

8. Rumble Match

(I'm watching with some friends and one has to leave early, so I skipped ahead to the Rumble and will go back and watch Styles/Cena)

And hey we start with Big Cass and Jericho so...that's a start. Kalisto, Mojo Rawley, this really is starting out with some fart noises. Okay, Jack Gallagher needs to go ALLLLL the way. So awesome that he went from where he was a year ago, to a gig in WWE. And holy shit that elimination bump from Gallagher was awesome. I love him for holding onto the umbrella the whole way down. Beautiful. Braun Strowman gives a gift to all of us by eliminating Cass and Mojo. Bless you Braun. Man now Big Show is in!? This is a really hoss-y Rumble so far, which is a platform I can get behind. Hats off to Ellsworth for his elimination. Love it. Corbin is having a nice showing so far. Kofi awesomely found another fun trick to sneak into the match. Him dodging a Corbin strike and gripping onto the ring post was a killer moment. I love that I can look forward to Kofi doing one awesome thing once a year. Bray has a great entrance, loved all the cell phone light fireflys looked amazing, and then he does a massive uranage to Miz, beastly lariat to Kofi, really looking inspired these last couple months. Enzo is really great at taking a dangerous, untrained looking bump in big matches. So I'm glad they properly used him for that. But Ellsworth has the bump of the night. His elimination was devastating. Rusev just chucked him. And I did NOT think Orton would win. I thought he was a potential winner, but didn't think he would actually win. And he's probably one of the least interesting winner choices. But, the Rumble itself was overall really fun.