WWE Royal Rumble 2018 Gently Behind Blog

1. Kalisto/Gran Metalik/Lince Dorado vs. TJ Perkins/Jack Gallagher/Drew Gulak

ER: This was fine but with guys like this you always know it could be so much more. And it's done so damn far ahead of the actual PPV start time that hardly anybody is there. The small crowd watching does give Gulak a nice "PowerPoint" chant. We get a triple moonsault spot that took way too long to set up, Metalik hit a nice elbow off the middle rope after Gallagher missed a splash off the middle (are they doing some kind of "Gallagher is unathletic doof" angle or something?), liked a bump Gulak took to the floor, but yeah this could have been much more than it was.

2. The Revival vs. Karl Anderson/Luke Gallows

ER: The Revival are taking the WWE by storm! I liked Revival going after Anderson's knee, battering it with punches, dropping cool Indian deathlock snaps, cutting off the ring nicely. I liked how Anderson eventually got the hot tag, with Wilder almost stopping him but instead shoving him closer to Gallows. Gallows had a nice hot tag, big lariats, great standing splash, Dawson did an awesome spit take on an uppercut, Gallows took a great running bump into the ring post, loved the chop block to Anderson to take him out. This was quality tag wrestling, good match up.

3. Bobby Roode vs. Mojo Rawley

ER: I wasn't into Rawley when he first came into NXT, but I've really gotten into him the last several months. He's really busting ass and it's hard not to get into a guy who loves crashing into people. He gives me what I want by rolling to the floor after Roode and just plastering him into the barricade. Mojo gets guys up to great heights on slams and does cool little things more people should do (but don't) like grinding forearms across jaws during pinfalls. Roode has a decent spinebuster, but the ending could have been better. Rawley ran in for the punch, at boots, and then took a delayed DDT. I was hoping it would take a bit more to put down Mojo. Good enough match.

4. Sami Zayn/Kevin Owens vs. AJ Styles

ER: I don't really like the concept of this handicap match for the title, though I've been liking Zayn as a shitty Owens stooge. He's good at letting his his boy get some rest while he locks in a nice chinlock with his knee grinding into Styles' back. And Styles has been really great fighting the odds. Owens misses the canonball into the corner in awesome fashion, and Owens has been a good shithead always tagging Zayn in whenever he gets into trouble. Zayn gets a good save on the calf crusher, and Owens hits the ringpost hard, and again scrambling Styles has been really great. Zayn is awesome throwing an extra rotation into the Blue Thunder Bomb and I thought that could have been it (since it followed an Owens superkick). Crowd is way behind Styles: Great Babyface. The end run is really good, hot stretch, loved Zayn fighting to tag Owens in, Zayn gets knocked to the floor and Owens runs in to hit the pop up powerbomb (which I assumed was happening) and Styles reversed it to a great roll up win. Styles really can't do much wrong at this point.

5. 2/3 Falls: Shelton Benjamin/Chad Gable vs. The Usos

ER: We get a lot of knee work from Gable/Benjamin, and while the knee work in the Revival match was more vicious, it's something I can get behind in a big tag match. Just like in that match we get nice ring cut off spots, and Gable is a total Tasmania devil, loved him hitting this big diving axe handle while Benjamin had Jimmy's leg grapevined, and both of them knocking Jey off the apron. Benjamin brings nice mocking kicks and Jimmy fighting back with the bad wheel was good. Jey's hot tag was big time, huge lariat to knock Gable to the floor, big dives on Benjamin and then Gable, big crossbody on Gable, great house of fire stuff. 2/3 Falls matches aren't things that happen a lot in WWE, and it's weird as they're building this whole first fall the same way they build a normal tag match. Is this match going to go 45 minutes?? We've had as many false finishes and nearfalls as a typical single fall PPV tag, so the match has been at least as good as that. Benjamin powerbombing one of them into the other I thought for sure would get a fall, and Gable hitting that moonsault to the floor was huge (luckily there were only like 200 people in the crowd when the 205 guys hit their triple moonsault earlier). Seriously Usos just hit the big splash on Gable and that didn't get the pin! This is great. The timing on the superkick fall 1 finish was real good, with Gable ducking one only to be hit by the other, then getting sandwiched between two of them. Killer first fall. It is surprising how quickly Gable shrugs them off though, as he's up shortly after throwing punches on the floor. But it's worth it as the dispose of Jimmy with a powerbomb on the floor. Oh and then Benjamin just gets rolled up for fall 2. That's a bummer. This was well on its way to being an all time great PPV tag match, and then with that ending it would have just been better if it was a one fall match.

6. Men's Rumble Match

ER: Are they actually going with the Women's Rumble as the main event? Balor's ring entrance allows me to catch up several minutes, and we should all be happy we got Rusev #1 since that allowed us a proper English introduction. But I hope Balor being in early just means he's out early. Rhyno has been back for like a year and a half and Phil texts me to ask if Rhyno is a "surprise entrant". "...but people don't seem very surprised." We get a Finlay and Adam Pearce sighting during all the awesome chaos of Corbin's elimination. Corbin was awesome crushing Balor and Rusev, then blasting poor Slater with a lariat on his entrance. I always hate that there aren't more dudes getting leveled during their entrance. You often see eliminated guys walking past new entrants, I would be pissed if I had just gotten eliminated. You take those aggressions out, Corbin! Poor Slater gets kicked by Elias while he's down, and I eagerly await a future Rumble by the Numbers video saying there's only one man to enter the Rumble carrying a guitar. Sorry, Honky. Almas is a cool entrant and also puts the boots to Slater. I genuinely hope Slater gets a nice run late in the match because of this. Wyatt hits some nice meaty lariats on his entrance and Big E eats a nice high kick from Rusev. You heard it here first, Tye Dillinger will not win this Rumble. Awww, and the poor guy is getting jumped in the back. Now they keep cutting away from every new entrant beating down Heath Slater. Give the man his camera time! The match hasn't had a standout performer yet, but nobody has looked bad. AWWWWWW YEAHHHHHH we get some killer ginger on ginger violence with Slater giving Sheamus the Santino elimination, great moment. Overall nice use of Slater in this, he's my performer of the match so far. Woods has those Rumble-perfect hooked boots, really helps stop any potential Harley Race bumps to the floor. We're getting a pretty clogged ring at this point, and WAY too many guys just lying around on the apron. This is lazy guys. We need guys like Goldust and Finlay and Piper in these middle portions to keep guys working and active. Either his music was super loud, or the crowd was shockingly silent.

Apollo Crews takes a nice back bump elimination, and Rachel asks "Why didn't I even notice Crews out there?" which really has been the story of his WWE call up. Rollins has the shittiest flame tights. They are the Guy Fieri of tights. I genuinely look forward to the Kofi fake out elimination every year, it's the Shyamalan twist that everyone expects, even more than the Shyamalan twist, except these are always fun. Hurricane is a fun surprise entrant, last I saw in TNA he was still taking way bigger bumps than he should be. Surprised WWE hasn't reached out to bring him back over the last couple years, just for potential merch sales. Well, he was gone as I finished typing that. Aiden English has a hot entrance, throwing some really great punches on Cena, great left jab and a cool right uppercut. It's kind of wild to think that now when the Miz comes out during a Rumble, he seems like a guy who is a favorite to win, as opposed to feeling like a Max Moon entrance. Mysterio coming out is a huge shock, and he looks in great shape. Leaner than his main event run, and wearing TIGHTS because no knee braces!! Hopefully he's feeling much better, with all his surgeries it looked like he wouldn't be wrestling that much longer. I have never been impressed at all with Adam Cole, and him not seeming to know how to get headscissored over the top doesn't help with that. We do eventually get Goldust, but again they messed up not having him enter in the middle. You need a great old school worker to make the middle section interesting. What is on Ziggler's tights? Is it the landlord ghoul Markula from Aqua Teen? Orton was just a stupid choice for winner last year, so at least we don't have that nonsense. Balor is still entirely uninteresting. The final four has been pretty boring. Balor's offense looks really horrendous against all these guys. Those spinny slingblades are a contender for worst trademark offense right there. Very happy with his elimination into pancakes (who the hell hasn't cleaned up the pancakes yet?!). Surprised Nak got to eliminate Cena. I'm a fan but his main roster run has been underwhelming to say the least. Fans are into him and he has charisma, but has he been in even one really good match since call up? And WOW I honestly cannot believe Nakamura got the win. That's a true surprise. Holy crap. I liked the showdown with he and Roman, but wow. (Ed: Phil is telling me that Nakamura was the obvious choice to win, so it's very clear that I didn't pay any kind of attention to the build up for this thing)

7. Jason Jordan/Seth Rollins vs. Cesaro/Sheamus

ER: This is a tough one as I would have liked to see a good Jordan FIP section, but that would build to a flimsy Rollins hot tag, so getting a Jordan hot tag is probably better. It makes for a kind of boring match though, and the crowd is burnt from the Rumble. Sheamus and Cesaro bump big at least, with Sheamus (always good at) taking a big ringpost bump and Cesaro going super quick to the floor. Fans sorta get behind Rollins' comeback, but the camera wisely cuts away fast from his low superkick. Jordan is now selling a ringpost shot longer than any man in history, I assume on purpose to lead to a turn? But either way it was way too much Rollins in this match. I was excited to see Jordan match up with Sheamus and Cesaro, so not what I was hoping for out of the match. Crowd is either tired or felt the same as me.

8. Braun Strowman vs. Kane vs. Brock Lesnar

ER: Loved the start of this, and the Brock/Braun tradeoff was awesome. Braun knees Brock in the ear and Lesnar punches Braun in the ear. Yes please. Brock blasts Kane with a chair and Braun punches him through it, yes. Kane is a total choad in this one, just slowly getting in the way of fire, which is ironic due to his burn history. I do kind of like the chaos the match devolves into, the No DQ stip was at least smart for that. But it also hurts the momentum of things. Braun and Brock are both nutty bumpers, so of course we get some big table bumps. Loved the powerslams through tables, these guys are crazy. Match was good enough, but would have been better without Kane. Kane was obviously in there to eat the pin so my opinions aren't unique.

9. Women's Rumble Match

ER: We know everybody is rooting for surprise entrant Big Steph. True Champion of Women. Is there a weird "every woman needs a singlet" rule going around? They switched Carmella into that unflattering bathing suit with brown leggings, now Lynch is in one. Is this the new hair extensions? Three man booths are always terrible, and adding Steph to one has shockingly not changed that fact. She keeps coming into the conversation at the most awkward times. I want Mandy Rose to win this damn thing. Team Mandy all the damn way. A lot of the strikes in this match look flat out terrible. Sasha had the worst kicks in the corner, Lita's kicks looked as filmsy as they did a decade ago. Sane's spear look like it wouldn't break paper, but her sliding elbow looked great. Her flying elbows are always awesome. We all needed this big Tamina run. The world needed it. That Lita moonsault was always a potential neckbreaker when she was in her prime, and that certainly hasn't changed. It's amazing that she never leaps into them, she just kind of falls backwards. So dangerous looking. Brooke has sadly dropped the York outfit. They're keeping numbers down, which is smart, but they're going about it kind of lazily by having someone come in, go on a big run of offense while everyone lies around, then get eliminated. Torrie Wilson might look better now than during her wrestling "prime", though you might be shocked to know that in 10 years of inactivity her wrestling ability has not actually improved. Everybody knows anything post Rose elimination is bullshit anyway. But the Molly surprise was a nice one, always one of my favorites. And the Riott Squad jumping Lana was some of the first stuff in this match that's actually looked good. It's kind of shocking how so many of these surprise returns look almost exactly the same as their last appearances. They've all aged startlingly well. But it's a pretty stupid move to have McCool eliminate two members of the Riott Squad. Becky Lynch has been in this thing the entire time and has done nothing noteworthy. I think she may have thrown a nice uppercut like 20 minutes ago. Vickie is a nice surprise, but now that Kelly Kelly is out I will be pissed if we get no Layla. Layla never got enough respect. You'll be shocked to know that Kelly is not good at wrestling in 2017, but I liked her aggressively going after Nia. The stuff with Naomi avoiding letting her feet touch was fun, you could really see Jacqueline making damn sure to hold onto her foot to not let it touch. The Ember/Asuka stuff was probably the best in the match, wish it would've went a bit longer. It should be noted that - I know earlier I said Steph was awful on commentary, but - Michael Cole has been a flat out goober during the whole match. His scripted talking points could really not be delivered any flatter than he's done. The kicker was when Trish and Mickie squared off and he goes "Guys I just got goose bumps!" It's so bad. Nia shoulda run the damn boards on this thing. I definitely was not thinking we'd get a Bellas final 4. The Asuka/Nikki stuff is awesome, I'd love a singles match with these two. The single leg choke to drag Nikki to the apron was great, totally nasty looking.

ER: I liked Ronda's Piper gear a lot and Joan Jett entrance music is a nice get.

ER: There wasn't really anything blowaway great on this show, but for a really long show I thought it delivered. The Men's Rumble was easily one of the best Rumbles in recent memory, the Women's one was a fun experiment and putting it on as the main was an impressive gamble, the 2/3 falls tag was close to being special, Braun and Brock made me want to see more of them against each other, Styles continues his great run. It was a good show.