On January 29th, the very first WWE Pay-per-view came in with one of the most hyped of each year, the Royal Rumble. The Royal Rumble is always aptly looked forward to for the “Spot fest” match the it gets it’s name from, the Royal Rumble match. The Royal Rumble match is an hour long match in which the thirty men all fight their hardest to be the last one standing in the ring. At the start of the match, two men enter, their placements chosen at random by raffle, and try to throw the other over the top rope of the ring, and onto the ground before. Once the match starts, and two minute timer begins, and at the end of those two minutes, the next wrestler is sent down, no matter how many people are currently in the ring at the time. This continues until all thirty men have been sent down, and the match full ends when there is only one person left in the ring.

The Rumble is acclaimed each year for being the kind of match that anyone can enter, and win. There are always conjecture as to who will be a surprise entrant, who will eliminate more people, who will be the last man standing? The Rumble is exciting because it kicks off the, “Road to Wrestlemania,” with the winner of the Rumble going on to main event Wrestlemania in April.

So with the Rumble now over, how did it go? In my mind, it was a great pay-per-view, until the match itself.

To start the pay-per-view, (I’m ignoring the pre-show) we had Charlotte defending her Women’s Title against Bayley. I personally love Bayley. I think she’s adorable, and you can tell just by looking at her in the ring that her whole heart is in the art of wrestling. Charlotte is the same. An extremely athletic woman who proves to the world that women can be just as good, and many better wrestlers than men. Their match was great, though the Natural Selection on the ring apron came off as a little stilted, and I fully agree with Charlotte’s win. Bayley needs more time to build support for her title win, which I predict will come at Wrestlemania.

Next we have Kevin Owens defending the WWE Universal Title against Roman Reigns in a No-Disqualification match, while Owens’ best buddy Chris Jericho was locked in a shark cage hanging above the ring. Kevin Owens is one of my favorite superstars of the modern day. His character, style, and moves have really appealed to me, and I can’t help but root for him in any match he’s in. This one was no different, and it isn’t helped by the fact that I am by no means a Roman Reigns fan. Owens knows how to tell a story in the ring, and while Reigns isn’t the greatest, Owens was easily able to lead him through an entertaining match. Filled with several great spots, and a little chair fort that Owens built, which was then his own downfall. My biggest problem with the match was that Reigns was able to withstand a frog splash through a table, Superman Punch with brass knuckles, and a Stunner, IN TEXAS, and kick out of all of them. I know that the WWE are trying to make Reigns the new Cena, with the superman effect and everything, but I despise that. I want my heroes to be flawed, not perfect and unbeatable. Reigns almost pinned Owens, but was interrupted by Braun Strowman, who came in to disrupt the pin, and chokeslam Reigns onto the announce table. After the interruption, Owens was able to pin Reigns for the win.

The third match was a cruiserweight match between Rich Swann and Neville. I haven’t really paid much attention to the cruiserweight division, but the match was very entertaining, and ended with Neville winning the title off of Swann

The last match before the rumble was another in the classics that both AJ Styles and John Cena have put up in their series. These two men have great chemistry, and worked hard to put on a good show. The fact that Styles kicked out of multiple AAs, including an Avalanche AA from the top rope, makes him look like a monster, and for much of the match, it looked like Cena was up against the ropes. Styles pulled the best out of Cena, and Cena showed us some tricks that we have never seen from him before. The finale of the match with two AAs to finally keep Styles down looked amazing, and I found it fitting for Cena to win, even if I am not a fan of his.

Finally, we had the rumble. The first two entrants were Big Cass, and Chris Jericho, and from the beginning, I had a feeling that this would finally be Jericho’s year. I thought he would be the Iron Man and go the distance. The match itself though, dragged in several areas. There were several long periods of time where no one would be eliminated, or the majority of wrestlers in the ring would just be lying around. Braun Strowman brought in some excitement at number seven by being the monster who threw people left and right, and he did end up earning the most eliminations of the night, but many things were boring. Probably the most surprising entrant for me was the Big Show, and not because it was the Big Show, but because he looked to be in one of the best shapes in his life. I don’t know what he’s been doing lately, but he looked perfectly primed for an event like this. At twenty-six, Brock Lesnar came out, the Beast, and a Beast he was, eliminating three men quickly, before Goldberg came out. I have a special tie to Goldberg, mostly because he looks like my dad and it makes me laugh, but it was an absolute treat to see him come out, and throw Lesnar out like a chump. They are building towards a huge match at Wrestlemania, and I’m hoping the Goldberg’s stamina stays up for it. But what could be better than seeing a legend throwing out the Beast? Well that would be seeing THE legend throw out Goldberg. Next came The Undertaker. The Phenom appeared in the ring, and tossed out Goldberg with ease. He was a monster, completely owning his ring in his state. In my mind, it would take a team of men to take him out, but WWE had different plans…

There was a lot of hype over who would be the thirty spot. We were hoping for any kind of big surprise entrant. Maybe Samoa Joe? Maybe Finn Balor? Maybe Kurt Angle? But no. Instead, we got Roman Reigns. This was like WWE spitting into the face of the fans. After Reigns horrendous win in 2015, and mocking in 2016, I was truly afraid they were going to try it again. But I think the thing that upset me the most was that the first person he eliminated, all by himself, was The Undertaker. Undertaker is a legend, and both he, and we as fans, deserve to be treated better than that. From that point on my opinion of the match was spoiled. The Final Four was left with Reigns, Bray Wyatt, Randy Orton, and Chris Jericho. There was a small glimmer of hope that Jericho could still pull it out, but it was completely stomped with his quick elimination. Then you had the Wyatt family teaming against Reigns, but Roman eliminated Wyatt, almost leaving it to a forgone conclusion, when suddenly Orton eliminated Reigns to great surprise. And while everyone was happy Reigns didn’t win again, is this really what we want?

Randy Orton is going to challenge John Cena for the WWE Title at Wrestlemania, and we’ve all seen that match so many times before, that it bores me just thinking about it. I really hope WWE throw us a curveball soon, but we’ll see.