El-P

Great Rumble. One of the best. And so... It has to be about the big time angle, because they have no hope to even try to follow this. So, you know, it has to be about : STEPHY.

No shit. This has been the best Rumble in forever.

I thought Taker would be #30. Silly me. Goldust really didn't get that much of a pop, sadly.

The opposite would be even more hilarious though. #trolling

Holy fucking shit.

Molly Holly in the Women's Rumble. Don't quote me on that, but after the Hurricane, would be kinda fun.

Yeah, great spot. Fun Rumble thus far.

Matt Hardy is over only thanks to TNA. They got Rusev out before Reigns showed up. Smart. But sad.

Cesaro knows how to work the ropes and how to make an elimination look spectacular. Kofi's spot was goofy as hell.

Ok, that was funny.

The guys selling forever outside after the Corbin beatdown is ridiculous. Elias kick to Slater was funny. Cien ! Well, that's cool.

Great way to start the whole thing. Love me some Rusev Day. Yeah, Rhyno looks like his arms and legs are too short and his head too big.

Yeah, seriously. WE KNOW THE FUCKING RULES ! WE DON'T CARE ABOUT THE STATS !

STEPH IS GONNA CLOSE THE SHOW. You can quote me on that one.

Odd finish. The Usos and Gable are excellent, but Benjamin is just there, and not even in a Tim Horner way. Good-ish match.

Sure feels like it already. I miss the Authors of Pain. Is Benjamin considered any good ?

I'll never get this am/pm stuff. It's 1:42 am of course. It's night-time. And Shelton Benjamin is actively boring me. I miss the New Day.

Merci bien. It's only 1:30 PM here, so I don't need coffee yet. Yep. That was actually refreshing. I don't think the Kane match will run long either. It won't, right ?

It turned into a good match despite the stupid gimmick. You just can't deny AJ Styles. I'd like AJ vs Zayn.

You've all fell asleep already ? I miss John Cena.

I forgot I could actually watch the pre-show online. Ok, so Flair is there. Crazy to think the 1992 Royal Rumble was the very first PPV I saw. 26 years ago. I'm old...

Women's Revolutiontm Royal Rumble match featuring STEPHANIE McMAHON The Annual Trolling Festival AJ Styles vs Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn (aka The Quebecers II) The Usos vs American Alp… well, Chad Gable and Jordan's replacement Seth Rollins & Jason Jordan vs Cesaro & Sheamus (who's gonna get badly hurt by Seth this time ?) Brock Lesnar vs Braun Strowman vs …awww fuck I'm watching it in French. I won't have to hear Stephy. Guess who won the pony ?

It's not even a matter of hating it. I can see why it's praised to hell, but it just didn't click with me, or only in parts (and I'm actually kinda sad it didn't). Maybe not following NXT hurt my perception too, but I don't follow NJ either and was way into Naito vs Okada. I may want to rewatch it while rested. (Well I should rest now if I want to watch the Rumble during the night too, because it begins at 1pm here...)

I guess I'm gonna be somewhat of the black sheep on this one. Yeah, I know. AOP vs Fish & O'Reilly was a good opener. Nothing special. I don't care one bit about any element of the AOP presentation (don't like the look, the name, Ellering is useless), but they have improved. Fish & O'Reilly are fun and obviously the one carrying the bulk of the match, but AOP did work well as babyfaces here. First look at Velveteen Dream. Great intro. Fun gimmick of the 30 sc knock out. For the rest, well, he's basically Johnny B. Bad in 1992. Some really fucking sloppy stuff here. Tons of improvement before he's anything in the ring, but he's got the rest (gimmick, character, presentation). Balls Mahoney looked the best I've seen in years. Shayna vs Ember Moon, well, I've talked about it in this particular match thread. Best match as far as story went, as Shayna is terrific as a character, although I'm not too impressed with her submission work. It's fine, it's nothing special except the damn elbow spot which is awesome. Like Ember's work a lot. Good match but damn, Shayna the Submission Magician can't get a girl with a fucked up elbow to tap out ? Stayed way too long in the armbar before the cool finish. Adam Cole vs Aleister Black. For a while, I thought this was the most deliberate WCW garbage match I've seen but it did pick up and I get that they were slowly building toward sick shit and an effective run-in. This ended up being my favourite match when all was said and done. Cole is quite the good asshole and I'm sold on Black as a worker. And.... yeah. I know. This was way too fucking long especially to get to that result with that spot. Cien's entrance was great, Gargano is a great babyface, but honestly I got bored after 10 minutes. If you watch that in a void, there's no way, just watching the match, to get the dynamic of Cien = heel and Gargano = underdog. No way. They worked a zillion spots, never established any kind of dynamic until the last part where finally, Vegas started to interfere and they brought me back in. Now, it got interesting again, but I really was lost for a whole middle section. Super cool spot with Gargano's better half, but then it went too long again until that shitty finish with that shitty spot. Drapping DDT and that awful footsomp where the guy has to hold himself on the ropes, that's a bit much for the same guy. Anyway. Didn't feel like this was anything more than a "do a zillion spots" match, well done for what it was but devoid of good story (apart from the one that was hammered by the announcers but wasn't happening in the ring to me). So there. Maybe I was just tired (which I am), but it didn't click with me. Maybe it just went over my head. Maybe everyone is drinking the NXT Kool-Aid (yeah, gotta have an ECW reference in Philly). (EDIT : I was off about this one) As a show, apart from me getting tired by the end, it was a super easy show to watch with the worst match being at least fun and every thing else between quite good and excellent (great maybe ?), much better than the Bobby Roode/Nakamura era Takeovers. War Machine, Ricochet and EC3 (how do people know about this guy anyway ? I thought no one watched nor cared about iMPACT ?) showing up under their own name is kinda funny when you think about Khassius Ohno... Not sure I can make it to the Rumble tonight. I'm kinda down, so. Plus it obviously won't follow that show very well.

I've seen way too fucking much shootstyle to be impressed by Shayna's submission work. It's okay. That's about it. The Minoru Suzuki comparison works much better for me, as her character is half the work and she is already terrific at it. The work itself, it's okay for a US setting. The elbow stomp is a great spot though. Ember Moon staying in the armbar forever after this was bad booking, much like the medical goon showing up. Sure, it protected Moon's finisher, but it also overdramatized the selling and the crowd did shit on it with good reason. The flash pin was indeed a cool finish but should have happened way before, as the Submission Magician gimmick looks rather shitty when a girl with a fucked up elbow can stay in your hold forever without submitting. I guess the Tazmission is her real finisher. Good little match, I like Shayna's character quite a bit and Ember's work quite a lot.