2013 Royal Rumble Thread

[jpchicago23]

The finish was too predictable I wish they would've ended punks awesome reign a little better but overall a good ppv

[goodhelmet]

A guy who holds the championship for 434 days loses to an elbow drop after having control the whole time. Rock was embarrassing tonight. He was sucking wind after the opening exchange. That's one of the worst segments I've ever seen.

Eh, the worst part was the table collapsing. Besides that, I didn't notice the Rock looking lethargic or lost or anything like that. The work was smart for the most part. No complaints.

[tim]

I liked Rock/Punk quite a bit actually. Screwy finish was good and gave the event a certain 'special moment' that I though it needed in the wake of an obvious Rumble outcome. Not a great match or anything but there were some fun exchanges and I don't think it was ever boring for too long a stretch of time.

[WingedEagle]

The Rock vs. CM Punk

- I Thought this was heads and shoulders above Cena-Rock from last year's Mania. From Punk working on Rock's "internal injuries" to Rock attacking Punk's leg. The wacky finish was to be expected but I really enjoyed the match overall.

The midsection work on Rock and knee work on Punk were really great. Have to think Punk was responsible for laying that out. I didn't love how suddenly it wrapped up after the restart but they couldn't exactly have a prolonged stretch run at that point. Really fun.

[Loss]

I thought Rock/Punk was pretty disappointing, mainly because Rock looked Lex Luger at SuperBrawl II-level embarrassing. He also seemed to have trouble keeping his wind. I am sure it's hard to do so when you have to work at a pretty high level and don't wrestle year-round. But it still stands out.

[goodhelmet]

Looks like babyfaces (if you still consider Cena a face) are winning every match on the card

I have seen too many shitty WCW PPVs with the heels going over every time to be upset about the babyfaces winning an entire card.

[Dylan Waco]

I agree with Devon and Will. The Rock was sucking wind a few minutes in and looked gassed as fuck throughout and the match was better than Rock/Cena on first watch. I don't think it was a particularly good match but I didn't hate it...until that ending. I fucking hated that ending. I have no problem with Punk losing clean, especially if he's not working Taker and if we can assume he's going to slide back into his comfortable modern Jericho slot, but that finish was everything I hated about Attitude Era match booking, combined with The Shield being used in such a way as to completely minimize them. Fuck that to hell. My guess is they hold up the title and it is on the line in the EC, but I would much prefer Rock have won clean after a long match than the way they did it.

[Matt D]

Jericho being out there so long was impressive. I know you can rest at times in the Rumble but still. Maybe he needs superior lung power for Fozzy.

[rzombie1988]

I reviewed the Royal Rumble with pics/gifs/quotes here:

http://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/ww...and-review.html

 

Overall thoughts: Good show with everything being decent.

 

[Chess Knight]

I didn't think Rock looked too bad, I actually thought Punk looked pretty worthless. At least for most of it. Looked like he didn't give a shit for so much of the time. I didn't like Cena/Rock a good deal but preferred it to this; I really didn't think this was any good at all.

 

The Rumble itself was mostly fun until we got past the #20 slot or so. Got pretty standard after that and I was bored to death by the end of it.

 

Favourite thing of the show was probably Goldust. I can only hope they plunk him on Superstars.

[goodhelmet]

I didn't think Rock looked too bad, I actually thought Punk looked pretty worthless. At least for most of it. Looked like he didn't give a shit for so much of the time. I didn't like Cena/Rock a good deal but preferred it to this; I really didn't think this was any good at all.

 

The Rumble itself was mostly fun until we got past the #20 slot or so. Got pretty standard after that and I was bored to death by the end of it.

You and I were watching two different shows.

[Loss]

Jericho being out there so long was impressive. I know you can rest at times in the Rumble but still. Maybe he needs superior lung power for Fozzy.

Agreed, and as a contrast to Rock, it was even more impressive.

[Bix]

The Rock was sucking wind a few minutes in and looked gassed as fuck

In more ways than one.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I fucking loved this show. What a blast. And I loved Rock/ Punk, even if Punk looked like Max Mini with Rock draped on his shoulders. I loved the dejected look the late twenties bearded smart fan had when Cena and Rock won. Ha, fuck that guy.

[artDDP]

I didn't think the Rumble match itself was bad. It seemed rushed due to the quick entrances and there were too many guys who just didn't seem credible at all in there. I thought there were plenty of cool spots and they are doing a good job trying to build Dolph Ziggler.

 

I was surprised Billy Gunn didn't show up as one of the surprise entrants.

 

I was a bit disappointed by the title match. Seemed to be the typical punch/kick match that typified the "Attitude" era. I'm surprised there wasn't a last-minute no-disqualification stipulation added just for good measure. Working the ribs and knee were nice touches. Punk was pretty blatant at calling spots during this. I did think Rock looked incredibly winded.

 

By the way, Rock hooked up with George Farah, an International Federation of Bodybuilding (IFBB) "diet guru" recently. In pro bodybuilding, "guru" is code for drug dealer.

[NintendoLogic]

First two matches were both solid. The tendency to give creative finishes to matches that are supposed to be feud-enders will never not piss me off, though.

 

The Rumble was a lot better than last year's. Much less dead weight, much less reliance on comedy and nostalgia pops. The Bo/Wade segment sucked, though. It's one of those things that makes both guys look like shit.

 

Rock/Punk was definitely better than Rock/Cena. It was an especially miraculous performance from Punk considering that Rock looked as blown up as Bulldog at Wembley. If the ending was so they could run an angle where they hold the title up and hopefully draw a bigger buyrate for Elimination Chamber, I'd rather they just have Punk retain.

 

Overall, there was nothing earth-shattering, but everything was at least decent, so it's an easy thumbs-up.

[Loss]

By the way, Rock hooked up with George Farah, an International Federation of Bodybuilding (IFBB) "diet guru" recently. In pro bodybuilding, "guru" is code for drug dealer.

This intrigued me so I checked out George Farah on Wikipedia.

 

Check this out:

 

He and his family moved to the United States, settling down in Rochester, New York where he earned a BA in electronics. He then opened a wholesale car business. It was here that he earned the nickname "bulletproof", when in August 1997, he was shot two times in the back outside a convenience store in an attempted robbery by a gang.

 

Due to this incident, Fahrah lost a kidney. He also had a ileostomy, spending five months in the hospital. Which in turn greatly reduced his body weight from 200lbs to 130lbs, losing almost all his hard earned muscle. However, this motivated Farah, as only one year later he competed in the 1999 NPC New York, winning and seemingly regaining most of the muscle he had lost from the incident.

[Matt D]

I fucking loved this show. What a blast. And I loved Rock/ Punk, even if Punk looked like Max Mini with Rock draped on his shoulders. I loved the dejected look the late twenties bearded smart fan had when Cena and Rock won. Ha, fuck that guy.

Man, you love everything. You are a joy.

[Chess Knight]

I didn't think Rock looked too bad, I actually thought Punk looked pretty worthless. At least for most of it. Looked like he didn't give a shit for so much of the time. I didn't like Cena/Rock a good deal but preferred it to this; I really didn't think this was any good at all.

 

The Rumble itself was mostly fun until we got past the #20 slot or so. Got pretty standard after that and I was bored to death by the end of it.

You and I were watching two different shows.

 

I didn't think the Rock was better than Punk or anything, but Punk seemed so....blase about it. I get that's his thing and he thinks he's the best in the world and stuff, but he was scared to death of Ryback at HIAC and carried whatever was good in that match with his facials and stuff. This was the big Rock WWE title shot and Punk really didn't make it feel like that. Not that it's all up to him to do that, but he's a part of it.

 

The Rumble had some neat stuff past halfway like the Kane/Danielson thing, but once you have Mistico and the Miz and Ryback coming out I just couldn't care any more. The final few was done pretty well, but I had no investment in it.

 

Or you were right and I was watching Spongebob Squarepants.

[sek69]

I thought it was a good show, all things considered. It was kind of predictable and that did kill some of the buzz, but WWE always gets blasted for changing plans all the time so we shouldn't get upset when they don't.

 

The Rumble match was pretty well paced, didn't seem to have that dead spot that a lot of them end up having when there's too many midcarders/jobbers clogging things up. The surprises got good reactions, and everyone seemed to be working hard.

 

The WWE title match was what it was. It probably wasn't the best idea to have Rock be in such a long match after being away for a while (and Punk seemed to have a clear "I'm jobbing" air about him at times), but the match itself was a solid main event and the title means more than it has in years so it's hard for me to complain too much.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I fucking loved this show. What a blast. And I loved Rock/ Punk, even if Punk looked like Max Mini with Rock draped on his shoulders. I loved the dejected look the late twenties bearded smart fan had when Cena and Rock won. Ha, fuck that guy.

Man, you love everything. You are a joy.

 

Well, what wasn't there to like? Show/ Del Rio was good stuff. Del Rio is an outstanding face and Show rules. The tag match was fun, and I love watching those four guys work.

The Rumble was a stone fucking blast. The surprise guys were actual surprises, and it was just a great Rumble match. I loved the Godfather deal. I remember joking on a radio show that The Godfather should just have always had his music hit, dance out with the broads, go around the ring, and dance back up the ramp to the back. No shitty match and the fans get what they want. AND THEY DID IT!

The Rhodes boys fighting each other and then teaming up to beat up Ziggler to go back to fighting each other was fucking awesome. Great Rumble.

 

I loved Rock/ Punk. Sue me. I especially liked Vince coming out and saying "So the lights went out, do you think we're stupid?" But, MAN, did Rock just look like he dwarfed Punk? And not just muscles. It's weird, Punk never really looked small against Cena or other bigger guys, but he looked like a midget at times compared to Rock.

 

And Rock beat Punk for the god damned belt. I marked. Punk has done such a great job lately of being a hateful, entitled, smarky, douchebag... that I wanted the Rock to kill him.

[tim]

What rumble matches do you guys think were definitely better than this years? I haven't seen them all but of those I have I'm pretty sure this is my favorite. No real lulls, the eliminations were well done, some cool surprise entrants, bunch of fun moments, and everything with the final 6 was really well done. I think Ziggler should've maybe gotten some more big near-eliminations on guys like Cena, Sheamus, etc, and the ending could've been better, but I liked it a bunch.

[Cox]

The Royal Rumble is the one WWE that never fails to disappoint. A few years ago, I started buying the major PPVs and having friends come over where we drink, eat, and watch the pro wrestling. We've had disappointing Wrestlemanias and disappointing SummerSlams, but I don't remember a disappointing Royal Rumble, because the Royal Rumble match is, if nothing else, entertaining and easy for a large group of people to follow at once while everybody is talking and trying to get their shitty jokes in (I consider myself king of the shitty jokes).

 

That said, this year's undercard was pretty solid too. All three matches were good, and there didn't feel like there was too much filler, other than the non-stop video packages that must make every PPV in order to justify Kevin Dunn's continued existence. Two world title matches and a tag team title match that they have been building to for months, and that's it; no meaningless 3-5 minute woman's match, no in-show 20 minute mic spot, no unannounced matches that resulted from a last-minute Smackdown angle. Just a smart, efficient PPV.

[Dylan Waco]

I honestly can't believe anyone could like that finish. I literally find that astounding to the point where I can't imagine what anyone who liked that finish would think a bad finish would look like.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I honestly can't believe anyone could like that finish. I literally find that astounding to the point where I can't imagine what anyone who liked that finish would think a bad finish would look like.

I liked it. What can I tell ya?

 

Here's something I don't like. Mania is in New Jersey, not New York. This whole "NY/NJ" stuff is fucking horseshit. I LOVE NYC, always have. But Mania is in Jersey, period. Fucking typical Jersey disrespect.