Royal Rumble 2017

[Jimmy James]

All I want to know is if this is what Dave and Bryan kept to themselves that they thought we would love. Because if it was this and plans didn't change, that's hilarious. The way they talked about it is the way you talk about Daniel Bryan being secretly cleared and coming in at 30 to win or something equivalent, not Randy Orton winning a Royal Rumble.

pretty sure they were heavily implying a Roman heel turn which kind of has to happen (I mean, you'd think) if he's actually going to feud with Undertaker

[Jimmy Redman]

I dunno, I would imagine it far more likely that they have a non-turning "respect" feud.

 

Roman here didn't seem like a heel turn since he didn't...do anything particularly heelish except eliminate someone more popular than him, but literally everyone in the Rumble would have been more popular than him. If that was a heel turn, I don't think they made it very clear.

[Coffey]

My problem with the Royal Rumble match itself was there were 1. no surprises and 2. way too many people that didn't matter. Mojo, Ellsworth, New Day, Big Cass, Enzo, Gallagher, Apollo, Dolph, Tye, Kalisto... it was like ALL filler. Just killing time until the "real" stars (Goldberg, Brock, Taker, Reigns) came in. Out of the first 20 entrants, I think the only two that mattered were Strowman and Corbin.

 

There wasn't any suspense. The final four sucked. And the winner sucks.

 

So yeah, I didn't like it.

 

John Cena Vs. A.J. Styles was great though, so glad I tuned in. Plus the countdown for each participant in the Rumble will never not be fun, even if I felt disappointed about 25 times out of 30 this year.

[Microstatistics]

Reigns at #30 was genius. Him eliminating Taker was the icing on the cake.

[stro]

Died at Roman entering at 30 when everyone was expecting a debut or return. Otherwise the whole event seemed pretty dull. Hopefully WM is the end for Taker, because he looked like shit.

[RingoPlaysDrums]

Definitely the best booked Rumble match in a number of years. The first half until the ring started to fill up was perfect and from Brock's entrance on things heated up again too. Wasn't as much down time as there often is in rumbles either. That said, Orton winning does very little for me.

 

The title matches were bags of fun. Big, memorable matches. I wouldn't say either were worked in a style I particularly love but I was fairly engrossed by both.

[stro]

Having a 6 month personal angle and turning it into a feud over the title at WM last minute is baffling to me. At this point, the titles in WWE are so meaningless that trying to put it into a feud to make the title seem more important again actively detracts from the feuds.

[Jimmy Redman]

Orton winning still bothers me, because EVEN IF you want to make this Orton/Bray thing for the title, the sequence of events is now ass backwards. If you want to do it, have Bray win the Rumble. Have Orton sacrifice himself at a key moment to help Bray win it. Bray holds the power, and you can still tease Bray/Cena as a pretend direction. Harper turns on Bray the same and faces Bray at EC, while Orton gets put into the Chamber match by Shane/Bryan. Harper keeps stirring up shit between Bray and Randy - what if Orton wins the title in the Chamber? But Bray is confident that Orton knows his place because Orton keeps saving him, while Harper betrayed him. So Orton wins the title. Now you get the tension of if/when Orton will turn on him, because being in the Wyatt Family is one thing, but having the WWE Title in your hands and being asked to basically give it up is another. Or maybe Bray pre-emptively turns on him for getting too big for his boots, for winning the title before he can. Either way, you do that big on a Smackdown and bam, there's your Mania match.

 

You know, I actually felt sorry for Kevin Owens in that match. There he is taking a super gross, reckless, ridiculous bump through a literal high rise tower of chairs, all hard edges and bits sticking out, I mean it must have fucking sucked no matter how controlled his bump was. I was going mental and there are the announcers going "Oh, look at that, Kevin Owens might be in trouble in this match up.." like he'd just been hip tossed and I'm like "HE ALMOST FUCKING DIED YOU ASSHOLES, WHY DON'T YOU CARE!!" I was thinking to myself, this is the bullshit that made Mick Foley quit WCW. But then I kept thinking and realised, Foley painstakingly built to that one big bump to powerfully payoff a serious angle that was a big deal 12 months prior, and it was ignored. Owens' death was ignored because it was just another spot in a match full of suicidal death bumps. Then I stopped feeling sorry for Kevin Owens.

 

Also, how fucking cool was Cena's roll through double-pump FU finish. That shit was ridic.

[hammerva]

I have read somewhere at some point that Vince relies on Jericho to call the Rumbles, but I don't know if that's accurate.

 

Well given that he spent about 80% of the match outside the ring he would have plenty of time to help navigate this match

[soup23]

My problem with the Royal Rumble match itself was there were 1. no surprises and 2. way too many people that didn't matter. Mojo, Ellsworth, New Day, Big Cass, Enzo, Gallagher, Apollo, Dolph, Tye, Kalisto... it was like ALL filler. Just killing time until the "real" stars (Goldberg, Brock, Taker, Reigns) came in. Out of the first 20 entrants, I think the only two that mattered were Strowman and Corbin.

 

There wasn't any suspense. The final four sucked. And the winner sucks.

 

So yeah, I didn't like it.

 

John Cena Vs. A.J. Styles was great though, so glad I tuned in. Plus the countdown for each participant in the Rumble will never not be fun, even if I felt disappointed about 25 times out of 30 this year.

 

Unless almost every Rumble is all filler, this seems like an odd claim to make for this year. Look at last years field with Breeze, Axel, R-Truth all scattered in the first 12 entrants. A quick look at last year and I can only surmise that Reigns, AJ, Braun, KO, Ambrose, Brock, Sheamus, HHH had a chance of winning. Braun is really stretching it because it was for the title. I would put someone like Zayn on par with Braun and Sheamus of that 2016 grouping for this years odds and you had guys like Bruan and Jericho in the match this year that had a better chance of winning than last year. This year, paths to victory could be seen for Braun, Zayn, Jericho, Ambrose, Bray, Orton, Taker, Goldberg, Reigns and that isn't including other ancillary guys like Dolph and Miz that honestly had as much chance of winning as someone like 2014 Punk.

 

The lack of surprises I think is an expectation issue. We didn't get an AJ in 2016 or Cena in 2008 moment but of the big surprises that were legit threats to win the entire match, those are the only two I can think of. Seems like Joe coming out there to just be tossed by Taker or Orton isn't really productive to him for his debut. Sure a legend could have went in there instead of Apollo Crews but that isn't something I am losing sleep over because Tatanka didn't enter the Rumble.

 

The eventual winner being Orton I don't think can be downplayed as a surprise if Meltzer hadn't reported it. While it may not be the most appeasing destination towards Mania for me, it did make sense for them to get there using Orton to win here. In retrospect it feels easy to levy a Rumble as not having enough surrpises and having dead moments. I think with time this one will be looked back at more fondly for being well booked throughout.

 

The rest of the show I thought was great. I understand if modern WWE isn't your style, it can be a turn off but the KO/Reigns and AJ vs. Cena matches were the best iterations of WWE plunder brawl and Big Match Epics that they can bust out at this point. Slap on two other good matches in the womens match and the Cruiserweight one and this was one of the better Rumble shows overall for me. Just comparing to my #1 Royal Rumble in 2007, I have AJ vs. Cena and 2017 Rumble below 2007 Rumble and Cena vs. Umaga but I think KO vs. Reigns is as good of a match as the Hardys vs. MNM tag and the rest of the undercard in 2017 is better than Kennedy vs. Batista (which I do like) and Test vs. Lashley (ugh) in 2007.

[NintendoLogic]

Corey Graves has a really annoying habit of giving away what's about to happen by predicting the exact opposite. I realize that's a WWE announcer trope, but he seems to be worse about it than most.

[DMJ]

Full review on my blog. Few takes -

 

- Thought the Rumble match was really good for first third, sagged in the middle, and then picked up a great deal once Lesnar came in at #26.

 

- Thought Cena/AJ was an improvement from SummerSlam and MITB last year. Can't place my finger on why, but it may have been context and expectations. AJ is hotter now. Match was happening in front of a hotter crowd. Cena has been off TV for longer. Whatever the reason, when you combine it with how well everything was executed, I think this was a better match than their "SummerSlam classic" (which I didn't even put in my WWE Top 10 of the year).

 

- I'm a Rumble traditionalist. I think the most over babyface or the most over heel should win every year (see 91'-01') and that "upper midcard" guys winning and "main eventing" WrestleMania in the 4th most hyped match on the card is silly (see ADR's and Sheamus' wins). Add Orton to that list. I'm not sure who the better option was this year - Goldberg? Lesnar? Jericho? Taker? AJ at 30 instead of Reigns? - but when you have 8 weeks of TV and two more brand-specific pay-per-views before Mania (one involving an Elimination Chamber for the title, no less) you could essentially have whoever you want win it and still not be "stuck" (case in point - Orton won and nobody believes he'll be closing the show in April). Why not have the crowd go insane with a feel-good Goldberg win? Or for a Lesnar win? Or for a Taker win? Or even "embrace the hate" and have Reigns get mega-heat by eliminating Taker or Goldberg last? Orton was the least controversial winner they could've went with when the WWE only sometimes sticks to the "Rumble Winner challenges World Champion in Last Match at WrestleMania" formula of the 90s. (In fact, in the past 7 years, that's not been the case just as much as it has been).

[Flyin' Brian]

I think I have figured out why I am so confused by this Royal Rumble. Because I had no idea there was a FastLane PPV in March until tonight

 

I didn't know Elimination Chamber was up next in February. Don't feel too bad.

[SteveJRogers]

- I'm a Rumble traditionalist. I think the most over babyface or the most over heel should win every year (see 91'-01') and that "upper midcard" guys winning and "main eventing" WrestleMania in the 4th most hyped match on the card is silly (see ADR's and Sheamus' wins). Add Orton to that list. I'm not sure who the better option was this year - Goldberg? Lesnar? Jericho? Taker? AJ at 30 instead of Reigns?

It is interesting that after 25 years of just Hogan, HBK and Austin as the ONLY multiple time winners, we now have four in five years.

[FMKK]

It struck me that the way they booked Roman for the Rumble is why everyone hates him. People don't like him because they don't think he deserves his push. So you give him the easiest path to winning the Rumble. And then you have him eliminate the guy that had been busting his ass for 60 minutes and doing it the hard way. Why is he a face again?

But when the modern fan seems to think that the only way you deserve a push is if you're over 40 or you've worker ROH, then they shouldn't pander to that mentality at all.

 

And it seems clear they were using him knowing full well the reaction he would get, like they do with Cena sometimes.

[KawadaSmile]

The more I think about it, the more this Rumble match felt perfect. Even the middle part had things going on for it, like callbacks to the New Day/Wyatt feud, Harper finally taking a stand, tag team discension between Cesaro and Sheamus, Corbin ELIMINATING STROWMAN...

 

It was just a very good match. Would easily, EASILY put it in the top 5 of all time. Not having surprise entrants is barely a flaw when you have such a stacked line-up like this match had.

[Strummer]

Meltz said on WOR that the plan is to turn Sasha heel in the near future. With Emmalina debuting the Raw women's division is def. heel heavy. I realy hope they don't turn Charlotte face as a result

[Jimmy Redman]

Are there ANY babyface women on Raw apart from Bayley and Sasha? I honestly don't know the answer to that.

[Mando]

Are there ANY babyface women on Raw apart from Bayley and Sasha? I honestly don't know the answer to that.

 

Nope. Alicia Fox was treading that way quietly for a few weeks before entering her current role as Noam Darr's unhinged valet.

[Mando]

I thought the show was moderately good. I’d say thumbs in the middle for me. Which generally wouldn’t be notable but slightly more disappointing with them leveraging it on-air as the second biggest show of the year. In the Rumble I was pulling for surprises entrances for Kurt Angle (which would have been a big pop, especially if they’d held off on his HoF announcement), Shinsuke Nakamura (made nil by injury angle the night prior), and a few more 205 Live guys, wasn’t holding out hope for a HoHo Lun or anything, but guys with recognizable entrances and personalities like Kendrick or Perkins, that wouldn’t have felt out of place. Kevin Owens as champ is thudingly dull to me. I love the Orton/Cena series of high-profile matches but doesn’t seem like the direction they’ll go for WrestleMania — I suspect Elimination Chamber will shake things up considerably.

[goc]

There is no way that they could have thought this would get reigns over. I am 100% on the political hit theory

 

Why have people worked themselves into a shoot that everything WWE does with Roman is an attempt to get him 100% cheers. It's clearly not. They wanted him to get booed & they wanted people to work themselves into thinking Roman would win so they would pop for Orton winning it at the end. It was brilliant.

 

They don't care if people boo Reigns as long as he's still a top merchandise seller in the company. The Cena era proved mixed reactions are not bad & probably make more money as the Reigns haters buy the merchandise of his opponent in some foolish attempt to "show the company they are wrong. I'm sure KO sold more merchandise during his feud with Reigns for exactly that reason.

[Mad Dog]

Meltz said on WOR that the plan is to turn Sasha heel in the near future. With Emmalina debuting the Raw women's division is def. heel heavy. I realy hope they don't turn Charlotte face as a result

I was thinking they would do that with her as champion so they could have Bayley beat her at Mania. But I was being logical.

[jcmmnx]

Stroman and Corbin were the only two standout guys in the Rumble so of course they'll probably be in a mid card filler/Andre battle royal match at Mania. I thought Corbin looked way better than Cena when they wrestled a few weeks ago. I can't say I'm looking forward to anything that's being set up for Mania right now. I guess if they do Cena/Joe and don't stick AJ with Shane my opinion could change.

[SirEdger]

Orton winning still bothers me, because EVEN IF you want to make this Orton/Bray thing for the title, the sequence of events is now ass backwards. If you want to do it, have Bray win the Rumble. Have Orton sacrifice himself at a key moment to help Bray win it. Bray holds the power, and you can still tease Bray/Cena as a pretend direction. Harper turns on Bray the same and faces Bray at EC, while Orton gets put into the Chamber match by Shane/Bryan. Harper keeps stirring up shit between Bray and Randy - what if Orton wins the title in the Chamber? But Bray is confident that Orton knows his place because Orton keeps saving him, while Harper betrayed him. So Orton wins the title. Now you get the tension of if/when Orton will turn on him, because being in the Wyatt Family is one thing, but having the WWE Title in your hands and being asked to basically give it up is another. Or maybe Bray pre-emptively turns on him for getting too big for his boots, for winning the title before he can. Either way, you do that big on a Smackdown and bam, there's your Mania match.

 

 

 

That angle would've been seriously dope!

[Jimmy James]

It was just a very good match. Would easily, EASILY put it in the top 5 of all time. Not having surprise entrants is barely a flaw when you have such a stacked line-up like this match had.

 

I think you kind of have to cool it off on the surprises and nostalgia entrances every so often. At this point everyone's expecting like two or three old legends in the Rumble so cooling it off makes it more special when they do show up.