Royal Rumble

A brief thought on wrestling:  I used to watch a ton of it.  I don't anymore.  Not because I don't love it.  But because there's so much out there.  I mean, the WWE alone can put out 10-12 hours a week.  AEW can do 8 or 10 on a PPV week.  I don't often hunt up TNA, New Japan or any of the others often, but luckily we live in an age that you can find pretty much anything you're looking for, if you look hard enough (and hear enough about it)

That said, I did watch the 2025 Royal Rumble last night.

It's my favorite night of the Sports Entertainment Year.   It's the only show of the year that I really want to watch live.  I don't do that a lot because Shyam isn't a big fan.  I feel bad about commandeering the living room TV for a 3 or 4 hour stretch.  But she knows how excited I (and Ripley, our orange cat) get about the Royal Rumble.  So she did paperwork and listened to a podcast while Ripley and I watched.

I won't say that it's the closest pro wrestling gets to an actual sporting event, because honestly, Kenny Omega/Will Ospreay or Gunther/Cody Rhodes may be violent, and it may be theater, but it takes just as much timing and athleticism as any gymnastic routine, synchronized swimming event or ice skating display out there, and each of those three is in the Olympics.  It's violent theater, though, so we don't respect it.

But it is theater.  

And most of the time, there is an anticipated outcome.  

The thing with the Royal Rumble is that it's an amalgamation...a potential amalgamation, anyway....of several stories, happening all at the same time.  It's one of the few nights of the year where you can't always make a good guess at what all will happen at the beginning of the night.  It's about potential, I think.  There's a lot of potential for a lot of fun with a Royal Rumble.  There's a lot of potential for surprise.  And there's a chance that you'll see something new, which feels rarer and rarer as I wander into my 40th year or so of wrestling fandom.

A few thoughts.

The Women's Rumble was pretty good.  It's always interesting, because this one seems to carry more NXT performers, from year to year, and I don't always watch a lot of NXT--usually only if a particular match got a lot of buzz.  So it's interesting to see new faces....I liked the spot that put Charlotte, Bayley and Bianca Belair in opposition to the representatives from NXT.

I don't think anybody was surprised to see Jordynne Grace show up, as it was announced earlier in the week that she'd signed a contract with WWE after leaving TNA.  Grace was easily the best part of TNA for me over the last couple of years...the only reason I ever searched out a match, with apologies to the talent over there...I just haven't seen anything that's set my world on fire from TNA in a while...at least since they ran Scott D'Amore off.   But I digress.  I really liked that she got a good showing, and that spot with Piper Niven was the highlight of the Rumble for me.

One thought:  Did they screw up eliminations at the end?  Did Nia Jax get eliminated too early?  Seemed a little awkward and disjointed at the end, but that could just be me.  No arguments with Charlotte winning.  Glad she's back.  

Speaking of back....How about that pop for Alexa Bliss?  I think she brings a real wild card of a personality to the womens' division, which occasionally suffers from a bit of AEW-itis, where the only motivation from the participants is "I wrestle good."  I know it's ostensibly a competition, but we likes our theater, and Alexa Bliss brings that by the oodle.

I'll pause for a second that I'm interested to see what they do with this working agreement with TNA.  There's a weird part of me that would very much enjoy seeing the crossovers...seeing the Hardys work a match or two in the WWE again...maybe at a Wrestlemania.  Maybe even have a TNA match or two on Wrestlemania Weekend.  In the past, the bulk of their crossover has been limited to NXT, and I predict that'll be muchly the case over the course of this agreement.

There's also part of me that dreams of seeing the TNA tape library (or digital library, if you will) added to the library of stuff on the WWE Network.  I know they have their own service that you can go watch old PPVs and whatnot, but I don't want to pay for it and Peacock.

But I digress.

The tag match between DIY and the Motor City Machine Guns was exactly what I thought it would be.  I keep rooting for Tommaso Ciampa to get a kick ass singles run, but he and Johnny Gargano are great together, so I'll take what I can get.  Sabin and Shelley are also fun, and I enjoyed the two of of three falls match, though I was hoping for a bit of reset time between falls, like you'd get on the old WWF shows.  Even if it were just 30 seconds.  (And maybe they gave it, and I'm misremembering:  I was eating supper during the tag team match, and my attention was diverted, I admit).

Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens was brutal.  Owens is probably my favorite guy in the WWE--I've dug his particular brand of mouth-running badass since I first saw Kevin Steen in Ring of Honor.  I don't know that any match gets as much cringing empathy from me as a ladder match.  And the final spot, which saw Owens folded up after crashing through a ladder gave me a bit of pause.  That just looked fucking painful and goddamn dangerous.

The Men's Rumble I enjoyed very much.  There were a couple small gripes, but the overall event was a lot of fun.

I had a feeling about Jey Uso.  Especially after that match against Gunther on Saturday Night's Main Event (which was probably the best singles match from Jey that I've seen).  The largest part of it, though, is that it astounds me just how over the guy is with the crowd.  The level of audience participation with his entrances reminds me of Daniel Bryan/Bryan Danielson at his WWE peak (he still was getting Yes! Chants at AEW).  He sells merchandise.  It seems like a logical move.

I just haven't been impressed by a lot of his singles matches.  That match with Gunther was really, really good....and to be honest, I've chalked a lot of that up to Gunther.

I had a brief thought, at match's end, if they would actually go through with Logan Paul winning the match and going to challenge Gunther at Wrestlemania, giving Gunther a nudge toward the babyface side of the ring for a while.  All said, having Jey win and work a program with Gunther (who fills that Bret Hart, make anybody look good role of old) wouldn't be a bad thing.

I really liked the interplay between Seth Rollins, Roman and CM Punk.  And I'm guessing they're edging toward a confrontation.  I was kinda nonplussed when Punk won clean over Rollins at the inaugural Raw on Netflix.  Didn't see that one coming.

I liked the pop that Joe Hendry got.  There might be something I'm missing with Hendry...I just haven't seen enough of him, perhaps.  The people seemed to like him, though.....and maybe that's what TNA needs right now, somebody to give them another look.

And Cena.

Cena makes me feel old.

Because I'm about 3 months older than him, if I recall correctly....2 months and 3 days, it appears after a quick Googlemachine Search.  

I can remember bitching about the WWF/E continually shoving John Cena down my throat 20 years ago.

I don't hate the guy or his work, though.  He had some hella good matches with Randy Orton, and I remember his feud with Umaga with particular fondess.  He's just not always my taste.

And I guess his being the final guy eliminated last night might be my only big gripe.  And it underlines my concern with Jey Uso.

John looked fine, until that last segment on the apron.  He looked rusty as hell, right there.  And not entirely comfortable out there on the apron.  And Jey is not the guy who's gonna carry somebody right there.  Gunther could.  Punk could.  Rollins and Reigns probably could.

And it come down to nobody realizing Cena might need a little carrying there for that particular spot.

I dunno.  I just didn't like that final bit of fighting.  Didn't ruin the match or the night.  I just thought that could have gone a little better....and I might have liked an apron fight between Jey Uso and Logan Paul a little better....Paul probably couldn't carry somebody in the spot yet, but he wouldn't need to be carried, either.

My only other quibble:  I'm just not real sold on having Jacob Fatu do a program with Braun Strowman.   I felt like their match last week went just about as perfectly as you could have it go.  But having them continue to get into each others' hair points to a continued rivalry.  But we'll see how it goes.  

But anyway.  If I'm grading the night, I give it an A-.  As much as multiple nostalgia entries in a Rumble can grate, I might have liked one more.  Or maybe one more surprise.  Am I the only one still interested to see Nick Aldis do something in a WWE ring?  Maybe have Aldis surprise everybody by taking a spot in the Rumble.