Month: January 2016

WWE Royal Rumble 2016 Review

 

royal-rumble

There was a lot of anticipation and excitement going into the Royal Rumble, with Dean Ambrose vs Kevin Owens in a Last Man Standing match for the intercontinental title and the 2016 Royal Rumble match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship being the two matches grabbing all the headlines, specualtion and attention from the WWE universe.

The night kicked off in good fashion with the Intercontinental title being defended in a Last Man Standing match between champion Dean Ambrose and contender Kevin Owens. Perhaps this match felt short, as far as Last Man Standing matches go anyway, but nobody would have been complaining about this match, it was AWESOME. The fact that this match didn’t drag on and that it was just one incredible move after another made it so entertaining and intriguing to watch. High enthatic moves involving kendo sticks, chairs and tables, the match ended when Ambrose was able to counter on Owens performing a moonsault and push the challenger into a double decker set of tables, keeping Owens down the the 10 count and retaining the Intercontinental championship.

When it was announced by Vince Macmahon that the WWE World Heavyweight championship would be contested in the Rumble match, its fair to say that there was a mixed reception on the decision. On one hand it completey breaks whats really special about the Royal Rumble match, seeing a superstar win a main event spot at WrestleMania in a dramatic and emotional manner. The Rumble match was also a chance for the WWE to introduce a new push for a superstar, the Rumble match left you beleiving that anybody could win (within reason) but now that the WWE title is on the line there are really only 4 or 5 superstars who realistically have a chance and so the element of surprise has been cut incredibly short for this years Rumble match.

On the other hand it was an oppurtunity for WWE to do something unique and produce a different type of anticipation and excitement for the WWE universe going into the Rumble match, if performed well it will be a great night. After two succesive years of disappointing Rumble matches which have seen fans boo the WWE and the Rumble winner, there is no room this year for disapointments in any aspect of the match, surprise entrants, shock eliminations and the eventual winner all need to be set right.

WWE didn’t waste anytime in lighting a spark with a huge number 3 entrant in AJ Styles, that was a huge moment that made you stand up and appluase WWE for getting the man who has been labelled as the best wrestler never to have been in WWE, until now. The only other surprise entrant would be Sami Zayn which got the crowd excited and Triple H would be the last entrant, even though his appearance was expected.

 

It looked a worrying start when Rusev, a respected superstar, was eliminated in the first 90 seconds but the ring quickly began to fill with high profile superstars. This was easliy the biggest Rumble match in terms of caliber of superstar for a long long time and was also a very entertaining match and I had a lot of fun watching. So wouldn’t it just be so typical of WWE to ruin it all in such the most shameless fashion. Earlier in the match Roman Reigns had been ambushed by the League of Nations under order of Mr MacMahon, leaving Reigns being carried off and absent for the most part of the match. Reigns would eventually return to the action as he was never eliminated and it seemed sure that he would go on and retain. However that didn’t happen thankfully, nothing agaisnt Reigns but it would have been wrong for him to win it in that manner. Triple H would surprisingly go on to win the match and become the new WWE World Heavyweight champion, typical of Triple H to steal the spotlight but this years Royal Rumble match was a vast improvement on the last two.

by Categories: UncategorizedTags: , , , , , , Leave a comment