WWE Royal Rumble 2023

WWE Royal Rumble 2023

San Antonio, TX - January 2023

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into the show, Roman Reigns was still in the midst of his historic reign as both WWE and Universal Champion, the Intercontinental Champion was GUNTHER, the US Champion was Austin Theory, the Usos held both the RAW and SmackDown Tag Team Championships, the RAW Womens' Champion was Bianca Belair, the SmackDown Women's Champion was Charlotte Flair, and the Women's Tag Team Champions were Damage CTRL's Dakota Kai and IO Sky). 

In a huge surprise, the 2023 Royal Rumble kicked off with the 2023 Men's Royal Rumble. Right from the start this was an excellent edition of the annual royale as Pat McAfee made his somewhat-of-a-surprise return to the announce table (McAfee had been hosting College Gameday, but with the college football season over, his return to WWE was predicted by many). Gunther and Sheamus started the match as #1 and #2 respectively and both men put in terrific showings. What really stood out to me about this match was how smartly it was booked, paced, and worked. There was just so much to love spread throughout this match - the Lesnar/Gunther staredown leading to Brock getting tossed by Lashley in shocking fashion, the Sheamus/McIntyre double elimination, seeing Karrion Kross get deservedly treated like a jobber, Logan Paul showing up at 29, he and Ricochet delivering unreal springboard clotheslines to each other, and drawing huge heat by eliminating Seth Rollins, a brilliant few seconds of straight-up amateur wrestling between Xavier Woods and Chad Gable, Edge and Beth Phoenix returning to exact revenge on Judgment Day...this match gave us storyline progression and highlighted everyone that needed to be highlighted. While it may have been short on surprise entrants, it wasn't short on big moments, which is really what a match like this is all about. Also, bonus points for treating Karrion Kross like a jobber (deservedly). In a match that was so loaded with talent, Kross stood out as particularly boring and dull for the few short minutes he was in the match. Similarly, I'm not sure what was up with Santos Escobar, but he looked almost immediately lost and awkward and seemed to botch every spot he was supposed to deliver. The best Royal Rumble match in at least a decade. (4/5)

LA Knight took on Bray Wyatt in a Mountain Dew Pitch Black match next. As most would expect, Bray's entrance was a tremendous bit of production, though Wyatt's look on this evening was more minimal and straight-forward than ever, the Eater of Worlds coming out in all-black attire and zombie-like makeup sans any mask. Once the match began, it wasn't so much a "pitch black" match as a college dorm room "black light" match, the ropes and ring apron glowing neon (along with Knight's bright green trunks and Wyatt's body and face paint. It was a unique look, but ultimately, the wrestling itself was going to have to do very heavy lifting to make this work...and Wyatt nor Knight were capable enough. Knight hit a flying clothesline off the barricade and through a table that was inexplicably filled with neon shrapnel in one of the better moments, but it was no match for Wyatt and his Sister Abigail finish a few short minutes later. This one didn't overstay its welcome, but I don't think we'll be seeing another Pitch Black match anytime soon. During the post-match, Wyatt altered his appearance and then no sold a bunch of kendo stick shots before locking in the Mandible Claw on a nearby stage. Uncle Howdy then appeared atop a scaffolding and dove onto Knight, crashing through the stage, which then erupted into flames for no apparent reason. Here's hoping that's the end of the Uncle Howdy character? This was ridiculous, but not in a ridiculously fun way. This was just shallow nonsense. (1.5/5)

Alexa Bliss challenged Bianca Belair for the RAW Women's Championship in the next bout. As Uncle Howdy had seemingly just stage-dived into the depths of hell, I was curious how much hocus pocus would happen in this match or if they'd just have a straight-up match. Belair and Alexa had a lengthy match on RAW some weeks back that I liked better than this. This match was particularly hampered by some questionable submission attempts by Alexa and a couple of overly choreographed sequences that came across a tad awkward. The finish was one such sequence, coming out of nowhere as Alexa attempted a lazy Sister Abigail that got reversed into a KOD in a very flat ending. After the bell rang, a video popped up on the tron once again teasing Bliss's return to her Wyatt-possessed Lilly-toting gimmick. They need to shit or get off the pot with this turn as they have teased it for what feels like several months at this point. A very underwhelming match from two performers that I usually enjoy. (1.5/5)

The 2023 Womens' Royal Rumble followed with Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan coming in at #1 and #2. Unlike the Men's Rumble, which didn't need to rely on surprise entrants and dramatic twists to keep the crowd engaged, the Women's edition definitely could've used some big returns and a shocking turn of event or two. Piper Niven and Nia Jax returned and Michelle McCool competed, but none felt like a truly big deal. Asuka debuted her new face paint, but its going to take more than that to really put her back where she was 4-5 years ago. Damage CTRL were once again shown to be relatively impotent, a heel trio that can dish out punishment but can't actually win when the stakes are at their highest. Ripley's victory was widely predicted and while it is undoubtedly deserved after a stellar 2022, I sorta wish they had called an audible and had Raquel Rodriquez get the victory as she was the match's babyface MVP. (2/5)

Main event time - Kevin Owens vs. Roman Reigns for the unified WWE and Universal Championships. While Owens and Reigns were the competitors for this match, much of the attention in the Alamadome was on the Honorary Uso Sami Zayn from the very start, the crowd erupting into a "Sami Uso" chant before the bell even rang. Reigns and Owens have had a number of matches over the years and while few believed Owens had any chance of winning, they both really laid in their strikes and hit a whole slew of big maneuvers to make this match come across as particularly violent and special. Owens hit two terrific frog splashes but botched what appeared to be an attempt at a moonsault at one point, slipping on a rope. To me, that sort of misstep can actually add to a match as it shows the risk in a "high risk" maneuver and, because Owens and Reigns are pros, they were able to work through the turbulence and keep the audience's attention. While the bulk of the match was maybe in the "very good" range, things got great once Reigns shoved KO into the ref and Sami Zayn and Paul Heyman got involved. The drama and story - and violence - from here was just A+ pro-wrestling. I loved Reigns' spear through the barricade, a spot that we've seen dozens of times but that doesn't always look good as it did here, and Owens took two very, very nasty back bumps into the steel steps that I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone take before (though I'm sure somebody somewhere's done it). Sami's facial expressions were brilliant as Reigns finished off his one-time best friend and things only got more intense and captivating from there as the Bloodline tortured Owens mercilessly in the post-match until Sami Zayn, with 50,000+ fans cheering him on, attempted to make the save by striking Reigns in the back with a chairshot. Jimmy Uso and Solo Sikoa took Zayn out, but Jey Uso refused to join in, turning his back on the Bloodline and walking backstage on his own. Reigns finished Zayn off with a series of big chair shots as the crowd chanted "Fuck You Roman," a moment of heel heat that deserves to be remembered for years and years to come. In a time when people question whether one can draw that kind of nuclear heat through a wrestling storyline - especially one that isn't meta in the slightest way - the Bloodline story and this post-match angle really stand out as being one of the best long-running stories in not just the past few years, but WWE history. The match itself wasn't necessarily a masterpiece or even as good as some of Roman's other matches over the past few years, but the finish was unbelievably sick and the post-match was absolutely great. (4/5)

After one of the best Royal Rumble matches in company history, this show took a real nosedive, recovering during the final stretch of the main event and then ending in one of the best WWE segments in close to a decade. Skip everything after Cody Rhodes' win and before Roman Reigns' entrance and you won't be disappointed one bit, but the Belair/Bliss and Bray Wyatt matches were awful and the Women's Royal Rumble was very disappointing. With a Kwang Rating of 2.6-out-of-5, this show earns a...

FINAL RATING - Watch It...with Remote in Hand