WWE Royal Rumble 2017

RATING SCALE: 

Curt Hennig Level – A “GOAT” Show

Watch It – A consistently strong show worth watching in its entirety

Watch It…With Remote in Hand – Imperfect, but fun, with at least a few great matches

High Risk Maneuver – Mostly filler, salvaged by an awesome match or two, for die-hards only

DUDleyville – Zero redeeming qualities, chore to watch

WWE Royal Rumble 2017

San Antonio, Texas - January 2017

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into tonight's show, AJ Styles holds the WWE Championship while Kevin Owens is the Universal Champion. The United States Champion is Owens' good buddy Chris Jericho and the Intercontinental Title is held by Dean Ambrose. The RAW Women's Champion is Charlotte and the SmackDown Women's Champion is Alexa Bliss. On the tag side of things, the RAW Tag Team Titles are held by Sheamus and Cesaro while American Alpha hold the SmackDown Tag Team Championships. The Cruiserweight Champion is Rich Swann.

COMMENTARY: Michael Cole, Corey Graves, and Byron Saxton (RAW), with Mauro Ranallo, JBL, and David Otunga (SmackDown)

The 2017 Royal Rumble kicked off with the arrival of Bayley to challenge the undefeated-on-pay-per-view Charlotte for her RAW Women's Championship. Another very solid match out of Charlotte and another piece of evidence suggesting she's the best heel on RAW. Notice how Charlotte doesn't just put on a headlock and sit in it, she actually works the hold, talks trash, and turns her body to impose leverage. These are small details you don't necessarily get out of Randy Orton, for example. Bayley didn't get to shine too much here, but it won't be too tough to build her back up - her gimmick practically demands that she comes up short over and over until, finally, she doesn't. (3/5)

Kevin Owens vs. Roman Reigns for the WWE Universal Championship was next (with Chris Jericho suspended in a Shark Cage above the ring). As expected, Reigns got booed by a large portion of the crowd. Attitude Era brawling in the crowd to start before they made it back to ringside and the "toys" came out (god bless whoever told Cole to stop referring to weapons as such). Owens constructing a chair tower early on for a finish 15+ minutes later is something I personally like in these type of matches as it helps build towards a credible "death blow." To get there, though, Reigns and Owens didn't take any shortcuts, with Owens delivering an awesome frog splash through a table at one point and Reigns hitting all of his signature offense. Jericho tried to get involved by tossing Owens some brass knucks, but they were ineffective (which didn't make a whole lot of sense). Overall, a very fun, hard-hitting match with an ending that effectively presented a potential storyline going forward for Reigns, but nothing at all for the actual WWE Universal Champion. I enjoyed this one considerably more than their Roadblock match a month ago. (3.5/5)

The WWE Cruiserweight Championship was on the line next - Rich Swann defending the strap against the freshly-turned Neville. I've not been paying any attention at all to the cruisers division (and neither have seemingly 90% of the San Antonio crowd), but found this to be no worse than average. Neville's facial expressions and stalking are great and gave this match much more suspense than any of the previous Cruiserweight Title matches have had on recent Network specials. Swann has some good offense, including a really cool flip-a-roo somethingorother  to the outside. I'm still not tuning in to 205 Live after watching this, but this was a noticeable improvement from the TJ Perkins Era. (2.5/5)

AJ Styles, the defending WWE World Champion, arrived first (annoying) to a strong crowd response to do battle with John Cena next. This one had "big fight feel" all over it, which is pretty remarkable considering that they squared off at SummerSlam and at Money in the Bank (not to mention that they wrestled in a 3-way with Ambrose at No Mercy too). I was in the minority that didn't love their match at SummerSlam, not putting the match in my top 10 of the year or even considering it and criticizing it for being nothing more than an exchange of finishers, a match that basically began at the 10-minute mark in terms of selling and "bomb throwing." This time around, Cena/Styles benefitted from not being surrounded by god awful matches (SummerSlam 2016 stunk), a crowd that was anything but burnt out, and AJ Styles just being that much better than he already was in August. Seriously, the guy is just excellent - bumping, selling, counters, its all flawless. Cena, to his credit, looked more driven and motivated than he's looked in a long, long time (some have suggested that this "fresh look" is chemically derived), in fact, for brief moments, he almost seemed to be tossing in subtle heel facial expressions, clearly having fun with the split crowd. Several really cool spots/sequences in this - AJ turning a torture rack into a spinning powerbomb, an AA from the top rope, all sorts of sick flying forearms and lariats, a really slick submission stretch with STFs and Calf Crushers and a figure four - these two just loaded up their 24 minutes of ring time with action. I'm not necessarily sure why I connected with this bout more than their SummerSlam match five months ago, but I did. I would've preferred a different ending, but nobody is "hurt" by losing a match this competitive. (4/5)

Main event time - The 2017 Royal Rumble match itself. I like Enzo and Cass, but disliked their "introduction" to the match. Just unnecessary after hours upon hours of hype videos. That slight criticism aside, I found the first third of this match to be very, very good with lots of fun moments, including some "mark out" moments featuring Braun Strowman, Mark Henry, and the Big Show. Henry, in particular, looked great getting into Strowman's face. Loved Jack Gallagher's run. Tye Dillinger (and his supporters) got his "10" moment. Loved the callback to James Ellworth not wanting to get into the ring against Strowman and Dean Ambrose tricking him into what would be a very, very painful-looking elimination. The second third of the match was a "cooldown," though, with a number of filler guys showing up - The New Day, Cesaro, Sheamus - that stood no chance of winning. Luke Harper came in at #25 and seemed to turn face in the match, though, I'm afraid that storyline won't be featured too prominently beyond Elimination Chamber, even if it is clear that Harper has been hitting the gym and really doing everything he can to get another look for a push. He deserves it, no doubt, but he's stuck in line behind a number of other "hosses" right now. The match didn't truly pick up from its initial highs until Lesnar came out at #26 and, by then, any hopes of a Samoa Joe or Nakamura debut were pretty much dashed. Has Lesnar "lost his aura" since losing to Goldberg at Survivor Series? I can see the argument on either side depending on the specific segment he's featured in, but in the Rumble, he brought the whole crowd back into the match and transported them to Suplex City. It was undeniably electric. Enzo Amore was a wasted entrant at #27, but #28 finally gave the fans what they wanted - Goldberg. I dug Goldberg embarrassing Lesnar for the second time and don't buy into the idea that "nobody will care" about their WrestleMania  match because the feud has been so one-sided. The Undertaker and Roman Reigns rounded out the rest of the entrants and the WrestleMania card remains a mystery because of it as Taker ended up eliminating Goldberg and Reigns, who seemed headed for a feud against Strowman based on his match earlier in the evening, ousted the Deadman, so its not entirely clear who'll be whose dance partners in April. I don't mind not knowing, though, I was unimpressed with the decision to have Randy Orton end up as the last man standing. I'm not entirely sure who the better option was, but I'll be very, very surprised if Randy Orton is involved in even the third most hyped match on the WrestleMania card. Overall, a very strong Rumble when it started that dipped in quality and didn't feature nearly enough surprises to keep it interesting in the middle. Intriguing storyline progression with Reigns, Taker, Goldberg, and Lesnar, even if they all came up short in the end. An above-average Rumble in my eyes, but not a "must watch" or one I'd be eager to revisit. (3.5/5)

With a very solid Kwang Score of 3.3-out-of-5, this year's edition of the Royal Rumble delivered where it needed to and, as surprising as it may seem for a 4-hour show, really flew by thanks to how fast-paced and action-packed all four title matches were. I'm a bit of a Rumble traditionalist and believe that the top babyface or the top heel should win the Rumble every year (as was almost always the case in my childhood from 91' to 99'), but somewhere in the 2000s, that rule of thumb changed and we started getting winners who would "main event" WrestleMania in the midcard (or even the opening contest!) like Alberto Del Rio and Sheamus. Randy Orton is the next name on that list, an uppermidcard act in 2016 that is over and credible enough in a kayfabe sense to win the Rumble, but too cold to truly "main event" WrestleMania in April no matter what storyline they could come up with. My prediction is that Cena drops the title at Elimination Chamber in February back to AJ Styles and we get a three-way for the strap with The Phenomenal One getting quite "the rub" from being featured with the two biggest "full time" stars of the company from roughly 05' to today. As for the RAW main event scene, I'm thinking the strap stays on Owens but the spotlight will shine on almost everyone else - Goldberg, Lesnar, Reigns, Triple H, and Rollins too. If you're a wrestling fan, 'tis the season when things get interesting and last night's show exemplified that feeling. It also marked the first time that I can recall the WWE putting on a show that bested its NXT counterpart.

FINAL RATING - Watch It