The 2014 Royal Rumble is one of the more "notorious" shows in WWE PPV history, but I must admit to having never actually seen it...until now.
The show kicks off with the hottest opener possible - Daniel Bryan, arguably at his peak of popularity, taking on Bray Wyatt. A very well-received match not only from the live crowd, but also online as this one remains arguably Wyatt's career match. At the time, Wyatt had mostly been steamrolling through the usual suspects - Kofi Kingston, Dolph Ziggler, Zack Ryder - with his most notable feud being his first one with Kane. In this match, he actually had to go as this match exceeds the 20-minute mark. Fortunately, Bryan is brilliant here and delivers the kind of underdog performance that had made him the most popular babyface the company had seen in at least a decade. What is seen in this match - and not as much in the Bray Wyatt matches that would come later - is just how vulnerable Wyatt is. There's no magical powers here. No worms projected on the mat. Bryan fights from beneath for most of it, but its not like he doesn't get any offense in - in fact, some of the offense he gets in is absolutely brutal and Bray Wyatt sells it without getting cartoonish. I can fully understand why the WWE would take the Wyatt character further into the "otherworldly" territory and I'll readily admit that I enjoyed his feud with Cena in the months to come, but this is still the best wrestling match he's ever had (even if it isn't the best sports-entertainment match he's ever had). The finish is a disappointing one for the live crowd, but it doesn't necessarily kill the crowd as, at this point in the show, it was still believed that Bryan would appear in the Rumble later on and that this match and Wyatt's victory was serving a valuable purpose, namely to build Wyatt up for an impending match with John Cena or The Undertaker at WrestleMania and possibly also position him as the number one contender after WrestleMania (when Bryan would presumably be the Undisputed Champion). Bray Wyatt's career match, a tremendous babyface performance from Bryan, a hot crowd. Great, must-see match. (4/5)
The next "match" is more angle than "match" - Brock Lesnar vs. The Big Show. Unlike the first match, which has aged quite well, this segment deserved to get a much more negative reaction than it did at the time. In January 2014, Brock Lesnar was coming off something like the opposite of his legendary rookie year, losing to John Cena in his big return match and then going 2-1 against Triple H. His match against CM Punk at SummerSlam 2013 was excellent, but it wasn't the dominant performance that Lesnar needed to really re-establish himself as the top guy in the WWE. That moment would come at WrestleMania XXX and, with that knowledge in mind, its weird to see him essentially play a corner-cutting heel against The Big Show, a guy who was over a decade removed from any sense of being an undefeatable Giant. Brock Lesnar shouldn't need a pre-match chair attack to beat him but that's what he does, drilling him with multiple chair shots before the bell rings. Show gets one good shot in, but Lesnar recovers and then does a stupendous F5, carrying Show around for a good 5-10 seconds before dropping him. Its such a ridiculous show of strength that had he just hit that move and not used the chair, it still would've been a believable, credible finish that would've protected Big Show because, hey, there's no way Big Show would've been prepped for getting lifted and dropped that quickly. After the "match," Lesnar continues his assault. I wonder if this all wouldn't have gone over even better if this angle had been done with Kane as a not-so-subtle allusion to Lesnar's Mania opponent. Regardless, the F-5 is enough to make this segment interesting, but it goes a touch long and the chair shots are needless. (1.5/5)
Randy Orton defends the inified WWE World Heavyweight Championship (that's quite a mouthful) against John Cena next. The history of this match is sorta interesting. In December, Cena was named the number one contender for...I don't remember...but when the match was announced, Daniel Bryan was in the ring and the crowd overwhelmingly cheered for him to be in Cena's stop (which Cena readily acknowledged). Cena and Orton had a TLC match at the show of the same name but couldn't wrest the title away from Orton. For some reason, Cena was named the number one contender again and again Daniel Bryan's fan base booed and hissed. So, coming into this match, both Cena and Orton are treated like heels and no matter how hard they work, the audience won't root for either guy. Now, fans booing Cena wasn't all that uncommon in 2014...or 2013...or 2012...or really any time after 2005, but here, the difference is that the audience isn't cheering for his opponent either and even the dependable "high pitched" fans (kids) are atypically inaudible. This isn't a 50/50 crowd. This isn't a 40/60 or a 30/70 crowd. This is a vehemently anti-both of these guys crowd and, because of it, the match that Orton and Cena put together comes off as even worse than it actually was. They clearly wanted to have an epic match with lots of finisher teasing, finisher stealing, and finisher kickouts, but its almost like trying to feed someone an overloaded, Meat Lover's pizza from Domino's 30 minutes after you've just had an authentic, oven-fired pizza from the Campania region of Italy. Now, 90% of the time, nobody is going to turn down the pie from Domino's...unless you just got treated to a world-class pizza whipped up by a true master of the culinary art. The Daniel Bryan/Bray Wyatt match was a simple, violent story told extremely well. This match came off as "video game" wrestling in comparison. In front of a different audience, on a different card, maybe this would be regarded as Orton and Cena's lost classic - but it just doesn't work in this context. (2/5)
Main event time - the 2014 edition of the Royal Rumble. CM Punk starts things off against Seth Rollins, which seemed like a bone thrown to the "indie fans" as, in the days and weeks leading up to this, everybody and their mother wanted Daniel Bryan to be included in the match and to win the thing (and would settle for nothing less). I'm not sure if the crowd noise has been lowered on the Network version but the audience's booing is not quite as loud and in-your-face as I had thought it would be. As other reviewers have noted, this match had some good, interesting moments - Kofi leaping off the barricade onto the apron in his annual "near elimination" spot, the debut (?) of Rusev, Dean Ambrose nearly eliminating Roman Reigns - but also quite a few sour notes. Obviously, the crowd wanted Daniel Bryan in this match and there are plenty of examples where wrestlers have appeared on the main card and in the Rumble, but what made things worse was that there were also some "troll" entrants and guys that the audience was just 100% indifferent to (The Usos, Sandow, and The Great Khali). And while JBL and El Torito's appearance were good for a laugh, these "moments" would be better remembered if the match had ended in a way that pleased the crowd. Instead, they're remembered as "wasted" entrants, comic relief in a match that the fans, this year especially, desperately wanted to be treated as a serious piece of storyline progression (the way it had been for Austin in the Attitude Era). Ultimately, the overall booking of this match ruined it more than any single element and it all comes to a head in the final minutes. Rey Mysterio gets booed. CM Punk is positioned as the "fan favorite" - but because the fans want Daniel Bryan, they don't really get behind him. Batista gets booed from the minute he hits the ring. Roman Reigns gets a great spotlight - no doubt - but I highly doubt he would've actually popped the crowd much if he had somehow won the Rumble. The fans wanted one thing and Vince simply refused to give it to them. This isn't the worst Rumble of all time, but I'd still rate it below-average in that it isn't a very interesting one and, aside from Roman Reigns, nobody really comes out of it looking like a bigger star than they went in. Plus, the number of interesting plot developments leading into WrestleMania were basically nil unless one counts some of the tag team interactions. (1.5/5)
With a Kwang Score of 2.25-out-of-5, Royal Rumble 2014 is the rare show that is best enjoyed by turning it off after the first match. Both title matches are disappointments for very different reasons and the Rumble itself is one of the most anti-climactic, deflating matches one could ever watch, a tone deaf misfire that had many fans questioning if Vince McMahon had officially cut ties with reality. Saved by one of the best Rumble singles matches in history, the rest of this show is more interesting than good. In this sense, it isn't a complete bore and could maybe even make a fun drinking game, but as far as being entertained? Look elsewhere.
FINAL RATING - High Risk Maneuver
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