The road to Wrestlemania 32 officially kicked off at last night’s Royal Rumble and boy was did it kick off with some fireworks. Let’s take a look at what went down.
The Game Reclaims His Title
With the WWE title on the line in the Rumble match for only the second time, you knew there were going to be some major surprises and memorable moments. But it was the fact that WWE was able to take the most predictable of outcomes and still make it interesting that really showed how well the night was done.
This year’s Rumble started off with Roman Reigns and Rusev, who just happened to be the last two guys in the Royal Rumble last year. And just like last year, Reigns eliminates the Bulgarian Brute. Poor Rusev, goes from Rumble runner-up to first man out. What a difference 12 months makes.
Reigns waits for entrant #3 and it’s….. AJ STYLES!!!!
I mean we knew this was probably happening and it was still a pretty awesome moment to finally see the Phenomenal One in WWE. Styles hits the ring and immediately makes an impact, hitting Reigns with this awesome bicycle kick.
Chris Jericho comes in at 6 and the fight is on from there. The Rumble is actually pretty uneventful until #12 makes his way out and it’s R-Truth. Truth runs down to the ring, pulls out a ladder and climbs up top to get the Money in the Bank briefcase… wait what?
Yeah, no they really did that.
Around this point, the League of Nations shows up and pulls Reigns out of the ring under the bottom rope, not officially eliminating him however. They begin to just destroy the WWE Champ at ringside, culminating in this insane splash by Rusev to Reigns through a table.
A stretcher comes out for Reigns, who has to be helped to the back and is out of the match for now. That’s one way to get the guy a breather.
Things really pick up with entrant #17, Strong Throwman who comes in and eliminates Kane and Big Show. At #18 we get a beat up and still awesome Kevin Owens.
Owenst comes in and immediately sets his sights on AJ Styles.
Owens eliminates the Phenomenal One which I’m pretty sure sets up a feud between the two which is FREAKING AWESOME.
Entrant #19 is everyone’s favorite lunatic Dean Ambrose, but things really get fun at #20 when NXT’s own Sami Zayn makes his way out and immediately rehashes his feud with Owens. I mean seriously look at Owens reaction it’s amazing.
AND THE BRAWL. IS. ON.
Zayn eventually eliminates Owens and puts an end to their interrupted feud… for now.
Brock Lesnar finally makes his way into the match as entrant #23 and immediately begins to suplex the world. Lesnar eventually eliminates all three of Bray Wyatt’s minions by himself and stands in the center of the ring as Wyatt makes his way out at #27.
As Wyatt hits the ring, he signals for help and Strowman, Harper and Rowan all circle the ring before attacking Lesnar. Brock fights them off but eventually the numbers game is too much. Wyatt hits a Sister Abigail and his three giants throw Lesnar out, eliminating the biggest threat in the match and setting up a Wrestlemania feud along the way.
Sheamus makes his way out at #29 and as he’s heading to the ring a fireball of Roman Reigns returns to take him out.
Reigns hits the ring and starts eliminating everyone as we count down to our final entrant. And at #30 it is… TRIPLE H!
Trips and Reigns immediately begin barking at each other and then have a quick pissing contest in the ring, hitting their finishers on other Rumble competitors. Eventually, they start brawling with each other and it’s… kind of anti-climactic.
Trips gets the upper-hand and Reigns is down in the corner when the COO comes face to face with the Face of Fear.
Trips tries to convince Bray to take out Reigns, but Wyatt attacks the COO instead and it’s mass chaos everywhere.
Eventually, Bray Wyatt is eliminated and my Wrestlemania dreams are shattered.
We finally get down to our final four and it’s Reigns, Sheamus, Ambrose and Trips. Fitting that the brothers will face the Authority with a title on the line.
As the men battle, Reigns eliminates Sheamus from behind and then the shock of the Rumble follows as he is immediately eliminated by Triple H!
To say that Trips was excited would be a bit of an understatement.
Pretty sure none of that language was PG, Hunter.
Surprisingly, our final two comes down to the man we all love against the man we all absolutely don’t want to see win. It’s Dean Ambrose vs. Triple H for the WWE title.
That’s right, this is our only hope at stopping a 46-year-old Triple H from becoming WWE Champ.
Ambrose gets Trips over the top rope but the COO hangs on the apron. As the Lunatic tries to go at him, Triple H counters and flips Ambrose over, winning the match and officially starting his 14th WWE title reign.
Yay.
This is me excited. Really, I’m excited. Okay no, no I’m not excited at all.
We go off the air with every WWE fans biggest nightmare, Triple H celebrating another title reign with Vince and Stephanie McMahon.
I think a lot of people saw this coming, but putting Ambrose in the final two instead of Reigns was a nice way to keep things fresh here. It will be interesting to see if evil Champ Triple H can get Reigns over with the crowd again. WWE is running out of chances at making the kid the face of the company. You can only avoid the rejection of the crowd for so long.
All-in-all, this was a pretty damn good Rumble match. The surprise entrants were kept to a minimum, but when they did show up they definitely counted. This match being for the WWE title, it makes sense that we didn’t get a ton of old-timers entering into it.
Well, except the guy that won the match that is.
Other Results:
Last. Man. Standing. – Dean Ambrose and Kevin Owens are amazing. Dean Ambrose feuding with Kevin Owens, up until last night, not so amazing. Despite the poor booking of their Intercontinental title feud, the two made it all worth it with an INCREDIBLE Last Man Standing match.
The match itself was a spot-heavy, physical explosion of awesomeness. The most awesome moment might have been Ambrose throwing a chair at Owens face, and the chair getting stuck on KO’s head.
There were a few chair spots including this Dirty Deeds onto one.
But this match belonged to the tables.
Seriously, SO MANY BROKEN TABLES.
And our finish of course comes when Ambrose pushes Owens off the turnbuckle, through two tables stacked on top of each other ringside.
Owens can’t beat the count and Ambrose retains in an awesome match.
Poor Becky – The Divas title match featured Charlotte defending against Becky Lynch in a battle of former besties. The match itself was pretty damn good, but unfortunately involved a little too much Ric Flair.
Not even going to comment on that because, gross.
And seriously, TOO MUCH RIC FLAIR.
Charlotte retains because of daddy and everyone is mad UNTIL SASHA BANKS SHOWS UP!
The Boss makes her way out… only to kick Becky out of the ring and say the spotlight is hers now. Her and Charlotte shake hands and the Champ starts to leave.
NEVER TURN YOUR BACK ON SASHA BANKS!
THIS IS HAPPENING! 2016 IS SASHA BANKS YEAR PEOPLE! BASK IN THE BOSS.
New Day Retains… Again – Quick stop me if you’ve heard this before – the New Day defended their tag titles against the Usos and won! Okay seriously, this is like the 17th time it happened. I love New Day but the only thing interesting about this was their intro promo and Xavier Woods pulling this bulldog off ringside.
These guys need a fresh, new challenger ASAP. Enzo & Cass anyone?
KALISTOOOOOOO! – In a match that could have been incredibly boring, Kalisto took on Alberto Del Rio for the U.S. title for the third time in two weeks. Despite the match not being very fresh, the two still put on a pretty good show.
Kalisto played the underdog role well, taking quite the beating from Del Rio throughout the match.
In the end, Kalisto is able to hit the Salida Del Sol and shock the world, winning the U.S. title for a second time and officially kicking off reign as the next Rey Mysterio Jr.