The Royal Rumble and WrestleMania are the only pay-per-views that I will regularly order these days. The 2012 Royal Rumble gave me no reason to consider opening my wallet further. I was nine-years-old for the first Royal Rumble, so I've seen them all and over the past month watched every single Royal Rumble battle royal again in anticipation of what I thought would be a great PPV. We had both a solid undercard and the Rumble match itself--sadly, I was left feeling extremely underwhelmed.
Here are my thoughts:
DANIEL BRYAN/BIG SHOW/MARK HENRY: I thought the workrate was solid in this match, but these guys and anyone else competing in a cage match are so shackled under the current WWE that it makes no sense even having cage matches anymore. Cage matches are supposed to be brutal. When the most brutal part is Daniel Bryan flying from one side of the cage to the other like a monkey, it's simply not delivering the impact it should. I give credit to Mark for working with his injuries, and Big Show showed quite a bit of athleticism, but steel cage matches in this current era are silly. I wasn't completely sure if the ending was botched or if Bryan was supposed to fall off Show's arm for the win; I'll assume it was booked that way, but still seemed a bit anti-climatic.
DIVAS: It was better than the diva matches you see on RAW, so that was something I suppose. Still, it's a very weak division and it showed in this match. I'm glad Beth Phoenix got an attitude during the match and if they can push the divas with actual talent--Beth, Natalya, Tamina and a returning (?) Kharma--maybe we can take women's wrestling at least a little serious. The Kelly Kelly spot was extremely stupid, I don't care how you want to spin it.
BRODUS CLAY/DREW MCINTYRE: I was actually glad to see a Brodus Clay singles match on the card, but unfortunately it fell a little flat. Still, I find the Funkasaurous gimmick entertaining--particularly when he gets vocal in the ring ("SHOULD I HIT HIM??" "MY BAD!"). I think better booking for Brodus would have been had he drawn #1 in the Rumble (which they took away when they had the dumb stipulation for the Miz/Truth match on RAW). That way he could have done his dancing before #2 came out. Either that or have him enter during the Rumble, the other guys get eliminated, then to kill time he can dance a little).
JOHN CENA/KANE: The match sucked. John Cena was left enraged at the end of RAW, but none of that came through during this match. It was the same type of match we've seen for years from Cena. Little emotion from either guy, which was disappointing. They eventually battle to the back, and Kane leaves the fight with Cena to get to Zach Ryder again? Ryder has been used as a pawn for Kane to get to Cena. Kane now has Cena--why wouldn't Kane just keep beating down Cena? The tombstone on Ryder was cool, but that wasn't enough to save this "match." Kane is one of my favorites and he's done a great job in this return, but this match was booked terribly start to finish. Just crap.
CM PUNK/DOLPH ZIGGLER: These two are obviously great wrestlers, but again the booking was questionable. The main thing actually that bothered me was one single spot. Punk had Ziggler up for, I think, the 2nd would-be GTS...but Dolph's head is facing left on-screen instead of right. Since Punk has debuted, the opponent's head has ALWAYS been on the right on-screen. Obviously, something else was going to happen and in-fact Dolph reversed Punk's move with his own finisher. This was extremely lazy booking and I'm surprised Punk went along with it. Surely there could have been other more believable ways for Ziggler to "surprise" Punk with his finisher. Still, I liked most of the action in the match but overall it wasn't their best work.
OTHER STUFF:
--Eve's interaction with Johnny Ace was some of the worst acting I've seen yet from her, and the writing was garbage. "The demented monster Kane..." WTF on both the way she delivered it and the fact it was even written like that. To see where the backstage angles have gone from the 1990's to now is truly mind-boggling. Just completely unrealistic dialogue for things that are supposed to be said in the heat of the moment.
--The Cena/Rock segments. I'm fine with one segment for each, but two segments that each were too long got me a little mad. We paid a lot of money for this PPV, and we're watching canned segments that will undoubtedly be played over again on WWE programming heading into WrestleMania. They literally could have fit another match into the time it took to run these segments. The fact that the Rock's piece included movie promotion was simply sickening. I paid this money to watch a WRESTLING pay-per-view, not to watch a behind-the-scenes feature on a new Rock movie. Holy crap.
RUMBLE MATCH: As stated above, I have seen every single Royal Rumble match. I will confidently say the 2012 Rumble match is amongst the bottom five ever.
--The Rumble match just had too many wrestlers in it with ZERO chance of winning. When you promote a Rumble match saying ANYONE can enter, you have to deliver with more big names than this year's did. Overall, this was one of the weakest field of wrestlers I've ever seen in this match. I suppose that's why they didn't have the list of wrestlers available on their website beforehand like they usually do.
--That said, there are a few that I'm glad they didn't include. Punk, Cena and Bryan should not have been in the match and WWE did good by keeping them out. However, there were plenty of other names to choose from that weren't in the match. The biggest, to me, is Kane. Not only has Kane been in more Rumbles than anyone else (I think), but it would have been a perfect explanation as to why he didn't continue to beat on Cena and Ryder--he wanted to save himself for the Rumble. The way his match with Cena ended continued to make no sense to me after it became obvious Kane wasn't in the Rumble. There's a skeptical part of me that thinks Kane wasn't in the match because WWE wants to keep Shawn Michaels atop the list of most Rumble eliminations. If it's political reasons Kane was kept out, that's beyond disgusting. That's just speculation on my part and might not hold any water--just thinking out loud here. Either way, Kane being in the Rumble would have made it significantly better.
--Chris Jericho. I openly admit I'm a huge Jericho fan and wanted him to win. It's one of the few things he doesn't have yet on his tremendous resume--Royal Rumble winner. However, that's not the main thing that bothers me coming out of the Rumble with him. It's the fact he promised something big happening at the Rumble, and then nothing happened. He ALMOST won, but that was the biggest thing concerning him. I have been extremely patient and excited watching his return unfold to see what it all means, but to me his proclamation on RAW last week was nothing more than false advertising on WWE's part. They basically promised more of the puzzle (if there IS a puzzle) to be solved at the Rumble--prompting people to want to see the Rumble--and then not doing anything at all about it. I didn't buy the Rumble for this reason--I buy it every year because it's my favorite match in the WWE--but it's extremely weak on WWE's part to make Chris Jericho's first words upon his return to mean absolutely nothing.
--The back-and-forth between Jericho and Sheamus at the end was exciting. Sheamus wouldn't have been my pick, but I've long wanted WWE to be less predictable amongst its Rumble winners so I'm okay with the fact that Sheamus won. Unless they had Jericho penciled in and then changed it just because most thought he would win--then it's spineless booking and simply really stupid to waffle like that because some fans are expecting Jericho to win.
--I was glad to see Jim Duggan in there as well as the Road Dogg. Well-deserved for each. Duggan made most sense since it was the 25th Rumble and he won the first. Both performed well in the match. I was skeptical about Ricardo Rodriguez, but once he got in there I thought it was well done. The comedy between he, Santino Marella and Mick Foley was one of the highlights of the match. Ultimately I want to see good wrestling, but I appreciate and love comedy in wrestling if it's used at the right time--this was one of those right times.
--Michael Cole was not one of those right times. I thought WWE was trying to get away from Cole being in the ring and being so over-the-top? I guess that's another thing that lasted a week or so. His being in the Rumble match was a mistake. I was okay with Lawler and Booker being in, but not Cole. I know he had a spot with Kharma, but they could have had Kharma eliminate someone else to build her up in the match. Cole was a waste of a spot for another decent name--Mason Ryan, Christian if he's ready, Goldust/Dustin Rhodes, the other Uso, another surprise entrant--most names would have been better here.
--Speaking of Kharma, obviously a surprise she was there. She did land awkwardly when she left the ring--I hope her ankle and knee are alright. If she has officially returned for the long haul, WWE better change the way they book the divas real fast; and what a terrible disservice they have done to the actual decent divas such as Beth and Natalya in jobbing them to lesser talent (other than Tamina). If Kharma struggles with either of them, it makes Kharma look worse now too. It was good to see her back--awesome spot with Dolph.
I'll continue to order the Rumble in the future, but I've been a die-impossible wrestling fan since 1986. Lesser wrestling fans won't continue to be interested if this year's Rumble becomes the new standard. Disappointingly underwhelming Royal Rumble this year. I'll be at Elimination Chamber this year and looking forward to it, but again, the cage matches won't make much sense unless we see more brutality in them. I won't hold my breath.
