The 30th annual Royal Rumble has been building for the past few months and it became known as the most unpredictable Royal Rumble in years.
Finally, there wasn’t a stand out winner and fans were all busy speculating about how many surprise entrants WWE could fit into it. The likes of Finn Balor, Kurt Angle, Kenny Omega and Rey Mysterio were all rumoured to have been taking part in the event, but none of them showed up in the end.
Instead, the biggest surprise of the Royal Rumble was Tye Dillinger at number 10 who was easily eliminated by Braun Strowman later in the match. Roman Reigns then rounded the night off at number 30 to audible boos from the crowd.
Earlier in the night Roman Reigns had been put through a table by Strowman, and if the Monster Among Men would have still been in the match then his inclusion would have made sense, but he wasn’t and instead Roman came down and eliminated The Undertaker in one of the biggest shocks of the night.
Fans have since taken to social media to declare their outrage after a show where John Cena equalled Ric Flair’s 16 time World Championship record. Whilst the match between Cena and AJ Styles was easily match of the night, there were points where Cena no sold a Styles Clash and AJ kicked out of a Super AA that just felt like they didn’t belong in the match.
How many times is WWE going to allow Cena to kick out of people’s finishers at pay-per-views and then look much stronger than anyone else on the roster? The Styles Clash is a move that has put so many men down, so it was disappointing that Cena not only kicked out of the first one, but he then managed to just straight up deliver two Attitude Adjustments after the second.
There was a lot wrong with last night’s show and it lacked the star power that a Royal Rumble should have, especially as a 30th anniversary.
Randy Orton was the eventual winner with Roman Reigns as the runner-up, which means that Reigns has been in four Royal Rumble matches and has been in the final four in all of them. No wonder the crowd were dead for the majority of the match, they must have assumed that Reigns was going to win once again.
Randy Orton was the odds-on winner for most of the past week with The Undertaker and Braun Strowman being the favourites beforehand. It is thought that Orton will now go on to face the winner of Elimination Chamber next month which is being rumoured to be Bray Wyatt in order to cause a split in The Wyatt Family.
Stephanie McMahon announced before the show that Seth Rollins was banned from the arena and for the first time ever, Rollins actually failed to appear. The whole point of being banned from an arena is so that you can find a way in to annoy The Authority. So WWE failed to build anything towards Triple H vs. Rollins either.
Neville won the Cruiserweight Championship earlier in the night and The Club defeated Cesaro and Sheamus to lift the Tag Team Championships for the first time in WWE. John Cena also defeated AJ Styles to win his record equalling 16th World Championship and Kevin Owens retained his Universal Championship in a brutal match against Roman Reigns after interference from Braun Strowman.
Nia Jax knocked Sasha Banks out in their match whilst Naomi pinned the SmackDown Women’s Champion in their six-woman tag match and Charlotte retained her Women’s Championship after an incredible natural selection on the apron to Bayley. The results from the night don’t fully express how much of a disappointment it really was to the fans watching at home.
Overall, WWE could have done so much more with last night’s show, Rollins could have easily attacked Apollo Crews or Sami Zayn when he announced his number and taken their place to annoy The Authority further. Number 30 could have been anyone but Roman Reigns, literally anyone and the crowd would have cheered. It just feels like WWE knew the Universe was speculating about the match for weeks before, and now the Road to WrestleMania has begun in the worst possible way.
