For those of you who are either first-time readers or regular followers (all two of you), I need to begin this recap of my experience at WWE's Royal Rumble 2019 at Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona with a disclaimer: I am in no way trying to diminish my awe at being at what is not only my favorite yearly event in WWE, but the first and very likely only time that I'll be in attendance at one of the Big Four of their yearly PPV's, but I will, throughout this column, discuss the really really poor work done by Chase Field in regards to the planning, production, and execution of this show for the live audience. The Manager and I had been in a perpetual holding pattern for a good amount of the last several months as we got the money together, booked time off work and planned our days to the most infinitesimal detail. We left our home to get to the Light Rail train on time; we got to Chase Field with a lot of time to spare but once we were outside, we just knew that this was going to be a clusterfuck of near epic proportions. There's one main entrance to the field, and there were... I hesitate to use the word "lines" because that would imply that there was some rhyme or reason to the way that people were conglomerating. It was more like being at a Black Friday at Walmart. It was just fucking chaos. As the time grew nearer to the opening of the doors, security began filing out towards different areas all around the entrance to get nearer to the metal detectors. Again, to the dismay of some of the people who were there, including a very friendly young woman that we met in line, the bag policy, while not being made entirely clear, was to have only clear bags. She had a bag that met the size requirements but it was just a standard everyday non-transparent clutch. She was asked to get out of line and come back without the bag. Thankfully for her, as we found out after the show, she was only parked a block away, so it wasn't that big of a deal, but still, this was a big deal and it should have been made plainer to all parties. But we finally made it inside. And then there was the seating. As you likely know, Chase Field is the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks so its primary purpose is having baseball games. Occasionally, they have concerts and the like, but this was the first time that Chase Field held an event like this. There were seats in the stands, and there were floor seats. The Manager and I were in floor seats, and you'd think that was a real score, right? Well...
These were our seats. If no one sat in front of us for about 18 rows, we'd have had a clear view of the ring from a very very long way away. But the place was packed, so for the entire show, we were watching everything that was happening live on the Tron you see in that photo above the ring. We looked around at the seats in the actual stands, and for several minutes, seriously thought about approaching someone up there and asking if they wanted to trade for floor seats. Now, let's talk a bit about the various other things that were just fucked. There was the floor entrance/exit issue. There were only two ways on or off the floor unless there was an emergency. Two. That's just fucking stupid. There was also the concession issue. All I wanted was two bottles of water and a bucket of popcorn, but as I headed down the stairs, I was stopped by a security guard who handed me two cups for me to empty my bottles into, because bottles weren't allowed on the floor. But the bucket of popcorn was a giant souvenir plastic D-Backs helmet. So why was that allowed, but plastic bottles weren't? Then there were the seats themselves. They were hard plastic with no cushioning for our section. The sections in front of us were padded souvenir chairs that presumably cost the customer about $75 - $100 more if I were to hazard a guess. They were packed as tightly together as was possible as evidenced by the zip-ties that hooked all the seats together. The Manager was between me and a 6' tall man with some pointy elbows, and I was next to a very jittery teen who rarely stopped shaking his leg. Look, we all have nervous tics, but there were moments that I was ready to punch him. There was also no room for our food or beverages. To my sincere shock, though, no one spilled our cups of water.
Okay, enough of the complaints for now. Let's get on with the show! And if you read my Hopes and Predictions column for the Rumble, I'll be comparing those to how it all went down.
The pre-show started with what was honestly the most confusing match I could have possibly thought of, which was Raw tag champs Bobby Roode and Chad Gable against Rezar of AOP and Scott Dawson of The Revival. I didn't really care about the match, because it wasn't even a good warm-up for the crowd. I just kept asking myself, "Why is this match happening? This doesn't even feel like something they'd put on Main Event!", but happen it did, and despite Roode and Gable getting the win, no one gave a shit, and rightly so. That was just bizarre booking and the match looked really clumsy. If they're supposedly going to be pushing the tag division going forward, this was a really awful way to show that.
Then we got the US title bout between Shinsuke Nakamura vs champ Rusev, and this one started the way it needed to. Rusev was understandably angry about how Lana was injured in her confrontation with Nakamura and he came out like a house on fire. There was some good back and forth throughout, but Rusev ended up fighting a lot from underneath. And then, because this was something that Creative felt needed to happen, they schmozzed up the ending by having Rusev inadvertently knock Lana off the ring apron which allowed Nak to hit the Kinsasha on the back of Rusev's head for the win. So after a nice Christmas/Birthday/Rusev Day win, we're back to Nakamura being champ and some 50/50 booking for Rusev. Now I know that I shouldn't really complain too much about this booking because it generally makes sense to have mostly heels with belts going into Mania, because it'll be that much more of a pop when the babyface goes over at Mania. So I get it, but this title reign was a whole lotta nothing and since it's held again by Shinsuke, they're really going to need to give me something that will make me want to invest some emotions in this fight, particularly since Nak's first title reign did little for me. So this was a miss for me as far as both hopes and predictions.
Then there was the Cruiserweight title Fatal 4-Way with Kalisto, Akira Tozawa and Hideo Itami all going after champ Buddy Murphy. This was a match that I felt could have been in the main show. It had a lot of good spots and was really solid for pretty much the whole match, but I understood why they kept it pre-show, since this was sadly a match no one really cared about the result of. I get it; 205 Live is just not repped that well, so, that's just how it goes. Murphy got the win, retaining. So while I hoped Itami would pick up the win, my prediction was still correct.
Then we got to the main show, which started with the match I was hoping would kick things off, and that was the Smackdown Women's championship match between Becky Lynch and champ Asuka, and it was just about everything I hoped for. I was still holding out hope that Asuka would turn heel, but it made more sense to keep her face. Both women gave as good as they got and this led to some of the best work that Asuka has done on the main roster, and Becky was damn good as well. It was a great match, and Asuka getting that bridge for further the torque on the Asuka lock was a great way to get the win on Becky. She tapped out more quickly than I would have thought, but it was clear as she was on her way away from the ring that she had a backup plan... so while it didn't live up to my hope, it did live up to my prediction.
Then we got the Smackdown Tag title match between The Bar and Miz and Shane McMahon. This was just a goofy match almost all the way. Shane O'Mac kept hitting (or trying to hit) some high spots, but the best moment of the match was when The Swiss Cyborg put Shane in the Cesaro Swing for what felt like about a full minute, and we all popped like mad for that, but we also knew at the same time that anything Shane did for about one to two minutes after that was going to be very half-hearted. But the A-Lister and Shane got it together as Miz hit the Skull-Crushing Finale on Sheamus and Shane did a 450 splash on Cesaro to pick up the win. Then Miz and Shane shared a nice moment with Miz's dad. I was hoping that one of the members of The Bar would turn on the other because they cost them the title against an ad-hoc tag team, but it had a happy ending and no one really cared. It got a mild pop, but you can almost count the days it'll take for Miz to turn on Shane and that's their match at Mania. So, that met my prediction as well, so as far as predictions, I'm 3 for 4 if you're counting so far.
Then came the Raw Women's title bout between Sasha Banks and champ Ronda Rousey, and this was a pretty solid match as well. The spot where Rousey tried to hit Banks with an elbow shot but hit the digital ring post and broke it... that was pretty awesome. It sold her power and Banks' quickness, and that was the story of the match, and they played it well. Don't get me wrong; there was never a moment where I though Rousey was going to lose, but it worked well enough to keep me invested, and sometimes, that's all you can really hope for. Again, Rousey looked solid, particularly when she tried to complete the Three Amigos. Banks was also clearly committed to playing heel during this match, and I was confused for a while when she was yanking the strap off her arm, but she ended up using it against Rousey, and it just made me wish that Banks was heel again. So another win for Ronda, and that met my hopes and predictions. 4 for 5! Let's keep going!
Then we got the Women's Rumble match, and here's where the evening peaked for everyone. I'm not going to go over every single entrant and every single elimination, but I am going to take a few minutes to discuss the problems we had viewing it. This was another clusterfuck on the part of WWE and Chase Field by not only interrupting the match screen to show the countdown clock, but almost every time it came back up, the screen kept glitching and it really took you out of the match. Not a great look for the technical team. They could have put the countdown clock on just the main screen in the scoreboard section, and we all would have gotten the gist. It was a bad call. And this will come up again in the Men's Rumble, so don't worry. Anyway, back to the match, which was just great. The surprises were very solid and very much the opposite of last year where they trotted out a lot of legends, and I totally understood that; this was something that they never got to have, but this year, the focus was on the up-and-comers, and the ones that really kept me going were people like Xia Li, Rhea Ripley and Candace La Rae (who got bigger pops than expected) and Kacy Catanzaro, who had the spot of the night as far as escaping the elimination. Naomi's was much more dramatic and involved, but the former American Ninja Warrior contestant and Mae Young Classic contender had an amazing technical escape that really kept everyone on the edge of their seats. Nikki Cross (who I adore) had probably the best "rookie" showing as she just went totally nuts on everyone and she got the crowd popping like mad. Zelina Vega also was fun as hell to watch as she snuck out and hid under the ring until she discovered that Hornswoggle was hiding there as well, and went back into the ring only to get eliminated. But where this match really turned the corner was when Lana came out at #28, but her leg was so badly hurt in the injury she suffered in the US title match schmozz that she couldn't compete in the Rumble, and we all knew what was coming, especially since Nia Jax entered at #29 and Carmella was out at #30. Some time passed and Becky came out to a massive pop and eventually was allowed to enter, and it was almost all academic from there. When she met Nia as soon as she got in the ring, the structure shook from the pop when The Man started laying into Jax. Eventually, it was down to the three I was sure it was going to come down to: Nia, Charlotte and Becky. I don't know how she did it, but Charlotte dead-lifted Jax onto her shoulders to try to eliminate her, but Becky came up with that elimination. Outside the ring, Becky and Charlotte battled and Charlotte got the upper hand as she absolutely went to town on Becky's leg. But The Man would stage the comeback and got Charlotte out onto the apron where it was anyone's guess, but Becky took care of business and won the Women's Rumble. There wasn't a single person in their seat. The dome shook. The crowd went absolutely berserk and we all were about to get our fondest wish. So while my prediction was wrong, my hope was right, so hope did win out here.
After that match, I could have left happy as a pig in poop, but there was still a lot of show to do, and next was the WWE Championship match between A.J. Styles and champ Daniel Bryan. This match made me extremely happy. It had everything I had hoped for. It was brutal on both sides, and neither competitor left anything outside the ring. But it also had the oddest reappearance of anyone, and that was Erick Rowan coming out dressed in a flannel shirt and a Tom Savini t-shirt (Google him, kids), and after a ref bump that left both competitors down, Rowan came in and wrecked Styles and left him there for Bryan to cover for the 3-count. So this rivalry should now officially be over and that should leave Styles to have a short rivalry with Rowan. And while my prediction was technically correct as far as the winner was concerned, my hopes won out again as Bryan got the dirty win. Yay! I cannot stress just how much I am fucking loving this heel run by Bryan. It's just astonishing how well he's pulling it off. It was a bummer that the crowd just wasn't that into it, and really, this would have been the perfect place for the Cruiserweight title bout, because the crowd's collective heart-rate was settling down after watching Becky win the Rumble match so I think we all needed a match we didn't have to be terribly invested in. But it happened, and we can still enjoy it regardless of crowd reaction.
Then we got both the best and worst match of the night as we had my guy Finn Balor face off against champ Brock Lesnar for the Universal title. Again, it's absolutely no secret to anyone that Finn was the massive underdog in this match, and he really didn't stand a chance. But with all of the bullshit about a "fresh start", we just knew that Vince was paying the crowd a lot of lip service with all that. And with this match, he had a chance to put his money where his mouth was, but it wasn't to be. Finn came out strong and really looked like he had a chance for a while, though. Brock seemed like he was there to sell that Finn was actually doing him some damage, but he definitely wasn't getting paid by the hour. I know there are some people who really feel that this match told a story all throughout, but it didn't. If they played more into the stomach injury angle, Finn hitting the Coup de Grace on Lesnar's mid-section would have laid him out and allowed for the win, but once Lesnar was out of the pin, he locked in the Kimora on Balor's arm and it led to the submission win. To be fair to Lesnar, that was unexpected. I can't remember the last time he didn't wrap things up with an F-5, but here he was. And if Brock had limped away from the match, it would have done a much better job at selling Finn as a legit competitor against the larger opponents, but of course, they had to fuck that up too by having Brock come back in and lay waste to Balor as he did a zillion suplexes and then hit him with the F-5. I'm not into giving Brock a pass because he sort of showed up to work. Yeah, his match with Daniel Bryan at Survivor Series was awesome but that's because we're grading on a curve. We're expecting Lesnar to show up and do the bare minimum, and whenever he doesn't, all the fans are like, "Oh, man! The Beast really showed up!" Fuck that noise. When you're paid the kind of money he's being paid, you better show up to work in every fucking match. That's how you make your living, asshole. If I show up and do the bare minimum at my job, I might keep it, but no one's going to give me a shit-ton of money to do that. So fuck all the Lesnar apologists. If that's going to keep you away from this blog, I honestly don't care. So yeah, my prediction was right, but I was praying the whole time that it wouldn't be.
And to close it out, we had the Men's Rumble. Again, there were the same issues with the Tron and by this time, my back and neck, already kind of jacked up due to the fact that my body hates me, were really starting to get to me thanks to the total discomfort afforded by my seat. But I was still in it to win it. Meanwhile The Manager was not pleased. She was already talking about writing angry letters to Chase Field, Ticketmaster and WWE regarding the sheer stupidity of the floor seat layout. But once Elias started us off, I was back into it. Then Jeff Jarrett came out and this was a good indicator that they were getting the comedy portion of the Rumble out of the way early. So let's talk about my favorite moments because that's what really matters. The entrance of Johnny Gargano. I thought my lungs were going to give out with how hard I cheered for that. Titus O'Neil running in and stopping short of the ring, only to discover that Curt Hawkins was there and climbed under the ring anyway. Pete Dunne's appearance. Aleister Black's appearance. Mustafa Ali's elimination of Samoa Joe. Dunne wish-boning Black's hand and then Black popping his finger back into place. And I have to say, Nia Jax getting into the Men's Rumble was really cool. I'm hoping this opened the door for some inter-gender competition, but I'm not going to hold my breath. The thing about the Rumble, particularly when you get down to the final 6 or so is all about either setting up rivalries or paying them off, but a lot of this was willy-nilly. When Drew McIntyre was eliminated by Dolph Ziggler, I understood what they were trying for, but this was not a rivalry anyone was invested in anymore. Just before that, I was hoping that the final three were going to be Rollins, McIntyre and Andrade. But we got what we got, and that was the final two being Strowman and Rollins. I know that a lot of people had Strowman as the favorite, but that didn't make any sense to me. It was obvious that the fans had been cooling on him for a while now, and all the losses he had recently didn't help matters. So McIntyre and Rollins were my picks for what I felt were obvious reasons. But once Finn lost, I was 100% positive that Rollins was going to come out on top. And he did as he felled Strowman off the apron, because all Rumble fights can't end by someone simply going over the top rope anymore. Besides, there was a certain point where I was just anxious for it to be over. I'm happy Rollins got the win, because this will give him his deserved spot as true top guy for a while when he takes the Universal title off Lesnar. I know that he could very well choose Daniel Bryan, but he won't and we all know it. I don't quite know who will face off against Bryan, but we do know that it's going to be Rollins against Lesnar at Mania. And that was my prediction.
So The Manager and I started to head out. Started being the operative term. Remember how there were only two ways in or out of the floor seats? That mostly held true for the end of the night as well. There were people escaping by climbing over railings, but security put the kibosh on that after too long. The floor area was just gross as nobody threw anything away, and I was almost hit about thirty times by the people carrying away their souvenir chairs. Meanwhile, The Manager and I were struggling to walk out of there, but we did meet up with the nice woman we had met going in, and we stood there talking wrestling for a solid 45 minutes or so until she ended up offering us a ride back to our car, which was about 30-odd minutes away from Chase Field. When we finally got back to our car, we felt like we'd been through a war. I've been to huge concerts and massive crowd-gatherings before but nothing was as disorganized or as uncomfortable as that evening. But we were at The Royal Fucking Rumble. That's a once-in-a-lifetime thing for people like us. And all in all, the weekend was a hell of a lot of fun. Now, do I have some pictures?
Here's a video of Becky's entrance into the SD Women's title match:
Here's a really fuzzy one of Seth standing tall at the end:
And here's me, repping The Man with the Rumble sign in the background. Sadly, the Wrestlemania sign was just on that scoreboard Tron, but at least I have this.
For those of you who were playing along, the final score was 8 out of 9 for either hopes or predictions! Well, technically there were 6 out of 9 predictions, and two that were hopes. So hopes didn't win out the evening, but at least one held where it counted.
So that was it, boys and girls! I know a lot of this might have felt like a bitch sesh, but again, you can go anywhere to get a proper blow-by-blow recap, and if I hadn't been there, this might have been a little more like that. But I needed to tell a story about what it was like to be there, and not just about what happened in the matches, so that's what I did.
So I'll have more on Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning in my regular columns about this very important week in Raw and Smackdown Live, and a recap of NXT on late Wednesday!
Until next time, kids...
These were our seats. If no one sat in front of us for about 18 rows, we'd have had a clear view of the ring from a very very long way away. But the place was packed, so for the entire show, we were watching everything that was happening live on the Tron you see in that photo above the ring. We looked around at the seats in the actual stands, and for several minutes, seriously thought about approaching someone up there and asking if they wanted to trade for floor seats. Now, let's talk a bit about the various other things that were just fucked. There was the floor entrance/exit issue. There were only two ways on or off the floor unless there was an emergency. Two. That's just fucking stupid. There was also the concession issue. All I wanted was two bottles of water and a bucket of popcorn, but as I headed down the stairs, I was stopped by a security guard who handed me two cups for me to empty my bottles into, because bottles weren't allowed on the floor. But the bucket of popcorn was a giant souvenir plastic D-Backs helmet. So why was that allowed, but plastic bottles weren't? Then there were the seats themselves. They were hard plastic with no cushioning for our section. The sections in front of us were padded souvenir chairs that presumably cost the customer about $75 - $100 more if I were to hazard a guess. They were packed as tightly together as was possible as evidenced by the zip-ties that hooked all the seats together. The Manager was between me and a 6' tall man with some pointy elbows, and I was next to a very jittery teen who rarely stopped shaking his leg. Look, we all have nervous tics, but there were moments that I was ready to punch him. There was also no room for our food or beverages. To my sincere shock, though, no one spilled our cups of water.
Okay, enough of the complaints for now. Let's get on with the show! And if you read my Hopes and Predictions column for the Rumble, I'll be comparing those to how it all went down.
The pre-show started with what was honestly the most confusing match I could have possibly thought of, which was Raw tag champs Bobby Roode and Chad Gable against Rezar of AOP and Scott Dawson of The Revival. I didn't really care about the match, because it wasn't even a good warm-up for the crowd. I just kept asking myself, "Why is this match happening? This doesn't even feel like something they'd put on Main Event!", but happen it did, and despite Roode and Gable getting the win, no one gave a shit, and rightly so. That was just bizarre booking and the match looked really clumsy. If they're supposedly going to be pushing the tag division going forward, this was a really awful way to show that.
Then we got the US title bout between Shinsuke Nakamura vs champ Rusev, and this one started the way it needed to. Rusev was understandably angry about how Lana was injured in her confrontation with Nakamura and he came out like a house on fire. There was some good back and forth throughout, but Rusev ended up fighting a lot from underneath. And then, because this was something that Creative felt needed to happen, they schmozzed up the ending by having Rusev inadvertently knock Lana off the ring apron which allowed Nak to hit the Kinsasha on the back of Rusev's head for the win. So after a nice Christmas/Birthday/Rusev Day win, we're back to Nakamura being champ and some 50/50 booking for Rusev. Now I know that I shouldn't really complain too much about this booking because it generally makes sense to have mostly heels with belts going into Mania, because it'll be that much more of a pop when the babyface goes over at Mania. So I get it, but this title reign was a whole lotta nothing and since it's held again by Shinsuke, they're really going to need to give me something that will make me want to invest some emotions in this fight, particularly since Nak's first title reign did little for me. So this was a miss for me as far as both hopes and predictions.
Then there was the Cruiserweight title Fatal 4-Way with Kalisto, Akira Tozawa and Hideo Itami all going after champ Buddy Murphy. This was a match that I felt could have been in the main show. It had a lot of good spots and was really solid for pretty much the whole match, but I understood why they kept it pre-show, since this was sadly a match no one really cared about the result of. I get it; 205 Live is just not repped that well, so, that's just how it goes. Murphy got the win, retaining. So while I hoped Itami would pick up the win, my prediction was still correct.
Then we got to the main show, which started with the match I was hoping would kick things off, and that was the Smackdown Women's championship match between Becky Lynch and champ Asuka, and it was just about everything I hoped for. I was still holding out hope that Asuka would turn heel, but it made more sense to keep her face. Both women gave as good as they got and this led to some of the best work that Asuka has done on the main roster, and Becky was damn good as well. It was a great match, and Asuka getting that bridge for further the torque on the Asuka lock was a great way to get the win on Becky. She tapped out more quickly than I would have thought, but it was clear as she was on her way away from the ring that she had a backup plan... so while it didn't live up to my hope, it did live up to my prediction.
Then we got the Smackdown Tag title match between The Bar and Miz and Shane McMahon. This was just a goofy match almost all the way. Shane O'Mac kept hitting (or trying to hit) some high spots, but the best moment of the match was when The Swiss Cyborg put Shane in the Cesaro Swing for what felt like about a full minute, and we all popped like mad for that, but we also knew at the same time that anything Shane did for about one to two minutes after that was going to be very half-hearted. But the A-Lister and Shane got it together as Miz hit the Skull-Crushing Finale on Sheamus and Shane did a 450 splash on Cesaro to pick up the win. Then Miz and Shane shared a nice moment with Miz's dad. I was hoping that one of the members of The Bar would turn on the other because they cost them the title against an ad-hoc tag team, but it had a happy ending and no one really cared. It got a mild pop, but you can almost count the days it'll take for Miz to turn on Shane and that's their match at Mania. So, that met my prediction as well, so as far as predictions, I'm 3 for 4 if you're counting so far.
Then came the Raw Women's title bout between Sasha Banks and champ Ronda Rousey, and this was a pretty solid match as well. The spot where Rousey tried to hit Banks with an elbow shot but hit the digital ring post and broke it... that was pretty awesome. It sold her power and Banks' quickness, and that was the story of the match, and they played it well. Don't get me wrong; there was never a moment where I though Rousey was going to lose, but it worked well enough to keep me invested, and sometimes, that's all you can really hope for. Again, Rousey looked solid, particularly when she tried to complete the Three Amigos. Banks was also clearly committed to playing heel during this match, and I was confused for a while when she was yanking the strap off her arm, but she ended up using it against Rousey, and it just made me wish that Banks was heel again. So another win for Ronda, and that met my hopes and predictions. 4 for 5! Let's keep going!
Then we got the Women's Rumble match, and here's where the evening peaked for everyone. I'm not going to go over every single entrant and every single elimination, but I am going to take a few minutes to discuss the problems we had viewing it. This was another clusterfuck on the part of WWE and Chase Field by not only interrupting the match screen to show the countdown clock, but almost every time it came back up, the screen kept glitching and it really took you out of the match. Not a great look for the technical team. They could have put the countdown clock on just the main screen in the scoreboard section, and we all would have gotten the gist. It was a bad call. And this will come up again in the Men's Rumble, so don't worry. Anyway, back to the match, which was just great. The surprises were very solid and very much the opposite of last year where they trotted out a lot of legends, and I totally understood that; this was something that they never got to have, but this year, the focus was on the up-and-comers, and the ones that really kept me going were people like Xia Li, Rhea Ripley and Candace La Rae (who got bigger pops than expected) and Kacy Catanzaro, who had the spot of the night as far as escaping the elimination. Naomi's was much more dramatic and involved, but the former American Ninja Warrior contestant and Mae Young Classic contender had an amazing technical escape that really kept everyone on the edge of their seats. Nikki Cross (who I adore) had probably the best "rookie" showing as she just went totally nuts on everyone and she got the crowd popping like mad. Zelina Vega also was fun as hell to watch as she snuck out and hid under the ring until she discovered that Hornswoggle was hiding there as well, and went back into the ring only to get eliminated. But where this match really turned the corner was when Lana came out at #28, but her leg was so badly hurt in the injury she suffered in the US title match schmozz that she couldn't compete in the Rumble, and we all knew what was coming, especially since Nia Jax entered at #29 and Carmella was out at #30. Some time passed and Becky came out to a massive pop and eventually was allowed to enter, and it was almost all academic from there. When she met Nia as soon as she got in the ring, the structure shook from the pop when The Man started laying into Jax. Eventually, it was down to the three I was sure it was going to come down to: Nia, Charlotte and Becky. I don't know how she did it, but Charlotte dead-lifted Jax onto her shoulders to try to eliminate her, but Becky came up with that elimination. Outside the ring, Becky and Charlotte battled and Charlotte got the upper hand as she absolutely went to town on Becky's leg. But The Man would stage the comeback and got Charlotte out onto the apron where it was anyone's guess, but Becky took care of business and won the Women's Rumble. There wasn't a single person in their seat. The dome shook. The crowd went absolutely berserk and we all were about to get our fondest wish. So while my prediction was wrong, my hope was right, so hope did win out here.
After that match, I could have left happy as a pig in poop, but there was still a lot of show to do, and next was the WWE Championship match between A.J. Styles and champ Daniel Bryan. This match made me extremely happy. It had everything I had hoped for. It was brutal on both sides, and neither competitor left anything outside the ring. But it also had the oddest reappearance of anyone, and that was Erick Rowan coming out dressed in a flannel shirt and a Tom Savini t-shirt (Google him, kids), and after a ref bump that left both competitors down, Rowan came in and wrecked Styles and left him there for Bryan to cover for the 3-count. So this rivalry should now officially be over and that should leave Styles to have a short rivalry with Rowan. And while my prediction was technically correct as far as the winner was concerned, my hopes won out again as Bryan got the dirty win. Yay! I cannot stress just how much I am fucking loving this heel run by Bryan. It's just astonishing how well he's pulling it off. It was a bummer that the crowd just wasn't that into it, and really, this would have been the perfect place for the Cruiserweight title bout, because the crowd's collective heart-rate was settling down after watching Becky win the Rumble match so I think we all needed a match we didn't have to be terribly invested in. But it happened, and we can still enjoy it regardless of crowd reaction.
Then we got both the best and worst match of the night as we had my guy Finn Balor face off against champ Brock Lesnar for the Universal title. Again, it's absolutely no secret to anyone that Finn was the massive underdog in this match, and he really didn't stand a chance. But with all of the bullshit about a "fresh start", we just knew that Vince was paying the crowd a lot of lip service with all that. And with this match, he had a chance to put his money where his mouth was, but it wasn't to be. Finn came out strong and really looked like he had a chance for a while, though. Brock seemed like he was there to sell that Finn was actually doing him some damage, but he definitely wasn't getting paid by the hour. I know there are some people who really feel that this match told a story all throughout, but it didn't. If they played more into the stomach injury angle, Finn hitting the Coup de Grace on Lesnar's mid-section would have laid him out and allowed for the win, but once Lesnar was out of the pin, he locked in the Kimora on Balor's arm and it led to the submission win. To be fair to Lesnar, that was unexpected. I can't remember the last time he didn't wrap things up with an F-5, but here he was. And if Brock had limped away from the match, it would have done a much better job at selling Finn as a legit competitor against the larger opponents, but of course, they had to fuck that up too by having Brock come back in and lay waste to Balor as he did a zillion suplexes and then hit him with the F-5. I'm not into giving Brock a pass because he sort of showed up to work. Yeah, his match with Daniel Bryan at Survivor Series was awesome but that's because we're grading on a curve. We're expecting Lesnar to show up and do the bare minimum, and whenever he doesn't, all the fans are like, "Oh, man! The Beast really showed up!" Fuck that noise. When you're paid the kind of money he's being paid, you better show up to work in every fucking match. That's how you make your living, asshole. If I show up and do the bare minimum at my job, I might keep it, but no one's going to give me a shit-ton of money to do that. So fuck all the Lesnar apologists. If that's going to keep you away from this blog, I honestly don't care. So yeah, my prediction was right, but I was praying the whole time that it wouldn't be.
And to close it out, we had the Men's Rumble. Again, there were the same issues with the Tron and by this time, my back and neck, already kind of jacked up due to the fact that my body hates me, were really starting to get to me thanks to the total discomfort afforded by my seat. But I was still in it to win it. Meanwhile The Manager was not pleased. She was already talking about writing angry letters to Chase Field, Ticketmaster and WWE regarding the sheer stupidity of the floor seat layout. But once Elias started us off, I was back into it. Then Jeff Jarrett came out and this was a good indicator that they were getting the comedy portion of the Rumble out of the way early. So let's talk about my favorite moments because that's what really matters. The entrance of Johnny Gargano. I thought my lungs were going to give out with how hard I cheered for that. Titus O'Neil running in and stopping short of the ring, only to discover that Curt Hawkins was there and climbed under the ring anyway. Pete Dunne's appearance. Aleister Black's appearance. Mustafa Ali's elimination of Samoa Joe. Dunne wish-boning Black's hand and then Black popping his finger back into place. And I have to say, Nia Jax getting into the Men's Rumble was really cool. I'm hoping this opened the door for some inter-gender competition, but I'm not going to hold my breath. The thing about the Rumble, particularly when you get down to the final 6 or so is all about either setting up rivalries or paying them off, but a lot of this was willy-nilly. When Drew McIntyre was eliminated by Dolph Ziggler, I understood what they were trying for, but this was not a rivalry anyone was invested in anymore. Just before that, I was hoping that the final three were going to be Rollins, McIntyre and Andrade. But we got what we got, and that was the final two being Strowman and Rollins. I know that a lot of people had Strowman as the favorite, but that didn't make any sense to me. It was obvious that the fans had been cooling on him for a while now, and all the losses he had recently didn't help matters. So McIntyre and Rollins were my picks for what I felt were obvious reasons. But once Finn lost, I was 100% positive that Rollins was going to come out on top. And he did as he felled Strowman off the apron, because all Rumble fights can't end by someone simply going over the top rope anymore. Besides, there was a certain point where I was just anxious for it to be over. I'm happy Rollins got the win, because this will give him his deserved spot as true top guy for a while when he takes the Universal title off Lesnar. I know that he could very well choose Daniel Bryan, but he won't and we all know it. I don't quite know who will face off against Bryan, but we do know that it's going to be Rollins against Lesnar at Mania. And that was my prediction.
So The Manager and I started to head out. Started being the operative term. Remember how there were only two ways in or out of the floor seats? That mostly held true for the end of the night as well. There were people escaping by climbing over railings, but security put the kibosh on that after too long. The floor area was just gross as nobody threw anything away, and I was almost hit about thirty times by the people carrying away their souvenir chairs. Meanwhile, The Manager and I were struggling to walk out of there, but we did meet up with the nice woman we had met going in, and we stood there talking wrestling for a solid 45 minutes or so until she ended up offering us a ride back to our car, which was about 30-odd minutes away from Chase Field. When we finally got back to our car, we felt like we'd been through a war. I've been to huge concerts and massive crowd-gatherings before but nothing was as disorganized or as uncomfortable as that evening. But we were at The Royal Fucking Rumble. That's a once-in-a-lifetime thing for people like us. And all in all, the weekend was a hell of a lot of fun. Now, do I have some pictures?
Here's a video of Becky's entrance into the SD Women's title match:
Here's a really fuzzy one of Seth standing tall at the end:
And here's me, repping The Man with the Rumble sign in the background. Sadly, the Wrestlemania sign was just on that scoreboard Tron, but at least I have this.
For those of you who were playing along, the final score was 8 out of 9 for either hopes or predictions! Well, technically there were 6 out of 9 predictions, and two that were hopes. So hopes didn't win out the evening, but at least one held where it counted.
So that was it, boys and girls! I know a lot of this might have felt like a bitch sesh, but again, you can go anywhere to get a proper blow-by-blow recap, and if I hadn't been there, this might have been a little more like that. But I needed to tell a story about what it was like to be there, and not just about what happened in the matches, so that's what I did.
So I'll have more on Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning in my regular columns about this very important week in Raw and Smackdown Live, and a recap of NXT on late Wednesday!
Until next time, kids...
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