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Here is the full card for the Royal Rumble, as of 1/26/21. If any last-minute matches get added on this week's Smackdown, I will add to this review. As always though, the card is subject to change. First, a brief explanation for those of you who have never seen a Royal Rumble match. It's a 30-man variation of a Battle Royal, except instead of all 30 men starting out in the ring at the same time, it's staggered. The match starts with two men, and then every 2 minutes (in some years, WWE has shortened this delay to only 90 seconds), another man enters. This continues until all 30 entrants have entered. There are no pinfalls, no DQs, no countouts in a Royal Rumble. The way you win, is to throw the other wrestlers over the top rope, so that they land on the floor outside of the ring. Both feet must hit the floor for it to count though. If a wrestler gets thrown out, and somehow manages to avoid their feet hitting the ground, if they can find a way back into the ring without their feet hitting, they can re-enter the ring. The winner is the last man standing after the other 29 have all been successfully eliminated. The prize for winning the Royal Rumble is you get a guaranteed title match at Wrestlemania, against the champion of your choice. Now for the preview: WWE Universal Championship - Last Man Standing Match Roman Reigns (c) vs. Kevin Owens First, a Last Man Standing Match is rather simple. Basically, it's just like boxing. You win with a 10-count. If I am being honest, despite this being for one of the Heavyweight belts, this feels like a filler match to me. I cannot see any logic in giving Kevin Owens the title at this time. Roman Reigns wins, and will continue to carry the belt all the way to Wrestlemania. Prediction: Roman Reigns WWE Championship Drew McIntyre (c) vs Goldberg Why is this match even happening? Unless Vince McMahon has truly lost his mind, there is no way in hell that Bill Goldberg, at age 54, is gonna win the WWE Championship. However, we can't be completely sure that Vince hasn't lost his mind...I can see this match going two ways: 1. Drew McIntyre wins in a total squash. 2. Somehow, miraculously, Bill Goldberg pulls off the upset, wins the belt on Sunday, only to promptly lose the title right back to Drew McIntyre either on Monday's edition of RAW or the following week's RAW, in a rematch. That is, it's entirely possible the WWE could give Bill Goldberg a token title reign of a few days...they shouldn't, but, it's possible. They did it last year, after all. Prediction: Drew McIntyre should win, with the caveat that if somehow Goldberg wins, McIntyre will have the belt back within a week or two anyway. WWE Women's Tag Team Championship Asuka & Charlotte Flair (c) vs Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler My heart wants Asuka and Charlotte to just wipe the mat with Nia Jax...however, while I understand the desire to give Charlotte the Tag Team title immediately upon her return, until she was back to full ring shape, it's clear the WWE is building up to Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke as tag team champions. That means Asuka and Flair drop the belts. Not to mention the obvious...Charlotte Flair has never played nice for very long...she is a natural born heel, and is going to turn on Asuka at some point to challenge her for the RAW women's title, which Asuka also holds. This is as good of a time as any to progress two storylines leading up to Wrestlemania. Prediction: Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler regain the straps. Men's Royal Rumble Match Not everyone has been announced, and there is no real way to predict a Rumble, with so many people in the match, and multiple wrestlers you can legitimately see winning...so this is going to be pure guesswork on my part: On Raw, they mentioned Edge's return...but I think him and Randy Orton will continue their feud, which doesn't require either man to win the Royal Rumble. Daniel Bryan has indicated he wants to win the Rumble at least once before his wrestling career is over. He's also hinted strongly that his wrestling career is in fact, almost over. However, Vince has never fully bought into Daniel Bryan as a true champion, he's had to be talked into each of DB's title runs by Triple H and others who understand modern wrestling a lot more than Vince McMahon does...Unless the WWE is planning on a MAJOR swerve to elevate someone completely unexpectedly (Shinsuke Nakamura winning his 2nd Rumble?) the winner is gonna be a returning Seth Rollins. Rollins has been off of TV for the last two months, as the WWE allowed him to take time off to be with his fiance Becky Lynch and their newborn baby. He gets to reinvent himself as a face after the terrible "Messiah" gimmick after being off TV, wins, and then challenges Reigns at Wrestlemania. Prediction: Seth Rollins Women's Royal Rumble Match Honestly, I don't have a freaking clue who the WWE plans to win this match. However, I do see a few possibilities that are more likely than others. 1. Charlotte Flair repeats. If she drops the tag titles like I think will happen, then her winning the Rumble can immediately set up a match with Asuka at Wrestlemania, without having to build it up much. 2. Bianca Belair. This woman is gonna be a star. She is amazingly athletic in the ring, and it would give the Women's Division another contender, beyond the same ol', same ol' small group of women who always seem to be in the title hunt. 3. Bayley. Main event level talent, wouldn't surprise anyone or be even a remote upset if she won. After those three though, I can see the possibility of two major surprises happening. 4. Rhea Ripley. The WWE completely botched her introduction to the main roster last year, to the point they sent her back down to NXT. They could use this Rumble to reintroduce her in a big way. 5. LONGSHOT: the Rowdy one, Ronda Rousey makes her return to the WWE. I've seen multiple sources claiming that Rousey was staying in ring shape. It wouldn't shock me if the WWE and Rousey are keeping a possible return completely hush hush. Prediction: If I had to pick one, I will go with Bianca Belair...but I am NOT confident about that pick at all.
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As of March 18th, the WWE Network is being shut down. NBC just announced that they have reached an agreement with the WWE to incorporate all WWE Network programming as part of their Peacock streaming service. The deal is for 5 years, and reportedly worth 1 billion dollars.
The thing is, pretty much everyone who has Comcast/Xfinity already has the Peacock streaming service, as it is included with your Comcast package provided you have at minimum, cable and internet through Comcast...The WWE Network has about 1.1 million subscribers. Peacock has 22.1 million subscribers. The math here is ridiculously easy for Vince McMahon...And to do it a few weeks before Wrestlemania is ideal...casual wrestling fan might check it out, and it could potentially lead to significantly better ratings for WWE programming during the week as well, as the hope is casual viewer checks out WWE content on Peacock, and then gets hooked... As you know, it's January. And January means not only the NFL Playoffs, but this month also means the "Road to Wrestlemania" officially kicks off, with the WWE starting to lay down the framework for what will eventually become their annual Wrestlemania card. And that "Road to Wrestlemania" always begins at the same place. The 2nd greatest PPV on the WWE schedule every year, and the best gimmick match ever conceived, THE ROYAL RUMBLE!!!!! On January 31st, the WWE will be presenting the 34th annual Royal Rumble PPV, available on the WWE Network. I will be doing a preview thread of that PPV next week, but before that, I wanted to talk about my personal all-time favorite Rumble match, the 1992 version. Now, the rest of the 1992 Royal Rumble PPV was utter shit. If you have the WWE Network, and want to watch this Rumble, just find the Royal Rumble match itself, you can completely skip everything else. But this edition of the Royal Rumble match is generally considered to be the best Rumble match of all time. However, before we can dive in to this match, some background. Now, if you go back to one of my earlier posts (11/11/20), you know that a year after his debut at the 1990 Survivor Series PPV, the Undertaker beat Hulk Hogan at the 1991 Survivor Series PPV for the WWF Title to earn his first world championship. However, it was very controversial, due to the actions of the recently WWF acquired Nature Boy, Ric Flair. A rematch was scheduled for the minor PPV "This Tuesday in Texas" in early December of 1991, which saw Hulk Hogan regain the title in a match that had another very controversial ending...thanks again to the Nature Boy... As a result, WWF President Jack Tunney (storyline only, obviously) declared the WWF title to be vacant. It was later revealed that the vacated WWF title would be awarded to the winner of the Royal Rumble, rather than the winner getting a shot at the title for Wrestlemania. So, the stakes for winning the match were massive. This one match had Ric Flair, the Undertaker, Hulk Hogan, and Randy Savage all in their prime, the soon-to-become "Mr. Wrestlemania" Shawn Michaels, and included 16 total future WWE Hall of Famers (including Taker, who isn't in yet, but will probably get his own wing soon). The match started out with the British Bulldog and Ted DiBiase coming in as the #1 and #2 entrants. DiBiase would be eliminated very shortly, only 1:18 into the match, but, who gives a shit? There is only one thing you really have to know about this match...At the #3 spot, came this guy, accompanied by yet another WWE Hall of Famer, Mr Perfect himself, Curt Hennig: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! And if you have EVER heard of the 1992 edition of the Royal Rumble before, you already know that he is the story of this event. At age 42, the Nature Boy not only lasted for a full hour, but when all was said and done, it wasn't the Undertaker holding up the gold, it wasn't the Macho Man, Sgt. Slaughter or the Heartbreak Kid, it wasn't even the Immortal one himself, the face of the WWF, Hulk Hogan...The new WWF World Heavyweight Champion was in fact, the dirtiest player in the game, the NATURE BOY! Ric Flair has described his brief time in the WWF between 1991-1993 as the most fun he had ever had in the wrestling ring, even though the teased Wrestlemania match between him and Hulk Hogan never materialized (What a waste). After winning two WWF titles in 1992, in 1993, Flair would return to WCW, and stay there until it closed down...But for a year and a half, Ric Flair called the WWF home, and this match was the crowning achievement of not only his stint in the WWF, but perhaps his entire career...I mean, all you have to do is watch his promo backstage, immediately after: Just a few months earlier, WCW head Jim Herd had cast Ric Flair aside because of his age, despite him being their current Champion (Recall Flair appearing on WWF TV with the Big Gold Belt for his debut)...and here, just a few months later, you had the same 42 year old Ric Flair who was cast aside by WCW, win the WWF Championship over some of the WWF's biggest all-time greatest superstars, by putting on one of the greatest performances in his life... Ric Flair thought he was washed up. Didn't know if wrestling had passed him by when he signed with the WWF. He knew, with names like Hogan, Savage and the Undertaker, that in the WWF, there was no guarantee that he would be anything but a mid-carder. He couldn't expect the casual WWF fans to know his history, his legacy in the business, his NWA World titles didn't mean anything up north...all he had to do was ask Dusty Rhodes, who went from being one of the NWA's greatest, to dancing around in polka-dots in the WWF just a year before Flair arrived... But Vince knew damn well who Ric Flair was. Vince knew his history, Vince knew his legacy. Not only did Vince McMahon respect Ric Flair, but he found a way to elevate Ric Flair. With this one match, this one booking decision, Vince McMahon probably extended Ric Flair's full time active wrestling career by a good decade by instilling in the Nature Boy a renewed sense of purpose, renewed confidence in his own abilities. For that, the 1992 Royal Rumble will always hold a special place in my heart. WOOOOOOOOOOOOO! "Fans, if you're even thinking about changing the channel to our competition, do not. We understand that Mick Foley, who wrestled here at one time as Cactus Jack, is gonna win their World title. Ha! That's gonna put some butts in the seats, heh."
- Tony Schiavone, WCW announcer, during the January 4th, 1999 episode of WCW Monday Nitro. And with that single shot, The Monday Night Wars, fought between WCW (World Championship Wrestling)'s Nitro and the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment)'s RAW television programming realistically ended, 22 years ago today. WCW announcer Tony Schiavone made that utterance with sheer snide in his voice, the idea being that WCW was mocking the WWE's decision to put the title on Mick Foley (then known as Mankind)'s waist, and that the decision would end up as a sign the WWE had no clue what it was doing. Instead, what happened is that immediately after he mocked the WWE, 600,000 fans turned the channel away from WCW to watch Mick win the belt over on Monday Night Raw. WCW, which had dominated the WWE in TV ratings for 83 consecutive weeks, would never lead in the TV ratings ever again, and would see them decline to the point the company went out of business a few years later, and Vince McMahon and the WWE purchased their formal rival. WCW nearly put the WWE out of business at one point, and yet, only one of those two companies is still standing...and it's not WCW. There is a lesson to be learned there. No matter how long you are at the top, all it takes is potentially one wrong thing to knock you completely off your pedestal. You should never make yourself completely comfortable if you are at the top...and if you aren't at the top, your fortunes can change on a single thing too, so you can't ever completely give up hope. |
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February 2021
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