2011 ROYAL RUMBLE

WELL HOLY SHIT IT IS THE 2011 ROYAL RUMBLE WHICH IS TO SAY THE MOST RECENT ONE AT THE TIME OF THIS WRITING which suggests that we are in fact going to make it through all twenty-four of these before the completely made up yet utterly real deadline of the twenty-fifth annual Royal Rumble which as you know occurs the evening of this the 29 January 2012 a date which I have had circled on my brain calendar for weeks. We are at the Garden in Boston and for the first time there will be the strange total of forty dudes yes FORTY in the Royal Rumble match itself tonight however first there are a number of championship matches to be wrestled and decided and loved. First off we have the World Heavyweight Champion defending that title against the already very good and potentially great Dolph Ziggler who is in cahoots with Smackdown(!) General Manager and Edge's ex-wife Vickie Guerrero who has deemed THE SPEAR to be excessively dangerous and thus illegal in tonight's contest. Should our champion employ his *tokui waza* he will not only be disqualified but he will also loose his title which is not often the case for disqualifications in championship bouts!


Dolph Ziggler is pretty much the best and Edge has proven himself first through the Tables, Ladders and Chairs matches that made his reputation and later by getting Matt Hardy fired and pretending to fuck his girlfriend on cable and in recognition of those achievements he will be inducted into the World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame in a ceremony to be held before Wrestlemania XXVIII; that is the calibre of athletes we are dealing with in this our opening contest. Ziggler is totally among the best pure pretend fighters in the world today to the extent that he is in fact a genuinely awesome athlete and he uses that athleticism mostly to make everything his opponents do look like pure unmitigated death while his offense consists of like neckbreakers and the sleeper hold. This match is great btw. NEEEEEAAAAAAAR FALL as Edge came off the top rope with a cross body block but Ziggler rolled through and it was close and their is a faint but real "let's go Ziggler chant" that starts up and quickly dies but my point is that it *started up.* Oh hey I had totally forgotten about Edge's not-quite-a-sharpshooter submission hold but Edge himself had not and Ziggler was lucky to make the ropes! Ziggler is having no luck with his "rocker dropper"s here if that is still what we call that move because the first time he tried it he was countered into a "sit-out powerbomb" and the second time he actually applied the technique properly but Edge kicked out at two! Also Edge *totally* wants to do the spear but cannot! ZIGGLER WITH THE SLEEPER but no it is escaped and countered into a DDT and a potential fall is disrupted by Vickie Guerrero and she is like slapping the shit out of Edge actually but then Kelly "Kelly" Kelly comes out and deals with her as ZIGGLER WITH THE ZIG ZAG FROM BEHIND but it is only for two and lol Ziggler has the best near-fall tantrums "in the business." And again with the sleeper! Hooks in! But the referee is "bumped" and Edge hits a "jaw jacker" of sorts to escape the hold and with the referee down and Guerrero down on the outside Edge hits THE SPEAR and from there lol it is the KILLSWITCH WHAT IS UP CHRISTIAN for three in the middle of the ring and Edge retains his title in a GREAT MATCH like a legitimately GREAT MATCH that you should totally see. Edge makes an awesome "idk man" face at the referee who is trying to figure out how Ziggler could be like *so* fucking out of it right now and yeah for me this is one of the best matches in any of these now very many Royal Rumbles we have enjoyed together and I hope you like it too.


Next up it looks we have Randy Orton challenging The Miz for the WWE Championship and it looks like Miz won the title by "cashing in" his Money in the Bank title shot at an opportune moment which aaaaaaaahahahahahaa look at this little girl man she fuckin *hated it* when that happened:

I don't think the Miz would ever be anybody's favourite dude or anything but he's totally OK and I like that he goes I'M THE MIZ AND I'M AWESOME and then everybody is like BOOOOOO THAT IS AT BEST A HALF TRUTH BOOOOOOOOOOO. Orton is of course out first in keeping with the best traditions of this our pretend sport and forgive me for I know that I have said this to you before but the "I HEAR VOICES" song is nowhere near as good as "HEY NOTHING YOU CAN SAY" but that is a point so obvious that there is no need to belabour it. I should mention that Orton is accompanied to the ring by his bro Alex Riley who might well factor into this contest at some point or another. A couple minutes into this totally OK but not yet awesome match Michael Cole is like hey let's not forget that this isn't a bar room brawl or a match in your apartment Matt Striker this is the WWE and Jerry Lawler is like lol are we talking about apartment wrestling now and Striker goes lol I used to read about that in the back of the magazines and that takes me back man and let me tell you that was weird shit to find in something that was stocked right next to the comic books at the grocery store. I was confused then but I think I have it all pretty much figured out now. 


A HUGE BOOT from the Miz earns him but a count of two and he heads to the top rope however he is "crotched" and superplexed and it's kind of cool how Orton has one leg on the middle rope and one on the top when he does that. lol the WHAT A MANEUVER sign that one of the dudes at ringside has brought makes its first appearance of the evening or at least the first one that I've noticed. The Miz dumps Orton over the top rope to the outside and takes control for a while and the referee is doing a really cool job of checking Miz's reverse chinlock and when it turns into a choke he is like BREAK THE HOLD BREAK THE HOLD and then Orton goes back to the chinlock and it is a little thing but it is a good thing. This is the first Royal Rumble where Michael Cole is being a "heel" commentator and it doesn't take long to get pretty tiresome which is too bad because he's totally good when he's just doing straight-ahead play-by-play. The Miz catapults Orton into the ring post on the outside but when things move back inside it is "The Viper" a nickname that I don't think is cool takes control until Alex Riley distracts him and then the Miz does this like cool neckbreaker combo for twoooooo and now it looks like it is time to "tease" finishers because it is like RKO NO "SKULL-CRUSHING FINALE" NO IT IS NOTHING and now the Miz has grabbed his championship belt and tries to make a break for it however he is met with a boss Orton clothesline that prevents this. Ah so that cool DDT Orton does off the ropes is called a "suspension DDT" which is a really cool and accurate name HOWEVER soon after he hits it the New Nexus appears at ringside and while the referee is out to deal with them Alex Riley sneaks in HOWEVER HOWEVER Orton grabs him and fuckin *hurls* him over the top and onto those dudes HOWEVER HOWEVER HOWEVER CM PUNK IS IN THE RING AND IT IS THE "GTS" AND ORTON IS OUT "LIKE A LIGHT" AND THE MIZ HAS SOMEHOW RETAINED HIS TITLE and that was a really cool finish! 


Just before Natalya Neidhart is set to defend her Women's Championship against both Michelle McCool and Layla in a handicap match for some reason Michael Cole receives an email from The Anonymous Raw General Manger that changes this contest to a FATAL FOUR-WAY including Eve and lol there is a dude at ringside dressed as a clown. AAAAHAHAHAHA YEAH DOUBLE SHARPSHOOTER as Natalya put both Even and Michelle in that celebrated technique at the same time which was *great.* Eve hit a pretty cool moonsault to win the match while Michelle McCool had Natalya pinned in the other corner but hey the referee can only count one pin at a time let's be reasonable here Michelle McCool. This wasn't bad but isn't it weird how Matt Striker actually refers to people's "move sets" as though they were CAWs or something?  


Backstage my man D-Bryan is snuggling up to Gail Kim who is from Toronto and D-Bryan is wearing his cool shirt that goes DANIEL *wrestling ring* BRYAN which is a good one however not as good as the one that goes EVERYBODY TAPS *taped up wrists w/ hands in an s-grip* SOONER OR LATER which is the one I ordered on the internet fittingly enough and I think it would be even better if it was like EVERYBODY TAP'E'S SOONER OR LATER because man let me tell you that that is most definitely the truth. I suppose I could modify mine?


OK IT IS ROYAL RUMBLE TIME WITH FORTY GUYS FOR SOME REASON AND HERE COMES CM PUNK AT NUMBER ONE and while "Cult of Personality" is the better song *qua* song it is not the better wrestling entrance theme *qua* wrestling entrance theme in comparison to that Killswitch Engage song that he used to have which was thrilling. OK so there is a new group called "The Core" in addition to CM Punk's "New Nexus" and I wasn't watching at this time so I don't really know what's going on except that OK all of those guys are out there which means like a dozen guys? WWE Officials are doing what they can to contain this fracas but one wonders if order can be restored but an email from The Anonymous Raw General Manager quickly arrives and orders everyone but CM Punk to the back lest they find themselves disqualified from the Royal Rumble and as you know the only person to ever be so DQ'd from a Royal Rumble match was Fit Finlay a couple of years ago. HEEEEEY IT IS DANIEL BRYAN IN HIS ROYAL RUMBLE DEBUT AT NUMBER TWO and the internet comes all over itself! lol just kidding internet no diss you know I love you and also these two guys are the best guys so let's see how this first ninety seconds goes as yeah actually Matt Striker is like "man the internet must be loving this" and there is an awesome DANIEL BRYAN/CM PUNK chants going and this is really good just as we had hoped it would be. I have seen Daniel Bryan wrestle live twice, once in Oshawa at an enormous indie show that I have told you about before and he was awesome in an old fashioned way where he addressed a heckler with a simple I WILL FIGHT YOU RIGHT NOW and once at the historic Halifax Forum where Leo Burke once wrestled National Wrestling Alliance Champion Harley Race to a sixty-minute draw and Bryan made the most out of his opening match against a pre-Funkasaurus Brodus Clay and it looked like this for a minute:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CLvoTZ_57g


Anyway these are my favourite guys right now and if you would like to know who my other favourite guys are they are Jack Swagger and Dolph Ziggler! But I think a lot of other guys are good too! The awesome ninety-second match with all kinds of cool things in it that Punk and Bryan are putting together here is rudely interrupted by Justin Gabriel of The Core and after Bryan and Punk run into each other and are both down Gabriel gives this "well why the shit not?" look to the crowd as he "goes up top" for a four-fifty splash but Punk moves out of the way and Byran backdrops him up and over and out and FINALLY we are back to Punk vs. D-Bryan which is what we are all here for. In next is lol yeeeeahhh Zack Ryder who is all WOO WOO WOO YOU KNOW IT which I enjoy. Every time he enters the ring with that white Flip camera I think about how odd it is that Flip isn't making those anymore. Bryan tosses Ryder out pretty much right away and a guy in the front row has a sign that says "<-- JOBBER EXIT THIS WAY" and that's a little too self-satisfied for my taste and WHAT A MANEUVER definitely remains the sign of the night/century. HEY COOL IT IS FLOPPY HAIRED WILLIAM REGAL and he is hitting dudes hard and suplexing them in the way that his made him the absolute ideal dude among a certain subset of people on the internet. Bryan and Regal trade "European" uppercuts and then Punk gets a nice kick to the head in and this is so much up my alley right now with these dudes that I almost feel as though I am being pandered to but I am not saying that in a way where I am complaining because this owns. 


Ted DiBiase Jr. is in now and he's alright *I guess* but I was disappointed to hear that Cody Rhodes would not be joining us tonight because his face was recently ruined by an errant 619 although that does lead to like a year of Rhodes with that gear on his face which is cool and lemons/lemonade I guess. Daniel Bryan is kicking Regal really hard as here comes John Morrison and hey this is totally the year that John Morrison does that amazing parkour thing isn't it and lol yeah even before I finish the sentence Regal knocks him off the apron and he jumps to the barrier and clings to it and then climbs up it and jumps to the steps and kicks the very very recently eliminated Regal in the head before reentering the match and let me just grab this one for you if you haven't seen it before because it is definitely one of the best near-eliminations in any of these: 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztmb66pa7H4


There you go friends ENJOY. Here comes YOSHI TATSU THE POISON FIST OF THE PACIFIC RIM and he has quite a look with that hair. Young Husky Harris is a member of the Nexus and he is your tenth entrant in this Royal Rumble and lol he has a build out of another era doesn't he and he is there to protect his mainest man CM Punk. I don't know if they are "trimming" time here right now but it seems as though *oooooooooo CHAVO* is in only seconds later and as soon as he gets there he does Eddie Guerrero's repeating suplex bit on like four guys and then does the little Eddie shimmy and the crowd is pretty into it by the end of the like dozen suplexes or whatever it was. MARK HENRY YUSSSSSSS I hope he eliminates literally everyone in seconds SECONDS. There goes Chavo and let me tell you if I was Yoshi Tatsu I would be nervous right now and lol yeah he's next alright. JTG is the next guy in and Lawler tries to speak like him for a minute in a way that suggests Lawler might be a racialist of some kind but idk. And they have *got* to be trimming time here as Mike McGuillicutty of the Nexus is in next and there goes JTG and yeah DiBiase goes out too as Harris and McGillicutty are working together as one might expect. A still huge but noticeably deflated Chris Masters is in next and he tries to "Masterlock" Punk up and over but he only succeeds in putting him on the apron which as you know is nowhere near sufficient in a contest of this nature. David Otunga is in making it four Nexus guys and so Daniel Bryan is out :( and also Masters and Morrison too as the Nexus is taking control of this 2011 Royal Rumble match and this can only serve to benefit their nefarious leader CM PUNK. I would like to see how these fellows fare against Mark Henry though! Oh OK they all just head right over and dump him out.


So this is a pretty cool way to do it actually as now you've got the four Nexus dudes in there by themselves so for a little while at least the match just becomes about whether or not the next guy in can last ninety seconds and Tyler Reks who I have absolutely never heard of ever is the first to try and to fail and I don't love Vladimir Kozlov's chances either despite his portrayal of a Russian shooter of some kind and yeah there he goes. It was a little bit like this last year when the three dudes of Legacy marauded around the ring for a while and then made up three of the match's final four I guess but at the same time this is pretty different. lol so I *have* seen this one before absolutely I have but I guess I had forgotten that CM PUNK hits his running knee in the corner on R-Truth and then goes WHAT'S UUUUUP. It is perhaps notable though that even with Obama in the White House black dudes cannot catch a break in Royal Rumble booking. 


The Great Khali is in at number nineteen and it would seem this is the end of that section of the match I have just described as he comes in and does away with Husky Harris and has everybody else on the run OR MAYBE NOT as Nexus-guy Mason Ryan is the next man to enter the ring and he eliminates the Great Khali! Jerry Lawler is like THIS IS NOT WHAT THE ROYAL RUMBLE IS ABOUT and here comes BOOKER T and WILL THIS SIX-TIME WORLD CHAMPION WHO ALMOST ALWAYS GETS HIS SHIT PUSHED IN THE ROYAL RUMBLE BE ABLE TO CHANGE THE DIRECTION OF THIS MATCH as Matt Striker refers to this as a "mark-out moment" and I am not comfortable with this kind of language in this context and he should never say anything like that ever again and Booker T is like A HOUSE ON FIRE until Mason Ryan tosses him too :( however as you know Booker T would go on to have some very good matches with Cody Rhodes in 2011 so good for him with his little comeback and why not enjoy Booker T every Friday night on Smackdown? 


JOHN CENA JOHN CENA JOHN CENA and the hometown guy clears the ring of all but Punk and maaaaaaan that Punk/Cena stuff this summer was something else was it not? Without it I probably would not have gotten as into any of this as much as I have in recent months and almost certainly would not have embarked upon this epic journey of watching things whilst saying other things. Hornswoggle is in next and Punk kicks him in the head and OH HEY Cena put Punk over with a fireman's carry or shoulder wheel or *kata guruma* and now Cena and Hornswoggle are taking a stand in the centre of the ring as Tyson Kidd comes out and is on the receiving end of some "midget" offense including a head scissors and a tiny little Attitude Adjustment and Cena tosses him out. Hornswoggle does the wrist-tape wristwatch thing and yeah OK why not. Heath Slater is the next guy in and Hornswoggle STUNNERs him and he and Cena deliver ten knuckles of shuffle and then there is some top rope midgetry and Cena tosses Slater out. Intercontinental Champion Kofi Kingston is in next and he and Cena are apparently bros yet it is an every-man-for-himself situation gentlemen let's do this. They do, after a fashion, and then YEAH JACK SWAGGER YEAH hits the ring and then does his turnbuckle splash thing a bunch of times. Sheamus comes in and wrecks dudes and I love the IRISH CURSE BACKBREACKER man I LOVE IT and Sheamus does not take kindly to Hornswoggle and so Brogue Kicks him off the top turnbuckle and out.


lol BOOYAKA BOOYAKA it is the only place in the culture where we still hear the word BOOYAKA with regularity and that is the entrance theme of Rey Mysterio and OH NO JACK SWAGGER IS GONE after a 619 with Swagger on the apron. Here's Wade Barrett at number thirty and this forty-man business is no good man it is just disorienting frankly but I guess if they really wanted to this All the Dudes from Nexus vs. All the Dudes from the Core thing or whatever you need to find some room but I think the return to a thirty-man Royal Rumble WHICH OCCURS TONIGHT YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHH is a tacit admission that having forty guys out there was in the end just weird. DOLPH ZIGGLER is in and he is still "selling" the ribs from the spear he endured a couple hours ago. DIESEL is here ladies and gentlemen and he is definitely one of the best surprise entrants ever because they didn't even go Kevin Nash with it man they went full DIESEL with the black glove and EVERYTHING. 


Drew McIntyre is someone I continue to not care about however he is in and he is teaming with his fellow Celt Sheamus to work over Nash and lol the LET'S GO DIESEL chant is the loudest of the night and Mysterio is *resoundingly* booed when he 619s "Big Daddy Cool" which might actually be the worst nickname ever. Alex Riley is in but my real concern is that Diesel is out as Wade Barrett puts him over the top and there is another tremendous DIESEL chant as he walks down the aisle and passes the Big Show who is next. The Miz has joined the announce table and he and Cole talk all over the match which I know is *supposed* to be annoying but I think it is also *shoot* annoying and there goes Ziggler over the top in fine style as the Big Show got a hold of him and then OK Drew McIntyre too. Ezekiel Jackson however comes in at thirty-six and topples the Big Show immediately. Is Jackson still around? I've watched both Raw and Smackdown on youtube for the last month or so and I don't remember seeing him but idk maybe. 


With only four guys left to enter the match we're down to just Kingston, Barrett, Sheamus, Jackson, Mysterio and lol now SANTINO who one hopes and prays will COBRA the shit out of everybody as I learn that he is currently one half of the WWE Tag Team Champions but he is BROGUE KICKED and just rolls out under the bottom rope to the floor and because I have seen this one I am well aware that that is not the last we will be seeing of the great THE GREAT Santino Marella. At number thirty-eight we get Alberto Del Rio and breaking a dude's arm with a throw because you were an international-level Greco-Roman wrestler and getting your head kicked off by Mirko Cro Cop while wearing a lucha libre mask are the most legit credentials any professional wrestler could ever possess in my view and so combined with everything else Alberto Del Rio has going for him as a performer including a *sick* rolling juji-gatame finisher he is more or less ideal. His entrance of course takes a really long time because of his fancy car and so Randy Orton who is in next levels him from behind before hitting the ring and RKOing everybody and tossing both Kofi Kingston and Sheamus and squaring off with John Cena. 


*BWOOOOOOOOOOOF* IT IS KANE and he has of course been an absolute motherfucker of the highest calibre throughout his many years in the Royal Rumble and he starts off here by pulling down the top rope as Ezekiel Jackson flies out over it not unlike the way "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan did the same against the One Man Gang to claim the first Royal Rumble title OH HEY Rey Mysterio head scissors Kane out and then Barrett pushes Mysterio out and so our *apparent* final four consists of Barrett, Del Rio, Cena and Orton however that may not be the entire story! It really may not be! The crowd is a little flat here as Orton and Cena stare each other down which I don't really get because this has been a good Royal Rumble imo and shouldn't they be into their hometown fellow more than this? Yeah like Cena just hit an Attitude Adjustment on Del Rio and the crowd was like "whatevers" and HEY IT IS ALEX RILEY WHAT IS HE DOING HERE oh he is distracting John Cena while the Miz sneaks into the ring and tips Cena out from behind and John Cena is both very disappointed and way better at acting than most of these other guys. 


Barrett and Del Rio team up on Orton and yeah the crowd is totally dead right now even as Orton sends Barrett out and Del Rio dumps Orton from behind and Ricardo grabs the house mic and is like DAMAS Y CABALLEROS which is awesome HOWEVER SANTINO WAS NEVER ELIMINATED AND HERE HE IS WITH THE FUCKIN COBRA READY TO GO AND HE HITS IT HE HITS THE COBRA AND DOES THE MARCHING BAND TROMBONE THING THAT WE ALL LOVE SO DEARLY but alas it is all for not as Del Rio guides Marella out over the top and to the floor Alberto Del Rio is your deserving winner of the 2011 Royal Rumble because he is *awesome.*


AND SO THAT IS IT LADIES AND GENTLEMEN DAMAS Y CABALLEROS we have made our way through all twenty-four Royal Rumbles and what have we learned? Well very little actually other than that the best one is probably 2002 followed by 1992 however despite the fact that those best two Rumbles are now well behind us the average overall level of awesomeness in the Royal Rumble has in my view been increasing fairly steadily since it totally bottomed out in the mid-1990s. The first Rumble is surprisingly great, the 1992 Rumble is one of the best professional wrestling matches, and 1994 had a cool finish I guess but the awesomeness or perhaps I should say the *kinds of awesomenesses* one most closely associates with the Royal Rumble really begin to take shape in 1997. Since then, the Royal Rumbles have been reliably watchable and often rad, sometimes exceedingly so, and I genuinely look forward to tonight's twenty-fifth anniversary edition with every expectation that it will be the wrestling match I most enjoy all year despite the pretty serious handicap of having neither of my current favourite guys in it probably but that is OK because they are both going to be defending world titles earlier in the show so I mean this is a shame-on-me situation if I get greedy about that right?


In summation ROYAL RUMBLES FOREVER PRETEND FIGHTING FOREVER I LOVE PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING SO MUCH RIGHT NOW I HAVE ORDERED AN ACTION REPLAY MAX TO ENHANCE MY FIRE PRO EXPERIENCE AND I THINK I AM GOING TO WATCH THE CALAMARI WRESTLER AGAIN HERE ARE THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES OF IT ON YOUTUBE


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVonr9FmoRk

IKA IKA IKA IKA IDA RESURAAAAAAAAA YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH ROYAL RUMBLES