Tuesday 31 January 2012

2012 ROYAL RUMBLE


COULD THERE EVEN BE A MORE HISTORIC EVENT than this the twenty-fifth annual Royal Rumble a particular variant of the familiar Battle Royal(e) in which dudes and on some very rare occasions ladies enter the ring at predetermined intervals to win glory or else give it to another as Homer sang so many centuries ago? No there totally couldn't however first we have a Triple-Threat Heavyweight Championship bout to be contested within the unforgiving confines of the steel cage! The great Yasuhiro Yamashita who numbers among the greatest grapplers of any era once wrote that he never entered into competition without wondering of himself at least fleetingly "am I a coward?" and one cannot help but ask if Daniel Bryan whose name was probably changed from Bryan Danielson just so the WWE could own it wonders that of himself given the less than auspicious circumstances in which he first obtained and has subsequently retained his title. His challengers on this night are Mark Henry who has improbably become amazing in recent years and the Big Show who tried to give his little toque to a tiny girl at ringside but she basically hid and the Big Show bestowed it on I guess her sister. 


"DAN-IEL BRY-AN" is the crowd's chant as Michale Cole explains that victory can be achieved by means of pinfall or submission or escape which sounds kind of strange to me frankly but let's go with it and lol the *instant* the bell rings D-Bryan tries to climb up over the corner and lolol maybe fifty seconds after that he tries again. It is kind of weird in these cage matches how dudes totally "sell" hitting the cage as this calamity when I mean shit it is a chain-link fence and we've probably all ran into a chain-link fence at one time or another in our lives and it can certainly be surprising but it doesn't exactly hurt right? You can do cool stuff things if you are operating under the premise that the cage hurts like hell though like for instance Mark Henry can slingshot D-Bryan into it and stuff. Daniel Bryan is awesome by the way and I have just now noticed that his ring gear references his "American Dragon" *sobriquet rouge* with its subtle scaley firey dragon motif which is a great nod to his past of indie excellence and I recall that the one time I saw him wrestle in Oshawa a million years ago he came out not to "The Final Countdown" which is what one most associates with him from his days of wrestling before avidly chanting grapznerds but instead the theme from Dragonball Z which was an excellent choice imo. FUCK YOU BIG SHOW IT IS THE LEBELL LOCK WHICH IS A *SANKAKU GARAMI* OR *OMOPLATA* CROSSFACE NAMED IN HONOUR OF THE GREAT "JUDO" GENE LEBELL AND PLEASE CONSULT PG. 200 OF "BEST JUDO" BY INOKUMA AND SATO FOR MORE ON THIS *WAZA* AND ALSO READ THIS THING ABOUT GENE LEBELL FINDING OUT ABOUT D-BRYAN NAMING THE MOVE AFTER HIM HERE -- http://open.salon.com/blog/bob_calhoun/2010/08/26/daniel_bryan_and_the_lebell_lock -- BUT NOT RIGHT NOW BECAUSE HERE IS WHAT JUST HAPPENED IT WAS AWESOME: so OK D-Bryan had the LeBell lock secured but Mark Henry broke it up and then the Big Show hit Henry with a KO punch but Bryan broke up the pin and then Bryan took off for the top of the cage with the Big Show hot on his heels and he was CAUGHT but then he just fuckin DANGLED FROM BIG SHOW'S ARM FROM THE TOP OF THE CAGE AND JUMPED DOWN TO RETAIN HIS TITLE LOOK:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwmVbuZWNR4#t=7m41s


WHICH IS TO SAY:


D.                                                           


Bryan.


Next up we get a many minute look at John Cena and how he is awesome and you know what he *is* and I am not afraid to say that even though we are on the internet. This is all of course to build towards his Wrestlemania match with the Rock which I will watch the hell out of. And now it is time for an all-of-the-ladies match as the Bella Twins and Natalya Neidhart and "The Glamazon" Beth Phoenix who are fantastically colour-coordinated take on Kelly "Kelly" Kelly and Eve Torres and Alicia Fox and Tamina and she's a Snuka right? Anyway this match is for the most part not that great and the crowd is unbelievably flat for this which brings to mind this: this is not to disparage the ladies who are in fact very good at wrestling but the reason they always run a bunch of technically *sexay ladays* out there who cannot in fact wrestle and do moves like Eve's "Booty Pop" and the like is just to totally pander to the audience and provide at long last a little something for the fellas right? But almost nobody *ever* reacts to anything that happens in any of these matches so what is the point? Like if this lowest common denominator stuff is not in fact appealing to the lowest common denominator then to whom or what is it appealing? I mean hey I like it when Beth Pheonix comes in and ruins people as much as they next guy and I am not wishing or even willing to part with that but there is a lot of carrying on and nonsense that doesn't seem to be of interest to anyone in the building so why bother? Fitness blogs at the Perez Hilton internet website are I guess of considerable promotional value. Anyway yeah Kelly Kelly flies off the top to the outside into a pile of like seven other ladies but the real high point of the contest is unsurprisingly the finish in which Women's Champion Beth Pheonix hits the "Glam Slam" for the win but again the real value of this match is the questions it forces us to ask of each other and also ourselves.


lol they've got "Long Island Iced Z" Zack Ryder in a wheelchair and some kind of wacky brace coming off his very serious injuries at the hands of Kane and he is all bitter and angry when he says "woo woo woo you *know* it" on the topic of how John Laurinaitis has been a butt towards him. Here now is John Cena whose time is now and who is set to take on *BWOOOOOOF* KANE who I just mentioned a moment ago and wow this one *really* drags. I like Cena and I have no real problem with Kane however I wonder if watching all of these Royal Rumbles in a row have sort of unduly inflated my estimation of Kane because in the context of the Royal Rumble match proper Kane seems pretty much the raddest whereas in lengthy one-on-one contests that isn't really the case necessarily is it. The crowd is enjoying going LET'S GO CENA/CENA SUCKS and going BOOO YAAAAY! BOOOO YAAAAY! as these two pretend warriors trade blows in the centre of the ring but idk man this isn't much of a match in some ways including the way of my enjoyment. I would like to single out for praise the top-rope YOU CAN'T SEE ME/"Five-Knuckle Shuffle" which is not something I had seen before but I would also like to point to the double countout finish and lengthy backstage brawl and post-match Zack Ryder "tombstone" piledriving as having not been worth the time man because time is the one thing we can never have back. I like when Kane leaves the ring after laying everybody out by doing that cool backwards roll out over the top but I wish it had happened about twenty minutes sooner forgive me Kane and John Cena and Zack Ryder and everybody.


In a match that only takes a minute or two "Funkasaurus" Brodus Clay does away with Drew McIntyre and I like Clay and his funk-based offense and ring entrance as much as anybody but I'm pretty surprised this even happens here. Booker T keeps saying "Shucky Ducky." Also in a thirty-second spot that looks like parody we've got Rey Mysterio and the Big Show and I guess that's Eve explaining that Slim Jims are one of the most requested snacks by (y)Our Servicemen and Women and so for every two Slim Jims sold they will give one to a soldier which is weird because I thought the makers of Slim Jims thought the troops were fascist thugs is that not accurate?


We get a video package recapping the several ways in which Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim Raw General Manager John Laurinaitis has made life difficult for CM PUNK of late and there are several things that are excellent here including vintage Johnny Ace footage and also lots of cool clips of Dolph Ziggler doing things. As you well know Laurinaitis is to serve as the special guest referee however he is recusing himself from this somewhat as he has decided to oversee the officiating from outside the ring and one wonders if this is because he has been informed that his performance is about to be reviewed by Triple H on Monday Night Raw? Tonight's challenger for CM Punk's WWE Championship is of course the already awesome and potentially *historically* awesome Dolph Ziggler and I am excited to see this one! Punk comes out to a strong "CM PUNK" chant and he yells that it is "clobberin' time" whilst attired in a Madballs hoodie lol seriously that is what he was wearing over his "Best in the World" ringer t-shirt which is one of the all-time great wrestling t-shirts which is not to damn it with faint praise. lol Michael Cole reminds us that the WWE Championship has been in existence for over fifty years and Jerry Lawler is like "yeah so has Vickie Guerrero" which is a *great* line. Actually the other Jerry Lawler thing I wanted to mention tonight was that whilst the announcers were discussing how low it is that my man D-Bryan would not reciprocate when his ladyfriend AJ said that she loved him Lawler was all sensitive and stuff and explained how important it is to say stuff like that to ladies which idk I lol'd because of course as you know: 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCddBMaNKQA#t=14m50s


AND WE ARE UNDERWAY IN THIS CHAMPIONSHIP BOUT! I admire both of these pretend fighters greatly and am ready to enjoy their match! After some early rope running and the like Dolph Ziggler congratulates himself on his speedy excellence by strutting a little bit which is true to his well-earned "show off" reputation but soon thereafter he only narrowly avoids the "Anaconda Vise" which is fundamentally an *ude garami* from a *kesa gatame* and there goes CM Punk flying out through the ropes! Ziggler trips him off the top turnbuckle moments later and Punk falls awkwardly. Ziggler looks to capitalize with a swinging neckbreaker and like a million elbow drops! This is really good so far. It's crazy to me that Punk wrestles with that lip ring in because we always make people take all piercings out at our *dojo* lest they get kind of fucked up by them but then again we are wearing great big jammy-jams on which piercings can be caught and also we are at times *shooting*  which changes the equation one supposes OH SHIT SLEEPER HOLD ESCAPED INTO AN ANACONDA VISE ATTEMPT COUNTERED INTO A SLEEPER man this is exactly what I want to see. And perhaps you recall that I don't much like dropkicks well it turns out I like them when Dolph Ziggler does them so it is a context thing OH SHIT THIS TIME A ZIGGLER "ROCKER DROPPER" HAS BEEN COUNTERED INTO A SIT-OUT POWER BOMB FOR TWOOOOO yeah this is the wrestling match for me! Punk hits his his running high knee and a running bulldog out of the corner which is a preferred *renraku waza* or "combination technique" of his isn't it. He pantomimes a SLEEPY SLEEPY motion but Ziggler escapes the fireman's carry and catapults Punk into the corner HOWEVER Punk comes out of the corner with a cross body BUT Ziggler rolls through with "a handful of tights" for two! Punk kicks *the shit* out of Ziggler's head for another two! The St. Louis crowd rightly chants CM PUNK CM PUNK CM PUNK and he takes to the top rope and drops an elbow for two more and chants of RANDY SAVAGE RANDY SAVAGE RANDY SAVAGE take shape and of course Randy Savage played in the St. Louis Cardinals minor league system and the people of St. Louis should be proud of that! 


Punk puts Ziggler on his shoulders for another GO TO SLEEP attempt but Ziggler shrugs him of and fires him into the corner which results in a "ref bump" and after a slick arm drag Punk sinks in the Anaconda Vise like he was fuckin Hiroyoshi Tenzan man yeah that's right I know who that is don't act like I do not own multiple versions of Fire Pro and Ziggler is understandably tapping and there is no shame in that but Laurinaitis is willfully oblivious to this as he attends to the fallen referee on the outside. A GO TO SLEEP connects but Laurinaitis was felled by Ziggler's legs as the maneuver was applied and again he chooses to see only what he wishes to see which is of course an affliction from which many of us suffer in our way. FUCK YEAH ZIGGLER COUNTERS A GTS ATTEMPT INTO A ROCKER DROPPER THAT WAS *AWESOME* AND YET IT WAS BUT TWOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Ziggler stomps the champion down viciously and then rains down further blows upon him as the referee implores the challenger to open his fists a command to which he reluctantly complies and IT IS *ANOTHER* GTS FTW and Laurinaitis gets in on the three count once it becomes clear that it could not reasonably be halted and your winner and still WWE Champion is the great CM PUNK and you know who else is great it is the challenger DOLPH ZIGGLER and this match was *excellent* and in fact much much better upon a second viewing which is what this is for me right now and so if you watched it once and were like "man that was pretty good" then you should watch it again because you will soon thereafter be like "man that was actually REALLY good" imo.


Wait there are going to be WWE youtube channels? I see that one of them will be called Santino's Foreign Exchange so regardless of anything else having to do with anything else I wholeheartedly support this idea.


ALRIGHT HERE WE GO IN THIS THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY ROYAL RUMBLE MATCH CAN YOU BELIEVE IT WHERE HAS MY LIFE GONE and the first two competitors to be joined every ninety seconds thereafter by their wrestling fellows are THE MIZ who walks out through these truly spectacular giant puffy letters that spell AWESOME both literally and figuratively and then gets on the microphone for a couple minutes in a way that actually is not all that awesome and he has a pretty weird upper lip area when you really look at it and ALEX RILEY who used to be pretty serious bros with The Miz not that long ago. Alex Riley doesn't seem bad or anything he's just kind of bland and oh hey there he goes out over the top as The Miz pulls the Jim-Duggan-on-the-One-Man-Gang maneuver and now it is *another* of The Miz's former bros R-Truth and I am firmly of the opinion that R-Truth is terrific and wtf was that it's like he fucked up a vertical suplex a little bit and switched it into a power slam? Maybe it was the Miz who read it wrong or something idk. Cody Rhodes who is also terrific is in at number four and he delivers his "beautiful disaster" kick off the ropes which is the exact same thing as "John Morrison's" kick off the ropes but regrettably he is not around these days so fair game I guess! Justin Gabriel is a high flier of the highest calibre and so he enters the ring via the top turnbuckle and is all about taking out more than one dude at once with a cross body and he hits some other things too like a sit-out powerbomb and a fine *osoto gari* or "major outer reap" or "outside trip" if you prefer. Now we have Primo who you might well recall as one half of your Tag Team Champions Epico and Primo and he does a cool handstand in the corner and transitions into a headscissors on Justin Gabriel OH NO R-TRUTH IS OUT however in anger he has dragged The Miz out under the bottom rope and delivers a technique with which I am not particularly familiar but it drives The Miz's face into the floor so it's probably a good one to do.


MICK FOLEY is in at number six and he is looking Cactus Jackish here man so maybe he will be particularly "hardcore" or maybe this is just how he attires himself these days generally and the St. Louis crowd is very much into this and I am with them! FOLEY FOLEY FOLEY is their chant as Primo goes way up and way over and now Foley is like BANG BANG before he hits his running knee to the corner on Cody Rhodes and also the double-arm DDT. lololol OK Alberto Del Rio's music starts up and it is like isn't he "out of action" right now and yes indeed he is and so this is not Del Rio but his ring announcer Ricardo Rodriguez who enters the arena in a 1985 Datsun 280Z that has plainly seen better days but on which I would make a serious offer if it had been stickered within even the last six months or so. Ricardo goes to *town* on Cody Rhodes and then Foley and Ricardo eliminate Gabriel and Ricardo is like AIRPLANE RUN AROUND THE RING YEEEAAAHH. The incomparable SANTINO is in next and lol the COBRA is ready to strike immediately however Santino's best offensive maneuvers in his brief encounter with Ricardo prove to be a "square wheel" warm-up drill into the corner and a wedgie to setup the toss to the outside. Rhodes is still out of it in the corner as lolololololol Foley and Santino square off with Socko and the Cobra and did anybody see Foley on 30 Rock last week or hey did anybody happen to see Santino's sick *uchi mata* judo throw to open his match against Primo and Epico on Smackdown(!) Friday night? Here it is actually: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bril9FaopQ0#t=1m45s  


Anyway Epico is in and out and we are quickly back to Foley and Santino except we are *not* because Rhodes and the Miz are all of a sudden back in the picture and they eliminate both of our heroes in short order thus ending I guess the comedy portion of the evening but that was all really good! 


Kofi Kingston comes in and flies around on dudes and then is like BOOM BOOM *drop* BOOOOOM and this is absolutely flying if we are up to number twelve and not for the first time Jerry "The King" Lawler leaves his spot at the announce table and hits the ring. He is visibly in no worse shape than he was in like 1997 but he is not long for this match as Cody Rhodes gets a hold of him and that's that but the crowd was pretty into it for the minute or so he was in there. Next is Ezekiel Jackson who is enormous and slams people and Booker T calls him BIG ZEKE which is a cool thing to call him imo. Number fourteen is Jinder Mahal and he is decked out very much like Great Tiger from Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! and in the past Royal Rumble competitors have on occasion set aside their differences temporarily in order to deal with brown-skinned people as a unit so we'll just have to wait and see if that happens here. It does not in fact as next in is the Great Khali and he takes care of Mahal with whom we are told he has a history and also BIG ZEKE is gone and as you are perhaps aware I am a strong proponent of at least one gigantic dude per Royal Rumble who comes in and dominates the match for a while and then it is a huge deal when he is eliminated and I am happy for Khali to perform that role even if he is arguably the worst "big man" since Giant Gonzalez and actually you know what he is probably worse. Hunico is next and I like his bike! And then it is BOOKER T from the announce table to the ring and the best part of this is that he stands up to take off his jacket and unbutton his shirt and it appears though he has been sitting behind the announce table without pants all night as all we see are trunks lol.


OK so in the "spot" of the night Cody Rhodes has Kofi Kingston on the apron outside and then Kingston falls off but it is his *hands* that touch and as you know the duly promulgated rules and regulations pertaining to Royal Rumble eliminations clearly state that a competitor is eliminated when and only when *both feet* hit the ground and Kofi has taken that to heart and so just totally walks on his hands over the ring steps and reenters the match like none of this was even a big deal. It was AWESOME and surely it has been made into an animated gif by now let me look. Well OK no not that I have seen but video is almost as good right:


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


Note Hunico's bike in the above as well. A disappointed DOLPH ZIGGLER is in next despite seeing action earlier in the evening and we are up to number eighteen which is crazy. Booker nearly eliminated Hunico right on top of his bike which as I may have mentioned is a cool bike but Hunico tucked back in under the bottom rope AND NOW IT IS HACKSAW JIM DUGGAN WHO HAS BEEN THUGGIN' and the good people of St. Louis are into it as well they should be because I mean what better nostalgia dude to dig up again for this the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Royal Rumble than he who was the match's first champion lol Rhodes just put him out and gives a little mock "USA USA" and that was all great. Rhodes puts Booker and Khali out in a heap next so he is on an anti-old guy roll here but it would have been better had the non-old guy in this equation that is to say Khali been treated as a bigger deal but whatever really. In next is Michael Cole from the announce table which honestly I am not that into as a thing despite his singlet and headgear however I *do* enjoy the guy seated in the first row behind him being all I CAN'T BELIEVE IT MICHAEL COLE? You can see him here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX8czEG320E


You will see in the above clip an enormous lady called Kharma enter at number twenty-one and Booker T is like I HOPE SHE EATS MICHAEL COLE LIKE A PIECE OF CHICKEN GO AFTER HIM LIKE A CHICKEN BONE and that is uncomfortable. You will also see my main man Ziggler be like WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE GET OUT and then he takes her utterly ludicrous double-underhook finishing maneuver and I don't know anything about Kharma at all but if she does that moves to ladies then that seems insane to me. Anyway yeah Kharma tosses a diving Hunico over the top but Ziggler sneaks up from behind and hoists her out and lol that looked legitimately tough for Ziggler to get her up and I get it man she is a monster. That was all OK I guess but idk about Michael Cole in there which was arguably taking the "announcers-in-the-Rumble" gag a little too far but I am not going to bother minding it. Sheamus is in next and he has a pretty good run in which he tosses Kofi Kingston and then wails on first Cody Rhodes and then The Miz with forearms to the chest and OH YOU DIDN'T KNOW IT IS A BADLY SWOLLEN ROOOOOOAD DOGG IN AT TWENTY-THREE and look the crowd is absolutely loving this and who am I but I cannot help but think the Road Dogg is only here to punish me for arguably watching an allegedly only semi-legal stream of this event. He does all of his things and the crowd chants YOU'VE STILL GOT IT and I suppose yeah whatever it is that he had he probably still does but it is just not for me man and that's OK. Jey Uso aka SON OF FATU is in next and I have only seen the Usos on Smackdown one time but they seemed good!


I am very into Jack Swagger is the twenty-fifth entrant in this your twenty-fifth Royal Rumble and he is actually *very* tall like way taller than you probably even think. Wade Barrett and his sharp olive trunks are in next and OH NO ROAD DOGG HAS BEEN ELIMINATED HE CAN NOT ENDURE THE BARRETT BARRAGE alas and alack and fuk u Road Dogg. I am honestly a little disappointed to see David Otunga enter at number twenty-seven and not because I have anything against David Otunga but it's just like he is not exactly a top-notch dude at this stage in his career and it is getting down to "crunch" time here folks and I want to see enormously menacing threats come out this late in the game and yeah here you go here is Randy Orton for example and lol right yeah he is mad at Wade Barrett for hurling him down a flight of stairs. DOUBLE SUSPENSION DDT on Rhodes and Ziggler and that was as cool as you would expect. NO JEY USO NO Orton got him and then it is an RKO for Barrett and he's gone too and yeah the people of St. Louis are enjoying seeing their dude do stuff here.


THE LIGHTS GO OUT AND A JACKET LIGHTS UP AND IT CAN ONLY BE ONE MAN AND THAT IS CHRIS JERICHO SAVE_US.Y2J OH WAIT THAT WAS LAST TIME and yeah Orton and Jericho those are the kinds of people I want out at this point not like David Otunga although again I feel like I am picking on David Otunga when I say that and I think he is actually good so I am conflicted. Our thirtieth and final entrant is the Big Show and he hits the just-then-eliminated Jack Swagger with a siiiiiiiick right hand and then pushes both Rhodes and the Miz out over the top from a "goozle" grip and yeah there goes Dolph Ziggler too. So then our FINAL FOUR consists of Sheamus, Orton, Jericho and Big Show and all of those guys entered at number twenty-two or later which I think is probably the latest for a final four but I am not going to look that up. The hope here of course is for a temporary Jerishow reunion until Sheamus and Orton are gone and then Jericho pulls it out through guile and duplicity and will COME ON BABAAAAAAAY his way to Wrestlemania but no such alliance seems in the offing unfortunately. RKO BIG SHOW and Orton and Sheamus go after Big Show HOWEVER the Big Show shrugs Sheamus off like he is nothing BUT THEN Orton puts him right up and over AND YET it is at this very moment that Jericho tips Orton out from behind and so it is Jericho and Sheamus left! Neither of these dudes have won a Royal Rumble! It occurred to me the other day that Jericho has never won one while I was trying to make it through "Lucha Libre" Audience Mode in Fire Pro A with him which is fuckin *tough* man those fans are *picky* and now here he stands on the very brink of it! 


Both Jericho and Sheamus are awesome of course so this is interesting! Sheamus yells "COME ON FELLA" which is how most fights start where I am from too. Missile dropkick from Chris Jericho! The crowd seemed very into it a moment ago when Sheamus almost put Jericho out over the corner but now there is a pretty good Y2J chant going so I don't know where the crowd's sympathies lay exactly. The "Irish Curse Backbreaker" is a tremendous move and here comes a "Celtic Cross" but NO CLOTHESLINE and man between that and the Jericho jumpkick out of the corner it is NUTS that Sheamus is still on the apron because those both would have been *totally* acceptable ways to end a Royal Rumble. Sheamus misses a "Brogue Kick" and Jericho puts him in the famed "Walls of Jericho" but as Jerry "The King" Lawler notes early on there is no point to this technique here. BACKDROP SHEAMUS AND JERICHO IS alright he is still on the apron. He climbs to the top turnbuckle from the outside which is a risky maneuver man and now both guys fall from the top and land on the apron and OK both have rolled back in so we are CODEBREAKER CODEBREAKER CODEBREAKER which is a good move and an even better name and lol Jericho goes for the cover. Jericho has Sheamus up and all tippy along the ropes and then he starts slapping him in the fuckin face and that seems to have stirred up Sheamus' famous Irish temper because he looks *pissed* and as they come away from the ropes Jericho attempts a second CODEBREAKER but Sheamus just like catches him and hoists him up there and puts him over the top where Jericho dangles for a bit before regaining his feet on the apron only to be BROGUE KICKED OFF IN A VERY COOL FINISH AND SHEAMUS IS THE WINNER OF THIS THE 25TH ANNUAL ROYAL RUMBLE AND ONE CAN ONLY IMAGINE HE WILL CHALLENGE DANIEL BRYAN FOR THE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE AT WRESTLEMANIA ONLY ONE YEAR AFTER I TUNED INTO WRESTLEMANIA AND WATCHED THE WHOLE FUCKIN THING ONLY TO FIND OUT AFTERWARDS THAT THE SHEAMUS V. D-BRYAN MATCH THAT I TOTALLY WANTED TO SEE BECAUSE THOSE ARE AWESOME GUYS HAD BEEN SCRAPPED WHICH WAS BULLSHIT BUT NOW THINGS ARE OTHERWISE AREN'T THEY YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH also I'm a little disappointed Jericho didn't win it frankly.  


So I mean hey this Royal Rumble is taking something of a beating on the internet which I grant you is where we are currently but look the Heavyweight Championship Match was cool and the WWE Championship match was A Very Good Match Indeed and the Royal Rumble proper was not one for the ages I grant you but the Foley v. Santino stuff and also Ricardo were *shoot* charming and there was Kofi Kingston's FUK U JOHN MORRISON moment and I was totally totally totally into the Jericho v. Sheamus stuff at the end in like a full-on PLEASE LET THIS GUY WIN COME ON HIT MORE CODEBREAKERS QUICK way so while I certainly acknowledge this show's imperfections I am personally hard-pressed to come down on this one and maybe the problem for those who did not enjoy the show very much is that they did not watch it whilst chatting with awesome enough bros?


ANYWAY SEE YOU ALL NEXT YEAR AND LITERALLY EVERY OTHER YEAR AFTER THAT EVER FOR MORE ROYAL RUMBLES AND UNTIL THEN DO OTHER THINGS I GUESS AND KNOW THAT I LOVE YOU 

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

2010 ROYAL RUMBLE


BECAUSE I AM ONE OF THE BUSIEST AND MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE EVER I put the 2010 Royal Rumble undercard on while I was doing other equally necessary things like cleaning the bathroom and also the kitchen and honestly I think this was a good call for reasons other than just time management because while the matches were on the whole totally OK they were not that great and also the backstage bits were beyond horrible this year with the exception of the part where Chris Jericho can be overheard in conversation with the Big Show calling the Atlanta fans "gelatinous tapeworms" which is a pretty slick diss imo. 


The show opened with Christian successfully defending his ECW Heavyweight Championship against Ezekiel Jackson who was accompanied to the ring by his mentor William Regal who was soon thereafter barred from ringside. Christian is at his best when he is bouncing all over the place for a dude with choice power moves and a genuine ability to clubber and Jackson it would seem has both and so this match was actually pretty cool and ended with a "Killswitch" which is an infinitely better name than the "Unprettier" for a "clean finish" in the middle of the squared circle however a quick trip to wikipedia to examine the history of the ECW "strap" after Matt Striker mentioned that the last time that title changed hands in Atlanta it went to Vince McMahon (lol EEE CEE DUB EEE CEE DUB) revealed that Christian would lose the title to Jackson only a month later at which point the whole thing got cancelled. HOWEVER they mentioned that Christian had been the champion for like six months heading into this match so without having seen a minute of it I would venture that it probably wasn't terrible television but again not a single minute.


Then Theodore Long demanded an impromptu defense of The Miz's United States Heavyweight Championship against MVP whom the Miz had apparently been ducking of late and this one was fine and ended with an inside cradle out of *nowhere* and then the Miz verbally abused his foe until MVP was compelled to respond physically. The high point of this fine but not awesome match came when I was reminded of the very existence of the ballin' elbow drop of which you can see a tiny example here:





The women's title match was the culmination of an apparently longstanding "feud" in which champion Michelle McCool who is I believe southern and her pal Layla who might well be English taunted Mickie James for getting story line heavy and maybe irl heavy idk and called her "Piggy James" and I think I remember there being a lot of talk about this one because it was sort of a stupid idea. Maybe I heard about it on Meltzer's podcast or something. Anyway the match itself was nothing, a quick win for James and then all the various lady wrestlers got into the ring and smooshed cake all over the villains. 


S(h)eamus defended his WWE Championship in kind of a plodding match against Randy Orton and I really like both guys but this was not the best you will see from either of them. It's not that they were dogging it or anything; there just wasn't much that stood out at all here although the end was I guess a pretty big story line change for Randy Orton as in the end Cody Rhodes inadvertently got Orton disqualified despite having specifically been told not to be at ringside at all and while this was going on Orton had in fact just hit the RKO so the title might well have been his! This led to I guess the disintegration of "Legacy" before our very eyes ladies and gentlemen as Dibiase the Younger came out two and Orton beat them both down for a while until Sheamus had regained himself and then met Orton with a BROGUE KICK and let me tell you that when I was recently at a "house" show at the historic Halifax Forum where Leo Burke once wrestled National Wrestling Alliance Champion Harley Race to a sixty-minute draw the second coolest move of the night aside from Orton's RKO out of NOWHERE on Christian coming of the middle rope was totally Sheamus' Brogue Kick on Wade Barrett because it was sick as in siiiiiiiiiiiiiick bro.


The best of the undercard matches was probably Rey Mysterio challenging the Undertaker for the World Heavyweight Championship and it was very much as you'd expect in that it was Mysterio doing all kinds of cool stuff bouncing off of things and sometimes it would land and thus damage the Undertaker in a minimal kind of way and other times the Undertaker would catch him and ruin him. But I mean these two guys know what they are doing out there and so it all looked really good and the finish involved not one but two 619s ("That's like 12-2-18!" -- M. Striker) and a "West Coast Pop" countered into a "Last Ride" from about a mile up and the Undertaker's face was all busted up from something that went awry somewhere along the line and you can't complain about any of that. Yeah this was definitely the best of the night and while it would not be at all fair to say that it was the best of a bad lot or anything it's just that all of the matches were totally OK but nothing was in any way remarkable or anything to the extent where I would at all be like "hey watch this one" but at the same time there was no point during the undercard where you would at all be like "let's get this over with" except for I guess the Women's Championship match contested over body image issues or whatever.


OK THEN ROYAL RUMBLE TIME and the last time we were in Atlanta for one of these it was 2002 was it not and arguably the best Royal Rumble match ever occurred and Triple H was like *RWWWWWAAAAAAAAAARRRRHHHHHHHRRRRRR* and he won! Once again let me say that I do not enjoy the Raw ring announcer who I believe is Justin Roberts. HEY ALRIGHT IT IS DOLPH ZIGGLER and he is as you may know something of a show off and I fuckin love that there is a modern guy whose wrestling character is that he is a showoff; that is exactly the kind of thing a wrestling character needs to be imo. Let's not over think this, right? They were like "nobody likes a showoff so let's make a guy a showoff and everyone will be like BOOOOOOO" and they were *right.* Evan Bourne is number two and he is tiny! He does a lot of cool moves and I have enjoyed his AIR BOOM tag team with Koffi Kingston but I am not all that into Evan Bourne at least not like I am into Dolph Ziggler who is awesome and lol OK we just got Ziggler's finisher and Bourne's "shooting star press" within like thirty seconds of each other which doesn't make all that much sense unless these guys aren't sticking around long but whatever man it owned. Next in is CM PUNK YEEEEEEEEEEAH and he eliminates both guys so quickly that he has time to get on the microphone and give an sXe sermon and it's pretty awesome and I find his rhetoric compelling and as the clock winds down he looks down at his wrist tape as though it were a wristwatch in the mode of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and he goes "excuse me; it's clobberin' time" and it is really cool. Serena is out with him by the way. I listened to an interview Punk did with noted mixed martial arts journalist Ariel Helwani and Punk talked about how it sucks kind of that he won't actually be in the Royal Rumble match itself this year since that has been his favourite match since forever and yeah me too Chick Magnet me too. WTF he was a three-time World Champion already? Things move fast in this our modern wrestling age. JTG of Cryme Tyme is in next and lol OK he lasts about twenty seconds before he goes out over the ring post and the sermon resumes until the Great Khali comes out and Punk attempts to convert him like "Great Khali, I can make you greater . . . " however Khali puts him in THE VICE until BETH PHOENIX comes out making her only the second woman in Royal Rumble history as well you know. Khali just scoops her up and sets her on the apron and tells her to leave but Phoenix kisses him to generate *kuzushi* or unbalancing and she pulls him over and out and Matt Striker is like "NEVER TRUST A WOMAN" but I think that is too broad a conclusion to draw from this isolated incident of duplicity.


oh man "The Glamazon" absolutely fuckin *buries* Punk with a clothesline but he hits the "Go To Sleep" and puts her out over the top however I think Phoenix busted Punk up a little with that clothesline lol. Zack Ryder is in and out in like thirty seconds and Punk is back on the mic like "LET ME RIIIIIISE" and this is really good so far particularly if you are like totally a dude of CM Punk. TIME TO PLAY THE GAAAAAAAAAAAME as Hunter Hearst Helmsley is next and he is a co-holder of the Unified Tag Team Championship and honestly it is about time they unified those because it had just been silly if I may say so. A cool little stare down follows and then these two have about a minute of an awesome match until Intercontinental Champion and dude I have a really hard time giving a shit about Drew McIntyre slowly ambles to the ring and I should like a guy with that cool a finisher in WWE All Stars way more than I do but the heart wants what it wants.and OH SHIT CM PUNK IS OUT he went for the "Go to Sleep" after an escape from the Pedigree but Triple H shrugged him off and hooked a leg and *woop* there goes Punk! That whole Punk deal was one of the best "first-third-or-so"s in any of these Royal Rumbles for sure. DiBiase is in next and he and McIntyre team up on Triple H and as a dude from where I am from I am pretty into McIntyre's St. Andrew's Cross-themed ring gear but idk it isn't enough. John Morrison is in at number eleven and I guess he had a bunch of matches with McIntyre lately so they pair off for a bit. STARSHIP PAIN STARSHIP PAIN and that is maybe my favourite name for a move ever idk why. *BWOOOOOOOOOOOOF* it is KANE and he comes in with a clothesline from the top rope on Triple H and soon thereafter he double chokeslams Morrison and McIntyre and then Triple H is chokeslammed also and yeah everybody is getting wrecked here. Cody Rhodes is in next and once again I think this guy is totally great. Morrison comes at him with a springboard thing off the ropes and Rhodes catches him with a dropkick which is really one of the only ways I can get into dropkicks tbh. MVP in at fourteen OR IS HE as The Miz has just laid him out from behind with the United States Championship belt and the belts really are the best foreign objects. Morrison hits his kick off the ropes on McIntyre and I am pretty into so it is not like *kicks* that I am not into just drop ones.


We've got Carlito in at number fifteen and this one is going pretty quickly and so far I have liked it! Morrison just did a cool thing where he over-rotated on a Carlito monkey-flip out of the corner and OH SHIT "Backstabber"s to Triple H, McIntyre and DiBiase and Matt Striker is like "at some point wouldn't you stop throwing punches if you Carlito doing that to three different guys" SHUT UP MATT STRIKER THEY SHOULD NEVER STOP EVER. Here is the Miz legitimately this time and oh OK here comes MVP and they both tumble out over the top rope and brawl on the outside and that looked intense! Good job guys! And now it is "the heart and soul of Friday Night Smackdown Matt Hardy" lol OK sure what do I know aaaaaaaahahahahaha Kane got him after like ten seconds but then Triple H pushed Kane out from behind and it is SPINEBUSTERS to maybe four guys in a row which I totally endorse. Shawn Michaels is in next and they should never make him run because he looks eighty when he runs but once he gets there he is of course awesome and he tosses Carlito out hugely and then gets Rhodes and DiBiase and then he kips up and holy shit he is baaaaaaald at this point and there goes Morrison as well. Triple H is on a bad "wheel" after a Drew McIntyre chop block a minute ago but he gets his shit together and he and HBK eliminate McIntyre with a clothesline AND HERE COMES CENA and yeah this is a really good Royal Rumble. Cena cleans house and delivers a TEN KNUCKLE SHUFFLE but as he tries got get Shawn Michaels up and over Triple H intervenes and puts Cena down with a Pedigree and then WOOOOOOOOOOAH SUPERKICK ON TRIPLE H AND HE IS OUT that was really cool and unexpected! 


Shelton Benjamin enters his fuckin eighth consecutive Royal Rumble if you can believe and lol yep there he goes. It took Cena like thirty seconds. He has got to have like the lowest average time in Royal Rumbles of anyone with enough appearances to qualify for the rumblemetric I have just proposed. YOSHI TATSU! lasts like a second! Cena got him too. So the Shawn Michaels story here is about how badly he wants to face the Undertaker at Wrestlemania for the second year in a row and that is actually a pretty good story imo. The Big Show comes out next and Cena has a great hands-on-knees "well-fuck-me" aspect about him and DO IT HBK AND CENA YOU ARE SO CLOSE OK no not really the Big Show is still in there and this is really good with these three. FUCK YEAH MARK HENRY and holy cow we are up to number twenty-three. Michaels and Cena are just laying around as the Big Show and Henry GET AFTER IT in the middle of the ring and lol after Mark Henry scoop slams the Big Show very impressively John Cena tries to get Mark Henry up for the "Attitude Adjustment" but collapses under his girth in a cool way. Chris Masters is in next and he fires Shawn Michaels into the corner and he does that rad upside turnbuckle thing that one most associates with him but a Masterlock attempt on Mark Henry goes awry and he is out in short order WOOOOOAHH YEEEEEEEEEEAH R-TRUE COMES IN AND DUMPS BOTH HENRY AND THE BIG SHOW AT THE SAME TIME YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHH they were totally tied up with each other in the corner and R-Truth is wilding out here ladies and gentlemen this is *awesome.* 


JACK SWAGGER lol he has this like fox in the hen house look on his face as he races to the ring and he hits dudes with that splash he does out of the corner and then it is a suplex and an OKLAHOMA STAMPEDE and yes this is the best guy right here this is Jack Swagger and DID HE GET HBK no I guess he did not. Kofi Kingston is in at lucky number twenty-seven and unsurprisingly he comes in with a cross body of the top rope and is like BOOM DROP on Swagger but Swagger has him up and OH NEAT a bodyscissors elimination of Jack Swagger by Kofi Kingston good stuff Kofi and lol now a headscissors on R-TRUTH. 


EVIL JERICHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO is a guy I think should totally win the Royal Rumble even though you can totally see him calling everything with John Cena right now in a way that is surprisingly glaring and a little distracting tbh. Top-rope elbow from Michaels on Jericho and man that is a sweet move. Kingston hit his cool kick on HBK but then Cena sent him flying out and to the floor and Jericho hit Cena with the Codebreaker in a great sequence zrrrrrrrrrrrn *you think you know me* BADADADADADADADADADADAADADADADAAA ON THIS DAAAAAAY IT IS EDGE IN A SURPRISE RETURN AND JERICHO IS OUT and this is awesome OK in at number thirty is Batista so that's your final four: Edge, Batista, Cena, and Shawn Michaels. Batista is laying dudes out as you would expect but the crowd doesn't actually give a shit about him either way at this point and they are right and he gets speared and then everybody is down for a minute. Top-rope HBK elbows on Cena and Batista and now the band is being warmed up ladies and gentlemen and yep Cena eats one and yep Batista gets another one and then EDGE CLOTHESLINES HBK over but they are both on the apron *not* the floor and HBK superkicks Edge back in which is REALLY cool and then Batista runs over and knocks Michaels from the apron to the floor and that was AWESOME and Shawn Michaels is a man whose dream has been crushed friends and he reenters the ring and superkicks a referee who is in there to try to get him out and he is doing a really good job of looking totally beside himself but not in rage exactly just like total and complete disappointment. GOOD STUFF SHAWN MICHAELS WAY TO WRESTLE AND EVERYTHING.


So it is Edge and the dudes who botched the 2005 Royal Rumble maybe *or maybe not* depending on how you read those strange events and Cena has just pulled the rope down on a charging Batista so it is just Cena and Edge in fact! OH SHIT EDGE PUTS CENA OUT LIKE RIGHT AWAY AND THAT'S IT EDGE WINS IT COOL AS HELL I HAD NO IDEA THAT THIS EVER HAPPENED except oh yeah doesn't he end up wrestling for the title at Wrestlemania but in the opening match or something weird like that? Anyway that was a REALLY GOOD Royal Rumble after kind of a mediocre undercard but who really cares man that Royal Rumble was GOOD. 

2009 ROYAL RUMBLE


WE ARE STARTING TO RUN LOW ON ROYAL RUMBLES HERE AREN'T WE as together we address ourselves to the 2009 Royal Rumble which I am almost certain I have not seen but I see no reason to think this will be anything but totally good because the average level of awesomeness of the Royal Rumble match has been steadily on the rise as we have made our way through these wouldn't you agree? An opening montage shows Randy Orton vs. the McMahons as a thing to keep our eyes on this evening and lol the way Orton described Stephanie McMahon as "sexually worthless" seemed pretty harsh. The Road to Wrestlemania XXV begins here at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan and we begin with Matt Hardy challenging THE ALL-AMERICAN AMERICAN JACK SWAGGER YEEEEAH for the ECW title and I guess this is Todd Grisham and Matt Stryker on commentary which will probably be ok. Swagger's music sounds way more like Rage Against the Machine than any of the other wrestling themes that are totally supposed to sound like they are by Rage Against the Machine. Something I should have mentioned whilst discussing last year's Royal Rumble but failed to is how much I like it that they started introducing people once both guys are in the ring rather than being like "now coming down the aisle" because this makes it more Of The Past. Denounce me as hoss enthusiast if you must but I think Jack Swagger is basically the perfect professional wrestler for this our modern age and as I have mentioned on more than one occasion he bears an uncanny resemblance to my Aunt Sheelagh and it goes well beyond their literally identical haircuts. Swagger is doing all kinds of slick takedowns and  great basic "matwork" that looks fantastic. Also fantastic or at worst *borderline* fantastic: Hardy's cool fall from the top turnbuckle to the floor. These guys are having a good match! Swagger is focusing on the arm and we are told that the arm is vital to the execution of the "twist of fate" which is the finishing move that the Hardys employ after going WUUUUUHHHHHH which is a bit like when John Malkovich screws the tops of the Oreos in that once people figure it out the Hardys will probably be fucked. 


I don't know if this is view that is already widespread on the internet or whatever but I think Matt Stryker is pretty good on colour and I have no real problem with Todd Grisham though I don't think he is around anymore is he. Swagger is the best man we are way way into the match before he hits his first belly-to-belly suplex and seriously if you take the way say Kurt Angle wrestled and the way Jack Swagger wrestlers I will seriously take Jack Swagger every time. It was totally weird to go back to all that Benoit/Angle/Lesnar stuff around say 2004 and see suplexes reduced to nothing but transitional moves as our friend 'Taine noted, like they wouldn't even get you a near fall which was *dumb* but at the time it was happening I almost certainly would have told you it was awesome. But Swagger did a bunch of really cool "amateur style" takedowns and some slick matwork and then just worked the arm and "sold" the comeback for the rest of the match until he hit that one suplex, survived a near fall on an odd looking moonsault, and finished with the gut-wrench powerbomb. In summation this was a good match and Jack Swagger owns beyond all conventional reckoning. 


Next up is a Women's Championship match between Melina and the champoin and "Glamazon" Beth Phoenix accompanied by the great Santino Marella and I have no problem with Melina but I mean come on *Santino.* They are both wearing cool shiny outfits that are vastly less revealing than usual "divas" fare and you know what they are actually really cool so think about that, divas, and also you should respect yourselves and make good choices. lol THE BEST THING just happened and it was OK OK Phoenix had Melina face down on the mat and Phoenix had her leg all bent up like a half crab almost but not really and then she started hitting her in the head from behind *with her own fucking foot* and it was an extraordinarily good use of Melina's much celebrated flexibity. I wonder if you could that "spot" with like RVD or somebody? Phoenix has all kinds of power moves here and most of them are really good. I am not reading "the sheets" at all these days but I believe she is now or at least has in the past dated CM Punk? OH SHIT SUNSET FLIPESQUE MANEUVER AND MELINA HAS WON IT! So much for what I am told is Phoenix's five-month title reign. That was the best women's match I have seen in a long time. Did I ever mention that I totally enjoyed the women's match at the "house" show I attended in the fall at the historic Halifax Forum where Leo Burke once wrestled National Wrestling Alliance Champion Harley Race to a sixty-minute draw? The impossibly tiny AJ defeated Natalya and it was quite good!


OK so coming up next JBL challenges John Cena for the World Heavyweight Championship and lol I had no idea that Shawn Michaels had been humbled by the economic crisis and is now in the employ of the one-percenter JBL and I mention to my wife that Michaels is still around in this the 2009 Royal Rumble and that this is what he is doing and she was like "that guy is like Woolf's 'Orlando'" and then we are both like lol. Backstage JBL is like "I will pay you all kinds of money tonight Shawn if etc. etc." and then after he leaves the Undertaker appears and is like "you know Shawn sometimes heaven something hell something else" and I am ready for the Heart Break Kid to break free of his chains let me tell you that much! John Cena is wearing his rad AWA-inspired t-shirt that I hope they sold a zillion of because that is a great idea. Your referee is Mike Chioda, my favourite one! He checks the ring gear of the competitors for foreign objects which is a crucial step no official should ever neglect but some do man some do. Maybe these guys are "going long" because they start out with a really nice slow pace with headlock takeovers and things like that. LET'S GO CENA/CENA SUCKS are the things that you are hearing right now if this is what you are watching. Hey so on "The Masked Man"'s Grantland podcast that aired a couple of days after he and his bro went to Survivor Series at MSG he mentioned that one of the striking things about going to wrestling now compared to say in the depths of the Attitude Era is the almost complete absence of dudes holding up signs, and he's right, there's definitely a huge difference there. He speculated that this was because the wrestling sign is no longer necessary exactly as the way to make like ironic comments or inside jokes or anything as now we all have message boards and/or Twitter. You should hear him talk about it. 


Solid match so far as you would expect out of these two and again the pace here is somewhat reserved. This is not to say that they aren't doing stuff because they totally are but it's like, some stuff on the inside, then outside and into the ring steps, back inside, and back out for the steps again. A weary-looking Shawn Michaels stands with sorrowful eyes waiting for the moment at which he will be called upon to transgress against his values in the interests of securing his family's financial well-being or whatever. I am waiting for it to because it will probably be cool. Cena kind of missed his top-rope leg drop a little but I think I'm actually going to pin that one on JBL who was moving weirdly. Despite this he is like FIVE-KNUCKLE SHUFFLE YOU CANNOT SEE HIM and although he is unsuccessful in executing the "Attitude Adjustment" he does apply a stepover toe-hold facelock HOWEVER it looked like Shawn Michaels was going to help put the ropes within reach of JBL and Cena broke the hold and went over to like kick him away from the ropes OH SHIT LARIATOOOOOOOOOOO FOR TWOOOOOOOO but now an Attitude Adjustment attempt but it escaped and hahaha woah that was a pretty enormous boot that referee Mike Chioda just ate as he has now officially been "bumped" and he is out of the ring but HBK is IN that very same ring and he has a choice to make right as to who shall be superkicked into oblivion and PROLETARIER ALLER LANDER VEREINIGT EUCH YEAH DO IT HBK FUK U 1% but wait what he has also superkicked Cena and then Michaels drapes Bradshaw's arm over Cena for the pin and a second referee races to the ring but it is but twoooooo! Cena ducks a lariat and hits the Attitude Adjustment for three and that was a pretty good match. All three matches have been good so far, nothing extraordinary or anything but all totally enjoyable stuff. You know what was not particularly enjoyable? The Legends of Wrestlemania video game or at least the demo of it that I DL'd but only played a couple of times HOWEVER the recent WWE All Stars gets my highest recommendation! There is an ad for for the former which is why I mention it.


Looks like we're going to get Edge challenging Jeff Hardy for the WWE Championship and there's a video package with something about a car crash and also a ring entrance pyro accident or something and I guess the idea is that Edge is behind all of these attempts at murder but there is every reason to expect this match to be plenty nuts regardless of the motivation and so I am ready for it. Jeff Hardy is more painted than usual and lol remember when he came to the ring in TNA so fucked up that Sting was instructed to "shoot" on him and hold him down like twenty seconds into the match and you could hear Hardy go "come on that's it?" or something and then on the way out a fan goes THAT SUCKED and Sting said "I agree" lol that was the best. As you know I feel very strongly that the champion should come out last with literally no exceptions and so I am not pleased that this rule of mine is being flagrantly ignored. So Vickie Guerrero is still the Smackdown(!) GM and apparently Edge's wife and she has decided to make this a no disqualification match and that could very well play into the challenger's plans as he is accompanied to the ring by *ooooh Chavo.* Hey do you know who is way better than the Raw ring announcer well I'll tell you it's Lilian Garcia. This guy actually stinks.


The pace is pretty quick to start here and I think that is a "WE WANT TABLES" chant that starts up within the first minute. I was pleased and surprised which is to say pleasantly surprised by the like "mature" or something match that Hardy "worked" against Randy Orton at the 2008 Royal Rumble which was this totally coherent deliberate thing and not just a collection of awesome but somewhat baffling shit so I am genuinely curious to see how he handles this one. They're doing a fair amount of stuff on the outside as you would expect in the no-disqualifications context and there are some things off of aprons and into barricades and such but nothing nuts so far. Oh come on though guys I am totally into HOLDS but don't do this Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Big Boss Man waistlock on the ground shit *do not do it* there is now way that is acceptable no matter how much you need a breather man grab a reverse chinlock or something *at least.* OK cool we are onto other things now as Hardy comes off the top but Edge hits him with a dropkick and now Edge brings two chairs into the ring or OK he *tried* to do that thing I have just now described but instead he was first tackled and knocked off the apron and secondly dove on top of OH SHIT TWIST OF FATE ON THE APRON! That was awesome! Also Hardy's hair is purple and his face is like swirly grey and all kinds of shit if you'd been wondering


Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Jeff Hardy just almost slipped off the top of a ladder but ended up catching just enough of Chavo Guerrero to not just straight up die as he put Edge's second through an announce table. Back inside is the "whisper in the wind" and then one would assume a "twist of fate" BUT NO IT IS A DDT COUNTER AND A COOL ONE for twoooooooo and an "inside cradle" for twoooooo more. Hardy's head is driven into an unpadded turnbuckle and it is kind of crazy how that still gets sold like death because it is like the tiniest little thing. A SPEAR IS COUNTERED BY A TWIST OF FATE AND NOW IT IS A "SWANTON" but Vickie Guerrero interrupts the count which is *not cool* but here comes Matt Hardy and he has brought a chair and could this perhaps be duplicity? YES INDEED IT IS AS JEFF'S OWN HALFWIT BROTHER HAS TURNED AGAINST HIM AND HE LAID HIM OUT WITH A STEEL CHAIR OOOOOOOOOOOON THIS DAY EDGE IS YOUR CHAMPION ONCE AGAIN and once again this was another totally good match. ONE CAN ONLY SPECULATE WHY ONE BROTHER WOULD TURN AGAINST ANOTHER AS WE HAVE SEEN HERE TONIGHT is how Jim Ross closes this portion of the show and yeah he is the best at this ever by far.


Did you know that the MAGNIFICENCE of this year's Royal Rumble is presented by Castrol GTX? Backstage we are shown Chris Jericho who tells Randy Orton that he thinks he is a cool guy even though Randy Orton was mean to Vince McMahon who Jericho says is no longer "the creative genius, the god who created the heavens and earth of the WWE universe" but instead a "pandering, shameless drone" and I don't think I saw a single minute of whichever "heel run" this is that Jericho is on but it seems as though he may have been awesome. OK cool it looks like we've got just Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler calling the Royal Rumble match rather than like the million dudes we had last year and starting things off we have Rey Mysterio and John Morrison and Jim Ross is like "I'd like to have abs like that" and really what he wants is to touch them imo. These guys are both excellent so this should be a good first ninety seconds! Yeah in fact the first ninety seconds *are* pretty good with a couple of near eliminations that actually had me thinking a dude might go out this early which is to say they were effective. In at number three is Carlito who wears pants now and is a tag team champion with Primo (I like Primo!) and he still spits apple HOLY COW he is springboarding off the ropes in ways I have not seen from anybody let alone Carlito! Also he hits a sick neckbreaker. MVP of whom I am fond is out next and he is tossing dudes all over the place and dropping elbows and such and I guess he is the United States Champion right now. lol they called his "shiny wizard"esque maneuver the "drive by."  The crowd is not like crazy about this so far but I am here to tell you that this is about as well as Royal Rumbles can begin and I am at the point where I speak with at least some measure of "kinos" if no other element of rhetorical proof. Khali is in next and everybody just bounces off him for a minute and a half and yeah this is awesome. 


Vladimir Kozlov comes in at number six and he is a fake Russian fake shooter of some kind? He is on a pretty good tear here as he eliminated Khali like it isn't even a big deal for him and then he tosses MVP and Carlito too. It is TIME TO PLAY THE GAAAAAAAAME however and people are into Triple H here in Detroit and lol Kozlov is promptly facebustered and crotch chopped (at) and disposed of. Randy Orton who we are told is without question the most controversial figure in the WWE is the next man in and in a cool sequence he goes for the RKO on Triple H but it is countered into a Pedigree attempt but Morrison hits Triple H with that jumping kick off the ropes that he does and then Mysterio hits a "seated springboard senton" on Orton and then a 619 on Morrison and this is *really* cool. JTG of Cryme Tyme is the next guy and I have never seen Cryme Tyme at all. Ted DiBiase Jr. comes in at number ten and I'm not sure he's all that good frankly and it gives me no pleasure to say that. I am given to understand that he is cahoots with Randy Orton and Cody Rhodes at this time. OK cool Morrison and JTG are both over the top rope and dangling and they are trying to kick each other off from there and neither do but it was neat! Mysterio just hit a baseball slide to the DiBiase's groin in the corner. Here comes smug Jericho in trunks for the first time in Royal Rumble action and as soon as he hits the ring he and Triple H pretty much run through a whole main event's worth of combination and counters or *renraku waza* and *kaeshi waza* if you are so inclined. 


I don't know anything about Mike Knox other than that is a hell of a beard and every time I have tried to grow a superbig beard I always get sick of it after like a month and bail so I admire his commitment if nothing else. The Miz who is in next has probably the douchiest ring gear in wrestling history but that is probably his deal so criticizing it would be misplaced kind of. RKOs on Morrison, Miz, and JTG but a Pedigree on Orton! Triple H just tossed Morrison into the Miz and both went out in a heap and lol Mysterio was out of the ring but he landed on Morrison and the Miz and just like walked over them to the steps and reentered the ring. Here comes Finlay and he hits everybody pretty hard for about ninety seconds and now we have Cody Rhodes who is *awesome* and now Orton and DiBiase and Rhodes triple-team Triple H and oooooh that's right they are called "Legacy" OK I remember that. Mysterio tries to springboard into the ring but is caught in an RKO and I will never ever ever get sick of RKO OUT OF NOWHERE as a move.


We have passed the halfway mark now as it is like *BONG* and everybody stops and the Undertaker comes in and man this guy moves really well for a big dude who is at this point seriously old and he tosses JTG in seconds and has pretty much everybody laid out within about a minute. THE BIZARRE AND OFTENTIMES CONTROVERSIAL GOLDUST is next and he and Cody Rhodes go at it until lol RKO OUT OF NOWHERE and again man that is the *best* and Goldust is out. CM PUNK YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHH THE NEW INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPION MAKING HIS THIRD ROYAL RUMBLE APPEARANCE and apparently he has also won the ECW title and the World title and the Money in the Bank match so that is something of a "push" he is getting here. He kicks some dudes and does the running high knee to others. Mark Henry is number nineteen and who can withstand his might? lol surely not CM Punk who yells "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH JEEEEEEEEESUS CHRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIST" as Henry stands on him in the corner and then Triple H sells the shit out of a power slam and yes this is the way Mark Henry should be treated thank you all. Shelton Benjamin is the United States champion at present and he has been awful just awful in these Royal Rumble matches and he's been in a bunch of them. He can't catch a break. Jericho and Punk are both up on the ropes in the corner and Benjamin runs up the ropes and double DDTs them which was pretty cool. 


REGAL. WILLIAM. FLOPPY HAIRED VERSION. He hits a cool "exploder" suplex on CM Punk and I am told these two "feuded" over the Intercontinental Title and I should totally try to find those matches on youtube. Oh shit Mark Henry is out and it didn't even make it on camera until a replay: Mysterio just kind of pulled the ropes down and there he went :( but now Koffi Kingston is in at number twenty-two and this is his first Royal Rumble by my calculations and also by my calculations he is really good! The ring is totally crowded btw and look this has been a totally good one so far but not like *incroyable* exactly and I expecting some serious shit to go down on the soon. The Undertaker tosses out Benjamin and then *BWOOOOOOOOF*  is is KANE and he and and a bloodied Undertaker hit DiBiase with a double chokeslam. Punk eliminated Regal which reminds me that yeah I will *definitely* have to find those matches. R-TRUTH I LIKE THIS GUY YEAH LET'S DO IT R-TRUTH and in keeping with this theme of dudes I like it is ROB VAN DAM A SURPRISE ENTRANT IN THE ROYAL RUMBLE and he is ever-so-gingerly kicking the shit out of dudes in his trademark fashion and the crowd is going nuts for this guy as he goes RRRR-VVVVVV-DDDDDDD from the top turnbuckle. THE Brian Kendrick is in next and I don't know anything about him at all but he just pushed Kingston off the top but then Triple H tossed Kendrick so I do not have to worry about it. 


RVD's arrival is really what the crowd needed to "kick things up a notch" because the match has totally been good but not yet quite great and so they'd been a little bit flat but now they are way way into it and here is Dolph Ziggler who I think is *the real deal* and lol he is all smugly like "what is up Kane yeah I'm Dolph Ziggler" and Kane tosses him. AT NUMBER TWENTY-EIGHT IS THE EXQUISITE SANTINO MARELLA and lolololol Kane got him in literally a second and Santino is like I WASN'T READY I WASN'T READY lol I love that guy. 


HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO[...]OOO IT IS HACKSAW JIM DUGGAN LOL WTF MAN and as you will recall he won the inaugural event that was actually way better than you would have maybe expected and shit he doesn't look bad at all for his age and the good people of Detroit are like USA USA USA.


Everybody stops what they're doing as the Big Show enters the ring at number thirty and one of the best things that has ever happened in the illustrious history of the Royal Rumble was when like six dudes went Fire Pro on Big Show and hit their finishers in an almost obscene procession. The Undertaker and the Big Show square off but while they are just staring at each other Kane sneaks in between and punches Big Show in the face and that was awesome actually. lol Duggan tries to scoop the Big Show up and over but he is of course unsuccessful and now he is gone but that was GREAT work Jim Duggan thank you for your service. The Big Show presses R-Truth up and over and out and then fucks around with CM Punk for a little bit and then delivers a KO punch to him on the apron and he's out. Hornswoggle is in the ring for a minute and this keeps us from seeing what happened with Mysterio and Mike Knox oh OK Big Show kind of tipped both them out in a pile and there goes Finlay too so we are starting to get down to it here a little bit. Orton hits that "DDT with a dude's legs hanging on the second rope" as it is known on Triple H who is the guy who has been in the match the longest at this point. FIVE STAR FROG SPLASH ON ORTON but you know how he always sells that himself WELL this time while he was staggering around holding his puffy little belly Chris Jericho tosses him and looks smug about it only to turn around and see the "grim visage" of the Undertaker but Jericho hits the CODEBREAKER which is a great move with a great name imo so you're thinking holy shit Jericho is going to eliminate the Undertaker but on the contrary the Undertaker sidesteps a Jericho clothesline at the last instant and that is it for Y2J. That was a *great* sequence. 


DiBiase and Rhodes and Orton which is to say LEGACY triple-team Kane to eliminate him and so we are left with the Undertaker and the Big Show and Triple H and all three of Orton, Rhodes, and Dibiase and they are on the Undertaker LIKE A PACK OF WOLVES whilst the Big Show is chokeslamming Triple H. lol that lasts about a minute and then the Undertaker chokeslams all three of those dudes so now the Big Show and the Undertaker are one-on-one and the Undertaker has pulled his straps down because he is for serious and WOAAAAAH a big boot from the Undertaker nearly put the Big Show out but he did a fantastic job of dangling from the top rope for a dude who is a million pounds and now they are both on the apron fighting and RKO OUT OF NOWHERE ON THE BIG SHOW and he is out and then the Big Show pulls the Undertaker out and they leave fighting through the crowd as our final four takes shape and it is a three-on-one situation as Orton, Rhodes, and Dibiase are ALL OVER TRIPLE H WITH CLEAN SHOTS BAH GAWD AGAIN AND AGAIN TO THE HEAD OF THE GAME but before long Triple H is like facebuster/spinbuster/pedigree on the lesser dudes and Orton is over and to the apron and he lays low for a second and then there is a big flurry in which Triple H fires DiBiase and Rhodes out but as he is doing so Randy Orton sneaks up and tips Triple H out from behind and that's it! That was a pretty cool way to do it! Orton and Rhodes are back in afterwards and Orton raises both their hands and this was a a good Royal Rumble match with a cool story to it and the show on the whole was actually one of the best!