WWE Royal Rumble 2009 Review
Find out what took place when the WWE Superstars rocked the city of Detroit.
You can find my formal WWE Royal Rumble 2009 Review by clicking the link below:
WWE Royal Rumble 2009 Review
Additional Content
ECW Championship Match
This is without a doubt the best ECW singles match I’ve seen on Pay Per View for a long long time. I don’t dislike Mark Henry, but his feud with Matt Hardy was pretty tedious and the matches at big events like Summerslam were nothing fresh. A match in which Hardy could work with a guy on parity rather than seeming like the weaker underdog allowed him to be much more active and show what he is capable of.
Swagger looks to have amazing natural ability and used correctly he could be main event material sooner rather than later, but then most of ‘The Spirit Squad’ had great natural ability and look what happened there. Without the right push they were wasted and ended up either being used infrequently on Smackdown (Kenny Dykstra), sent back to development (Nicky, Mikey and Johnny) or released (Mitch).
With Hardy officially leaving ECW this week to move to Smackdown (See the section on the WWE Championship match if you don’t know why) it will be interesting to see who they put against Swagger. It is looking like Finlay at the minute, which wouldn’t be too bad as it would be a nice mixture of Swaggers young un-inhibited athleticism and Finlay’s wiley experience and technical style.
Diva’s fail to get deserved respect
This match was quite disappointing to watch. Not due to the people in the ring however; the match itself was entertaining and despite a few minor hiccups it was a well wrestled bout, the main problem with it was the crowds total lack of enthusiasm. For the most part more attention was paid to Santino who was playing the role of cheerleader at ringside, and could have been mistaken for a fan favorite with the amount of cheering and name chanting directed his way.
Now don’t get me wrong, for quite a while I disliked the Diva’s division, when both Trish Stratus and Lita retired the Women’s matches seemed to take a bit of a nose dive. They were often poorly wrestled, story-lines were quite bland and ok, they were alright to look at (apart from when Jillian Hall had that ‘thing’ on her face) but that was about it.
Recently though there has been an influx of good quality diva’s like Beth Phoenix, Melina, Maryse, Mickey James etc. As well as that, Diva’s that used to have quite poor in ring abilities have picked up their game, none more so than Maria.
So to get back on point it was quite disappointing to see that although this was a good match the crowd didn’t really seem to be into it, but then they were probably waiting for Rosa Mendes to appear like I was. It seems bizarre that they would build up her part in this rivalry for weeks, only for it to be as if she doesn’t exist at the Pay Per View. Especially when she was back the next night on Raw, very strange.
HBK is Still on JBL’s Payroll
As I predicted HBK’s involvement in this match made it enjoyable and not just another average Cena/JBL match. Before the match JBL told Michaels that if he helped him win the title, he would have a Royal Rumble spot, which got me thinking ‘looks like my HBK/JBL at mania prediction is going to be right’, but after the match it was clear it wasn’t going to happen, at least not in the main event, for the World Heavyweight Championship.
When Shawn hit JBL with the Sweet Chin Music it seemed like they had once again rushed a rivalry to an early climax, then seconds later when he also kicked Cena it looked like a genuine heel turn might have been on the cards, but as Shawn explained on Raw, it was in order to get Cena to drop his guard, which was clever on the Writers part as it got the fans asking questions, then dismissed them all the following night and kept on with the slow-burning storyline.
Feuding brothers
Rarely have the WWE writers pulled off such a masterful stroke of genius as they did at the conclusion of the WWE Championship match at the Rumble. For the past month pretty much everyone (including myself) has been expecting the return of Christian.
Throughout the WWE Championship match everything pointed towards Christian, Edge attempting a 1 man standing con-chair-to and not being able to pull it off, the use of tables, ladders and chairs, JR’s referrals to the feuds the two men have had down the years and finally Matt suggesting Jeff hit Edge with a con-chair-to. Until the chair in Matt’s hand made contact with Jeff’s head, I was still 100% sure Christian was set to appear to make the save, so what actually happened left me, a lot of the fans in the arena and no doubt fans worldwide in a state of open-mouthed shock.
I personally have a theory on what has happened that I will be publishing in another article fairly soon, so keep checking back for that one, as it is so crazy it might just happen, and if it does the WWE Creative team have been even more savvy than I ever could have given them credit for.
The Rumble
The Rumble itself was amazing, always is. It is one of the few events on the WWE calendar that you can sit down with a group of friends, everyone has their own pick and even if some of them aren’t really into wrestling too much, by the end of the match everyone is on the edge of their seat.
It isn’t really something you can describe and so I haven’t even attempted to, although you can go to the live results page and check out who entered at what number as well as who eliminated who and in what order.
As for Orton winning, I didn’t think it would happen because of his involvement with the McMahons, although I never really considered the possibility that they may inter-lace the two aspects like they have. Orton Vs. Cena would be a passable ‘Mania main event, but that means Cena has to make his way through the Elimination Chamber first.
It is looking like Orton Vs. Shane McMahon at No Way Out and I predict it could go one of three ways:
- Orton has the other members of Legacy in his corner, Shane has Manu and Sim Snuka in his. At some point Manu and Snuka turn on Shane, putting him out and leaving just Steph to deal with Orton.
- Shane, technically being a second generation superstar himself, joins Legacy making them even more powerful and influential. Steph did slap him last time he was on Raw after all.
- Something much tamer, Orton punting Shane too for example.
Finally..
All in all the Royal Rumble was one of the best Pay-Per-Views I’ve seen in a long while (at least since I started writing up events) and things are certainly getting interesting. Rob Van Dam’s return was one of the high points of the event, and it is disheartening to see that he isn’t listed on any brand on WWE.Com. Hopefully this wasn’t a publicity stunt and ‘The Whole F’n Show’ will be back on our screens soon.
Thank you for reading my Royal Rumble Review, any comments can be sent to jayd@wweblog.co.uk and I hope you’ll visit again.
JayD
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