Royal Ramble 2019

Sorry for the week-long delay, but sometimes when you're doing a ten-hour WWE PPV that is a sloth to sit through, you need a couple days to digest this whole thing. I tried watching this live, tapped out, eventually gave up and didn't pick things up until a couple days later.

Fun fact: This is the first WWE PPV that I've attempted to watch in its entirety since perhaps Extreme Rules? Hell In A Cell? I don't even remember now. There was that Super Slowdown show from Australia, but I think that was on tape delay or something. In any event, this was the first show that I laid my back on the couch to watch... the perfect position to be in when a show puts you to sleep. But did it do that?

Let's find out...


Smackdown Women's Champion Asuka defeated "The Man" Becky Lynch via submission to retain the title. Gee whiz, so much for Da Man, I guess... All kidding aside, this was a fucking great match. Two high-caliber wrestlers trying to one-up each other, doing their rival finishes, some nice submissions that I don't know the names of, and it was compelling stuff that kept my attention and got me excited for the rest of the show. Ending was a mixed bag; on the one hand, Asuka proved she could beat Becky, but on the other hand, Becky tapping out was just... I guess it was out of nowhere, but... I don't know. Anyway, great match and great start to the show.

Shane McMahon and the Miz defeated Smackdown Tag-Team champions Cesaro and Sheamus to win the titles... and my brain hurts just writing that. You know I feel really bad for Cesaro and Sheamus; last year, they lost the titles to a little kid and now they're losing titles to fucking SHANE MCMAHON... who also won the BEST IN THE WORLD tournament despite only wrestling one match. Also, I like how the usual gang of idiots are touting this winning of the tag titles with Shane-O-Mac as a dream come true for Miz... they do remember that Miz was WWE Champion and main-evented Wrestlemania once upon a time, right? Even I remember this and I barely remember much about WWE these days. Good lord, this was a horrible match.

Raw Women's Champion Ronda Rousey and her horrible eye make-up defeated Sasha Banks to retain the title. This was a thing that happened... sorry if I can't get excited over a Cold Ronda match, but it's a Cold Ronda match and I just don't care about Cold Ronda. The match was okay, I suppose, but if I don't care, then I don't care.

Becky Lynch, who came in as a replacement for Lana who was injured in the pre-show that I don't watch, wins the 2019 Women's Royal Rumble match that at the very least comprised mostly current roster women rather than try to fill the slots with old people. On the flip side of things, this means a good chunk of the ladies I don't recognize in the slightest and the only women that were actually worth a damn for the better part of the show were the Asians. What can I say? I like Xia Li and Kairi Sane and Io Shirai; they're dynamic and interesting characters. Hell, I even dug that Kacy Catatonic or whatever her name is, the tiny lady who was on that Ninja Warriors show or whatever it was. All the rest was just... meh.

As an example, first entrant is Lacey Evans, who I have never seen before. She cuts a promo with this fake-ish southern drawl and I tune out. Then Nattie comes out and they have a horrible match... and then the Rumble gets more people and every lady that comes out I'm just like "Who?" Now I admit that my not watching NXT and the regular shows regularly might contribute to to this and... to be fair, it's also the same thing with the Men's Rumble... but again, because I don't know any of the women, it lessened my enjoyment of the match, which really didn't become interesting until Becky Lynch got in there.

Also, as a sidenote, it took me a while to realize that former women's champion and WWE Hall Of Famer Beth Phoenix was doing commentary alongside the usual gang of idiots. It took me a while to realize this because both Beth and Renee Young sound nearly identical to each other. These two should never do commentary together for that reason. Hell, have Beth join the usual gang of idiots and have Renee go back to doing Talking Smack or whatever because she was at her best there and doesn't get stupefied by the dumbfucks on commentary.

WWE World Heavyweight Champion The NEW Daniel Bryan Danielson defeated AJ Styles with a surprise assist from Erich Rowan to retain the title. Hey, at least AJ didn't get kicked in the balls again. Gotta be honest here; this didn't do much for me. Seems like after a couple hot matches in previous shows, there comes a point where you can't quite reach those high standards again and the quality starts to wane. This match ended up being a thing that happened and I'm fine with that because I could go back, watch their two Smackdown matches, and enjoy their stuff there. As for Erich Rowan or however his name is spelled, is this the Beard Brigade at work? I don't know...

And with that, I ended my first watch of the show and saved the rest for another day. Should be noted that this was close to 10:30 p.m. and this show was still fucking going. And there were still two more matches to go... oh fuck me.

Red Belt holder Brock Lesnar defeated Finn Balor to retain the title. It's a good thing that I held off watching this match for a couple days because I don't think I would've been as receptive if it were in one sitting. This was a nice little big guy versus little guy match and Finn looked like he had a chance at one point or another. And then Brock got his heat back or whatever. This was fine. Hey, as far as I'm concerned, this was a good match featuring Brock Lesnar and not the boring suplex city bullshit that put me to sleep.

And in the main event, Seth Rollins wins the 2019 Royal Rumble that featured Jeff Jarrett, Kurt Angle, and Nia Jax making cameo appearances and R-Truth never getting his opportunity to enter at number 30... or something. Gotta be honest here too; I missed a good chunk of this match because I have a life and apparently, I didn't miss much because other than than those cameos, this Rumble match was entirely forgettable. When the only highlight is seeing Nia Jax on the receiving end of a Dolph Superkick, Rey Rey 619, and RKO'ed out of somewhere, you've got a problem.

So that was the Royal Rumble, everyone. Longest show in the universe. Off the rails after the opening match. Fuck off. Good night.