Royal Ramble 2022

Well, it's another year, another Royal Rumble.

Fuck.

Let's get this over with.

Seth Rollins defeated Blue Belt Champion Roman Reigns via DQ when Roman had Seth in a guiotine submission and as the ref was checking Seth's arm, it landed on the ropes, which would force a break, but Roman refused to break and got DQ'ed as a result... but he still keeps the belt. Then Roman bashes Seth with a chair until it breaks, drawing huge boos from the crowd. Because apparently WWE audiences like their unlikeable pricks and Seth is as much of a prick as you can get, so look, if the rest of the show was Roman beating Seth to a pulp with a chair, I would've turned a corner on this whole fucking thing, but he didn't. So I'm not.

Look, I thought the match was alright for the most part until the shit finish; some good action, no stupid acting, and no Usos to run in, either. The finish was a little weak for my tastes, but I suppose it's better than the alternative, which is to have Seth Rollins beat Roman for the title. I had been worried that of all the people who could possibly end Roman's year-plus long reign as champ, they were gonna go with Seth Rollins of all people. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed... although I would've preferred Roman just beat Seth instead of this dumb finish that guarantees a rematch that has to be the least interesting thing you could think of.

Perennial charisma vacuum, former UFC Diva, and the most constipated woman on the planet Cold Ronda Drowsey returns and wins the Women's Rumble... oh goodie, the perennial Diva with a face of eternal constipation is back and duller than ever. Funny thing is that I knew she would've won the thing the minute I heard she might be coming back. This Rumble was... a thing that happened. They brought back a bunch of old faces, including Impact Knockout's Champion Mickie James, who came out with the belt and to her Hardcore Country theme she uses in Impact. Baby Flair was in it for some reason. They brought back Ivory to relive the whole RTC thing from ages ago and all she did was talk and get bumped while still talking... which is actually quite funny and Ivory is goddessyness or whatever the term is... and still looks good at 60, which leads me to question how a 60-year-old woman could look much better than some of the younger folks we regularly see on TV. Other than that...  dude, the #LOLDivasRevolution lives on in this Rumble, it would seem. Which is funny because they shitcanned half their roster and then realized they needed bodies to fill this Rumble, so they got a bunch of old people who have no chance of winning this thing. Why am I wasting my time with this shit?

On a sidenote, they have a wacky commercial for the new WWE 2K22 game... you know, the last time they had a wacky commercial for a WWE video game, the game turned out to be total shit. My hopes aren't high on this one.

Speaking of #LOLDivasRevolution, Womens' Champion #1 Becky Lynch defeated Doudrop Piper Niven to retain the title in a long, drawn out, and quite frankly, boring match. This is the women's equivalent of McSon-In-Law trying to force an old-school NWA-style wrestling match for thirty minutes and sucking badly at it. The sad thing is that Becky is a good worker and Piper was a good worker for a woman of her stature, but the crowd didn't give a shit about either woman and neither did I. Good lord, this may have been worse than the Joey Janela/Matt Cardona match and this didn't have the annoyances of that match.

Let me get this out of the way; they tried, but quite frankly, they failed. I don't care how good the "work" is. If you can't get me to care about the story you're trying to tell, then it's not a good match. You can have the most proficiently crafted, carefully performed wrestling match worthy of a Meltzer ten-star rating, but if the crowd doesn't give two fucks about your match, it doesn't fucking matter. You could argue it's a bad crowd, but that's an argument often used by bad workers who can't engage said crowd, especially a crowd that will pop for the usual things that people online like to complain about.

By the way, did I mention how fucking awful these graphics are? Where did they render this crap, on a Playstation 1? Fuck off with that noise.

Bobby Lashley defeated WWE World Champion Brock Lesnar with an assist from Roman Reigns via shot with the belt given by Paul Heyman (yes, Heyman turned on Brock again) to win the title in the most predictable fashion you could think of. It was hard to get into this match - a perfectly fine power match between two big power guys, by the way, so it's not their fault... but because I was waiting for the eventual Roman run-in so we can build towards the THIS TIME FOR SURE! match they like to book at Mania because fuck you, that's why... yeah, again, the match was fine until the shit finish.

This was the point where I stopped watching the show because it was getting too damned long and I'm not staying up late for the sake of watching a Miz match. I don't care how hot Maryse is at 39.

A couple days later, I resume my viewing of this fine premium live event or whatever the fuck they call it now so I can witness Edge & Beth Phoenix defeat The Miz & Maryse in a mediocre 12 minute match that went 11 minutes too long. As expected, Maryse looked fine, Beth and her hair metal do is weird, and Edge & Miz were their usual selves. And I didn't give a shit. Sorry.

And in a move Geordi LaForge could see coming without his VISOR and optical enhancements, Brock Lesnar pops in at no. 30 to win the Men's GEEKS' Royal Rumble. Good lord, what a pile of shit this Rumble was. When your biggest surprises are Bad Bunny, Shane McMahon (who's already gone, by the way - THANKS), and the guy who just lost his World title in a fuck finish, it's time to throw in the towel. And when your fuck finish is so bad that the whole Rumble is spent waiting for Brock to show up and win it in a "surprise" move because even the dumbest fan know that NONE OF THESE GEEKS WHO DON'T MATTER are winning this thing, that's when it's time to jump off the fucking train. Hey, I like this new Brock Lesnar as a character and a personality, but I have ZERO interest in seeing Brock/Roman for the 1,283,476,486th time, which is slowly becoming the HHH vs. RKO of Wrestlemania matches... and we already had ONE of those fucking things at a Mania and IT FUCKING SUCKED!

But, hey, at least Johnny Knoxville (yes, THAT Johnny Knoxville of Jackass fame) got a good showing in the short time he was in the Rumble and did more than Drew Carey did. If that isn't a WWE Hall Of Fame worthy appearance, then I don't know what is.

This Rumble show was fucking horrible. Is it the worst Rumble show of all time? No, of course not. Not in a universe where 2015 takes the fucking cake, but this firmly cements its place in the low-tier of Rumbles. Half of it was shitty #LOLDivasRevolution and the other half was a three-match build to a Mania main event we've seen a billion times before and have no interest in seeing again. Not only that, but all of this felt like a huge colossal waste of time, sitting through a bunch of geeks tossing each other until we got the real stars coming to win these things. Somebody in marketing needs to go back to the drawing board because they may open the floodgates for this year's Mania to be referred to as stupefyingly stupid.

Looks like I'm out of the loop again until at least Mania. Elimination Chamber is emanating from Saudi Arabia and I have no interest in watching another WWE Blood Money PPV. Fortunately, the shit show that was the Rumble makes it VERY easy for me to skip this one. Fuck off.

P.S. - Sasha Banks' Sailor Moon-esque outfit was kinda cute.

P.P.S. - Kofi Kingston's escape botch... yeah, instead of trying to find inventive ways to "escape" and please the crowd, he should be finding ways of trying to win the fucking match. Maybe this is a wake-up call for him... who am I kidding? He's trying this shit against next year, isn't he?

P.P.P.S. - No, kids. Having AEW talent in either Rumble wouldn't have saved it.