Warning: The following recap review is long. It details all of the results of the 2011 Royal Rumble. There are no pictures because no matter how hard I try, they don't work for me. So apologies, in advance, for the wall of text. You hath been warned!
Welcome to the Official Unofficial Opinionated WWE Royal Rumble 2011 Recap Review! And we are now truly on the road to WrestleMania in what is quite literally the BIGGEST ROYAL RUMBLE IN HISTORY! With 40 SUPERSTARS, the chances of them winning have DECREASED SIGNIFICANTLY! Who will be the NUMBER 40 PARTICIPANT? WHO WILL BE THE DREADED NUMBER 1 PARTICIPANT? WILL KANE TOPPLE HIS RECORD? WHO WILL GO TO WRESTLEMANIA WITH A 70% CHANCE OF WINNING THE TITLE? WHO? WILL? WIN?!!!
Look, during this period, the WWE loves to trot out the statistics and attempt to fuel speculation that ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN! It's tradition. We wrestling fans accept it. But apparently, those statistics weren't getting enough butts in sofas at home this year, so they raised the wrestler cap from 30 to 40 in an effort to drum up more interest. Truth be told, it's not that game changing. As long as the actual rumble is booked right and the right people eliminate the right people at the right time, then we all go home happy.
As with all of my other recap reviews of WWE PPV's (all two of them), I'll rate each match out of 5 in relation to the rest of the pay per view and not pay any attention to the promos. Except Todd Grisham reading out Cody Rhodes' letter. That was priceless. Expect this recap review to be much shorter than usual, seeing as there were only three matches and the rumble itself. (EDIT: As it turns out, a shorter wrap up was far from the case, as you'll see) Was this a good thing? Let's dive in and find out in the BIGGEST ROYAL RUMBLE IN HISTORY!
Let's be honest, we were gonna see a Spear at some point during the match; it was just a question of how it would happen. But the circumstances getting there were rather stupid. The ref being knocked out cold after being effectively poked? Come on! And Kelly Kelly's comments to Drew McIntyre from several weeks ago along the lines of "I don't want to go out with someone who takes pleasure in beating people up" carry extra portions of delicious irony now. But at least the usage of the Kill Switch means someone back there must want Edge & Christian to re-unite as badly as us fans do, right? You can't keep teasing us like this!
Another reason why this isn't getting a 5 (and neither is anything else this evening), is because of the commentary. I talk about the commentary and the general state of it every single one of these recaps but that's usually because it's merely a mild annoyance to me. Always there, but never really quite ruining your day. Like Adam Sandler. But tonight... it's graduated from mild annoyance to a genuine deal breaker. Loud, boisterous and no matter how much you try, you just can?t get rid of it. Like cancer.
Michael Cole is now Michael Cole times 10. He's like Senator Joseph McCarthy by 1954. He's deranged, he's super annoying, throwing random comments and accusations and insults anywhere, all the time, at 100MPH, in the vain hope that something, anything, will stick and send the attention back his way. Jerry Lawler is far too much on the side of good wrestlers now and spends the majority of the time arguing with Cole and delivering whatever "joke of the day" that his calendar brought up. And Matt Striker either argues with Cole or agrees with him and literally, literally, changes sides every 30 seconds just to stay in the conversation.
This was especially annoying come the slight mess of an ending where Cole was literally shrieking at the very tippy top of his lungs that Edge should be disqualified for using the Spear. Then the entire desk just devolved into one non-stop argument during which nobody would just shut. The. Fuck. Up! In fact, I'm going to start a separate scoring meter for the commentary this evening, just so that you can gauge my reactions.
Anyways, great match!
Match Rating: 4 out of 5.
Commentary Rating: Like being forced to watch a Fred marathon.
Before more chaos erupted, the match itself was excellent. Orton and The Miz do work well together, as shown in the past, and their ring styles complement each other brilliantly. It felt great to see The Miz counter the second rope DDT (as visually impressive as that move is, it is totally unrealistic) and there was smart Alex Riley usage too. That kid is going places.
Commentary wise, the thing was an unbelievable mess. I actually have a letter here addressed to Michael Cole that I?m going to read out for you now.
Dear Mr. Cole,
We get it. You like The Miz. Most of us do. You love him as a champion. Most of us love him as a champion. We get it. This does not mean that every single time he comes on TV (you know, like he's paid to do. Because it's his job) you should turn into a 14 year old girl who has just found out that Justin Beiber is coming to her home town. Or that every time he is losing, you should act like this is a sign of the upcoming apocalypse. Or that every time Lawler or Striker start talking about Miz's opponent, you should interject with the whole "anything you can do, The Miz can do a million times better" attitude and start yet another full scale argument. Enough is enough. We are all getting earache! You can still like The Miz, just, for God sakes, tone it down, would you?
And whilst you are inexplicably listening to us, could you please crawl into a hole deep below the Earth's surface and never ever come out again? Ever. Thank you.
Yours Sincerely,
The Internet.
Match Rating: 4 out of 5.
Commentary Rating: Like being stuck in a room full of shrieking, arguing teenage girls.
Ah well, beats another LayCool reign. Wishing no criticism against Michelle (what with being really talented and looking smoking hot), she has held a belt in some way shape or form for the past year. And when she hasn't got it, she's instantly the number one contender again. It's getting stale. And I think another LayCool title hold would have caused me to lose interest in the Divas division completely. It's time someone else gets to hold the belt for a change. Solid match, but nothing special. It's the toilet break, like Diva matches always are. Although the double Sharpshooter was sweet.
As for the commentary... it was alright. Nothing really happened that aggravated me as the whole affair was highly forgettable. I think they spent the entire time going on about stuff that happened in the previous matches and failing to notice or care about anything that was going on in the actual match. But I can't really be sure. The commentary was just there. Effectively, it was the best it had been (and was going to be) all night.
Match Rating: 3 out of 5 (for a Divas match).
Commentary Rating: Talking to people who annoy you just by being there, even though they aren't doing anything to aggravate you.
So Triple H didn't return. But guess who did? Only Booker T and Diesel (Kevin Nash)! Diesel didn't get to do much but he did stay in longer and got huge crowd chants going. But it was seeing Booker T back in that ring that did it for me. When he cleaned house of the New Nexus (beating them, not throwing them over), hit the Bookend AND did the spineroony (to which Matt Striker reverted to being 11 years old over); I was just grinning from ear to ear. It's sad that he was merely a place holder before John Cena arrived, but he made more of an impact on me than any of the other wrestlers.
Actually, that's a lie. John Morrison?s incredible parkour skills that saved him from being eliminated was quite simply the coolest moment of the whole evening and an early contender for Moment Of The Year. New Nexus owning the ring and basically dominating numbers 16 to 22 made sense story wise, but it made for damn boring television. Whilst Del Rio's victory was a pleasantly unexpected surprise. Quite possibly the best thing that the WWE has done in ages. Roll on WrestleMania!
On the commentary side of things, I just gave up. Me and my brother were talking all over the action and being constantly interrupted by phone calls. I genuinely just stopped caring. I was, however, listening to Lawler consistently moan that moan that New Nexus' strategy was unfair. "This isn't what the Royal Rumble is about!" he would ceaselessly whine. And then Cole and/or Striker would state how they thought that this strategy that New Nexus was employing was genius and implying that Lawler should just go fuck himself.
JR! Please, come back to us! We can't take this anymore! I'm genuinely thinking about muting the TV when I watch wrestling! It won't be the same, but at least it's a temporary cure! Please, JR! Come baaaaaaaaack!
Match Rating: 3.5 out of 5 (New Nexus dominating killed a lot of the buzz).
Commentary Rating: Drilling holes into your head with a power drill.
That was the 2011 Royal Rumble! What did you all think? Sign off in the comments below, follow me and I'll see you back here for Elimination Chamber towards the end of the month!
Welcome to the Official Unofficial Opinionated WWE Royal Rumble 2011 Recap Review! And we are now truly on the road to WrestleMania in what is quite literally the BIGGEST ROYAL RUMBLE IN HISTORY! With 40 SUPERSTARS, the chances of them winning have DECREASED SIGNIFICANTLY! Who will be the NUMBER 40 PARTICIPANT? WHO WILL BE THE DREADED NUMBER 1 PARTICIPANT? WILL KANE TOPPLE HIS RECORD? WHO WILL GO TO WRESTLEMANIA WITH A 70% CHANCE OF WINNING THE TITLE? WHO? WILL? WIN?!!!
Look, during this period, the WWE loves to trot out the statistics and attempt to fuel speculation that ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN! It's tradition. We wrestling fans accept it. But apparently, those statistics weren't getting enough butts in sofas at home this year, so they raised the wrestler cap from 30 to 40 in an effort to drum up more interest. Truth be told, it's not that game changing. As long as the actual rumble is booked right and the right people eliminate the right people at the right time, then we all go home happy.
As with all of my other recap reviews of WWE PPV's (all two of them), I'll rate each match out of 5 in relation to the rest of the pay per view and not pay any attention to the promos. Except Todd Grisham reading out Cody Rhodes' letter. That was priceless. Expect this recap review to be much shorter than usual, seeing as there were only three matches and the rumble itself. (EDIT: As it turns out, a shorter wrap up was far from the case, as you'll see) Was this a good thing? Let's dive in and find out in the BIGGEST ROYAL RUMBLE IN HISTORY!
Edge beat Dolph Ziggler to retain the World Heavyweight Championship after hitting Ziggler with a Spear when both the referee and Vickie Guerrero were out cold and following it with a Kill Switch!
Great match. Fantastic match, in fact. Ziggler is proving to be one of the best of the new breed of WWE wrestlers working today with his fantastic run as of late. He may still be a bit iffy on the mic, but in the ring he is a true competitor and one of the best pure wrestlers in years. Edge has still got it too, being both a great wrestler and story teller. The two work great together and if a feud needs to continue between these two, then I'm more than happy to see it happen.Let's be honest, we were gonna see a Spear at some point during the match; it was just a question of how it would happen. But the circumstances getting there were rather stupid. The ref being knocked out cold after being effectively poked? Come on! And Kelly Kelly's comments to Drew McIntyre from several weeks ago along the lines of "I don't want to go out with someone who takes pleasure in beating people up" carry extra portions of delicious irony now. But at least the usage of the Kill Switch means someone back there must want Edge & Christian to re-unite as badly as us fans do, right? You can't keep teasing us like this!
Another reason why this isn't getting a 5 (and neither is anything else this evening), is because of the commentary. I talk about the commentary and the general state of it every single one of these recaps but that's usually because it's merely a mild annoyance to me. Always there, but never really quite ruining your day. Like Adam Sandler. But tonight... it's graduated from mild annoyance to a genuine deal breaker. Loud, boisterous and no matter how much you try, you just can?t get rid of it. Like cancer.
Michael Cole is now Michael Cole times 10. He's like Senator Joseph McCarthy by 1954. He's deranged, he's super annoying, throwing random comments and accusations and insults anywhere, all the time, at 100MPH, in the vain hope that something, anything, will stick and send the attention back his way. Jerry Lawler is far too much on the side of good wrestlers now and spends the majority of the time arguing with Cole and delivering whatever "joke of the day" that his calendar brought up. And Matt Striker either argues with Cole or agrees with him and literally, literally, changes sides every 30 seconds just to stay in the conversation.
This was especially annoying come the slight mess of an ending where Cole was literally shrieking at the very tippy top of his lungs that Edge should be disqualified for using the Spear. Then the entire desk just devolved into one non-stop argument during which nobody would just shut. The. Fuck. Up! In fact, I'm going to start a separate scoring meter for the commentary this evening, just so that you can gauge my reactions.
Anyways, great match!
Match Rating: 4 out of 5.
Commentary Rating: Like being forced to watch a Fred marathon.
The Miz beat Randy Orton to retain the WWE Championship after CM Punk and The New Nexus attacked Orton whilst the referee was knocked out!
Another great match with another very controversial ending. Why controversial? Because I, personally, loved it. Maybe it's just my natural Punk loving instincts kicking in here, but this actually helped The Miz's character. The Miz was slated before he became WWE Champion for not being good enough to be a wrestler. Now, he's champion and people still don't think that he's good enough. So, in response, he's playing the beatable champion. And he is fantastic at it. PPV Orton rarely gets beaten by his actual opponents nowadays, so it makes sense that The Miz can't get the job done on his own. Also, it's a great jumping off point for the upcoming Orton/New Nexus feud.Before more chaos erupted, the match itself was excellent. Orton and The Miz do work well together, as shown in the past, and their ring styles complement each other brilliantly. It felt great to see The Miz counter the second rope DDT (as visually impressive as that move is, it is totally unrealistic) and there was smart Alex Riley usage too. That kid is going places.
Commentary wise, the thing was an unbelievable mess. I actually have a letter here addressed to Michael Cole that I?m going to read out for you now.
Dear Mr. Cole,
We get it. You like The Miz. Most of us do. You love him as a champion. Most of us love him as a champion. We get it. This does not mean that every single time he comes on TV (you know, like he's paid to do. Because it's his job) you should turn into a 14 year old girl who has just found out that Justin Beiber is coming to her home town. Or that every time he is losing, you should act like this is a sign of the upcoming apocalypse. Or that every time Lawler or Striker start talking about Miz's opponent, you should interject with the whole "anything you can do, The Miz can do a million times better" attitude and start yet another full scale argument. Enough is enough. We are all getting earache! You can still like The Miz, just, for God sakes, tone it down, would you?
And whilst you are inexplicably listening to us, could you please crawl into a hole deep below the Earth's surface and never ever come out again? Ever. Thank you.
Yours Sincerely,
The Internet.
Match Rating: 4 out of 5.
Commentary Rating: Like being stuck in a room full of shrieking, arguing teenage girls.
Eve Torres pinned Layla to become the new Unified Divas Champion! The referee did not see Michelle McCool pin Natalya at exactly the same time though!
Somebody please explain to me why Natalya lost the belt? She was on a roll! She's the most talented Diva on the roster (second only to Gail Kim)! She brings the belt respect and prestige! So why take it off of her? Oh don't get me wrong, Eve is a very good wrestler. But why take it off of the most talented Diva on your roster (who is still getting to, you know, wrestle) now? Two months after she won it?Ah well, beats another LayCool reign. Wishing no criticism against Michelle (what with being really talented and looking smoking hot), she has held a belt in some way shape or form for the past year. And when she hasn't got it, she's instantly the number one contender again. It's getting stale. And I think another LayCool title hold would have caused me to lose interest in the Divas division completely. It's time someone else gets to hold the belt for a change. Solid match, but nothing special. It's the toilet break, like Diva matches always are. Although the double Sharpshooter was sweet.
As for the commentary... it was alright. Nothing really happened that aggravated me as the whole affair was highly forgettable. I think they spent the entire time going on about stuff that happened in the previous matches and failing to notice or care about anything that was going on in the actual match. But I can't really be sure. The commentary was just there. Effectively, it was the best it had been (and was going to be) all night.
Match Rating: 3 out of 5 (for a Divas match).
Commentary Rating: Talking to people who annoy you just by being there, even though they aren't doing anything to aggravate you.
Alberto Del Rio (Entrant Number 38) last eliminated Santino Marella to win the Royal Rumble and get a title shot at WrestleMania!
Turns out 40 participants wasn't such a bad thing after all. This ruled! I got massive nerd Goosebumps when Daniel Bryan and CM Punk started off (as numbers 2 and 1 respectively) and literally punched the air when Daniel Bryan eliminated not one, but two people! Maybe somebody in the back does like him after all! Punk cheers rang throughout the stadium, the Cena/Hornswoggle tag team started off rather amusing (before it went too long until Sheamus, mercifully, brought it to an end) and Cena being eliminated by The Miz was also a fantastic moment as I realised that somebody who deserves it would win.So Triple H didn't return. But guess who did? Only Booker T and Diesel (Kevin Nash)! Diesel didn't get to do much but he did stay in longer and got huge crowd chants going. But it was seeing Booker T back in that ring that did it for me. When he cleaned house of the New Nexus (beating them, not throwing them over), hit the Bookend AND did the spineroony (to which Matt Striker reverted to being 11 years old over); I was just grinning from ear to ear. It's sad that he was merely a place holder before John Cena arrived, but he made more of an impact on me than any of the other wrestlers.
Actually, that's a lie. John Morrison?s incredible parkour skills that saved him from being eliminated was quite simply the coolest moment of the whole evening and an early contender for Moment Of The Year. New Nexus owning the ring and basically dominating numbers 16 to 22 made sense story wise, but it made for damn boring television. Whilst Del Rio's victory was a pleasantly unexpected surprise. Quite possibly the best thing that the WWE has done in ages. Roll on WrestleMania!
On the commentary side of things, I just gave up. Me and my brother were talking all over the action and being constantly interrupted by phone calls. I genuinely just stopped caring. I was, however, listening to Lawler consistently moan that moan that New Nexus' strategy was unfair. "This isn't what the Royal Rumble is about!" he would ceaselessly whine. And then Cole and/or Striker would state how they thought that this strategy that New Nexus was employing was genius and implying that Lawler should just go fuck himself.
JR! Please, come back to us! We can't take this anymore! I'm genuinely thinking about muting the TV when I watch wrestling! It won't be the same, but at least it's a temporary cure! Please, JR! Come baaaaaaaaack!
Match Rating: 3.5 out of 5 (New Nexus dominating killed a lot of the buzz).
Commentary Rating: Drilling holes into your head with a power drill.
That was the 2011 Royal Rumble! What did you all think? Sign off in the comments below, follow me and I'll see you back here for Elimination Chamber towards the end of the month!
