WWE Week in Review: Royal Rumble fallout, Samoa Joe debuts

WWE Royal Rumble

There were a lot of things that took place at the Alamodome on Sunday night and while I went through everything in my full 2017 WWE Royal Rumble review, I still want to take a quick run through the card.

None of the three kickoff matches were overly spectacular but they all served their own purpose and we actually did see a title change as Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows defeated Cesaro and Sheamus for the RAW Tag Team Championship. Staying with the red brand, Nia Jax basically got a squash win over Sasha Banks and it looks like her big push is coming. The six-woman tag match from SmackDown Live was better than most people are giving it credit for.

The RAW Women’s Championship was up for grabs as the main show got going and while it was a good (not great) match, it’s becoming more and more evident that Bayley just isn’t at the same level as Charlotte. She made a lot of silly mistakes during the match and just can’t match Charlotte’s athleticism. But I suppose you could say that for just about every single woman on the WWE roster.

While I think everyone expected the other world title match to be good, the WWE Universal Championship between Kevin Owens and Roman Reigns went surprisingly well. Both men got really physical and both took some really good bumps as the match progressed. The frog splash from Owens on Reigns onto the table outside of the ring was very good but Owens crashing into that stack of chairs that he had set up earlier the match made me cringe. The inclusion of Braun Strowman in the finish was a little surprising but it worked. Hopefully this one doesn’t get forgotten about on a night that had so many quality matches.

It’s unfortunate that Neville and Rich Swann had to follow Kevin Owens and Roman Reigns because it was a very good match. The power vs. speed scenario came into play here with this new version of Neville but I really enjoyed it. The live crowd still isn’t getting behind the cruiserweight division, which gave the match a little bit of a flat feeling while watching it, but it was very sound and very well put together.

John Cena made history on Sunday night by tying Ric Flair’s record of 16 recognized world titles by defeating AJ Styles in an epic affair in San Antonio. Both Cena and Styles looked amazing in this match as the momentum shifted back and forth on a number of occasions. Each brought out everything in their offensive arsenal and their submission sequence was absolutely incredible. Cena showed a few heelish traits during the match, which I really liked, and I almost thought for a minute that they were going to pull of a double turn but with the night being what it was, that would have been a little difficult. Cena celebrating his win in the crowd with one of his fans from Make-A-Wish was really cool and shows why it’s so hard to turn the 16-time champ to the dark side. Match of the night.

As for the Royal Rumble match itself, there was a lot going on there and while it wasn’t the greatest Rumble in history, it wasn’t completely terrible either. It followed the formula that we’ve seen on numerous occasions with some comedy at the start until someone clears the ring, and as expected, Braun Strowman was that guy until he was shockingly eliminated by Baron Corbin. I did not see that one coming but it was a nice surprise.

The middle of the match was a little slow but the big names that people wanted to see showed up in the last ten and gave us plenty to talk about moving forward. Goldberg and Lesnar had their little showdown and I was as uninterested as I’ve been throughout this whole thing. The Undertaker and Roman Reigns had a nice little staredown after Reigns threw The Deadman out and Luke Harper completed his face turn by attacking Bray Wyatt before being hit with an RKO from eventual winner Randy Orton, who handed out plenty of those in this match, including one on Roman Reigns for the final elimination. Oh yeah, Chris Jericho was in there for just over an hour but spent maybe 5 to 10 minutes not actually doing anything … and it was still great.

We didn’t really get the surprise entrants that we’re used to this year, outside of NXT star Tye Dillinger coming in at number 10 (which almost had to happen to not have the crowd lose it early on) but I was okay with it. Very solid night overall.