Ranking every WWE Royal Rumble PPV in history

12. WWE Royal Rumble 2017

Match card & results

• WWE RAW Women’s Championship Match: Charlotte Flair (c) def. Bayley
• No-Disqualification Match for the WWE Universal Championship: Kevin Owens (c) def. Roman Reigns
• WWE Cruiserweight Championship Match: Neville def. Rich Swann (c)
• WWE Championship Match: John Cena def. AJ Styles (c)
• Randy Orton wins 30-Man Royal Rumble Match

It’s not often that the Royal Rumble itself is the worst match on the card but I honestly believe that was the case in 2017. It’s not that Rumble match was terrible by any means but it’s just that every other match on the card was better. Randy Orton picking up his second Rumble win was a good story to keep the program going with Bray Wyatt, especially since we knew that no matter what happened, Goldberg and Brock Lesnar were on a collision course to battle for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania. The end of the match was pretty fun though as there were some really big names involved. Seeing The Undertaker back in the Rumble was nice and it set up his program with Roman Reigns nicely.

The show kicked off with a very good match for the RAW Women’s Championship as Charlotte Flair defended her title against Bayley, who hadn’t been on the main roster as long as some of the others and was still building towards that first title, which would happen a couple of months later when she got her WrestleMania moment. But this was a solid opener that got the main show off to a good start.

The second match was Kevin Owens taking on Roman Reigns in a No-DQ match with Chris Jericho suspended above the ring in a freaking shark cage. How was that not going to be entertaining? Owens and Reigns put on a very good show and was easily the best those two have done together. Adding Jericho was a good time and Braun Strowman coming in late to cost Reigns the match got the crowd really fired up. Great time here.

The live crowd wasn’t really into the Cruiserweight Championship Match as Neville took his rightful place atop the division by defeating Rich Swann but I thought this was a very solid match. The two worked hard and it’s unfortunate that the crowd didn’t appreciate it.

Then, of course, we had what was arguably the match of the year as AJ Styles defended his WWE Championship against John Cena, who was looking to tie Ric Flair with his 16th world title reign. As all of them have been, this was an instant classic as two of the best of their generation went out and put on one hell of a match. There were so many great spots and nearfalls and you honestly didn’t know how this was going to turn out. Cena teased turning heel a couple of times with some of his tactics, which made for great drama as he didn’t know what it was going to take to put Styles away. Excellent work by both competitors.