Ranking every WWE Royal Rumble PPV in history

10. WWE Royal Rumble 2010

Match card & results

• ECW Championship Match: Christian (c) def. Ezekiel Jackson
• WWE United States Championship Match: The Miz (c) def. MVP
• WWE Championship Match: Sheamus (c) def. Randy Orton
• WWE Women’s Championship Match: Mickie James def. Michelle McCool (c)
• World Heavyweight Championship Match: The Undertaker (c) def. Rey Mysterio
• Edge wins 30-Man Royal Rumble Match

There were a couple disappointing matches at the 2010 Royal Rumble event but there were a lot of positives to come out of that night in Atlanta. The opening match of the night, and the last time the ECW Championship would be defended on pay-per-view, had Christian retaining the title in a very good match with Ezekiel Jackson. There wasn’t anything spectacular to it but it was just a very solid wrestling match. Good start.

The United States Championship Match between The Miz and MVP could have been much better but Randy Orton and Sheamus picked things back up a bit. The storytelling was good between the two and the addition of Cody Rhodes to the finish kept up the Legacy storyline that was going on. Cody had pledged his allegiance to Orton as Dibiase was starting to pull away and in trying to help Orton, he cost him the title instead. Dibiase eventually came out and Orton beat both of them down. Pretty fun.

I really don’t even want to mention the Women’s Championship Match because the storyline was so bad. This was the “Piggy James” program and it was awful, just like the match on this night. Mickie won in 20 seconds. Luckily, we got a nice surprise in the next match with Rey Mysterio and The Undertaker. As I’ve said, I really could never get into Mysterio trying to battle every single big man but this match worked and worked well. The Undertaker has always been able to adapt to any situation and he made Rey look like a rock star here. The Undertaker retained the World Heavyweight Championship and that played right into the Rumble match as Shawn Michaels was looking for revenge after his loss to ‘Taker at WrestleMania XXV and was looking for a way to get The Deadman on the grandest stage of them all once again. Winning the Rumble would give him that chance and that was one of a few great stories that made the main event great.

CM Punk was the first star of the Rumble match. He was out in the third spot and is just one of a few people that could get away with cutting a promo during a Royal Rumble, which he did after disposing of Dolph Ziggler and Evan Bourne early on. Eventually, The Great Khali would cut him off but that played right into Beth Phoenix becoming just the second woman to enter the Royal Rumble and she came in and eliminated Khali before Punk threw her out. Great opening.

Triple H had another good Rumble performance, including eliminating CM Punk, and he and Michaels cleared the ring before John Cena got involved. That’s a nice trio to have in the ring together. The Michaels drama was beautiful. He was going to do anything in his power to win and he even eliminated Triple H after some Sweet Chin Music. HBK lasted nearly 26 minutes and eliminated six people before being eliminated by Batista, who entered at number 30. Shawn’s reaction was perfect and he was very upset, even taking out a ref on the way out. Great storytelling.

However, the night didn’t belong to number 30 either. Instead, it was entrant number 29 that stole the show as Edge returned early from injury to claim the 2010 Royal Rumble. It was a nice end to a very good night for WWE.