Ranking every WWE Royal Rumble PPV in history

23. WWE Royal Rumble 2009

Match card & results

• ECW Championship Match: Jack Swagger (c) def. Matt Hardy
• WWE Women’s Championship Match: Melina def. Beth Phoenix (c)
• World Heavyweight Championship Match: John Cena (c) def. JBL
• No-Disqualification Match for the WWE Championship: Edge def. Jeff Hardy (c)
• Randy Orton wins 30-Man Royal Rumble Match

The 2009 Royal Rumble event was built around Randy Orton going crazy on the McMahon family, which essentially let us know right from the start that he was going to win the Royal Rumble match. I’ve got no problem with that at all but it kind of took away from the drama that the match can be. I’m not saying that it wasn’t done well as Orton and Legacy looked very strong here. There was also some fun with Cody Rhodes and Goldust that I hoped would lead to something more between the two but we obviously never got that. I thought the same in 2013. The Undertaker had a nice outing and Rey Mysterio looked better in his 45 minutes here than he did in his 2006 win. CM Punk also got some nice time.

As for the undercard, the opening match for the ECW Championship wasn’t great but Matt Hardy would look better later on in the night. The finish to the WWE Women’s Championship match was a little surprising with Melina getting the win over Beth Phoenix but it could have been worse. I never got into the JBL/Shawn Michaels storyline but it did make for some decent drama with HBK getting involved in the World Heavyweight Championship bout and giving some Sweet Chin Music to both JBL and John Cena. Otherwise, the match was just sort of there.

The WWE Championship match between Jeff Hardy and Edge was much better. They started slow but finished strong in the No-DQ bout and things got really dramatic when Matt Hardy came in and bashed Jeff in the head with a chair to cost him the match. It’s a little weird that he would ever help Edge given their history but that wasn’t the point here. Overall, this was a decent night that could have been better.