Here’s a preview and prediction for every match on the card at the inaugural WWE Greatest Royal Rumble pay-per-view event.
It’s been less than three weeks since WWE put on its biggest event of the year in WrestleMania 34, an event which featured many fantastic matches and surprises. But was the “Grandest Stage of Them All” actually just a setup for what’s about to take place? For the first time in history, Saudi Arabia will be the host for a major WWE event, the inaugural Greatest Royal Rumble, and the stacked card full of superstars from Monday Night RAW and SmackDown Live (the male superstars, anyway) seems to be a mix of a “Big Four” pay-per-view and a house show … okay, maybe a house show at Madison Square Garden.
So what exactly are we in for on Friday night … or afternoon … or morning? Seriously, be sure to note the time of the event. With the show taking place at 7:00 p.m. in Jeddah, those of us in North America who want to watch live on the WWE Network need to adjust. WWE Greatest Royal Rumble will air at 12:00 p.m. Eastern/9:00 a.m. Pacific with a kickoff show airing one hour beforehand. So now you can’t say that you didn’t know when it was on. But I digress.
It’s crazy to think that WrestleMania might have been the buildup for this event, but if you combine that with the Superstar Shake-up, that’s kind of where we are right now, don’t you think? Let’s take away the 50-man Royal Rumble match for a moment. I know that’s supposed to be the big event of the evening, but with the winner seemingly only getting bragging rights at this point, that’s not really the main event for me, especially not with seven championship matches on the docket, including WrestleMania rematches for the WWE Championship and the Universal Championship. I’m going to talk in more detail about each match but the results in New Orleans, whether it be WrestleMania 34 or the two nights after, seem to have been a collective effort to get to Saudi Arabia for these matches. But then again, there’s also a couple of matches here that have no backstory whatsoever and are just sort of there, even if major names are involved.
So let’s dive into the card and take a look at what we’re getting into at the inaugural WWE Greatest Royal Rumble.
WWE Cruiserweight Championship Match
Cedric Alexander (c) vs. Kalisto
We had to wait a while to see who would be facing newly-crowned WWE Cruiserweight Champion Cedric Alexander after Buddy Murphy “couldn’t make weight”, which led to a Gauntlet Match on Tuesday night’s episode of 205 Live, which was surprisingly won by Kalisto after a very entertaining series of confrontations. Alexander’s WrestleMania opponent, Mustafa Ali, was thought to be the favorite, but he went out early. He beat TJP, but then a leg injury suffered in his first match cost him a chance at the title, and he lost to Drew Gulak when he could no longer continue. Gulak then went on to defeat Tony Nese before Kalisto took him out to earn the title shot in Saudi Arabia.
Prediction: I have to say that I was hoping for a WrestleMania rematch between Alexander and Ali, but I’m sure we’ll see them battle again at some point. Kalisto was a safe choice for this match, which is probably why he won, and he and Cedric should put on a good show. The Age of Alexander continues here.