John Pollock & Wai Ting are joined by Mike Murrayto review WWE Royal Rumble 2020 featuring 30-ManMen’s and Women’s Royal Rumble matches, Becky Lynch vs. Asuka, and Daniel Bryan vs. “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt.
Listening to the review of the women’s Rumble I had 2 thoughts
1.) The Kofi spot has jumped the shark because it never leads to anything. The old equivalent would have been the skin the cat by Shawn Michaels and him staying in at times led to a long run by him or a win. The Kofi spot too often has led to someone getting back into the ring only to be tossed almost immediately. So it is cute but meaningless at the end of the day. If Kofi or Naomi has regularly gone on long runs in the Rumble maybe even holding the iron man record or coming close to breaking it numerous times, won the Rumble, or even being in the final few competitors fairly often I think it would carry more weight and interest. It would be a less “how can the performer top the ridiculousness of the spot.” And more about them being tough to get rid of because even when you think they are gone they make a comeback.
2.) The women’s Rumble should be 20 competitors. 30 is too many the roster isn’t large enough especially if you are pulling competitors out for title matches. NXT made up over 1/3rd or the Women’s Rumble, then you had Molly, Beth, Santina , and Kelly Kelly. That is half the match using people from not RAW and Smack down. Then you had Lana, Zelina, Tamina. It is just really shallow. On the men’s side to some extent it feels special to get in the Rumble because not everyone does. On the women’s side basically every woman gets in. Cut it to 20
I put the 0-2 in 2020 for making it the phone calls of Live POST shows. Great having Mike in for the review. I definitely fall on the side that doesn’t mind they sacrificed half the mid-card to build Brock’s heat for the big elimination. If you want to push somebody, this is how you build a match to do it. I felt Drew was in danger of Roman territory with his forced face push for Mania but now after seeing that reaction of the audience and seeing how they presented the Rumble, I’m behind it. Paid off big time. Kudos to them.
Yup I expected what they did with Brock it was just a matter of how long it went on. A little sad Keith Lee got tossed, but it was in a way that did not hurt him much. No one else that got tossed really was hurt by it.
Yeah really liked the show overall. The men’s rumble, in particular, was booked really well and felt very important. Women’s rumble was better than last year and built Belair up.
The rest of the card was all decent. That was Wyatt’s best match in a long time and I really liked Asuka/Lynch. I fast forwarded Corbin’s match but that seemed way too long. Other than that good show, 7.5/10
Drew for the elimination spot (just an incredible 25 minutes that built to it, can’t give enough credit to those involved in booking and creating the moment, paticularly when they miss as much as they do, to have a hit, felt like they knew the pitch that was coming )
Naomi - who knew Naomi was a rockstar?! Absolutely electric pop for her return. Came at a great moment as well after the first act of the Women’s rumble was coming to a close
Keith Lee - I know he was featured heavily for Survivor Series but seeing how well he resonated and the response to him coming out to face off vs Brock was really something. Established main event guy when the time is right.
Yup Drew moment was amazing, made better by his win. Given how the elimination went down I think if he didn’t go on win it would have felt a bit of a let down.
Naomi is underutilized since her title run several years ago. She is a great baby face and they need one hope she shows up on smackdown they need it.
Lee has buckets of natural charisma, and they have done a great job making him seem like an up and coming big deal. I want to see him go head to head with Brock now.
I said it before and I’ll say it again, Bianca Belair is a star. She can do it on the main roster as well because she has the personality, the attitude, the catchphrases and she also has mainstream appeal. I’m assuming Vince knows this as well as she got a big spotlight put on her last night.