Royal Rumble 2008
Dateline: New York, New York, Madison Square Garden, January 27 2008
The 21st annual Royal Rumble.
Lets begin.
For the past 21 years the Royal Rumble, along with being one of WWE’s big four pay per view events (along with Wrestlemania, Summerslam, and Survivor Series) has kick started the ‘road to Wrestlemania’. The Rumble has always been a fan favorite, as well as a personal favorite, when it comes to the WWE Pay per view events, due mainly to the guarantee of seeing a large number of top tier superstars, as well as finding out who is going to be in the main event at the grandest stage of them all. in addition to the 30 man Rumble match, there are generally a few title/feud matches serving the purpose of ending all pre-mania feuds, or developing the mid-card for mania. This year was no different, same high C grade predictable mid-card matches, and the always exciting battle royal.
The night started with Ric ‘I’m not as old as Vince’ Flair in another edge of your seat retirement match against United States Champion, MVP. Can you sense the sarcasm? While I am sick of Flair, and I am sick of this angle (I cant believe I have to put up with it until Wrestlemania) this was one of the better matches Flair has had on his road to retirement. Nothing terribly exciting, nothing horribly note worthy. A good showing by both men, although it is becoming more and more obvious every week that Flair is having a harder and harder time keeping up with the younger talent. Flair got the clean victory over MVP with a figure four leg lock, and it was nice to see the clean win. I think it’s safe to say that at this point Ric deserves to get a clean victory here and there.
Next up was the match I was looking forward to the least; Y2J vs JBL in a ‘why wasn’t this a no DQ’ match. Now, I am a Chris Jericho fan, and I loved his come back, but this JBL J2Y thing is just irritating. Now it was obvious that Jericho was going for some sort of revenge against JBL in regards to the vicious beating he suffered two weeks ago, but it was a bit surprising that there was an actual match before that happened. It’s always sad when you have two great performers put on a terrible match. The crowed was all over Jericho for his missed spot, good thing it wasn’t in HD….oh wait….The post match hanging livened things up a little, but all in all it seemed that Jericho lost all that blood for nothing. And the guy did bleed quite a bit. In the end JBL came up with the DQ victory, I suspect we’ll be seeing this match under more violent stipulations at Wrestlemania.
Match number 3 was the first of two world title matches, Rey Mysterio Jr vs Edge (c). I remember this match consisting of 3 big spots by Edge, and a ton of screw ups and missed spots by Mysterio. Rey did a decent job of selling his knee injury for a while, but eventually gave up on it. Edge hit a pig power slam on Mysterio that just about broke the little guy through the mat. The end came around when Edge was set up for the 619 (I still don’t know how anyone gets caught in this move) and Vicky took the blunt of the hit instead of Edge. Edge recovered and speared Rey out of the air in what looked like an attempt at some West Coast Pop. Edge rolled the cover, 1, 2, 3 please no more Rey Mysterio Jr contenderships for top titles. Edge wins. Biggest shock of this match was the crowed popping huge for Edge, and booing Rey. I loved it, but it’s not what was expected.
Every once in a while we get a match where everyone knows how it will end, and despite that, we all cheer for and get our hopes up for the other outcome. Such was the case with the WWE Championship match between Jeff Hardy and Randy Orton (c). Maybe its just me, but this seems to be how things are going in the WWE lately. They get really close to doing what all the fans think they should do, and then they don’t. Based on that you could probably guess that Jeff Hardy did not win the title on Sunday. True. But to say that he was cheated or lost by some sort of unjust means would not be true. Actually the only unjust thing about the match was that it didn’t go on a little longer. Hardy and Orton delivered a solid match, and props to Orton for taking some very hard hits (drop kick to the wall for instance). I honestly expected a little more back and forth of finishers with both competitors ‘somehow’ managing to kick out. The end of the match came, much as I had called it, when Hardy went for the Twist of Fate and Orton countered to the RKO. We were all sad to see Hardy not walk out a duel champion, but in the back of our hearts I think we all knew it wouldn’t happen. Hopefully the WWE will realize that he is one of the hottest superstars in the industry right now, and putting the title on him, even if just for a month, is exactly what they need to do. Hopefully we’ll see more of Jeff Hardy in WWE title matches.
My picks, before we start, for winning the 2008 Royal Rumble were The Undertaker and Batista. I went for the safe pick with Batista and for the first year ever didn’t call Mick Foley for the win. So when Taker entered at number one, naturally I assumed he would become the 3rd person ever to win the Rumble from the number one spot (after becoming the first person to win at number 30 last year). When Shawn Michaels came out at number 2, I knew it was going to be an interesting night. We had some good back and forth action from Taker and Michaels, and a quick Rumble appearance from Santino. Going into the Rumble there were 5 spots left open. Myself and all my friends had tried to guess who was going to fill those spots, but in the end it turned out none of us knew what we were talking about. But lets face it, this was a tough Rumble to call, there were so many people that should have been in that weren’t. Personally I would have liked to have seen Jimmy Wang Yang, Shannon Moore, and the London/Kendrick combo in the match. The Hornswaggle/Finlay thing had people confused, and I don’t think it went off as well as the WWE had intended, ask me, i don’t think Horny needed to be in there in the first place. Seeing Jimmy Snuka was great, though never as great as seeing Roddy Piper. I wish they had been in the match a little longer, but it was still a great addition to the match nonetheless. When HBK eliminated Undertaker it seemed to be one of those moments where no one really knew what to do. So Kennedy Kennedy eliminated HBK. With Taker out of the match it looked like we were going to be forced to watch another Batista victory. As the numbers entered the high 20’s and with no Triple H in sight, and still not knowing who all of the mysterious 5 were, I pegged HHH for number 30 and the win. When The Game came in at 29, I realized that the WWE had pulled a fast one on us, and I had no idea what was going to happen 90 seconds later. I really wonder how many people in the WWE knew. Because when the clock counted down for number 30, and John Cena’s music hit, every one in the ring stopped what they were doing. I, well known for being a Cena fan, fucking lost it. Cena came in, cleaned out the trash, also eliminated Carlito and Chavo. (I’m assuming that by ‘trash’ you knew I was referring to Mark ‘Don’t call me sexual chocolate’ Henry). When it came down to the final three, it was one of those anything can happen moments. With Triple H, Batista, and John Cena in the ring, it could have gone any of three ways. Until you thought about the fact that Cena was not going to come back to lose. I’ve got to hand it to the WWE, because the last 5 minutes of the Royal Rumble were some of the most exciting minutes on WWE television in recent years. And after the huge disaster Jericho’s return was in terms of secrecy, they really pulled a big one on us with Cena, who as of Sunday, was reported to still be out for a minimum of 6 months. When it was all said and done, HHH took out Batista, and after some good back and forth action, Cena F-Ud Tripps over the rope to win. It was good to see Cena finally get a Rumble win.
So now we have the long road to Wrestlemania, and unresolved issues all over the place. I for one, think things are about to get very interesting in the WWE.
Some Facts and Numbers about the 2008 Royal Rumble:
-3rd year in a row that Shelton Benjamin has been eliminated by Shawn Michaels
-2nd year ever (and in a row) that the Number 30 entrant has won
-First time ever that the same number won two years in a row
-First time any one was ever DQ’d from the Royal Rumble (Finlay for entering early)
-First time that the last two superstars from the previous rumble were the first superstars for the next rumble
Order of Royal Rumble Entrants:
(1) Undertaker, (2) HBK, (3) Santino Marella, (4) Great Khali, (5) Hardcore Holly, (6) John Morrison, (7) Tommy Dreamer, (8) Batista, (9) Hornswoggle, (10) Chuck Palumbo, (11) Jamie Noble, (12) CM Punk, (13) Cody Rhodes, (14) Umaga, (15) Snitsky, (16) The Miz, (17) Shelton Benjamin, (18) Jimmy Snuka, (19) Roddy Piper, (20) Kane, (21) Carlito, (22) Mick Foley, (23) Mr. Kennedy, (24) Big Daddy V, (25) Mark Henry, (26) Chavo Guerrero, (27) Finlay, (28) Elijah Burke, (29) Triple H, and (30) John Cena.
Order of Eliminations:
(1) Santino Marella, (2) Great Khali, (3) Tommy Dreamer, (4) Jamie Noble, (5) Chuck Palumbo, (6) Hardcore Holly, (7) Shelton Benjamin, (8) Roddy Piper, (9) Jimmy Snuka, (10) Snitsky, (11) Undertaker, (12) HBK, (13) The Miz, (14) John Morrison, (15) CM Punk, (16) Cody Rhodes, (17) Big Daddy V, (18) Mick Foley, (19) Elijah Burke, (20) Carlito, (21) Chavo Guerrero (22) Mark Henry, (23) Mr. Kennedy, (24) Umaga, (25) Kane, (26) Batista, (27) Triple H.
The Final Stage 