WWE Royal Rumble 2025 Thoughts

While I still consider myself a fairly casual pro-wrestling fan these days, I’ll periodically check out the bigger events and some shows when I have the chance. Since the WWE has done a better job in the recent year of attracting my interest in wrestling again (after my general disdain for AEW grew to the point where I only can stomach hearing about it on certain podcast that treat AEW like a viewing of a bad sci-fi/horror movie from the people over at Mystery Science Theater 3k). As such, I’ll search out the big 3-4 events for the WWE in Summerslam, Survivor Series, the Royal Rumble and of course Wrestlemania. There wasn’t a lot going into this Royal Rumble for me outside of the main event but at least with regards to the men’s version of the Rumble, I was intrigued at certain prospects.

The Royal Rumble started with the Women’s version. I really didn’t know who would be there but getting 30 women in the Rumble was a feat in itself. Outside of certain returns, I really didn’t care. In fact, for the returns or one person showing up as a new signee, the only thing I was interested in seeing was the reaction. Once they got into the ring, it felt dead except for thew signee (Jordynne Grace). She had one impressive feat of strength and looked good (I liked her hair style). Probably, the pop of the night for returns was to Alexis Bliss. I’m not a huge fan of hers and she didn’t look bad in terms of what she did but it’s hard to believe someone without any physical definition and that short of stature being able to win a Rumble. The other major return that was known was Charlotte Flair. She had a few key moments with various new people like Giulia which sounds like a future match waiting to happen.

Then there was Nia Jax. The thing I really hated was how all the women attempted to gang up on her and she flung them ALL off at once. Something like that is too contrived and Nia just is big. There’s nothing else remarkable about her. Then when everyone started piling on to one side of the ropes and Nia was sitting around like a dead log in a stream against the opposite side of the ropes, I knew exactly what would happen. It was just another terrible contrived move that did no one any favors. I guess it was supposed to give Nia more heat but she’s just awful and I’d prefer that she goes away. Charlotte ended up being the one to eliminate Nia which left Charlotte and Roxanne Perez in the ring.

I’ve seen Roxanne Perez in a match with Giulia and it actually was good (even by my standards). Unfortunately, Roxanne Perez is so tiny that you can hardly take her seriously. Like if it was done to Nia and Roxanne, there wouldn’t be any believable way Roxanne could’ve dumped Nia over the top rope. So after Nia was eliminated, they built the last few moments to give Roxanne Perez a little credibility by allowing her to be the “runner up.” Even if she was next to last, I just didn’t care.

In fact, with Charlotte winning, I know a lot of people were complaining because it’s Charlotte. Truthfully, there wasn’t a single person in the women’s Rumble that I had picked to be the winner because there’s no one really setup to replace Rhea Ripley. Since Charlotte won, I’m guessing she’ll challenge Tiffany Stratton, who is athletic, but she’s annoying to listen to and can’t do anything besides a few gymnastic moves. But the idea when/if that happens is for Tiffany to probably go over to establish her, which would feel wasteful. But there’s really not a lot of great women wrestlers in the WWE at the moment. Most are sloppy, can’t promo, can’t engage the fans in a match and don’t look great outside of an Instagram shot. Obviously, they’re better than the Sable era, but I’m talking about comparing them to someone like an Akira Hokuto. As far as women’s matches go, the bar is set at Akira Hokuto vs Shinobu Kandori AJW Dream Slam ’93 for me. I haven’t seen any women’s match ever exceeding that one and honestly most of that was due to Hokuto.

There was a tag match that I didn’t care about. I like the Motor City Machine Guns but the sad truth is that they came to the WWE 10 years too late. Obviously, they would’ve suffered under the McMahon regime but it just feels like their time has passed. And I’m not a fan of neither Gargano nor Ciampa.

The Undisputed WWE championship was up for grabs between Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes in a ladder match. This match was brutal and I hated it. I’m done with ladder matches and I’ve been done ever since that one tag team guy got his face busted open ages ago. Honestly, outside of a bump or two, I was bored during this match. Kevin Owens busts me up with his shirt and antics but his matches are awful. Cody Rhodes is an inconsistent wrestler. He’s being to hold the title now but he doesn’t really interest me because his matches aren’t great (outside of the AJ Styles one which I attribute 90% to AJ Styles), his promos are fake/contrived sounding most of the time and the only thing that’s good about him is his entrance music. The only time I remotely got excited was the prospect of Drew McIntyre having a feud with Cody because Drew is one of the few people around capable of creating any kind of interest in a face like Cody.

Then there was the men’s Royal Rumble. Some of it was good, some of it felt like molasses and some just were downright rotten. So the big thing was trying to really push Penta. I’m not a fan of him because he struck me as being a mark for himself and having worse and worse matches over time. When I saw that stupid power bomb through the tables involving poor Dante Martin who got his foot broken, I pretty much was over this guy and his brother. I haven’t been impressed with most luchadores outside of Rey Mysterio Jr. He’s still the bar as far as the all time greats for me. And it really boils down to psychology. Rey was one of the few that had great psychology and the moves to back it up that made his matches unique. Once more of the luchadores came through, I felt there was less and less impressive people because they couldn’t get the American wrestling psychology. Pretty much that aspect has held true still.

All the good stuff happened near the end. Mostly, it involved all the key superstars that had interconnected story lines. But the problem is that once they got down to the final important people, it felt like there was a lot of delay in the match as opposed to how quickly the next person would come out. So nothing else would happen during the Rumble since people just waited around for the next person.

The downright rotten stuff was mostly people selling while certain wrestlers had their story line “moment.” I really hate that. When you have two people jaw jacking with one another, wouldn’t that be the best time to strike? And it’s not just one person. Too much “modern” wrestling does this whenever there’s more than 2 people involved. And it’s not even good selling. Simultaneous selling when there’s numerous people is beyond dumb. The Rumble is the worst offender of this because the analogy I have is a riot situation. In a riot, people aren’t going to be simultaneously slumped on the ground just writhing to wait and see what person is going to make the next big move. It’s every man for themselves. Old Battle Royals at least felt like something chaotic because people would eliminate each other quick and the last people involved wouldn’t stick around that long.

And I really hate talking about this guy, but I have to mention Logan Paul here. He’s the only real heel in wrestling right now. People legitimately hate this guy (me too!) He’s insufferable, he’s a real life prick and he just seems like some pale entitled fucker that got lucky. Like I would actually pay money for a bout if I knew he would get seriously injured for real and/or killed. I wasn’t keen on seeing Logan Paul eliminate CM Punk but I guess that was supposed to give him heat down the road. But again, it’s not that people like booing him the way people enjoy booing Dominick. They really hate this guy’s guts.

Another stupid thing was seeing that goofball Akira Tozawa do his version of the Bushwhackers. Then HHH got some dumb ass YouTube influencer whom I never heard of to join the Rumble. What? Are we at this point with wrestling? I mean it was fun seeing Bron Breaker spear the fuck out of this nerd then toss him into Braun Strowman who didn’t catch him properly but still chucked this guy’s ass into the announcing desk. Still, it’s just stupid letting this fuck in. This is worse than Mr. T coming in to box Roddy Piper. At least, Mr. T had a legitimate background as a bouncer/bodyguard and looked tough.

Now, let’s talk about the real elephant in the room: Jey Uso winning. So various people blew their top upon hearing/seeing Jey Uso win. I didn’t have an issue with it because I don’t have much of an emotional stake anymore in pro-wrestling except once in a while when the right people are together doing an amazing promo or having a great moment (cf Cody Rhodes and CM Punk on Raw or the New Day’s rejection of Big E). Otherwise, it’s just business as usual for me and life moves on.

But the way I look at Jey Uso winning is akin to if McMahon had pushed the Junkyard Dog over Hulk Hogan due to JYD’s popularity in ’85/’86. JYD was easily the #2 or #3 most popular wrestler in the WWF around that time. The kids loved him and he sounded cool to us along with having his little dance and his song. But if he got the title in ’86 (especially), it wouldn’t have lasted long because JYD was unreliable as it was learned later on. He had that horrible coke problem and everyone knew his matches were the shits. By the time he hit WCW, he looked awful. He had that huge gut, his beard was gone and he was barely mobile. Then there was the infamous match he had against Ric Flair where a certain reporter would denigrate JYD with the nickname “the Junkfood Dog.”

Perhaps, the WWE looks at Jey as being “striking the iron while it’s hot.” Because he’s not going to get any better in the ring. He’s not an impressive physical specimen. He has three attributes that lend to his popularity: his entrance theme (or just entrance), his promo style (similar to JYD sounding cool to kids) and the Yeet catch word. But his matches are bland as fuck. The only things he can do are a bad sabot kick and his splash off the top rope. His punches are awful, he can’t execute any basic grappling moves, his in ring psychology sucks and there’s never been a single match of his that I would want to watch based on people excitedly telling me that I need to see it. So if they do give this guy Gunther’s title (which I have a feeling they might), it’ll be as a consolation prize for being at the company that long and how he’s probably well liked backstage. But the magic is going to wear off fast the minute he’s asked to actually main event a singles match and he’s not with someone who can carry the bulk of the match.

I’m not really bothered by any of this though. I’m more about the journey than the end result most of the time because there’s not many people I’m really a true fan of these days for wrestling. Maybe Giulia but I don’t really care for her as a wrestler (she’s okay I guess but I don’t watch her for her matches). One thing I will say about this Rumble is that I really couldn’t pick a single winner this year. There were a lot of good candidates going in. They created many great red herrings so you couldn’t guess whom the winner would be. That’s actually a great thing.

I think with Jey winning for the men’s side it fits with the “let’s build new stars” motto of the WWE. The WWE is focusing more on popularity than the matches themselves. The matches are pretty much where the story ends at most PPVs but most matches don’t have good stories these days. It’s more like eating a very bland salad to get to the main course. In the case of Charlotte winning, I think they’re just doing that to re-establish her and the fact that there really isn’t any outstanding, believable women’s wrestler in the Royal Rumble this year. Like Giulia is going to be a pick of mine in two years. I assume she’s going to stick in NXT for another year or two but quickly get on the main roster after she puts Stephanie Vaquer over down the road. Tiffany Stratton probably would’ve been the one to have won here if she wasn’t already holding a title.

At any rate, I’m more curious about the side stories that came out of the men’s Rumble. Stuff with Drew, Seth, CM Punk, Reigns and Sami are going to get interesting. Cody and Kevin Owens will probably be involved in that group when it comes to the top stories/wrestlers interconnected. I don’t know where John Cena fits in that picture but originally my pick was to see him win the Rumble and face Cody. With Jey clearly choosing Gunther, that leaves Cody open. They’re now talking about the Elimination Chamber so I guess these people will be involved in that match to determine the other Wrestlemania main event.

 

 

 

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