Pay-Per-Views

As for the first match of the Royal Rumble, what happened was exactly what I expected to happen. In order for Becky Lynch to challenge Ronda Rousey at WrestleMania, she needed to lose this match. As for the match between The Bar versus Shane McMahon and The Miz, I knew there were plans of at least somewhat big proportions when WWE decided to prepare Shane and Miz as a tag team. The match between Ronda Rousey and Sasha Banks was actually a surprisingly good one. Not that I expected a bad performance, but it was better than I thought, and I was pleasantly surprised. I will never ever complain about a Styles-Bryan match. I honestly wouldn’t mind if WWE elected to do it one more time at the next pay-per-view. I’m glad Daniel Bryan won too, as he is really gaining traction as a heel.

And what in the “blue hell” (Thank you Rock) was Erick Rowan doing there. I haven’t seen him in a full year, probably more. Brock Lesnar is looking slightly thinner and more muscular, probably just a side effect of age, considering he is 41. Finn Balor looked really good in the ring as well. I have no real praises or criticisms about this match because it was exactly what I expected it to be – all good showing from Balor in a slightly better performance than we usually get from Lesnar, but still a quick match overall.

Now I will go on to discuss the Royal Rumble matches, starting with the women. I was really glad to see Rhea Ripley entered the match, as she deserved. I also think Corey Graves’ infatuation with Mandy Rose is absolutely hilarious and how he calls her God’s greatest creation. The final two women in the match were exactly the two that should have been the last two standing, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch. I am a little surprised that Becky won instead of Charlotte, but WWE could have easily had either one of them wins. It’s very clear that they are building them to a triple threat match at WrestleMania between Charlotte, Ronda, and Becky for the Raw women’s championship. I couldn’t be happier for Becky Lynch as she deserves this victory arguably more than anyone else.

As for the men’s Royal Rumble, the first thing I was happy to see was the young guys like Johnny Gargano, Aleister Black, Pete Dunne, Mustafa Ali and Andrade all give good showings. It makes me very optimistic about the future of the business. I also can’t believe that Nia Jax entered in place of Truth. I absolutely loved seeing her in there and it was a huge surprise. Seeing her take a super kick, a 619 and an RKO was awesome.

Opinion: In my humble opinion, WWE should look to book more male versus female matches. It’s something different and I would be thoroughly and entertained by it. Now onto Seth Rollins. I figured that Seth would win and go on to challenge for the universal title at WrestleMania, but what I did not see was Lashley getting involved. I assume that since Seth won the Royal Rumble, He will go on to face Lesnar and Lashley will be inserted into the match to make it a triple threat, since Lashley put Seth through the announcers’ table after he only eliminated him. I think Kofi Kingston also deserves an honorable mention for his impressive physical feats to stay alive in the Royal Rumble match. Overall, I thought this was a really well-done pay-per-view – the best one in quite a while. The only thing that slightly disappointed me was that neither Kevin Owens nor Sami Zayn returned, and I anticipated they both may.

Phoenix – To start with, the tag team title match was probably one of the greatest tag matches that I have ever seen. The War Raiders will be excellent champions. The second match of the night was Matt Riddle and Kassius Ohno. This was an excellent match, except the only part of it that I was disappointed with was that it had somewhat of a disappointing ending with the disqualification. I thought Johnny Gargano and Ricochet absolutely tore the house down. The evolution of Johnny’s character has been top-notch, and as for Ricochet, this is exactly why I wanted him to come to WWE. I first saw him wrestling in Lucha Underground, and I was utterly flabbergasted by the things he could do.

As for Bianca Belair and Shayna Baszler, it was a good showing from Bianca, but Shayna is turning out to be a pretty darn good champion. As for the final match of the night, I’m very happy that Tommaso Ciampa retained his title. Not that Aleiser Black would have been a bad choice to be champion again. It was really a choice between pretty good and great, as Ciampa is proving to be a very dynamic heel character.

I also love the idea of a DIY reunion, but this time with Gargano and Ciampa as singles champions other than tag team champions, and as heels as opposed to babyfaces. It adds another step in the evolution of what was already a brilliantly told story. This is easily the best

The Takeover event for NXT UK was truly historic. It was so big, in fact, that it featured an appearance from Finn Balor. Every match on the card was absolutely fantastic. None of them disappointed, especially the WWE UK title match between Joe Coffey and WWE UK Champion Pete Dunne. That match in particular took me back to the mid-’80s and one match between Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat. There was such a rhythmic flow to the way those guys moved in the ring and I noticed the same type of chemistry between Coffey and Dunne, which is the ultimate compliment. I’m not saying that the match was stylistically reminiscent of Flair and Steamboat, but in terms of the feeling it created inside. That is what I love about Wrestling in its simplest terms.