Edge wins the men’s Royal Rumble 11 years after winning it in 2010 and 10 years after a career-threatening injury; Adam Copeland can finally end his career on his terms
Edge main-eventing WrestleMania at 47 years old does essentially nothing to make him into a bigger star; Adam Copeland the human being is finding meaning in this journey through finding vindication in the idea of writing his own ending to his wrestling career, and that level of consciousness is working for him at this stage of life.
This year it was only a seven-month absence for The Rated-R Superstar due to a torn triceps as opposed to a 9-year hiatus as it was last year chronic neck issues (which required two separate surgeries). Another core moment in the men’s Royal Rumble was the return of Christian after being punted by Orton several months ago. Edge and Christian are real-life the best friends and former tag team partners, so it brings continuity to the story that Christian returned in the Rumble to help his friend achieve vindication.
Daniel Bryan announced he was entering the 2021 men’s Royal Rumble match on Christmas Day 2020. This marked Daniel’s first Royal Rumble appearance since 2015. The WWE universe was firmly behind Daniel Bryan to win the entire thing that year, but that was the year Roman Reigns got the nod from WWE. Reigns and Bryan had a match the following month by main-eventing the Fastlane Pay-Per-View to see which one of them would go on to main event WrestleMania 31 against Brock Lesnar.
The leader of the YES! Movement missed the Rumble the following three years because he was forced into retirement due to medical issues with his head and suffering many concussions over the years. He was active for Royal Rumble in 2019 and 2020 but was featured in a major title match both years, so Bryan was not featured in the men’s Royal Rumble match.
Daniel Bryan has a lot more influence backstage than perhaps any other superstar not named Roman Reigns because he is a member of the writing team on SmackDown. As a result, he can give his own creative input for storylines – not just his own but for every other superstar as well. Bryan’s ideas are not met with question marks but are legitimately considered.
A perfect example of this is the losing streak Daniel Bryan went on prior to the Royal Rumble. His intention behind this idea was to put over other underutilized superstars in need of major victories to establish themselves before getting a massive spotlight himself. Cesaro was chief among the men who benefited from this losing streak – getting by far the biggest victory of his WWE career to date over Daniel Bryan on the January 15 SmackDown (Claudio Castagnoli got a victory over Bryan Danielson in Ring of Honor over a decade ago but this was the first time in WWE).
Perhaps since Cesaro’s partner Shinsuke Nakamura recently underwent a face turn and seems to be beginning another singles run on the main roster, a victory over someone as established as Daniel Bryan will provide The Swiss Cyborg with the necessary momentum he needs to get over and sustain it with the WWE universe. Otis and Chad Gable are two other guys who have benefited from being associated with someone as established as Bryan, not in the form of matches but being DB’s trainers in the Alpha Academy.
Seth Rollins returned at Royal Rumble from paternity leave; he left right after Survivor Series, where he sacrificed himself “for the greater good” and he and Becky Lynch had their baby, Roux in December. The Messiah was scheduled to return on the New Year’s Day edition of SmackDown, but that idea was scrapped for whatever reason. Maybe Seth would make for an interesting challenger to Roman Reigns for the Universal title before Mania in Tampa.
2021 for WWE may likely be built heavily around Braun Strowman, who became a perennial main eventer in 2020 because Roman Reigns decided to prioritize his family first by skipping out on WrestleMania 36 and being present with his newborn twins during the first few months of the pandemic.
AJ Styles seems to be one of the standards in WWE’s booking strategy, as he should be as arguably the greatest in-ring for format of this generation. A slightly more novel idea is the thought that his bodyguard/bouncer Omos could begin his in-ring career in 2021. Evidence for this stems from the fact that he eliminated Rey Mysterio and Big E himself and engaged in a confrontation with Braun Strowman.
One last nice surprise was that Riddle had a fantastic performance. It was reminiscent of Cody Rhodes back in 2012 coming in at No. 4 and he one of the final men eliminated. Mr. McMahon is very high on Riddle in his Spiccoli-inspired character even if McMahon doesn’t fully understand it. Riddle did have a legitimate argument with Brock Lesnar last year that nearly resulted in a fight. Over what? Probably nothing important.
One other somewhat disappointing event in the men’s Royal Rumble was that Keith Lee, after defeating Randy Orton just five months ago, was not featured in the match after being in the Rumble with Brock Lesnar last year and getting a WWE Championship match with Drew McIntyre four weeks ago on Legends night.
Bianca Blair wins the Women’s Royal Rumble after entering at No. 3
The result of the Women’s Royal Rumble was exquisite from a booking standpoint – the WWE creative team nailed it. The top two young superstars were the final two women in the match in the form of Bianca Belair and Rhea Ripley. Ripley defended the NXT Women’s Championship at WrestleMania 36 for the first time ever (or any NXT title), and Belair was easily the woman who would benefit most from winning the Royal Rumble on the women’s side.
WWE made the right choice in having the EST get the victory. After watching her documentary on WWE Chronicle, one cannot help but root for her in her effort to capture a title at Mania. Wrestling has allowed her to rediscover the inner child within her.
Alexa Bliss was not in the Rumble for very long this year after entering at number one last year and lasting for about half the match before being eliminated by Bianca. This was extremely smart on WWE’s part because, at this stage, she should be treated by WWE creative exactly the same as The Fiend. They are both supernatural characters that function better if they are kept away from any sort of title picture and fight for causes that “mean more” to them.
It was never a legitimate question of if Roman Reigns was going to retain the Universal Championship, but it was a question of how he would defeat Kevin Owens in this title defense; the match may have exceeded expectations which were set extremely high from their last match at TLC last month
Roman Reigns – from a character standpoint – has used the “mob boss” aura to surround himself with people like Paul Heyman and his cousin Jey who will tell him whatever he wants to hear, mainly that he is right in his thinking that he has transcended Kevin Owens’ “just to keep fighting” level of consciousness. The Head of The Table has essentially created the illusion that he is operating on a higher mental paradigm than everyone else, according to Kevin Owens. This is somewhat of a metaphor for the relationship between Jim Ross and Vince McMahon – at least one facet.
Good ol’ J.R. painted the picture that Vince McMahon surrounded himself with people who would tell him nothing but what he wanted to hear, and it was not like that when he first bought WWE from his father. People learned the art of how and when to talk to Vince in order to have the best chance of getting their way. For example, if someone wanted to push a certain agenda, the best way to ensure it happened was to be the last person Mr. McMahon talked with so the boss had your voice ringing in his ear the loudest.
The Reigns-KO storyline is essentially a mirror for the McMahon-Ross relationship. But as I alluded to earlier, this was just one facet. McMahon loved Jim Ross (and still does) like a brother and it reminds me of the love I have for my own brother. Jim broke his back for WWE and put himself through a lot of unnecessary personal anguish, but he is now doing his thing with more freedom (subjective) and a much lighter work schedule with AEW.
In terms of tangibility, the match between Roman Reigns and KO quite possibly exceeded the quality of the last match between the two men, which was awfully hard to do because last month, Kevin Owens went through about five tables. This month at the Royal Rumble, it appeared as though Kevin went into the match by simply asking himself over the past month “what can I jump off of?” The answer was a forklift and the platform in the arena that he was thrown off of by Roman a few weeks ago.
Goldberg puts over The Scottish Warrior Drew McIntyre and unselfishly makes him an even bigger star
This was also undoubtedly the right call in the WWE Championship match for Bill Goldberg to put over Drew McIntyre – he checked one opponent off his list of men he wanted to work with before he retired. WWE has invested the last year in building McIntyre as a credible main eventer by winning the Royal Rumble in 2020 and winning the WWE Championship from Brock Lesnar in the main event of WrestleMania 36. McIntyre was also given the nod from WWE management to engage in an extremely compelling storyline with Randy Orton (which included by far McIntyre’s best promo work) from August – November, which included Orton taking the WWE title off McIntyre for a few weeks before McIntyre defeated Orton again to win the title for the second time.
Goldberg used his box office appeal to make McIntyre an even bigger star and cement the future of the business. WWE learned from last year that The Fiend taking a nod to Goldberg took a step backwards in terms of his character development. It worked well to have Goldberg take the Universal championship off Kevin Owens four years ago and drop the title a month later at WrestleMania 33 to Brock Lesnar (kickstarting a historic title reign of over a year), but last year was a different animal because Goldberg was dealing with a supernatural character in the form of The Fiend.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I flinched when Goldberg lifted McIntyre to do a jackhammer. I had flashbacks to Super Showdown 2019 and that horrible botch in which The Undertaker’s neck was nearly broken. In fairness, it was because Goldberg was concussed earlier in the match; he had to feel awful for putting another life in jeopardy. But anyway, the jackhammer on McIntyre was well-executed. I give Bill credit for having the strength to get that done because McIntyre is a big guy – and 19 years younger.
Carmella is steadily raising her stock within WWE as a potential credible champion as she has been once before; Sasha Banks is the face of the SmackDown women’s division right now
The Boss is still SmackDown Women’s Champion for now which is the right booking decision at this point in time. Not to say Carmella will never get there, but right now Sasha is most likely the top women’s star not named Charlotte Flair. She will probably hold the title until WrestleMania 37 and be challenged by someone like a returning Becky Lynch or Ronda Rousey.
WWE takes some of the spotlight off its top two female stars (which can certainly be afforded) to essentially elevate the Women’s Tag Team Championships by giving them more focus
It was absolutely the right call by WWE to put the Women’s Tag Team Titles on an actual women’s tag team rather than just lazily putting the championships on the company’s top two singles stars in the women’s division in the form of Charlotte Flair and Asuka – guess they are both embroiled in their own singles stories. Asuka is involved in a storyline with Alexa Bliss over the RAW Women’s Championship, and Charlotte Flair is involved in a storyline with Lacey Evans beginning a romance with her father Ric Flair (kind of disgusting given the fact that there is almost of 40-year age gap between he and Lacey).
Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler had a pretty decent amount of momentum on their side back in December when they lost the titles, so it might have been in ill-advised decision to take the titles off them in the first place. The Women’s Tag Team Championships would have received a bigger spotlight over the past month if they were on an actual women’s tag team as opposed to the entire WWE universe nearly forgetting who the champions were. It was absolutely the right call to put the titles back on Jax and Baszler.