Good evening folks! It’s a special time and day for a special Nutshell. The Greatest Royal Rumble happened earlier today, live in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. And this particular Nutshell asks but one question: was this truly the greatest Rumble? Did it live up to the name and the hype, or was this nothing more than an over-hyped house show? The card surely seems stacked, with a slew of men’s titles on the line. We have Cena versus Hunter. Undertaker versus Rusev-in a casket match no less. And a fifty man Royal Rumble, the biggest ever for WWE, and one that promises some big returns and hopefully a big surprise or two. So, are you ready? Let’s crack open this Nutshell and see if this show was truly the greatest.
Best Match of the night:
There will be two on this list tonight.
First up, the four man Intercontinental Championship ladder match. It came after a few duds, and it helped tremendously. Four of the best WWE has, in a punishing ladder match…yes please! Went nearly 20 minutes if I can tell time correctly, and was a very good ladder match.
And, I’d be bad if I didn’t give the fifty man Royal Rumble a nod. Just the fact that it was the longest Rumble by 10 spots and gave us a few decent surprises means it has the right to lay claim to this.
Worst match of the night:
Sadly, there were a few options here.
Neither tag title match was really all that good. With any luck, on the SmackDown side, this should mark the end (for now) of Jimmy and Jey chasing the Bludgeon Brothers.
On the RAW side, the match wasn’t all that special. Honestly, I think the main redeeming quality of it was that it was the only title change (sort of) that the Jeddah fans got to enjoy.
The United States title match was nothing special either.
Crowd Chants of the Night:
Nothing here for a change. Crowd was a lot more into boos and cheers than chants. Somewhat refreshing at times…
Star of the Night
Let’s give a few nods here.
Seth Rollins for a heck of a way to retain his title.
Daniel Bryan for his showing in the Rumble
Braun Strowman for winning the whole thing.
Spot of the Night:
Rollins’ leap onto the ladder and up the ladder, to swipe the Intercontinental title from the grasp of Finn Balor.
Plenty of other nice ones during the ladder match, but that one takes the cake.
The spear through the cage.
Strowman launching Shane off the top rope through the announce position.
Jobber of the Night:
I think this almost has to go to the Daivaris. They came out to talk down to some young Saudi talent, and got run off by them instead. I mean, mostly it was Shawn, but yep, definitely a Daivari win.
There were a few really fast eliminations in the Rumble, too. So, take your pick from like, Mike Kanellis and Sumi and whomever else you’d like.
Upset of the Night:
Nothing going on here
Holy Sh** Moment of the Night:
I suppose the ending of Reigns/Lesnar qualifies. It will be very interesting to see where WWE goes with this, but Reigns lost yet again. This time, in more unique fashion, as he delivered a spear to Lesnar through the cage and to the floor. Of course, the first one to touch the floor wins, so Lesnar made sure he touched down first.
Just take a look at pictures of Daniel Bryan’s chest after the Rumble. Wow. Just…wow.
Botch of the night:
What the heck was Cena doing? He leapt off the top rope, and I can only assume Hunter was supposed to catch him…except, he looked to barely touch Cena’s feet. The announcers sold it for him though, doing their best to convince us that Hunter had delivered a spinebuster.
Commentary of the night:
The Balor Club has come to Asia
I think it’s been in Asia for quite some time…perhaps you meant Saudi Arabia
Oh my God did that really happen?
Let’s just move on and forget about it
That may be the greatest thing I’ve ever seen
That may be the greatest moment in Royal Rumble history
LOL Moment of the night:
Look no further than Titus O’Neil running to the ring as the 39th entrant. At that moment, I can assume he was wishing that the Rumble was only 30 men that evening, and his moment never happened. I mean, the announcers could not stop laughing, and couldn’t stop replaying. Titus may just need to retire now.
In fairness though, given how he wiped out, he’s probably lucky he didn’t dive awkwardly into the ring, as opposed to conveniently under it (ie. he’s lucky he avoided injury).
Noteworthy Moment:
I think they did a lot to try and get it to live up to the name “Greatest”. Like, it was a long card and longer show. Not quite as long as ‘Mania, but it was long enough.
It’s interesting to see WWE count a couple records from tonight’s show. Daniel Bryan lasting the longest in a Rumble, and Strowman with the most eliminations. I mean, in a Greatest Royal Rumble sure…but these need an asterisk or something.
It was so weird seeing so much empty floor space.
Nice to see four NXT guys get in the Rumble. Most surprising? Babatunde, who has never had an actual NXT TV match, or been so much as mentioned on the program thus far. That’s a nice big debut for the big man. Roderick Strong was a no brainer, he’s an established vet. Surprised that Tucker Knight got the call, and for that matter, ditto Dan Matha, whom I don’t think we’ve seen since being used alongside Lars Sullivan (and, fun fact, we see him as a PC trainer as they hyped the tryouts earlier this week.
I didn’t bother timing it with my own stopwatch, but I swear some entries in the Rumble came faster than others.
Overall lowlights:
I’ve said it before, but I shall say it again. I understand why the women are not on the card, but that does not mean I have to like it. It does not mean it doesn’t suck. And I think it’s perfectly fine to say not having a single women’s match was a lowlight.
Ending the cage match like that. For one, controversy means we are going to get yet another Lesnar/Reigns match, you can count on that. For another, WWE picks and chooses what they interpret…fairly certain on the feet part of the rule, and both of Lesnar’s didn’t touch before Roman’s (not unlike the Hardys tag title loss last year).
Overall highlights:
The IC title match was very satisfying.
While nothing like the normal Rumble, this one was still good. A few nice surprises, a few nice returns, and a good way for Braun to get a nice win.
After the final bell:
Overall, not a bad show…just that it ran five hours, and for many chunks of it, felt more like a glorified house show. We had only one new champ (champs, actually). No titles changed hands. I think the Rumble was more fun than I expected, but otherwise, it did not, in my opinion, live up to the hype.
