WWE Royal Rumble 2012
January 29, 2012
St. Louis, MO
Reviewed on April 19, 2014

Background: The Summer of Punk is in full gear…but sadly it already lost some of it’s luster (really, once HHH pinned Punk at Night of Champions the angle was never the same). While based off the guys holding all the belts (your champs after TLC 2011: Punk, Bryan, Ryder, Rhodes, Bourne, Kingston), we all knew The Rock was coming back soon and John Cena would be in the Mania main and HHH and Undertaker would be back. A lot of change that ultimately didn’t matter and the WWE didn’t really feel all that different until Wrestlemania XXX (and we need to wait and see how that turns out). The Summer of Punk kicked off the Reality Era…but some storylines remained old and dated. I was all for Kane coming back with the mask and all, but it already turned out to be rather comical. The result of the John Cena-Kane feud was the exact opposite of The Rock vs. Mankind in early 1999.

Anyway, the Royal Rumble is one of the most fun events in the WWE calendar year, but last year WWE took a misstep with the 40 man match. This year though the roster is WAY too thin for something like that to work, so back to 30 we are.

We are in a period where change was clashing up against the old guard. Let’s see how the Rumble works through that.

The Card

World Heavyweight Championship: Triple Threat Steel Cage
Daniel Bryan© vs. Big Show vs. Mark Henry

Story: Henry and Show had feuded over the title in 2011. After Show finally won it at TLC 11, Bryan cashed in for the belt. This made Bryan a heel. Bryan hasn’t established “YES!” yet and was a legit heel here.

Note: Mark Henry was reportedly injured here. Apparently he was getting pissed a Vince for making him wrestle. I call bs on that. I mean he was injured. But I’m sure the Rumble and Mania payoffs were just fine for him.

Big Show was an energetic face here, and it actually worked for him for a while.

Daniel Bryan chants. I guess he was getting cheered afterall.

Smart booking early on with Bryan trying to be sneaky and escape whenever possible.

Henry yelling at a ref to close that door was epic.

Tornado DDT on Show from Bryan!

Daniel Bryan wins in 9:08. Weird finish. Show Kos Henry, but Bryan breaks up the pin. Bryan runs up the cage but Big Show is on his tail. This ends up with Bryan hanging from Big Show’s arm…then finally dropping to the floor. I guess they were going with the Bryan is a fluke champion angle…which is ridiculously lame. Right guy went over, but the match and finish sucked. A lot of people thought the finish was a botch.

We get some career review of Cena. How can anyone care? I mean we know he’s John Cena, WWE legend/icon already. Whatever.

Eight Diva Tag Team Match
Natayla, The Bellas, Beth Phoenix vs. Eve, Tamina, Alicia Fox, Kelly Kelly

Matching attires for the heels!

Eve was actually a pretty good wrestler.

Hey Kelly, how about when you do a flying headscissors you don’t let go of the scissors before the bump?

Kelly with the standard fly into everyone else on the floor spot.

Team Phoenix wins when Beth pins Kelly. Actually a good finish where Beth hard tags one of the Bellas, tells her to get out of the ring and Glam Slams Kelly. Anyway, nothing special here, I guess it wasn’t horrible or anything. Certainly not good though.

Big Johnny wheels Zack Ryder into his office or something, and Ryder’s back isn’t broken anymore. Kane had chokeslammed him through the stage on RAW. This whole feud was awful…but could have worked had Ryder actually pinned Kane at the end. Big Johnny was being nice just because his job was in jeopardy and HHH was gonna fire him the next night…which didn’t happen cause of Undertaker.

Kane vs. John Cena

Huge boos for Cena. Good thing that video earlier worked.

Five minutes and a chinlock. Woo.

Totally forgot about the Claw! Awful idea for a finisher.

Double Countout in 10:56. Do I even need to explain why this finish is horrible? Kane beats the hell out of Cena in the back, then finds Ryder. Tombstone to Ryder. Eve cries. Cena’s back. Chokeslam to Cena. Kane standing tall at the end was actually nice, but otherwise, horrible all around.

Really bad start to this PPV. Thank goodness it is the Rumble, so the Rumble can save it.

Now a Rock video. Yay?

Brodus Clay vs. Drew McIntyre

Clay had just debuted as the Funkasauras. I liked it at first, but this got old by Mania.

Clay pins McIntyre in 1:05. What the Funk for the win. Nice waste of PPV time.

WWE Championship
CM Punk© vs. Dolph Ziggler

Story: Really Punk vs. Big Johnny. Laurinaitis was intending to screw Punk at the Rumble until he was informed he might be fired as GM of Raw. He was the ref for this, but decided to become a side ref instead.

Ziggler had been a hot heel as it was though.

Laurinaitis forces Vickie Guerrero to the back.

Damn Cole saying Johnny was a better worker than Booker T. Using the word worker was what was surprising there.

Punk with some great mockery of Ziggler.

Ziggler actually trips Punk on the top rope and Punk takes a back bump. That was a little nuts to be honest.

Fameasser countered into a spinning powerbomb! Nice by Punk! Hell nice by both.

Punk beats Ziggler three different ways, but Laurinaitis misses it for legit ways (well the 3rd one was questionable). Punk calls Johnny “clownshoes”, which is awesome.

GTS into a Fameasser! Crazy false finish that the fans bought hook, line, sinker.

CM Punk retains by pin in 14:33. GTS for the win. Ref and Big Johnny make the count. Great match, absolutely saved this show so far. Furthered the storytelling. For anyone who thought it buried Ziggler…look at the rest of Ziggler’s 2012. He looked great.

Royal Rumble

Most people’s favorite match of the year. Money favorite this year is on Chris Jericho, who just returned all cryptically with the end of the world stuff.

There was a gimmick for this Rumble…ANYONE can enter. Remember that.

#1 is The Miz. I think he lost a match to end up here.

Miz promo. Gonna prove everyone wrong tonight. I would have marked. We are literally at the Miz’s last great days here.

#2 is Alex Riley. Hard to believe this was a main event duo at this point last year. Sorry, but Alex Riley sucks.

Riley is gone. Whatever.

#3 is R-Truth! Just getting the Miz’s rivals out of the way I see.

#4 is Cody Rhodes!

#5 is Justin Gabriel.

#6 is Primo!

R-Truth is gone!

#7 is Mick Foley! Finally time for some fun.

Foley’s knee is shot, that run wasn’t pretty. Huge Foley chant!

Foley gets rid of Primo.

#8 is Alberto Del Rio. Wait…a broken down car comes. It’s Ricardo! Amazing!

Ricardo goes after Cody!

Foley and Ricardo send Gabriel out.

Ricardo does all the ADR mannerisms. Good stuff.

#9 is Santino! Even more nuttyness.

Some weird rolling from Ricardo and Santino. What? Santino sends Ricardo out.

Cobra vs. Socko!

#10 is Epico. Yay?

Foley with his 3rd elimination! Bye Epico.

Miz and Cody break up the Cobra vs. Socko war.

Santino and Foley are out thanks to Rhodes.

#11 is Kofi Kingston. Got a Riddler theme going here.

#12 is Jerry Lawler! Really fun so far.

Cody quickly dumps Lawler out. Gotta like Rhodes getting rid of all the fun entrants.

#13 is Ezekiel Jackson.

#14 is Jinder Mahal. Must mean Khali is soon.

#15 is The Great Khali. There goes Mahal. Jackson is gone too from Khali.

#16 is Hunico.

#17 is Booker T! Cole is upset!

Kofi with an awesome spot of handstanding on the floor and avoiding elimination. This started a trend.

#18 is Ziggler.

#19 is Hacksaw Jim Duggan! Crowd is HOT for Hacksaw!

Duggan, Khali and Booker are all gone.

#20 is Michael Cole!

#21 is Kharama! Huge surprise!

Lawler and Booker pull Cole out.

Muscle Buster to Ziggler!

Kharama gets rid of Hunico…but Ziggler takes her out.

#22 is Sheamus. Time for the serious portion of the Rumble.

Good bye Kofi.

#23 is Road Dogg! Hard to believe he’d have a tag title run in his future still.

#24 is Jey Uso. Did not care about the Usos at this point.

#25 is Jack Swagger.

#26 is Wade Barrett.

#27 is David Otunga.

#28 is the hometown Randy Orton. Huge pop.

There goes an Uso and Barrett. Poor Barrett.

#29 is Chris Jericho! No one knows who #30 is.

Otunga is gone.

#30 is Big Show. Huge groans from the crowd. Very disappointing #30.

Swagger is gone.

Show just dumps Rhodes and Miz. Horrible.

Show, Sheamus, Orton and Jericho.

Orton gets rid of Show, Jericho gets rid of Orton. Best possible scenario there.

Sheamus wins the Rumble in 54:55. They have a great match for five minutes before Sheamus Brogue Kicks Jericho off the apron for the win. Fans were 70-30 for Jericho here…but Sheamus got a good pop for the win, probably because it was pretty damn surprising he’d win when Jericho was the smart money. There are two trains of thought for this Rumble: Not good because of the thin roster and amount of silliness, or really fun with a good finish. And I am with the latter. I’ll take fun and a good finish as long as there was no ridiculous stupidity involved. I do think what holds it back from being a top tier Rumble is the first argument, but this is very good, no doubt about it.

So….

First half of the show blew. Absolutely blew. It was D quality. But then Punk and Ziggler had what had to be an A world title match, and the Rumble was a solid B+.

Historically Sheamus would win the title…but how he did it killed him. It also made Bryan. And Punk-Johnny continues. We also say Ziggler shine again in a PPV title match. So some historical significance, even if not a lot.

Tough to call. Can’t be in the As obviously, too much crap. B+ is even pushing it due to the lack of history and again, the first half was crap. So…

Final Grade: B