By Anthony Mango
syndicated from bleacherreport,
January 30, 2017
Original image: WWE.com
The Royal Rumble is always one of the most important pay-per-views of the year as it sets the pace for the Road to WrestleMania going forward.
When things go well, fans eagerly strap themselves in for the ride and look forward to the next few months being quality entertainment.
On the other hand, when things go awry, the fever pitch for this section of the calendar year becomes less about hopeful excitement and more about utter disdain and badmouthing the impending doom of WrestleMania.
This year's event had near limitless potential with a variety of big matches scheduled to change the face of WWE in major ways.
Everyone's favorite babyface to boo, Roman Reigns, had a chance to usurp the Universal Championship from Kevin Owens which would assuredly upset a massive portion of the audience.
John Cena's supporters have waited for a long time to see him win his sixteenth world title and this event appeared to be the time to pull the trigger on that more so than probably ever.
Charlotte Flair's pay-per-view winning streak was on the line against the ever-popular Bayley while the less beloved Neville tried to silence his doubters by taking the Cruiserweight Championship away from Rich Swann.
With all that in mind and now that the results are in, what was the balance between the positives and negatives at this event? Which segments fell under the pros and the cons?
Highlight: Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows Win Raw Tag Team Championship
Credit: WWE.com
If you're going to have a two-hour kickoff, you need to make sure something actually happens to justify watching it.
The six-women tag team match was fine, but nothing that couldn't be skipped. The same thing applies to the match between Sasha Banks and Nia Jax.
When it comes to the Raw Tag Team Championship title change, though, that was important enough to make up for the other two.
Very rarely do pre-show matches ever actually matter and when new champions are crowned, it convinces the audience that they shouldn't skip out on watching it for future events.
On top of that, the match itself was good enough that if it had even been on the main card, it's doubtful anybody would have complained.
As far as Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson winning the belts goes, it's about time. They have lost so much momentum since The Club disbanded and this will start to set them on the right track.
Cesaro and Sheamus as a team was a concept that existed only to take the storyline of their feud to a different level and now that they've had a title reign, it's time for them to split up again.
This will hopefully act as the catalyst to lead to that and a potential match at WrestleMania while Anderson and Gallows can start looking like the bullies and the credible tag team they used to be.
Low Point: Charlotte Flair Wins Yet Again
Credit: WWE.com
Before complaints are made, the match itself isn't a low point, as that was quite good and definitely the best of the three women's matches this evening.
The downside, though, is that this is just the same thing we've seen for months.
Whether it was planned from the start or it is something WWE just randomly became aware of and decided to keep going, the pay-per-view win streak Charlotte Flair is on has been problematic as it makes everything predictable.
For the past few months, Sasha Banks was booked on three occasions to win the title on Raw just to drop it to Charlotte at the next event due to WWE wanting to keep her streak in tact.
Now, the same concept seems to be applied to Bayley—outside of her becoming champion on Raw.
There is only one more Raw-branded event before WrestleMania, so WWE will obviously have Charlotte retain no matter who she's facing as it would mean more to finally lose at the bigger show.
This effectively makes it pointless to get invested into anything until that point unless a new element is brought in to keep it interesting, but that didn't happen here.
Why not use this opportunity to have Emmalina interfere if Charlotte needed to win? That's another thing WWE has dragged out to a point where a lack of interest is understood.
Bayley will win the championship eventually down the line, but in the meantime, Charlotte will continue to cut the exact same promos she's done for months.
When you rinse and repeat the same thing, why bother caring?
Highlight: Universal Championship Match
Credit: WWE.com
The decision to give the Universal Championship match a No Disqualification stipulation immensely helped the quality of the match as it allowed Kevin Owens and Roman Reigns to do a handful of great spots.
Without those sections of the match, it might have fallen flat, but allowing them to battle on the outside and bring chairs and tables into the mix really spiced things up.
Admittedly, even apologists for Reigns could find it ridiculous he kicked out of a Superman Punch with brass knuckles, but Owens had his fair share of destruction to survive as well.
This match had a splash through the table, Owens falling off the turnbuckle to crash into some chairs, a powerbomb through the commentary table and of course the interference from Braun Strowman.
It seemed like a given that Reigns would win the Universal Championship, so switching things up and going with a surprise adds another interesting factor to keep the Road to WrestleMania intriguing going forward.
Where this leads in the future could retroactively change this to a low point if the plans become muddled, but right now, seeing Owens retain is a positive.
Highlight: Cruiserweight Championship Match
Credit: WWE.com
A standard rule of thumb is if a match is good and it ends with a transition to a new and better champion, it's hard to argue against it being a highlight.
While these opinions are always subjective and people can agree or disagree on each segment, an argument can be made that Neville is the best thing to happen to the cruiserweight division since the Cruiserweight Classic.
If that is your train of thought, you undoubtedly were happy with the outcome here as Neville will bring more notoriety to the championship than a less-established star like Rich Swann could.
Despite losing, Swann wasn't made to look like a chump, either. He and Neville had a nice back and forth contest where Neville's experience made all the difference.
To further drive home the point that Neville is a major threat to the division, he appears to have adopted a new submission maneuver into his repertoire which will help him win many matches in the coming future.
We've had two babyface champions and a short run with Brian Kendrick, but Neville will bring a new level of intensity to the title and this is just the beginning.
Highlight: WWE Championship Match
Credit: WWE.com
This match's outcome will no doubt come with a lot of angry fans disappointed to see AJ Styles lose the championship to John Cena of all people, but if you separate yourself from that opinion, it was a fantastic fight.
Not only was it intense from start to finish with a number of false-finishes to keep the audience on their toes, it ended in a way that assured Styles wouldn't be viewed as jobbing out. He kicked out of more Attitude Adjustments than virtually anybody ever has!
With his sixteenth world title win, this will go down in history as one of the most important match outcomes to ever happen in WWE, which is always interesting to watch happen live.
This could also be a great thing for WrestleMania, depending on which matches WWE has planned.
It's hard to argue Cena doesn't deserve this accolade and for him to win it after such a struggle made it seem sweeter than if he had beaten someone else who couldn't match up to him.
2017 Royal Rumble Match Breakdown
- Jerry Lawler on commentary was a refreshing change of pace after not hearing him call a match in quite some time.
- Big Cass as one of the first entrants so he and Enzo Amore could go through their promo shtick.
- Jack Gallagher uses William III against Chris Jericho.
- Braun Strowman clears the ring, including eliminating Big Cass, Mark Henry and Big Show as three of his six eliminations.
- Tye Dillinger comes out as entrant No. 10 to coincide with his gimmick.
- Dean Ambrose pumps up James Ellsworth to go into the ring, just to goad him into being a sacrificial lamb for Strowman.
- Baron Corbin eliminates Braun Strowman to give him something important to do.
- Kofi Kingston holds onto the ring post to save himself from an elimination isn't the best of his Royal Rumble spots, but it was still interesting.
- Cesaro and Sheamus fighting with each other causes their elimination.
- Luke Harper turns on Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton.
- It was a shame to see Braun Strowman get eliminated at a relatively early number since he had great potential to win the entire match.
- It would have been fun to see a few more legends or surprise entrants like Samoa Joe, Finn Balor, Kurt Angle, or Shinsuke Nakamura.
- Not having Kane in this match just seems weird as he's been a staple of it since 1995 when he first entered as Isaac Yankem.
- Roman Reigns being the final entrant left a sour taste in so many mouths as it meant no more surprises would come out and he could win.
Credit: WWE.com
This match is typically one of the most divisive booking decisions of the year that can either be embraced with immense adoration or met with biting criticism depending on who is victorious.
Even throughout the match, there are many ups and downs, which makes it hard to pinpoint everything that was good and bad, but this section is going to group all of those highlights and low points together.
Highlights
Low Points
The majority of this match was highly entertaining, but it seems as though WWE once more has gone with a controversial ending that won't please a good portion of the fans.
Why they've continued to do this the past seven years or so is incredibly frustrating and confusing.
Is a match between Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton truly good enough to justify making it for the WWE Championship instead of any of the other potential options?
How is this going to play out over the next few months with Elimination Chamber and Fastlane?
All these questions might lead to great answers or this could be a bad omen for a frustrating Road to WrestleMania, but for now, the match itself had some great moments and we should take the good with the bad.
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