WWE: Royal Rumble 2009

No posts for a long time, as I've spent most of the last month writing and putting on a show here in Oxford, and the rest of the time promoting that fact on supposedly wrestling-related blogs. I have been watching some wrestling in that time, mainly lucha, as I catch up with everything 2008 before firstly the DVDVR end of year puro ballot, and the WKO 100 ballot. However, I've been watching odd things here and there, and its not been coherent enough to document.

Couple of nights ago, however, I sat and watched this year's Royal Rumble event. I came out of the show feeling reasonably positive, which on reflection is interesting because breaking the show down match-by-match made me realise there is very little great wrestling on this show.

The ECW title opener was pretty good - maybe just a shade below the title change. Matt Hardy is great in the babyface taking a beating role, as he sells great and knows exactly when to time comebacks. His punches here were really great too, especially the few at the beginning that sounded brutal. The arm work is maintained throughout (because Matt Hardy sells great, as mentioned a number of minutes ago) and Swagger took a pretty clean win. That's another thing about Hardy - he doesn't need to be booked to look strong every match to remain over with the crowd, because his in-ring work is so strong and he connects with the fans. Thus, he can elevate other guys over and over again, but remain credible. Probably the best match on the show, though the least significant.

The Women's title match has some cool stuff in it, but Melina was pretty sloppy here. The spot where Beth made Melina kick herself in the back of the head is a new one to me (though I assume it's been stolen from somewhere else) and was impressive. Points for effort, definitely, but they have a better match in there that isn't as rough around the edges.

The two title matches were not good. Cena and JBL were going along fine, without being astounding, but the whole thing was booked around the Michaels angle. The World title match did little for me - I don't really care for anything that either Edge or Jeff do in the ring. Edge is a great character, but that doesn't translate into great matches. I've never bought into Jeff as anything other than an indy spot guy, and a fairly inelegant one at that. I don't see that he's developed much since 2000. On the plus side, he did rock up with something close to Abbath-from-Immortal corpsepaint. (Pedantic point number 1: after they did the announce table spot, JR said "Jeff has literally levelled the playing field". Jeff had literally levelled the announce desk. He had metaphorically levelled the playing field.)

Also, that spot was scary, as the ladder slipped away from Jeff as he jumped. Maybe it was planned, because he didn't undershoot the dive or anything, but why doesn't someone just grab the ladder, even if it's just the referee doing it? The Matt Hardy turn was obvious once he came out, but I'm glad they did it. I'm more interested in seeing Jeff work an upper midcard blood feud with his brother for the rest of the year than having dull matches with HHH and Edge over the belt, and Matt would have been in limbo now he's finished with the ECW belt.

Finally, the Rumble. (Pedantic point number 2: This year's Wrestlemania is not the 25th anniversary of Wrestlemania. It is the 25th Wrestlemania, and its 24th anniversary. Unless there was a Wrestlemania Zero?) In recent years, it has been noticeable that the amount of upper card talent in this event has been greater. In years gone by, there would be a couple of top guys, and lots of enhancement talent. Now, almost everyone coming in bar just a couple are title contender guys, or secondary belt holders. In the last couple of years, the match has been booked well, so that not all of these guys needed to stay for long, using eliminations to further other angles and allowing the ring to not appear cluttered. In this years event, neither of these things happened. There was little in the way of meaningful eliminations, and the ring was full of people, leading to a long periods of dull brawling.

It opened well, with lots of workrate guys getting everything off to a fast energetic start. Carlito even bust out a double jump quebrada. However, around entry seven, it all slowed down. I just had a look at the list of eliminations, and even that was tedious - it seems almost everyone was eliminated by either Triple H, Big Show, Undertaker or Kane. They could have used it to put Kozlov over, or Punk, or Morrison. They seem to think that allowing someone to remain in the match for a long time will increase a performers standing. I think that is incorrect.

Even eventual winner Orton eliminated few, and the three members of Legacy, working for nearly forty minutes, eliminated just Kane together. It strikes me that three guys working together could have dominated this event, give the whole thing more structure and actually elevated a couple of guys like Dibiase and Orton (like Diesel in 1994 or Rikishi in 2000 or, to a lesser extent, Michaels-Taker in 2008).

On the plus side, Orton was completely the right guy to win this, and his victory was probably obvious, given the current storylines. (Incredibly, he is the first heel to win the match since 1999.) However, he is the WWE's most bankable asset at the moment, has developed into the complete all-round performer since around 2007, and needs to be pushed into orbit. He also needs to remain heel, at least nominally, regardless of how many cheers he is capable of attracting. For example, the involuntary cheer I let out when he won. It turns out that no matter how badly thought out, the Rumble in itself is dramatic enough to get me involved in it. Well played, original creators of the Rumble concept. Well played.