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This is the time of the year in the WWE labeled “The Road to Wrestlemania” and it always begins with the big January pay per view called “The Royal Rumble”.  In case your unfamiliar with this to explain it best , “Wrestlemania” is the equivelent of baseball’s world series , football’s superbowl or the world cup of soccer. The difference from a fan based standpoint is that the WWE does amazingly higher numbers in buy rates for PPVs and viewers on televised events.

They call this time “The Road to Wrestlemania” because with the weekly shows “Monday Night Raw” and “Smackdown Live” as well as other shows like “205 live” which features the cruiserweight talent and “NXT Takeover” which features the younger talent that has not yet reached the level of the stars on the main roster all have building drama and storyline fueds and rivalrys that reach their peak with the conclusions usually taking place at “Wrestlemania”.

The Royal Rumble event is the main outlet to either bring these story lines to bigger dramatic content or to start the beginning of new fueds that will spark fan interest. The royal rumble match which the event is named after is a 30 man over the top rope battle royal. It starts with 2 performers and then every 90 seconds another one enters till all 30 have and the last one standing is the winner and will get the chance to be the main event of “Wrestlemania” and face the WWE Champion for that title. Now even though wrestling is a glorified stage stunt show being the champion or having this spot carrys alot of prestiege in the wrestling world and there is alot of honor that it carrys for those in the buisness.

This past Sunday that event took place and it as always didnt fail to deliver the best possible entertainment to all wrestling fans. The backstorys on the entrants and how they are set up to enter whether it be #1 and #2 or #18 and so on can add so much to the great suprises and the new rivalrys that can form as well. Going to much more into detail about that I can give you the gist of it.

One case is Chris Jericho. A 20 year veteran and a well respected legend in the business was one of the predicted picks to win the royal rumble match by the experts in the journalistic world of wrestling. While these writers are aware of wrestling not being a real sport they write reviews of shows , talent and predict where the creative teams will go with the storylines. Jericho has done it all in wrestling as a performer but has not ever won a rumble match and thus being near the end of his career it was thought to be out of respect that he’d be given this one to add to his legacy.

Second choice amongst the dirt sheet world was The Undertaker. Nearly 30 years in wrestling and can still steal the show with his perfomances he has openly spoke of retirement and was thought to be offered one last run on top as the champ. With a royal rumble win it would make it easy to put him back in main event status to do so.

So with that in mind both these performers were in the main match and made it to the near end final five. Those who read the dirt sheets and so on as well as those who write them might have thought they predicted it well. However never one to let the fans down the storyline writers pulled another swerve and neither came out victorious. Aside from the frustration of fans of the two men listed and wanting to see them have their dues it also brought alot of fan heat to those who also preferred this direction as opposed to the one taken instead.

In the end an unexpected star who had taken second fiddle to alot of other wrestlers for sometime now Randy Orton has had his career reborn with the performance he put on and being declared the winner will now face the WWE Champion on the grand stage .

This Rumble was probably one of the better shows in its 30 year span. The battle royal match had alot of back storys get reborn and the direction with the winner was a nice twist to a deserving guy.

The 5 other matches that took place also were meant to build storys and rivalrys toward the big show. So with each one I will give a short breakdown and quick review .

Match #1 was the tag team title match with the champs Sheamus and Ceasaro who are notable for having won the belts from the longest reighning tag team champs in history  vs. Gallows and Anderson which is a team that dominated every part of the world including Japan and Mexico before coming to the WWE. Well after being held off for the longest time more or less just because it took them quite a while to get a following in the U.S. Gallows and Anderson finally won the tag team titles. Now the match itself thanks to Ceasaro mostly was very entertaining but clearly the creative team has had trouble making anyone care in a good or bad way about Gallows and Anderson and the hope is i believe that if they put the belts on them and made them unbeatable dominating champions that it might help the fans clear lack of interest in them.

Match #2 WWE Women’s Championship match featured The champ Charlotte Flair who is the daughter of legendary wrestler and at one time the only 16 time world champion Ric Flair who has cemented herself as the Queen of PPVs having never lost a match at big events like this one  versus Northern California born and raised fan favorite Bailey. Bailey and Charlotte were part of a team called “The Four Horsewomen” in NXT and have alot of history. Bailey has become the huge fan favorite due to her characters back story of being a little girl and her dad taking her to every wrestling event and it being her dream since she was little to be the WWE Womens Champion. So naturally all the fans male and female can relate to her as the everyday person who is living out a childhood fantasy . Charolette on the other hand was very privielged as you can imaging having a father who was a legend in this buisness. So her persona took on an evil win at all cost and you find yourself hating her even more as a heel character because she is as good as she thinks she is not to mention her untouched record of never suffering a loss at big events with a record of 13-0 . These women put on a match second to none on the show and in the end Charlotte maintained her undefeated streak and the hopes of all the Baileys watching shattered when she was defeated by the genetically superior queen of the WWE.

Macth #3 was the WWE Universal Title Match with Kevin Owens who is the unproven champion that seems to always have help or cheat to win versus the unliked forced fan favorite that gets hated more and more every show Roman Reighns . Reighns has been pushed as the next big superhero fan favorite but no matter how much you try to push a story in the end its the fans that decide whats what . Owens is probably one of the most talented performers in the WWE and rarely gets to showcase it . Instead he is used as a cheap heel that never stands on his own. The match itself showed Reighns in typical superhero fashion kick out of being pinned no matter what big finishing move was hit on him and yet what was overlooked was the resilliance that Owens showed doing much of the same when it seemed like the forced down our throat superhero was about to win. Yet with all the potential to be a great match the ending was its usual monotany and the champion retained the belt due to all to familiar outside help. The one thing that came good out of this is the new rivarly that could be formed between Reighns and Strouman who is the unbeaten untested monster that caused the outcome of this match. The sad part is that after months of building up Strouman to this epic beast they will ruin it all by again trying to push Reighns as the unstoppable superhero which will only make the fans hate him even more and not in a good way.

The final match was the WWE World Title match between A.J.Styles and John Cena. These are two men I actually worked with in the Indy Wrestling scene in California before they went on to stardom .  They come from from the same training school in Southern Cali and have wrestled on 2 big events prior to this one . Otherwise they took very different career paths . While John Cena went on to become the WWE Franchise and has done it all from talk shows and award shows to movies as well as being the most requested person for the “Make  A Wish Foundation” in history granting over 500 wishes in his 12 year career. AJ Styles on the other hand went on to wrestle everywhere in the world and while recognized as the greatest wrestling performer in the world by any standard having never been in the WWE he was still second place to the face that runs the place in John Cena. So when he finally made it to the WWE over a year ago it was only fitting to put a storyline with these two and make it money in the bank . They stole the show with this match and didnt fail to deliver on the hype it raised. In the end and most likely due to the fact he is also coming to the near end of his career as well John Cena won the WWE title and tied the all time record as 16 time world champ with Ric Flair. Sadly there was no Ric Flair in the after match story which i really feel wouldve been fitting and also symbolic to see Flair award Cena the belt in honorable fashion. So alot of things that could have made this match truly epic were left out and not utilized and the creative team dropped the ball on this one i feel.

Overall the entire show was a B- on a grade scale and being an aspiring storyline writer for the WWE in my future plans there are quite a few things i would have not let slide by or left out . Never the less that is just my opinion on some of the way the storylines played out and or started up. However I am an expert on the subject …...i mean i am a fan and know what i want to see and they are written storys to keep the fans wanting to watch .

Next blog entry will feature the rumble aftermath , the raw,smackdown and other shows reviews and more on the road to wrestlemania with predictions and more.