Here’s our final thoughts on Raw and SmackDown Live’s WWE Royal Rumble 2017!
Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax
Reactions: Mind you, this looked completely easy to call on paper. But “The Boss” tends to fight harder than girls much bigger than her in stature. But in her injured state, Nia didn’t take too long to crush her. Nia won in dominating fashion and looks to be heading right for the winner of Charlotte vs. Bayley. This accomplished what it set out to do – make Nia Jax even more of a force to be reckoned with.
Rating: SQAUSH!
Cesaro and Sheamus (c) vs. Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson (WWE Raw Tag Team Championship; Two Referees are Assigned to the Match)
Reactions: This rematch was pretty similar to the action we saw from the last meeting between both these tandems. What made it just a bit more intriguing was the presence of two refs, which led to fun moments where Gallows and Anderson’s usual heel antics got stopped repeatedly. Cesaro looked amazing as always, Sheamus pulled off his usual array of powerful maneuvers and Gallows/Anderson worked like a well-oiled machine (same for their rivals). The shocking final result caught us off guard after witnessing a pretty fun rematch between Raw’s top teams.
Rating: 2 & a Half out of 5 Stars
Alexa Bliss, Mickie James and Natalya vs. Becky Lynch, Naomi and Nikki Bella
Reactions: This was exactly what you (and us) expected it to be. While it wasn’t terrible by any means, it was simply there for the sake of getting six of SD Live’s top Women’s wrestlers on the show. Naomi’s comeback sequence made the closing moments of this pre-show match the most memorable portion of it all. Everything that transpired before that was average action at best. Naomi pinned the SD Live’s Women’s Champion, so this unexpected result is certainly going to lead to (hopefully) a great title match between the two.
Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars