WWE Royal Rumble 2018: Reactions & Review

The Usos (Jey and Jimmy Uso) (c) vs. Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin (2-out-of-3-Falls Match for the WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championship)

Reactions: While this bout didn’t have a lot of life to it at first, it soon turned into a worthwhile contest between two great teams. Gable and Benjamin focused most of their work on Jimmy’s leg. This portion of the match wasn’t all that exciting, but it led up to that familiar hot Usos tag routine. That’s when the match got way more livelier. This match saw Gable hand out a rare Tiger Suplex, both Usos tear up Gable with Double Superkicks and Benjamin Powerbombing one of the Usos right onto his fresh partner. After the first fall took place, Shelton and Gable turned up their savagery levels a bit to punish The Usos. But then the match ended quickly after one of the Usos surprised Benjamin with a quick roll-up pin. This match is another case of “wait…that’t it?” from this PPV. I still enjoyed everything up until that moment, though.

Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

Seth Rollins and Jason Jordan (c) vs. Cesaro and Sheamus (WWE Raw Tag Team Championship)

Reactions: Placing this match on the card after an exciting Royal Rumble match wasn’t the wisest decision. That became evident as both teams fought while a completely drained and apathetic crowd sat on their hands. The match itself wasn’t all that bad, but the dead crowd did it no favors. Then there was Jason Jordan’s lack of involvement during the majority of this bout, which expectedly signaled an upcoming heel turn for Kurt Angle’s “son.” Rollins was forced to compete in a Handicap Match of sorts while Jordan slowly got back to his feet. When Jordan finally got tagged in, he chose to instead tag Rollins back in and tend to his injury. That led right into the flat ending that saw Cesaro and Sheamus pinning Rollins to reclaim their titles. A bad match placement, dead crowd, and lame performance from Jordan kept this match from being anything more than okay.

Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

AJ Styles (c) vs. Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn (Handicap Match for the WWE Championship)

Reactions: The crowd loved all three guys here. We’re in Philly after all, so that type of crowd reaction shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. The opening shenanigans from Team Yep was pretty humorous and it led to some fun exchanges between them and AJ. AJ played his role as the underdog here greatly and Owens/Sami made for the perfect jerks who had the unfair advantage. This match started out pretty slow and gradually got better as it wore on. It was pretty cool to see AJ break out that Backflip Reverse DDT for once. But just as it seemed to be entering into an even higher gear, the match came to an abrupt end. The controversial ending seems to be pointing to a continuation of the whole storyline between Owens/Sami and Shane McMahon. This one was kind of a letdown, but at least the action was decent up until its out of nowhere finish.

Rating: 2 & a Half out of 5 Stars