A new year of Pay-Per-View means a new year of Pay-Per-View recaps. The positive is we’re starting off with a big one as it’s time for the second biggest show of the year, the Royal Rumble. Without jacking up the word count any more, let’s go to the show.

-Taped from Dubya See Dubya country

-Your hosts are those announcer guys no one cares about

-ECW Championship: Christian(champion) vs. Ezekiel Jackson (w/William Regal)

Nothing says opening match  like Ezekiel Jackson. I guess the nicest thing I can say about this match is that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I give Christian all the credit for this match not completely sucking it up. Jackson uses power moves to control, while Christian uses speed. It’s all very basic, and thank God for that. Matt Stryker says it’s almost disturbing when Jackson is on offense. I love shoot comments that aren’t meant to be shoot comments. Regal interferes at one point and gets tossed from ringside. One thing that I’ll say about WWE these days is the interference and run-ins have been minimized the last year or so and the referees actually have a reasonable amount of authority. Back inside and Jackson uses more deliberate offense. Some stiff shots make me glad I will never have to wrestle Jackson. Christian deserves a medal of honor and move to Smackdown for making this stiff look passable. Christian finally hits The Kill Switch for the victory.

-Winner (s)/Time/Rating: STILL ECW champion-Christian/12:00/*1/2

-Cryme Tyme isn’t happy only one of them is in the Rumble so they talk with Teddy Long. Tiffany is also there being dumb and blonde. Khali walks in and they sing “Pants on the Ground.” The Miz walks in to make the segment even more wacky. Long makes a match with Miz and MVP for the United States title… next. I love how these two have had a pretty good feud going on RAW, but they make the match announcement two minutes beforehand with no build.

-Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton have a moment.

-United States Championship: The Miz (champion) vs. MVP

These two had an angle on RAW a couple weeks ago that was really good. Then they got jobbed out this past Monday and I stopped caring. This is a solid if forgettable one-on-one match. I literally forgot everything that happened immediately after watching the match. There’s a lot of squabbling with the announcers, particularly Lawler and Stryker. I don’t think those two like each for reals. After a few minutes, Miz rolls MVP for the win. Very poor roll-up too.

-Winner (s)/Time/Rating: STILL United States Champion-The Miz/7:22/*1/4

-After the match, Miz taunts MVP before eating a playmaker. I don’t care what anyone says. That is very poor sportsnmanship on MVP’s part. Very heelish move and unless they’re turning him back, I question what the point was other than to get heat back. I wish WWE could just push guys and stop worrying about keeping everyone at the same level.

-Big Show and Chris Jericho have a moment. R-Truth talks trash. Randy Orton and Ted Dibiase have a moment too. This is the gayest Royal Rumble ever… literally.

-WWE Heavyweight Championship: Sheamus (champion) vs. Randy Orton

I didn’t have a chance to review the TLC Pay-Per-View, but I thought Sheamus getting the WWE title was one of the dumbest decisions they’ve ever made. I still think it, but while he is the champion, I’d like to at least see him hold the belt until Wrestlemania and get put over as many people as possible. I was hoping this could be a good heel vs. heel match. I could not have been more wrong. First off, Orton’s entrance went something like two minutes. So slow. Then the bell rang, and these proceeded to have a boring boring match. Limbs were worked over and quickly forgotton. The match moved in slow motion at certain points. The positive is the Atlanta crowd cheered for Orton passionately. Instead of writing this off as a fluke, I’ve become a believe in the idea that the “WWE Universe” wants to cheer for Orton because he wins most of his matches and he has a fully developed character that is at least somewhat realistic. Then to compound my boredom, Cody Rhodes hits Sheamus and this leads to Orton being disqualified. Orton had the RKO and appeared set to win the world title too. Bad match and I’m almost dreading a rematch between these two.

-Winner (s)/Time/Rating: STILL WWE Heavyweight Champion- Sheamus/12:24/*1/2

-Ted Dibiase comes out, and Randy Orton fires both members of the Legacy after weeks of tension among the three men. Not exactly a stirring beginning to this feud. I’m at least curious to see how this is followed up on RAW. BUT I still think Dibiase and Rhodes will get booed out of the building unless something significant happens.  The other positive is Sheamus kicks Orton in the head with a boot and leaves him laying. Least the champ got to look strong in the end.

-WWE Women’s Championship: Michelle McCool vs. Mickie James

Quite frankly, this doesn’t deserve a recap. This is one of the lamest dumbest feuds I’ve seen in 15 years of watching professional wrestling. McCool is a terrible wrestler, a terrible talker, and if it wasn’t for her porking (pun very much intended)one of the main eventers, she’d still be teaching kids in Orlando. Mickie James puts this feud (God, I hope so) to bed by quickly hitting a DDT and pinning McCool and winning the women’s title.

-Winner (s)/Time/Rating: Mickie James/:22/FAIL

The other Divas come out and throw cake in the faces of McCool and Layla.

-World Heavyweight Championship: The Undertaker (champion) vs. Rey Mysterio

These two had a decent little match on Smackdown a few weeks ago that was fun. I liked this match a great deal as well because Mysterio bumped around like a lawn dart, and Taker could just punch and kick to his heart’s content. Best match on the show up to this point although that doesn’t say a whole lot given the rest of the show. My main issue I didn’t feel for one second like Mysterio had a snowball’s chance in hell of winning this match. There were a couple of cool counters such as when ‘Taker countered the 619 into a near tombstone and the boot right into Mysterio who was trying to hit a crossbody.  ‘Taker catches Mysterio in the middle of the West Coast pop and hits his Last Ride powerbomb for the win.

-Winner (s)/Time/Rating: STILL World Heavyweight Champion-The Undertaker/9:41/***

-Royal Rumble

I’m not providing play-by-play of the Royal Rumble, but here are list of entrants in the order they came out  and who eliminated them. I’ll give some overall impressions after the the list.

  1. Dolph Ziggler (eliminated by CM Punk)
  2. Evan Bourne (eliminated by CM Punk)
  3. CM Punk (eliminated by Triple H)
  4. JTG (eliminated by CM Punk
  5. The Great Khali (eliminated by Beth Phoenix
  6. Beth Phoenix (eliminated by CM Punk)
  7. Zack Ryder (eliminated by CM Punk)
  8. Triple H (eliminated by Shawn Michaels)
  9. Drew McEntyre (eliminated by Triple H and Shawn Michaels)
  10. Ted Dibiase (eliminated by Shawn Michaels)
  11. John Morrison (eliminated by Shawn Michaels)
  12. Kane (eliminated by Triple H)
  13. Cody Rhodes (eliminated by Shawn Michaels)
  14. MVP (elimninated himself)
  15. Carlito (eliminated by Shawn Michaels)
  16. The Miz (eliminated by MVP)
  17. Matt Hardy (eliminated by Kane)
  18. Shawn Michaels (eliminated by Batista)
  19. John Cena (eliminated by Edge)
  20. Sheldon Benjamin (eliminated by John Cena)
  21. Yoshi Tatsu (eliminated by John Cena)
  22. The Big Show (eliminated by R-Truth)
  23. Mark Henry (eliminated by R-Truth)
  24. Chris Masters (eliminated by Big Show)
  25. R-Truth (eliminated by Kofi Kingston)
  26. Jack Swagger (eliminated by Kofi Kingston)
  27. Kofi Kingston (eliminated by John Cena)
  28. Chris Jericho (eliminated by Edge)
  29. Edge
  30. Batista (eliminated by John Cena)

I thought there were a lot of positives and negatives to this Rumble. Positives included the inclusion of Edge. Having him come out as a surprise made the show memorable and gave the show an air of unpredictability. C.M. Punk eliminating people and cutting promos was highly creative, and my favorite elimination ever came when Punk threw Zack Ryder out after hitting him in the head with the microphone. I also liked Shawn Michaels eliminating Triple H in the middle out of nowhere, and the emotion he himself shows after being eliminated by Batista.

Negatives included the damn thing moving too fast. If these were 90 second intervals, then I’d be stunned. It didn’t help that guys were taking an hour and a half to get to the ring and being eliminated. I never got the sense that these guys were battling for an opportunity to main event Wrestlemania. This was particularly true of the mid-carders, most of whom were tossed out in short order. Dibiase or Rhodes in particular should have at least gotten a couple quality eliminations or lasted for 30 minutes to showcase themselves for a future push. Everyone except the main eventers basically looked like Santino did last year.

Overall, this was a Rumble with some awesome moments, but very little excitement except for Edge coming out and winning.

-Winner (s)/Time/Rating: Edge/49:20/***

Overall Thoughts: Two three star matches does not a thumbs up show make. There were certainly some enjoyable moments in the Rumble, but everything in the undercard felt superfluous and rushed something awful. I’ll give it a thumbs down, but not so far down that I felt like my intelligence was insulted.