WWE Royal Rumble 2016 Review

It's one versus all. Roman Reigns must defend his WWE Championship in the Royal Rumble match. If that wasn't enough for him, he must win the match by entering from the #1 spot. The road to WrestleMania starts here.

Match 1: Intercontinental Championship - Last Man Standing - Dean Ambrose (c) vs. Kevin Owens
Dean Ambrose looks to defend his gold against Kevin Owens as they add to the lineage of the Last Man Standing match at Royal Rumble. This match is the perfect pace setter for the show, lots of action that got the crowd fired up with some cool table spots. You have to respect the energy these two always bring to the fight, you know what you're getting with these two and here, they brought the goods. Awesome finish to the match when Owens climbed the top rope before Ambrose shoves him off through two tables to secure the win. A nice start to the show.
Winner: Dean Ambrose
Rating: ***1/2

Match 2: WWE Tag Team Championships - The New Day (c) vs. The Usos
If it weren't for them pouring in so much money, I would love to have The New Day back as heels. Crazy how over these guys were as heels before they finally turned. They defend their gold against The Usos in the second match of the night. Shame for The Usos as whatever they did, the crowd just could not get behind them despite giving the audience their best efforts. It was a pretty good tag match with Xavier Woods being a little too much on the sidelines. Jey Uso was about to secure the win for his team before Big E hit his Big Ending finisher for the win as The New Day leave with their belts in hand. Good match, too bad the crowd couldn't get into it.
Winners: The New Day
Rating: **3/4

Match 3: United States Championship - Alberto Del Rio (c) vs. Kalisto
Crazy how fast Alberto Del Rio's stock fell after returning and winning the United States Championship against John Cena. He looked to be in amazing shape yet the ball was just dropped on him. After regaining the title against Kalisto on an edition of SmackDown, he finds himself facing him once more here. Really good story they built throughout the match with Del Rio seemingly be too much for the smaller Kalisto. Kalisto relied on his cunning speed and counters to try and win the match. Kalisto was able to drive Del Rio into an exposed turnbuckle before hitting a Salina del Sol to capture the gold once more. Good back and forth battle here, Kalisto does a great job of embracing his size against bigger guys like Del Rio.
Winner: Kalisto
Rating: ***

Match 4: Divas Championship - Charlotte (c) vs. Becky Lynch
This was before the WWE decided to do away with the butterfly title as Charlotte defends her belt against Ireland's own in Becky Lynch. Good match here but nothing that really blew me away. They did their usual stuff and put much of the spotlight on Ric Flair. Always had a problem with having Ric accompany Charlotte, it's almost like watching a female version of Ric Flair. It's cool but the novelty runs out fast. Ric distracts Lynch to allow Charlotte to hit a Spear and retain her belt. Afterwards, Charlotte brutally attacks Lynch before Sash Banks comes out and assaults both of them to set up a big match between the three. Match was fine but the it was the angle afterwards really added some heat to the rivalry.
Winner: Charlotte
Rating: **1/2

Match 5: WWE World Heavyweight Championship - 2016 Royal Rumble
One of my biggest gripes over 2009's Royal Rumble match was the huge focus on Randy Orton. Fast forward to 2016 and that spotlight looks tiny compared to the spotlight on Roman Reigns. While it certainly bugs me, I guess it makes sense considering they want Reigns to be the ultimate face of the company and after all, this match is for his WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Reigns starts off the match as entrant #1 and the biggest surprise of the match came at #3 when AJ Styles made his heavily anticipated debut to a raucous ovation. Very cool moment and cool to see Reigns look on in disbelief. Aside from that, the match lacked any surprises until Triple H's arrival at #30. They sprinkled in some nice spots like The Wyatt Family eliminating Brock Lesnar and Vince McMahon having League of Nations slam Reigns through the announcers table. But that really made me question why they didn't just eliminate him instead as Reigns would leave the match for a good chunk before returning later on. Just made me scratch my head. The final four came down to Reigns, Sheamus, Dean Ambrose, and Triple H. Reigns eliminated Sheamus before being quickly eliminated himself by The Game. This is where the match finally went up a notch as the crowd just wasn't biting for Triple H vs. Roman Reigns. They wanted Ambrose to win and they wanted him to win badly. Ambrose put up a good fight before finally being eliminated by Triple H. What a twist and what a great ending. It obviously makes for a main event at WrestleMania between Reigns and Triple H which nobody really wanted but if anything, it was a great way to set it up.
Winner: Triple H
Rating: ***3/4

Overall Show Thoughts and Rating:
Really strong showing from the WWE here that easily puts them in position for a great WrestleMania despite so many stars being on the disabled list. Was it the best show ever? Certainly not. But there was nothing really on the card to gripe over and the story progression was great.
Rating: 7.25/10