It seems that with all of my recent posts, I failed to write a review/rundown of this year’s WWE Royal Rumble, so this is a bit late. But given that it is my second favorite WWE pay-per-view (after Wrestlemania), I still figured I would write about it.

The Royal Rumble is always one of the best WWE pay-per-views of the year, without fail. It always sets the stage for Wrestlemania, and the rest of the WWE year in general. The outcome of the Royal Rumble sets the stage for the things to come. And the Royal Rumble match itself always gives us some of the most exciting moments on the WWE calender.

To put it simply, the Royal Rumble is awesome!

Here is my rundown/review of this year’s Rumble event, match by match.

• The first match was the ECW title match (as it always seems to be. I wonder if they’ll still have the ECW title when WWE’s new NXT program replaces ECW on Tuesdays?). The match pitted ECW champion Christian against Ezekial Jackson. The match was a lot better than I expected, though I wouldn’t say it was great. It seemed to go on for a bit too long. But it was a match with a lot of nearfalls and a variety of moves (on Christian’s part). Christian (rightfully) retained the title. A good match, but not great.

• Next was the U.S. Title match between defending champion The Miz against MVP. The match was… alright, but it seemed rushed. I think the match had a good amount of potential with MVP and The Miz involved, but I just don’t think it was given the proper treatment. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t really notable. The Miz retained.

• The third match on the card was the WWE Championship match against Sheamus (the champion) against Randy Orton (who seems to be in the world title picture with almost annoying consistency).This was another good-not-great match. It was solid for the most part, but the terrible ending really took away from it. The ending saw Cody Rhodes interfere on Randy Orton’s behalf right in front of referee (heel strategy #1: always make sure the ref’s view is obstructed) and getting Randy Orton disqualified. The problem is this all happened as Randy Orton hit Sheamus with an RKO and had the match won, which didn’t help sell Sheamus as a strong main-eventer. What would be so bad about giving the man an honest title defense? After the match Randy Orton got in a scuffle with Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase, only to have Sheamus kick him out cold.  This at least helped redeem him a little, but I would still like to see him actually defend the title. Oh well, this rivalry made very little sense anyway so I just hope it’s done with (the rivalry was essentially two heels having one stare down after another). Decent match…

• Next was the Women’s Championship match between Mickie James and the champion Michelle McCool. This lasted about ten seconds and saw Mickie James win the title with no more than two moves. Hopefully this means they’ll stop with all the “Piggy James” stuff… That was just so tacky. Not really a match.

• Next up was The Undertaker defending his World Heavyweight Title against Rey Mysterio. This was a very good match. I think The Undertaker may have legitimately broke his nose during the match, as it started bleeding profusely after a strong hit from Mysterio and it didn’t stop bleeding even after the match was done. That’s dedication. The match was a good back and forth contest that showed off Mysterio’s speed and Undertaker’s strength. The Undertaker won the match when he countered Mysterio into a Last Ride. Very good match, but it could have gone on a little longer.

• And finally we had the Royal Rumble match itself. The Rumble match is always one of my most anticipated matches of the pro-wrestling calender. The match started with Dolph Ziggler and Evan Bourne being the first two contestants (these poor guys are being mistreated even further). They fought for a good 90 seconds before CM Punk made his way to the ring. CM Punk managed to eliminate both Ziggler and Bourne, and took the time he had before the next entrant (JTG) made his way to the ring to go on one of his ever so enjoyable self-righteous rants (that just seem more and more true every time he says them). CM Punk easily eliminated JTG and ranted on some more (to my enjoyment). Next up was The Great Khali, whom I thought was unfortunately going to eliminate Punk, thankfully he didn’t. They battled until Beth Pheonix made a surprise entrance (becoming the second female wrestler to ever compete in a Royal Rumble). Much to my delight, Beth Pheonix eliminated The Great Khali! Unfortunately CM Punk eliminated her soon afterwards. Then Zack Ryder made his way down with his cheesy yet ever so delightful theme music. CM Punk easily eliminated him (again, the ECW guys are made to look like jokes to the Smackdown/RAW wrestlers, but at least it was a wrestler the caliber of CM Punk who did the eliminating).

Then Triple H came out, which unfortunately meant it was only a matter of time before CM Punk was on his way out of the match. Sometimes I hate it when I’m right. Drew McIntyre then made his way to the ring, followed by Ted DiBiase then John Morrison. After that was Kane. I like how no matter how mistreated Kane is used in storylines and matches, that whenever he steps into a Rumble match, you get that “business is about to pick up” feeling.
Though sadly, Kane wasn’t even in the match for too long and he only eliminated one guy (I guess they don’t want him to top Stone Cold’s record of most overall Rumble eliminations, though I don’t see the harm in it). And surprise, he was eliminated by Triple H!
Cody Rhodes came in next, he and Ted DiBiase were eliminated almost in unison, since the WWE continues to want us to see them as virtually the same character I guess. MVP was making his way to the ring when he was attacked by The Miz. I thought MVP was done right there, but he showed up (for about three seconds) later to eliminate The Miz and himself.
Carlito came in for a few short minutes, but managed to take some names in his brief time in the match. He didn’t eliminate anyone, but he hit basically everyone in the ring with a finisher, which was fun to see. Matt Hardy came in around this time, and was in the match for roughly twenty seconds before being eliminated (by Kane).  I always preferred Matt Hardy’s in-ring style over Jeff’s, it’s a shame WWE doesn’t do enough with him.
Shawn Michaels then made his presence felt, and cleaned house! The story was Michaels trying to win the Rumble match so he could have a rematch against Undertaker at Wrestlemania (which is proving to be a great storyline by the way). Shawn Michaels ended up with the most eliminations in the match with six (though, Triple H helped in eliminating Drew McIntyre, so one could say Shawn Michaels tied with Punk in eliminations by an individual). Shawn Michaels even eliminated his tag team partner Triple H (and for once, Triple H didn’t have to be one of the last three guys in the Rumble)!
John Cena also made his entrance around this time, followed by Shelton Benjamin and Yoshi Tatsu. Yoshi Tatsu managed to get a couple of good moves in, but both he and Benjamin were eliminated by Cena less then a minute after they entered the match (further use of the mistreatment to the ECW guys).
Big Show and Mark Henry soon emerged from the shadows and (surprisingly on Big Show’s part) didn’t do too much. Chris Masters made his way to the ring only to be eliminated by Show in under thirty seconds, but one would expect Big Show to eliminate more guys. R-Truth then entered the match and eliminated both Big Show and Mark Henry (yeah, I was shocked too).

The underused but always promising Jack Swagger came in and…well…he was kind of there for a couple of minutes. Kofi Kingston then came out and eliminated Swagger and R-Truth. Cena then dumped Kingston over the top rope. The ever-reliably great Chris Jericho entered the match at number twenty-eight, but tragically, didn’t really do anything. Missed opportunity right there.

Edge made a shocking return from a career threatening injury at number twenty-nine and almost immediately eliminated Jericho. Then Batista was revealed to be the thirtieth and final entrant in the match (anti-climactic much?). Batista surprisingly eliminated Shawn Michaels (who was probably the favorite to win, given the storyline with him and Undertaker). Shawn Michaels then went crazy and knocked out a few referees. The Undertaker/Shawn Michaels rematch is being too heavily hyped not to happen, so it will be interesting to see how all the pieces come together.

John Cena eliminated Batista (to wild cheers. That’s what happens when you potentially ruin a potential Undertaker/Shawn Michaels rematch). Soon afterwards, Edge threw John Cena over the top rope to win the 2010 Royal Rumble!

Edge making his surprise return to win the Rumble was great, and as a whole the Rumble match delivered on its trademark action and suspense. Though I have to admit, it didn’t seem to have the same kind of surprises as other Rumbles have. If there was anyone you knew wasn’t going to make a big splash in the match, they didn’t. And aside from Beth Pheonix’s participation in the match and Edge’s big return (and victory) in the match, it just didn’t seem to have the surprise factor.

Of the more recent Royal Rumbles, the 2006 Rumble still has my vote as the most suspenseful (what with Rey Mysterio being in the match for over an hour and whatnot) and the 2007 Rumble may have been of the best quality (even if just for the fact that The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels basically had another one of their classic singles matches by the end of it).

But all the same, I do think it was a very entertaining Royal Rumble match. Rumble matches don’t tend to disappoint, and this entry certainly wasn’t an exception. There was good action involved, and even something of character structure (primarily through Punk and Michaels, who stole the show).

Overall, I think the 2010 Royal Rumble was a fitting entry into one of the WWE’s greatest pay-per-views. I don’t think it was the best Rumble from the past couple of years, but it was great nonetheless.

The earlier matches could have used some work (though as I mentioned before, the Christian/Ezekial Jackson match was better than expected), but The Undertaker/Mysterio match was a good, strong title match, and the Rumble match itself was worth the money.

I give the Royal Rumble an overall thumbs up, but I just hope next year’s Rumble has stronger opening matches.