10 Thoughts on the Royal Rumble 1.26.2009

PPVs, Reviews, Shows

Greetings IP readers. Welcome to a special edition of 10 Thoughts…Royal Rumble ’09.

1. Jack Swagger is officially a made man, he and Hardy had another rock solid match in the lid lifter, and now that he showed he can bring the goods on PPV, Mr. SWAGGA (tm Matt Striker) is now a PLAYA.

2. They certainly teased a potential Taker vs HBK match-up for Mania, while it certainly may happen, it’s not a lock (I’ll explain why later).

3. Decent Women’s Title match. Did not see the clean ending coming, as the signals for Rosa-ference were clearly planted on Raw.

4. HBK is certainly playing the tweener to the tilt. He knows what he’s doing is wrong (and let JBL know it with the superkick) but he also has to do what he has to do (hence doing the same to Cena). This is why Taker-HBK is no longer a lock for Mania, because Micheaels vs Layfield needs to be settled, and they may do that at WM Silver instead.

5. Poor Chavo, now he has go through tables for Edge as well as fetch his coffee.

6. Matt vs Jeff certainly has the potential to be the modern version of Bret vs Owen, and a Mania match between the boys from North Kackalackey would be money.

7. The Rumble in and of itself was very good, but the ring did get too crowded for a bit too long.

8. A lot of the big guns (Kozlov, HHH, Orton, Jericho, Taker) came in pretty early, which I felt made the latter half of the Rumble drag a little, as there was a lot of dead weight clogging things up towards the end.

9. Gotta be honest, when RVD’s music played, I thought for a second it was Charlie Haas doing his thing (CVH)

10. Orton won and with that made it to top man status on the totem pole, but the match also did a lot for DiBiase and Rhodes. TD Jr. lasted 45 minutes, and Cody 35. Both also were able to hang in there with the big dogs till the bitter end.

I’ll be back for my regular slot on Friday.

See ya then.

VJM