Rumble's Of the Past

As usual the last few weeks I have been re-watching past Rumble events starting with 2000 a few weeks back and I just finished the 2018 edition of the event. A few takeaways from the event which was four years ago at this point. First off is that the 2018 Royal Rumble was the last official match to my knowledge for Jason Jordan in WWE before retiring from the ring. The crowd was extremely hot on the night like the WWE normally has in Philly. The crowd popped for Slater actually entering the ring after being kept on the floor for a few entries and the amount of heat Corbin had at the time was insane. Also this was a rare occasion where the company didn't fill up the ring for someone to enter and eliminate a few people in short order. 

A shortcoming of the match was the company not capitalizing on some of the talent's momentum coming out of the show. Finn Balor was the workhorse for the match and ended up losing to Seth Rollins at Wrestlemania in a triple threat including The Miz. The amount of popularity that Rusev had at this time was clearly lost on the company as well not having much for him to do or being too afraid to pull the trigger on something organically getting over. One last note is Matt Hardy and Dolph Ziggler as wastes of entries in the match in my opinion. 

The biggest moment from the match was the six person face including Nakamura, Reigns, Balor, Mysterio, Cena, and Orton. That moment should've given a glimpse into the company's future by also spotlighting the past. Making the moment all the more special based on a little research that was the last Rumble to date featuring John Cena. I do believe that Shinsuke Nakamura was the right choice to win the Royal Rumble as behind Rusev he was clearly the most popular person in the match. In my opinion, though, the right choice on that night was wrong ending at Wrestlemania against AJ Styles. That was four years ago and a lot has changed since then the next installment of the event will take place on Saturday, January 29 so stay tuned to find who will go to Wrestlemania this year.

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