– stock.adobe.com)
I haven’t watched WWE in forever, but I was persuaded to tune in the Royal Rumble on Saturday night, apparently to remind me why I’m a long-lapsed WWE fan.
The guy who won the Rumble’s coveted main-event spot in Wrestlemania is a guy who, for some reason, says “yeet,” which is apparently a word signifying something, though I’m not sure what.
He beat, for the main-event spot, a 47-year-old C-list actor who used to be a WWE performer, and a guy who is YouTube famous.
This, after a ladder match between the WWE champ, Cody Rhodes, who somehow wasn’t good enough to even compete for the world title in the supposed second big company, AEW, and a guy so out of shape that he wears a shirt to cover his unflattering misshapenness.
Concession: I’m pretending that I don’t know who Kevin Owens is, who Logan Paul is, who John Cena is, who Jimmy Uso (or Jey Uso, whichever one of The Usos it was who won the Rumble) is.
I wish I could pretend I didn’t know who the lead color commentator, Pat McAfee, is.
Not a fan, and I’m at a loss for the 10-minute package of highlights of his exploits as a (checks notes) former NFL punter.
Michael Cole, the lead commentator guy on WWE broadcasts, kept trying to sell McAfee as a future “Hall of Famer.”
Um, no.
This Royal Rumble had four matches, two of which were in the Royal Rumble style – entrants entering one-by-one every two minutes, stretching out past an hour, one for the women, one for the men.
Pro tip: you don’t really need to watch until the end, because nobody can win a Royal Rumble match until each of the 30 entrants has been introduced.
The fun part, years ago, used to be tuning in during the one-by-one to see if there were any surprise appearances of guys or gals from other companies.
With everybody with any value in either of the big companies tethered to long-term contracts, you’re reduced to waiting to see which stars you didn’t care about 20 years ago they paid $5,000 plus trans to for a quick cameo.
I had Duke-UNC and then AEW Collision on the big TV as the 30 made their way to the ring.
The only match on the card that I had any interest in was the one for the tag-team titles between The Motor City Machine Guns and DIY.
I love both teams, all four guys on the teams – Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin on the Guns, Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano on DIY.
WWE, being WWE, couldn’t even get this one to work – they had another tag team interfere on behalf of the heel team, DIY.
All of this on top of the news from earlier in the week in the Vince McMahon sex-trafficking civil suit, which makes it even more clear that everybody in the upper rungs of WWE was in on that “secret.”
Big surprise there – the company is owned by a conglomerate with the Trump-slurping Dana White among its top corporate guys.
This, on top of, the blood money from Saudi Arabia.
Seriously, I’m ashamed I let myself be talked into watching this sh-t.
This show was held to get us excited about having whichever one of The Usos won the Rumble face off against the former TNT champ in the main event at Wrestlemania.
I’ve had enough, thanks.
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Chris Graham
