Royal Rumble Reax #1 – Strong Rumble match, but there is still a Reigns problem

Did you watch the Royal Rumble PPV? We’re looking for your Reax, 0-10 Score, and Best/Worst Match sent to pwtorch@gmail.com.

WWE Royal Rumble PPV Reax

– Mike Omansky, PWTorch correspondent (5.5): Best Match: Owens vs. Ambrose. Worst Match: Divas. Entertaining show, but A.J. Styles was the only “surprise” – they had alluded to multiple surprises. The Rumble was fine, but not incredible. Styles was good, and part of the atmosphere was the live crowd support. I liked Triple H’s clean elimination of Roman Reigns, which seemed to please the fans there live

Owens-Ambrose was a great opener, Del Rio-Kalisto also delivered another strong outing, and the Usos are lost as usual. It sounded on TV like Reigns was heavily booed, so they still have a problem to overcome there.

– Derrick in Utah (8.0): Start to finish, it was an entertaining show. The undercard, especially the Owens vs. Ambrose match, exceeded expectations. The momentum was sustained going into the best Rumble match in recent memory. The video packages and announces were pushing the “one versus all” story way too hard. By doing so, they were asking for a backlash against Reigns.  The backlash did occur, but enough thought went into the Rumble match to control the emergence of an all-out rebellion.

I thought this was perhaps the best laid-out and consistently entertaining Rumble match in recent memory. Twists, turns, surprises, and possible eggs that will hatch into WrestleMania season feuds. The outcome was predictable, but the path to the destination was a rollercoaster of surprises. WWE should feel good about booking an entertaining Rumble match and an overall good event. Probably more importantly, WWE should be worried that the momentum that Reigns gathered after TLC has dissipated considerably going into WrestleMania.