![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/belair_wm.jpg\")
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Of all the pay-per-view events of the year, the Royal Rumble is still my favorite.\u00a0 More than Wrestlemania, and definitely more than Summer Slam, Survivor Series and all of the other tier-2 shows that permeate the rest of the calendar throughout the year.\u00a0 It\u2019s one of the only shows with gimmick event(s) that haven\u2019t been mutated or removed outright too much, like Survivor Series, which does basically one elimination match per gender a year, as opposed to the old days where every single match was a 4 vs. 4 elimination match.<\/span><\/p>\n In fact, the Royal Rumble has only gotten better in time, mostly on account of the fact that they do a women\u2019s Rumble as well, which means fans get two Royal Rumbles on the same night.\u00a0 So needless to say, I was looking forward to this year\u2019s Rumble, as I do just about every other year, because it\u2019s the one show of the year where a fun gimmick event still happens, and the predictability of storylines can actually take a little bit of a backseat to some highly-improvised battle royal-ing.<\/span><\/p>\n At first, I was a little disappointed that the women\u2019s tag team championship match was denigrated to the pre-show that few people actually watch, but from the standpoint that three of the competitors in the match would be pulling double-duty and showing up in the women\u2019s rumble later that night, it makes sense to have them go early, so they can recoup and rest before coming out again later on.\u00a0 As much as I don\u2019t particularly care for Baszler and Jax as champions, it too also makes sense to put the belts on them, because it sticks them in hold, and out of any potentially meaningful singles storylines, although that\u2019s not that fair to Baszler, whom I think has a lot of potential to be untapped, but I\u2019m very much lukewarm on Jax.\u00a0 Plus, it frees Charlotte up to do bigger and badder things, although she has to get through this cringey storyline with Lacey Evans kayfabe-banging Ric Flair first.<\/span><\/p>\n Good on the show for having Goldberg vs. Drew McIntyre start the official show off.\u00a0 As much as fans are perplexed and disgusted with Goldberg\u2019s frequent cameos, I have to imagine that the talent probably loves working programs with him.\u00a0 When they get to their inevitable matches, they\u2019re basically guaranteed a 4-minute spot-fest, a quick decision, and they can be out the door and asleep in their own beds by 10:30, which is ultimately what a lot of the more family-oriented performers really want.<\/span><\/p>\n I feel kind of bad for Kevin Owens, because I\u2019m really high on him, but he was undoubtedly used as a stop-gap feud for Roman Reigns, to help hold him over until Wrestlemania.\u00a0 But I think there was no doubt that he was going to go over, because as much as I like him, I can\u2019t possibly see any ways Creative would have anything for him for Wrestlemania, while Reigns is still doing the lord\u2019s work as the Head of the Table, and there\u2019s still so much more potential to be tapped into before taking the strap off him.\u00a0 Frankly, I could see him as champion for a whole other year if he keeps this persona going.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Most importantly though, were the men\u2019s and women\u2019s rumbles.\u00a0 As I\u2019ve stated lately, I\u2019ve often times been way more interested in anything involving the women, and frankly, I had no real idea what was going to happen with the women\u2019s rumble.\u00a0 The obvious favorite was probably Charlotte, although one of my friends suspected a returning Becky Lynch, but my prediction was the possessed Alexa Bliss, so she could then go onto a program with likely, Asuka at Wrestlemania, and be paired up with a returning Fiend to rise to some power couple storyline or something.<\/span><\/p>\n And as high as I am on Bianca Belair, I didn\u2019t think she was quite ready to get the rub, and win the Royal Rumble.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019m fine with the outcome, but when it narrowed down to Belair and Rhea Ripley, I figured Ripley was going to get the win, en route to a demotion to the main roster, as well as to reward her for her stalwart work in NXT.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m a big fan of Belair, but in all honesty, I\u2019m dubious to whether or not it\u2019s the right time to push her to the main event scene already.\u00a0 As freakishly athletic as she is, I feel that she\u2019s still green as baby shit on the mic, and I have a hard time believing she\u2019ll be able to carry her end on the mic, leading up to Wrestlemania, where she\u2019ll very likely go after Sasha Banks, in what will undoubtedly be a potential show-stealer.\u00a0 But with no mic skills, I don\u2019t think she\u2019d be Women\u2019s champion material, and she could just continue on her journey as a runner-up, as she did all through NXT.<\/span><\/p>\n Regardless, as dubious to a Belair push as I am, I\u2019m dumbfounded by the decision to have Edge win the men\u2019s rumble.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t have thought for a second that Edge was going to win, especially since he was literally entered a week prior to the rumble.\u00a0 I feel like this is one of those instances where the WWE is just continuing on his intended push from a year prior, much as they are going to hold Wrestlemania at Raymond James as intended a year ago, and are just conveniently re-writing the narrative to pick up from where it left off a year ago.<\/span><\/p>\n But yeah, Edge winning the Rumble.\u00a0 I will give credit to that that was unpredicted, as there were a litany of guys I would\u2019ve figured would win the Rumble before him.\u00a0 I had Daniel Bryan winning it, because the program that he could have had with Roman Reigns, would have been able to re-build the underdog Bryan storyline all over again, all while Reigns would be able to gaslight and spew bullshit about respect and family for months on end in the process.\u00a0 And as much as I dislike the guy, Randy Orton would\u2019ve been a good pick, just so he could muddy up the history books as another guy to win three rumbles along with Stone Cold Steve Austin, and the booking did a good job of making it look like that might happen before Edge threw him over.\u00a0 And a returning Seth Rollins seemed like a good pick as well, since he\u2019s one of the best workers in the company, and it would be best for business to insert one of those guys into the World title picture, against his former Shield brother.<\/span><\/p>\n Whatever though, the 2021 Rumble wasn\u2019t the best, but it wasn\u2019t the worst either.\u00a0 The cards have been put in place for the road to Wrestlemania, and it\u2019s up to Creative to shuffle the rest of the deck up to make it entertaining, although I\u2019m sure it\u2019ll come with its own litanies of head-scratchers.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Of all the pay-per-view events of the year, the Royal Rumble is still my favorite.\u00a0 More than Wrestlemania, and definitely more than Summer Slam, Survivor Series and all of the other tier-2 shows that permeate the rest of the calendar throughout the year.\u00a0 It\u2019s one of the only shows with gimmick event(s) that haven\u2019t been … Continue reading Thoughts on Royal Rumble 2021<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[83,54,55],"class_list":["post-47671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-observations","tag-wrestling","tag-wwe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47673,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47671\/revisions\/47673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}