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Greatest Rumble thoughts

By Bill Hughes for The 5 min read
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The WWE presented the Great Royal Rumble show Friday, and the event, much like WrestleMania 34 three weeks prior, went over five hours.

The thing that stood out to me the most, and I know most fans probably did not catch it, was that a lot of the matches were paced slower than normal WWE matches.

It was almost as if they had an old-school feel to most of the matches, and part of the reason was because with so many people in attendance who may not be familiar with the WWE product, it wanted to keep the story telling in the ring easy to follow.

The event instantly had a big show feel as the opening match saw John Cena face Triple H in a relatively basic match which proves my point about the in-ring style used.

Two of the biggest stars in WWE history opening the show?

That doesn’t happen often and Cena pulled out the win.

Cedric Alexander followed by retaining the Cruiserweight title and the team of Bray Wyatt and Matt Hardy followed by winning the vacant Raw tag titles over Sheamus and Cesaro.

Jeff Hardy followed by retaining the U.S. title against Jinder Mahal in a match that you probably want to avoid and you can also skip The Bludgeon Brothers retaining the Smackdown tag titles against The Uso’s.

Seth Rollins retained the Intercontinental title in a ladder match against The Miz, Samoa Joe and Finn Balor with the match being your typical multi-person ladder match.

A.J. Styles retained the WWE championship match against Shinsuke Nakamura when they were both counted out.

The Undertaker defeated Rusev in a casket match, and then Brock Lesnar once again retained the Universal title against Roman Reigns when Reigns speared Lesnar through the side of the cage and the champ hit the ground first.

Braun Strowman won the 50-man Royal Rumble to close the show, and he ended the 77-minute and 20 second match when he last eliminated Big Cass.

Rumble records

Two major records fell during the actual Royal Rumble match.

Daniel Bryan entered at No. 1 and lasted one hour and 16 minutes.

This shattered the previous record of one hour and two minutes by Rey Mysterio in 2006.

Strowman threw 13 competitors out of the Rumble, breaking the record of 12 by Reigns in the 2014 Rumble.

It is not a surprise that either record was broken as there were 50 wrestlers in the Rumble.

Promoting the Rumble

While every seat in at the stadium was filled Friday, it was far from the announced “sell out,” as the Saudi Arabia government gave away countless free tickets.

In fact, most of the seats close to the ring, cushy chairs and all, were given to special dignitaries of the Sports Authority and their celebrity friends.

The government is funding the ten-year deal that it signed with WWE for special events, and it is the government who is taking the hit after lackluster promotion and ticket sales.

In fact, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, ticket sales were so lackluster that prices were dropped to $2.67 (United States dollar) up to $5.34 (USD).

The reason for the lack of tickets being sold at regular price was because advertising was so bad that the only people who knew about the event were the hardcore pro wrestling fans in the country.

WWE announced an attendance of over 60,000 but the actual attendance was estimated at just below 50,000.

The government did a great job of treating WWE-like celebrities, and several WWE figures had dinner Thursday with Saudi Arabia country officials.

Photos are floating around online, and some of the WWE representatives at the dinner included Vince McMahon, Lesnar, Taker and Kurt Angle among others.

More on Bruno

Ron Russitano of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission contacted me with more details on Bruno Sammartino’s career.

I mentioned last week how Sammartino was more of a regional champion in the northeast, but Russitano, a noted pro wrestling historian who was one of Bruno’s biggest fans, shared the respect Sammartino received from other territories.

“The NWA wanted him to beat Lou Thesz and become its part-time champion and only wrestle two weeks a month instead of putting it on one of its many superstars who wrestled on a full-time basis,” Russitano said. “There is no other wrestler that could have pulled that off in the 1960s.”

Considering Bruno’s career was before I watched wrestling, I did not know this and appreciate Ron reaching out!

On this date:

In 2012, WWE presented Extreme Rules on PPV and it is one of the best PPVs in history that no one remembers.

In the main event, Cena defeated Lesnar in an extreme rules match in Lesnar’s first WWE match in over eight years.

The match was brutal and if you don’t watch any other matches from the show, pull this one up on the WWE Network and check it out.

Also on the card, Sheamus defended the world championship against Bryan in a two out of three falls match that was nothing short of stellar.

The third top-notch match was C.M. Punk defending the WWE championship against Chris Jericho in a Chicago street fight.

Email questions/comments to Bill at powerhousehughes@gmail.com or tweet them to me @BillHughes_III.

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