11 Ups And 8 Downs From WWE Royal Rumble 2018

6. Whole Lot Of Nothing

royal rumble 2018
WWE.com

The Royal Rumble is a difficult match to map out. You have to plan for 30 different superstars to enter, so you want certain combinations present at different times, keep others apart, time entrances, and keep fans’ attention during a match that will last for an hour.

There can easily be dead spots during a Rumble match, and that’s exactly what we got during the middle portion of the men’s match. After Finn Balor eliminated Baron Corbin just before the #5 entrant, there wasn’t another elimination until Sheamus was tossed in seconds at #11. And then we got another period from #12 through #17 with only two eliminations.

The match slowed down a lot during that period, perking up for entrances and settling back into the familiar “lay on the ropes or in the corner” motif. It wasn’t bad per se, just dull. The ongoing Heath Slater joke saved it a bit, but overall, it was a snoozer for about one-third of the match.

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Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.