12 WWE Royal Rumble 2018 Impulse Reactions

6. Strong Styles

Shinsuke Nakamura
WWE.com

From jack sh*t to a king in a night, Shinsuke Nakamura's victory was subversive reminder that the company can do whatever the hell they want with a wrestler for the better part of year and redeem the entire mess in a single night.

Finn Bálor was a beneficiary of similar treatment at October's Tables, Ladders and Chairs pay-per-view. A match with AJ Styles was all it took for him to be reborn just as was yet again here despite ending his evening flat back bumping on pancakes. His NXT and NJPW rival had an even greater prize to reach for.

In surviving the collective onslaughts of John Cena, Randy Orton, Roman Reigns and countless others during his 44:25 stint in the match, Nakamura at long last looked like the 'King' in WWE he'd been proclaimed as since first arriving from across the Pacific in 2016. His throaty and breathless 'COME ON!' hadn't carried such guttural heft since dished out to Sami Zayn on that glorious Dallas night.

Spaying 'The Big Dog' to claim ultimate supremacy was the most crucial moment of all for 'The Artist'. The upper echelon so rarely allow anybody to cause a crack in the glass ceiling. Shinsuke Kinshasa'd right through it.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for 10 years. Alongside the production of daily written, audio and video content covering WWE and AEW, he also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot on the UK's wrestling podcast charts with over 10,000 episodes and 70,000,000 total downloads. He also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House!, Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast, and has guested on long-running Sunderland AFC podcast Wise Men Say. With WhatCulture, he has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. He has also been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana, 411Mania and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in music and culture magazines The Crack, Pilot as well as Sunderland AFC's premiere fanzine A Love Supreme. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it every other Saturday at the Stadium Of Light, and at Cribs gigs nationwide.