13 Ups And 16 Downs From WWE Royal Rumble 2019

11. Styles, Bryan Have A Match

Daniel Bryan AJ Styles RR
WWE.com

The WWE Championship match between AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan is a tough one to evaluate.

Technically speaking, the title bout was sound and included some good submission work. However, after a 70-minute women’s Royal Rumble match that ended with elation, there wasn’t much left in fans’ tanks, as they were scarily silent throughout much of the match. They woke up a couple times for Styles’ offense, but it just didn’t have the heat you’d expect for two of the best wrestlers on the roster.

Throw in Erick Rowan interfering after a ref bump to cost Styles the match and you have even more of a reason to move it into the “downs” column. We had to sit through 20-plus minutes to see that finish? Because maybe this time, Rowan will be interesting.

Still, it wasn’t a bad match. But it’s not something this writer would willingly sit through again.

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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.