6 Match Star Ratings For WWE Royal Rumble 2021
Comedy works in the WWE Royal Rumble match, but Kevin Owens and Roman Reigns went and did slapstick.
It didn't feel like WrestleMania season before WWE delivered the 2021 Royal Rumble.
RAW is RAW. Dog sh*t. Dog sh*t that has dried and turned white but still conspires to reek. SmackDown, often rated generously on a curve, nonetheless failed to produce a crop of potential Rumble match winners. In a weird way, it actually did, but in the least ideal way possible. As a result of so much inattentive and looped storytelling - try and make sense of Shinsuke Nakamura and Daniel Bryan's booking week-to-week - all of those guesses/predictions were marked with ellipsis and a question mark.
...Daniel Bryan?
For years, WWE fans bemoaned Rumble builds for telegraphing the obvious winner and failing to create dramatic permutations my mapping more than one major player on a form run, and well...they listened!
WWE in the days before they just did whatever because they had your money - not that they really need your money, exactly - used to offer compelling glimpses towards the future at Survivor Series, quietly building anticipation ahead of the destination they had already marked in pen.
Everything is written petulantly in crayon these days, though, to be kind, perhaps the words "Edge Vs. Drew, just in case we don't have to actually build somebody' were possibly written in pencil in December.
The build sucked.
The show...?
6. KICKOFF: Asuka & Charlotte Flair Vs. Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler - Women's Tag Team Title Match
Turn Charlotte Flair heel, Jesus Christ.
When she isn't no-selling her Rumble elimination with a smile, as if to say that it took two women to eliminate her - the one dent in an otherwise near-flawless babyface coming out party - she relishes being in control. It's almost involuntary. She can't help but break out in a smug grin whenever she does something that puts her in a position of power, as with here, when she subdued Shayna Baszler on the mat. She actually laughed. It's incredible.
We were afforded the shortest and most cruel glimpse into the alternate universe Asuka Vs. Baszler dream match - Baszler yanked her up from the apron and smashed a shin into her chest in one fluid motion - before Nia Jax halted the momentum with a rest hold.
Boilerplate Kickoff fare is almost generous because what's the dynamic here? Jax and Baszler don't get along. Flair and Asuka don't feel remotely like a tag team. When Asuka sold, you were never left with the impression that Flair was desperate to tag in and help her friend. She effectively said she was using her to get first dibs on her title, which didn't help either. The action wasn't particularly great. Whenever a WWE commentator caveats the name of a move with "...of sorts," you know.
Ric Flair and Lacey Evans brought about the finish, to further that sh*t-show of a storyline, and the team that don't get along are your Tag Team champions.
That describes both sets of Tag Team champions on RAW.
Star Rating: ★★¼