8 Ups And 12 Downs From WWE Royal Rumble 2021

6. Spamming Finishers

Goldberg Drew McIntyre Royal Rumble
WWE.com

No one was expecting a technical masterpiece or even a traditional wrestling match, but Goldberg versus Drew McIntyre was far less than that, and was more of a video game with all the cheat codes.

Don’t believe it? Here’s a rundown of all the moves during the match: Spear, boot, Claymore, missed Claymore, spear, spear, Jackhammer, missed spear, Claymore. Even before the match, there was a Glasgow Kiss, spear and another spear.

This isn’t to say that there should have been armbars and abdominal stretches galore, but no punches, no kicks, no slams, no nothing resembling a wrestling match. Just a flurry of finishing moves crammed into 150 seconds in the opening bout.

We’ve seen this a ton between Goldberg and Brock Lesnar, and it’s old. Can we just stop with this crap?

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Contributor
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.