8 WWE Royal Rumble 2021 Impulse Reactions
7. Drew McIntyre (c) Vs. Goldberg
Royal Rumble season triggers the fantasy booker senses in strange ways, particularly when it comes to the status of the company's top titles at WrestleMania.
On the go-home Monday Night Raw, Drew McIntyre said out loud what many fans had panicked about since this match was booked - Goldberg typically wins titles when he comes back. It was this lingering anxiety that hung over this WWE Championship match, rather than the quality of the contest itself.
The panic was real in the build up, but just two and a half minutes later of official match time later, that had been extinguished. The pair brawled before the bell in start that looked set to tease some sort of sh*thousery, but instead what followed was a series of bombs that took the best bits of both men's short title matches at WrestleMania with a result that seemed to satisfy the masses.
It left questions, too. The good kind - what's next for McIntyre? Has Goldberg got something WrestleMania-worthy in the tank? Were the shorts a call-out or a tribute to Brock Lesnar? Would Drew's Dad enter the Rumble to give his son a comparison between the two? Or is Goldberg's son ring-ready for the mixed tag?
They got in, lobbed bombs, and got out. This went precisely as well as it needed to, without the socials going up like Bray Wyatt at TLC.