Beginning the ‘road to Wrestlemania’, WWE’s ROYAL RUMBLE took place January 27th in Phoenix, Arizona and focusses on the 30-man Royal Rumble match – the winner of which main events Wrestlemania – and The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) challenging CM Punk for the WWE Title.
Due to the Royal Rumble match’s near-hour length the undercard consists of just two matches: Alberto Del Rio and The Big Show fighting for Del Rio’s World Heavyweight Championship, and a WWE Tag Team Championship bout pitting champions Team Hell No (Kane & Daniel Bryan) against The Rhodes Scholars (Cody Rhodes & Damien Sandow). Fortunately it’s a case of quality over quantity with Del Rio getting the best out of Big Show in a hugely enjoyable Last Man Standing opener, and the ever dependable Tag Champs working brilliantly with the impressive Rhodes and Sandow.
In between these matches we are shown a dull promo from Dolph Ziggler, AJ Lee and Big E. Langston which highlights Dolph’s desire to win the Royal Rumble match, and before that match Daniel Bryan and Kane offer their usual comedy gold with some not-so-subtle innuendo.
But what of the main events? Well. unsurprisingly given the crash, bang, wallop style of modern-day WWE the Royal Rumble match struggles to maintain interest. With a dearth of genuinely pushed talent on the roster many entrants are met with unimpressed silence and indifference from a crowd whose enthusiasm wanes around 15 minutes in. Fortunately the volume level does rise again for the admittedly predictable and poorly constructed finale.
Before the WWE Championship match The Rock gives a fantastic promo in which he speaks of his Mother’s cancer, his desire to win the title and of course the people. Stirring, emotional and wonderfully performed it is unfortunately a clear indicator of how his match with CM Punk will play out. This is however a mute point given the obvious direction WWE is headed following the Royal Rumble match and doesn’t detract from a solidly enjoyable, though thoroughly unimaginative match.
Padded out by the solid undercard ROYAL RUMBLE 2013 begins the build towards Wrestlemania nicely, and the ending to the main event gives Elimination Chamber – the pay-per-view sandwiched between Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania – a focal point.
As a beginning to 2013’s WWE pay-per-view schedule ROYAL RUMBLE shows promise following a hit-and-miss 2012.
Extras: Blu-ray exclusive extras include a number of segments from the episode of Raw prior to ROYAL RUMBLE the highlight of which is Team Hell No’s anger management graduation, with The Rock’s promo to CM Punk and Paul Heyman also excellent.
WWE ROYAL RUMBLE 2013 is released on Blu-ray and DVD April 15th via Fremantle Media
