FanPost

Ranking Royal Rumbles: 2016 Edition

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Don't Hate the Players, Hate the Game!

(A Rumble filled with aging superstars and young NXT grown talent, and a guy who's both won the whole thing...)

Storytelling: 3/5 Stars-but subject to change following how Mania plays out

Match Quality: 4/5 Stars

Finish: 3/5 Stars

Winner: 2/5 Stars- In no universe should a 46 year-old who wrestles one time a year be the WWE Champion and win the Rumble, but they did it here.

Extracurriculars: 3/5 Stars

Total: 15/25 Stars

Great Moment You May Have Forgotten: I'll cover the big stories in it, but lost in the shuffle was the Miz actually owning the microphone and heeling smart for a while. Also R-Truth is hilarious.

Moment You Wish you Weren't Reminded Of: Mark Henry and Jack Swagger won a tag match to qualify for the match, and lasted a combined 45 second. What the fuck was the point of that whole garbage then?

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WWE creative in 2016 is like Cameron from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" when he stares at that little girl in George Seurat's "Sunday Afternoon in the Park": missing the big picture.

In an era where the talent pool of wrestlers has never been better, and there are a plethora of homegrown talent that can become champion, they ignore that in favor of the old guns. They wonder why they cannot create new talent that the fans want when they put the title on the 46-year old president of the company who only wrestles once a year. This wasn't Bootista level bad, but the writing needs to take responsibility for creating this story and making HHH a 14 time champion again for some awful reason.

With that rant out of the way however, the Rumble match they gave us to get to that train wreck was actually very good. Especially compared to the garbage they have laid out in the previous few years.

For the first time since 1992 legendary Rumble, the title was on the line. The only difference is that this year we had a champion, Roman Reigns. Having won in 2015 under bizarre circumstances, Roman was suffering through a case of being a People's Champion the Corporation wants him to be, not the People. Fans were thoroughly against Roman retaining that they failed to see the alternative and the events that followed showed the best and worst of what a Rumble revolt can be. Despite consisting of no legends with nostalgic factor and no chance of winning, the Rumble featured more guys in their 40s (Jericho, Kane, Goldust, Big Show, R-Truth, Mark Henry, Trips) than guys in their 20s (TY BREEZE, Neville, Bray Wyatt, hell I can't think of any others). We were also treated to our first announce team of Michael Cole, JBL, and Byron Saxton (aka the black guy). I mean in this era of poor management of broadcasters they were as corporate as you can possibly have, sans a few overreactions by Cole, so decent set up so far.

It starts off with Roman, relegated to the number one position as "punishment" by the Authority, and Rusev (coincidentally the final two from last year, in case you forgot about that). Well, Rusev suffered the wrath of being engaged to Lana publicly and was thrown out in 2 minutes. Yep Reigns is well on his way to retaining when....

Holy crap

HOLY CRAP

AJ STYLES IS HERE.

Yes AJ Styles, the man with the moniker "best active wrestler never to wrestle in WWE/NXT", has finally broken that moniker and to the joy of fans, he is here to clash (pun) with the best of them. So he and Roman do some work.

Eventually for a while you get your normal Rumble mid-card to jobber fluff, with a few fun moments. There's the greatest Rumble performer in history, Curtis Axel, officially being eliminated from the 2015 Rumble. There's K-Kwik personified doing his gimmick of thinking he's in the wrong match, pulling out a ladder, then meeting the wrath of a man who has never been in a Rumble match, Kane. You had the hottest tag team in existence, The New Day, dancing like fools and saving Kofi Kingston on Big E's massive pecs, only to meet a wall(s) of Jericho knocking him out (shame no one saw it, thanks bad camerawork/Reigns centralism). You had the man who could do no wrong in Kevin Owens eliminating Styles sadly, only to find his comeuppance in Daniel Bryan 2.0, Sami Zayn (going to be fun to see how that feud builds). And finally, because remember this is Roman's show, you have the stupid morons of the LON, lead by Vince...again with the hired goons....taking him out under the ring and making a puny God of of him. Of course since this is the 1999 Rumble again, Austin Reigns is screwed and taken out via stretcher, but not eliminated.

The next portion of the match was dominated by the existence of the Charles Manson-esque group, the Wyatt Family. Together, Luke Harper, Erik Rowan, and Braun Strowman (Bigass Mcstrongman, Scrotty Mcboogerballs, Hugelard McHugginstein), taking apart the rest of the field by storm. Out go the Geriatrics Big Show and Kane, impressively by Strowman. Out goes Zayn. Jericho and now entered and battered Dean Ambrose are about to be next when....BORK LAZER APPEARS. Yes, Brock Lesnar comes in and plays a game of chess with Wyatts, if they were pawns and Brock was three queens and a knight combined. They all went the way of the rest of the losers, until Bray showed up and respawned the puppet to gang attack Brock. Even he could not overpower unfair returns to the ring, and Brock was shockingly eliminated.

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-Welcome to the WWE Brock...Oh wait, never mind wrong guy.

The rest of the rumble filled with it's main stars, including Lameus at 29, when HOLY SCHNIKES AUSTIN ROMAN IS BACK!!! He recovered from his bum ego and took apart the field, no one will stop him...

TIME TO PLAY THE GAME!!! Yes in a shock no one saw coming...ha...Triple H returned at number thirty, looking healthy as ever for a 46 year old who doesn't wrestle full time anymore wrestling for the title. Roman is beside himself, the fans are nuts for some reason, and soon the fodder falls victim to a ho-hum rivalry. Out goes Ziggler, Out goes Wyatt, an original favorite. Out goes Jerichoatric finally, at the hands of Dean, who at this point between this and his earlier Last Man Standing Match should not be standing.

So our final four is Roman, Trips, Ambrose and Sheamus (COME ON REALLY, CAN WE GO ONE RUMBLE WITHOUT SHEAMUS IN THE FINAL FOUR?). Well after a game of cat and dead Ambrose, Sheamus becomes cocky and is eliminated by Roman. Roman gloats and...I don't believe this....Trips eliminated him!!! The story of Reigns defending his title is over with, and HHH just flipped off the fans in so many ways, crotch chops and all. So we are down to Triple H, who at this point has wrestled a combined 6 minutes in nearly a year, against Ambrose, who has wrestled a combined 60 minutes tonight alone. Well after a pretty good closing segment of Dean trying to willpower the crowd to help him win, the biggest douche in WWE history douches himself into another victory, as 46-year old Triple H is your WWE Champion in 2016.

On the one hand, the story makes sense because they are trying to build to Roman overcoming the odds, and what bigger odds than your jerk boss taking control. They told the story well and the match featured the best in-ring talent arguably ever on a Royal Rumble stage. On the other hand, in case I haven't made this clear, 46 year old Triple H, who hasn't wrestled a match since last Wrestlemania, and wrestling the shortest time of any Rumble winner ever, is your WWE Champion in 2016. It should never have come to this, it should've been built to make an active star champion, but in the end, the match itself was kinda fun, so it is now the new 14th ranking on the list, going ahead of 2005 but behind 2006, because in 2006 Triple H, a 36 year old man, lost, but in 2016 Triple H, a 46 year old man, won.

Feel old watching all these aging superstars in this Rumble match, or ladder match if you are R-Truth. I have truly enjoyed dissecting these Rumbles with you and I am working on a new project of rankings come Wrestlemania season that I hope you will share with me to love, and bash, like the great work of all the writers of Cageside Seats do. Until then, enjoy Fastlane,and HHH vs Roman at Wrestlemania as your main event, because like it or not, you're getting it. Thanks again.

Ranking Royal Rumbles: A Retrospective

Number 29: 1995

Number 28: 1988

Number 27: 1991

Number 26: 2015

Number 25: 1989

Number 24: 1994

Number 23: 1999

Number 22: 2014

Number 21: 2011

Number 20: 1993

Number 19: 1997

Number 18: 1996

Number 17: 2009

Number 16: 2013

Number 15: 2005

Number 13: 2006

Number 12: 2012

Number 11: 2000

Number 10: 1990

Number 9: 2003

Number 8: 2008

Number 7: 2010

Number 6: 1998

Number 5: 2002

Number 4: 2007

Number 3: 2004

Number 2-1992

Number 1: 2001

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Cageside Seats readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cageside Seats editors or staff.