WWE Royal Rumble 2017 Review: Top Highlights and Low Points
Royal Rumble is always one of the most important pay-per-views of the year because it sets the pace for the Road to WrestleMania going forward.
When things go well, fans eagerly strap themselves in for the ride and look forward to the next few months of quality entertainment.
On the other hand, when things go awry, the fever pitch for this section of the calendar year becomes less about hopeful excitement and more about utter disdain and badmouthing the impending doom of WrestleMania.
This year's event had limitless potential, with a variety of big matches scheduled to change the face of WWE in major ways.
Everyone's favorite babyface to boo, Roman Reigns, had a chance to usurp the Universal Championship from Kevin Owens, which would have upset a massive portion of the audience.
John Cena's supporters have waited for a long time to see him win his 16th world title, and this event appeared to be the time to pull the trigger on that.
Charlotte Flair's pay-per-view winning streak was on the line against the ever-popular Bayley, and the less beloved Neville tried to silence his doubters by taking the Cruiserweight Championship away from Rich Swann.
Now that the results are in, what was the balance between the positives and negatives at this event? Which segments fell under the pros and cons?
Let's look back at what happened at the 2017 Royal Rumble and single out the biggest highlights and low points of the evening, presented in order of appearance.
Highlight: Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows Win Raw Tag Team Championships
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If you're going to have a two-hour pre-show, you need to make sure something actually happens to justify watching it.
The six-woman tag team match was fine but nothing that couldn't be skipped. The same thing applies to the match between Sasha Banks and Nia Jax.
When it comes to the Raw Tag Team Championship match, though, that was important enough to make up for the other two.
Rarely do pre-show matches ever matter, and when new champions are crowned, it convinces the audience that it shouldn't skip out on watching them for future events.
On top of that, the match itself was good enough that, if it had been on the main card, it's doubtful anybody would have complained.
As far as Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson winning the belts goes, it's about time. They have lost so much momentum since The Club disbanded, and this will start to set them on the right track.
Cesaro and Sheamus as a team was a concept that existed only to take the storyline of their feud to a different level. And now that they've had a title reign, it's time for them to split up again.
This will hopefully act as the catalyst to that and a potential match at WrestleMania, and Anderson and Gallows can start looking like the bullies and the credible tag team they used to be.
Low Point: Charlotte Flair Wins Yet Again
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Before complaints are made, Charlotte Flair's match against Bayley itself wasn't a low point, as it was quite good and the best of the three women's matches this evening.
The downside, though, is that Flair's win is the same thing we've seen for months.
Whether it was planned from the start or was something WWE just randomly became aware of and decided to keep going, the pay-per-view win streak she is on has been problematic, as it makes everything predictable.
For the past few months, Sasha Banks was booked on three occasions to win the title on Raw, only to drop it to Flair at the next event due to WWE wanting to keep her streak intact.
Now, the same concept seems to be applied to Bayley—outside of her becoming champion on Raw.
There is only one more Raw-branded event before WrestleMania, so WWE will have Flair retain—no matter who she's facing—as it would mean more to finally lose at the bigger show.
This effectively makes it pointless to get invested into anything until that point, unless a new element is brought in to keep it interesting. But that didn't happen here.
Why not use this opportunity to have Emmalina interfere if Flair needed to win? That's another thing WWE has dragged out to the point where a lack of interest is understood.
Bayley will win the championship down the line, but in the meantime, Flair will continue to cut the exact same promos she's done for months.
When you rinse and repeat the same thing, why bother caring?
Highlight: Universal Championship Match
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The decision to give the Universal Championship match a No Disqualification stipulation immensely helped the quality of the match, as it allowed Kevin Owens and Roman Reigns to do a handful of great spots.
Without those sections of the match, it might have fallen flat. But allowing them to battle on the outside and bring chairs and tables into the mix spiced things up.
Admittedly, even apologists for Reigns could find it ridiculous that he kicked out of a Superman Punch with brass knuckles, but Owens had his fair share of destruction to survive as well.
This match had a splash through a table, Owens falling off the turnbuckle to crash into some chairs, a powerbomb through the announcers' table and the interference from Braun Strowman.
It seemed like a given that Reigns would win the Universal Championship, so switching things up and going with a surprise adds another interesting factor to keep the Road to WrestleMania intriguing.
Where this leads in the future could retroactively change this to a low point if the plans become muddled, but right now, seeing Owens retain is a positive.
Highlight: Cruiserweight Championship Match
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A standard rule of thumb is that, if a match is good and ends with a transition to a new and better champion, it's hard to argue against it being a highlight.
While these opinions are always subjective, and people can agree or disagree on each segment, an argument can be made that Neville is the best thing to happen to the cruiserweight division since the Cruiserweight Classic.
If that is your train of thought, you were happy with the outcome here, as Neville will bring more notoriety to the championship than a more unknown star like Rich Swann could.
Despite losing, Swann wasn't made to look like a chump, either. He and Neville had a nice back-and-forth contest where Neville's experience made all the difference.
To further drive home the point that Neville is a major threat to the division, he appears to have adopted a new submission maneuver into his repertoire, which will help him win many matches in the future.
We've had two babyface champions and a short run with The Brian Kendrick, but Neville will bring a new level of intensity to the title. And this is just the beginning.
Highlight: WWE Championship Match
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This match's result comes with a lot of angry fans disappointed to see AJ Styles lose the championship to John Cena. But if you separate yourself from that opinion, it was a fantastic fight.
Not only was it intense from start to finish with a number of false finishes to keep the fans on their toes, but it also ended in a way that assured Styles wouldn't be viewed as jobbing out. He kicked out of more Attitude Adjustments than virtually anybody ever has.
With his 16th world title win, this will go down in history as one of the most important matches to ever happen in WWE, which is always interesting to watch happen live.
This could also be a great thing for WrestleMania, depending on which matches WWE has planned.
It's hard to argue Cena doesn't deserve this accolade, and for him to win it after such a struggle made it seem sweeter than if he had beaten someone else who couldn't match up to him.
2017 Royal Rumble Match Breakdown
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This match is typically one of the most divisive booking decisions of the year that can either be embraced with immense adoration or met with biting criticism, depending on who is victorious.
Even throughout the match, there were many ups and downs, which makes it hard to pinpoint everything that was good and bad. But this section is going to group all of those highlights and low points together.
Highlights
- Jerry Lawler on commentary was a refreshing change of pace after not hearing him call a match in quite some time.
- Big Cass is one of the first entrants so that he and Enzo Amore can go through their promo shtick.
- Jack Gallagher uses William III against Chris Jericho.
- Braun Strowman clears the ring, including eliminating Big Cass, Mark Henry and Big Show as three of his seven eliminations.
- Tye Dillinger comes out as entrant No. 10 to coincide with his gimmick.
- Dean Ambrose pumps up James Ellsworth to go into the ring, only to goad him into being a sacrificial lamb for Strowman.
- Baron Corbin eliminates Strowman to give him something important to do.
- Kofi Kingston holds on to the ring post to save himself from an elimination, which wasn't the best of his Royal Rumble spots, but it was still interesting.
- Cesaro and Sheamus fighting with each other causes their eliminations.
- Luke Harper turns on Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton.
Low Points
- It was a shame to see Strowman get eliminated at a relatively early number since he had great potential to win the entire match.
- It would have been fun to see a few more legends or surprise entrants like Samoa Joe, Finn Balor, Kurt Angle or Shinsuke Nakamura.
- Not having Kane in this match just seems weird, as he's been a staple of it since 1995, when he first entered as Isaac Yankem.
- Reigns being the final entrant left a sour taste in so many mouths, as it meant that no more surprises would come out and that he could win.
The majority of this match was highly entertaining, but it seems as though WWE once more has gone with a controversial ending that won't please a good portion of the fans.
Why it's continued to do this over the past seven years or so is frustrating and confusing.
Is a match between Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton truly good enough to justify making it for the WWE Championship instead of any of the other potential options?
How is this going to play out over the next few months with Elimination Chamber and Fastlane?
All these questions might lead to great answers, or this could be a bad omen for a frustrating Road to WrestleMania. But for now, the match itself had some great moments, and we should take the good with the bad.
Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.
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