Monday Night Raw Warm Up for January 30th, 2012

Sheamus emerged with an unexpected victory in the 25th Annual Royal Rumble match last night, earning a championship match at WrestleMania XXVIII.

The WWE Royal Rumble is the one event other than WrestleMania that is always on our watch list. Last night’s 25th anniversary Royal Rumble show from St. Louis, Missouri, certainly had its ups and downs, and overall it was about average among the installments in the event’s history. A lot of effort went into what were meant to be funny entries in the Rumble match and a layer of intrigue was added to this year’s feature battle royal when it was announced that “for the first time, every WWE Superstar is eligible to compete” during the promo package. Neither of us were sure exactly what that meant, but some of our speculation as well as all of last night’s results can be found inside as we get ready for Raw tonight from Kansas City, Missouri.

PTB: It felt like there were a lot of matches last night in addition to the Rumble itself. Some went over far better than others. The triple threat match for the World Heavyweight Championship featuring Daniel Bryan, Mark Henry and the Big Show was one of the better ones.

Brian: Mark Henry is hurt and I didn’t think he was going to make it though the match. When he was walking in he could barely move one of his legs.

PTB: Thankfully the booking for that match could cover it a bit and more importantly it made sense. They also made great use great use of the cage as a weapon.

Brian: This is why other themed pay-per-views suck. There’s a good reason to have a cage match with these guys right now.

PTB: The match had a fun finish as Bryan escaped after dangling from Big Show’s grasp, but I would have loved to see Big Show lift him up by one hand and drop him back into the cage.

Brian: Thankfully, we didn’t see a pinfall or a submission. I hate that. Cage matches should always be escape to win.

PTB: The 8-Diva tag match had better team elements (like the coordinated outfits) than most of the tag teams we’ve seen in recent years, but I’m glad Beth Phoenix just took over at the end.

Brian: I like all of the heel Divas. Can’t stand the faces.

PTB: The two brutal video packages that ran last night for the Rock and John Cena were criminal. My only thought as they played was how much time they were going to take away from the Rumble match. I really feel like WWE has gotten out of hand with how they’re using time on pay-per-views.

Brian: The extra matches were criminal! Three matches and the Rumble should be it. Back in the day, you’d have an Intercontinental title match, a tag match, a world title match and the Rumble.

PTB: I don’t mind going beyond three additional matches when the Rumble is well put together. Last night there were a lot of joke entrants, but I don’t know that it was due to extra matches on the card. The unannounced Brodus Clay match was made even worse by the involvement of Drew MacIntyre though.

Brian: Getting back to the videos, I wish they’d stop building up the Rock vs. Cena. The Rock’s video basically said “I’m not a wrestler,” and the people hating Cena in his video have no legitimate reason. I love it. They should save those packages for a Monday night. We usually only see 25 minutes of wrestling on Raw anyway.

PTB: I’m sure we’ll be seeing those a lot over the next nine weeks leading up to WrestleMania. Cena’s video led right into his match with Kane. I was really enjoying Cena’s angle as the fans turned against him, but this feud completely derailed it. The double count out finish did not help at all.

Brian: It’s horrible TV soap opera writing.

PTB: It went from bad to worse as a ton of time was spent with Kane wheeling Zach Ryder around and demolishing him and Cena back in the ring. The announcers went quiet at that point making it seem even longer.

Brian: The best part of the Ryder injury angle is that his friend has been tweeting for him over the past few weeks. He can’t type due to a herniated disc.

PTB: For some reason I’m expecting Eve to turn on Ryder and go off with Kane every week.

Brian: Would make sense considering they’ve done something similar with Kane, X-Pac and Tori.

PTB: C.M. Punk vs Dolph Ziggler with John Laurinaitis as the referee got a little more interesting last week when we learned “Big Johnny” will be up for review by Triple H tonight. We also saw that Laurinaitis is a stiff on a molecular level. His face had no expression when Punk put him up for the GTS. He offered no resistance, no shock, just nothing. To that point, all Punk had done was pull on his arm.

Brian: Dead stare. His facial expressions and body movements are so robotic. Yet, every time he opens his mouth he seems to stumble over his own tongue.

PTB: They managed to build a pretty great feud for an up-and-comer in Ziggler, but I still think they needed to pull the trigger on Cena vs Punk at WrestleMania this year. Booking the Rock vs. Cena a year in advance for him not show up but 5 times was a mistake.

Brian: I know I keep saying it over and over, but it still kills me that the Rock says he’ll never leave again and he’s never been back!!! And it kills me even more that fans still cheer him when he pulls this crap.

The video package where the people said, “I hate Cena because he’s a phony” annoyed the hell out of me. I’ll take “I hate Cena because he doesn’t show his true abilities in the ring and limits himself to a handful of moves” or “I hate Cena because he’s been shoved down my throat”. That’s valid. But the guy works his tail off, is entertaining and is there because he wants to be. He doesn’t just show up when his movie career needs a boost.

PTB: Punk and Ziggler’s match was solid and I particularly liked the great spot as Ziggler countered the GTS with a Rocker Dropper. It was clear something was up when Punk picked him up in the opposite direction, but it was perfectly executed.

Brian: Agreed. What was laurinatis doing with that finish?

PTB: I think he jumped in the ring to “assist” the referee with the three-count in Punk’s victory so it looked like he did the right thing and the right guy won on his watch. It was poorly executed, but I like the idea behind it. It will be interesting to see how Punk reacts to being used by Laurinaits to save his job tonight after making the “fair call” last night.

Brian: I expected Jericho to either interfere in Punk’s match or win the Rumble.

PTB: A Jericho run in would have been better than what we got in the Rumble. I feel like after talking for the first time last Monday (saying last night would be “the end of the world as we know it”), participating in the Rumble and not winning he’s lost a lot of steam in his return.

Brian: Yeah, but Jericho is old school and will do what’s best for business. He knows how to work a crowd and an angle. He can easily overcome lousy booking, but to be honest, it may have been his idea to NOT win.

PTB: I really thought he was going to eliminate himself! Sheamus winning the rumble was a surprise, but I don’t think it was the type of surprise either of us were expecting. After hearing the bit about every WWE Superstar being eligible we both thought it would be a plot point.

Brian: I wasn’t sure exactly what they meant by that, but I was pretty sure it would factor into the final outcome. Some sort of screwy ending like Bret and Lex as co-winners. Maybe everyone getting eliminated prior to #30 and then we’d be in suspense as to who drew that number.

PTB: That’s a cool finish that they’ve never tried with #30 entering for an autowin. That would have been a perfect way to keep Jericho’s angle going.

I was thinking it could have led to a current champion winning the Rumble when they normally wouldn’t be eligible.

Brian: I would have liked to see Jericho cost Punk the title. Then Punk wins the Rumble. Maybe you’d have Jericho win at Elimination Chamber and setup Punk vs Y2J for WrestleMania.

PTB: I always forget to consider that the Elimination Chamber is in February each year.

Brian: Horrible scheduling. And another themed PPV. Let’s have a ridiculously brutal match for no apparent reason. Awesome!!

PTB: Should have seen a Sheamus win coming in the Rumble when he was all over that promo for next month’s big event.

It was kind of a comedy Rumble last night with the time given to Santino Marella, Mick Foley and Ricardo Rodriguez. The Cobra versus Mr. Socko was brilliant, but I would have liked to see some of the others like Jerry Lawler, Booker T, and especially Michael Cole and Jim Duggan enter over a shorter span of time rather than popping up throughout the match.

Brian: Every superstar is eligible but almost none will participate!! I know a lot of big names are out due to injury (Del Rio, Rey, Christian, Sin Cara) and Mark Henry had no chance of lasting in there, but this is one of the most important matches of the year. Why would you make it a joke? Throw some of guys in there that don’t get much TV time. Let them show me something. Besides, do we really want to see Jim Duggan’s fat jiggle all over?

PTB: I’ll let Duggan slide as the winner of the first Royal Rumble being in there for the 25th anniversary, but many of them were given 2 mintues before the next entrant. All I came away with was that it was the jokiest Rumble I’ve ever seen. Beaker arriving to help Sheamus win would have been a perfect finish.

Brian: Come on! Sheamus’ win wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t the dream booking that we put together in our heads. He’s not as awful as you make him out to be.

PTB: He’s not, and it is nice to see someone unexpected come out on top, but there were more attempts at humor last night than attempts to push new talent.

Other highlights included: the return of Kharma becoming the third woman to enter the Rumble match eliminating Michael Cole, The Big Show and Dolph Ziggler making appearances in the Rumble after their title matches earlier in the night, and Randy Orton making a big splash eliminating Wade Barrett way too quickly.

Brian: I think Kharma should have dropped Cole on his head.

PTB: The Miz entering at #1 and Cody Rhodes entering at #4 provided a through-line for the match with both having a good showing and staying for nearly the entire match.

Brian: I liked Cody and Miz dominating. Shows that the company has faith in these two guys. Kofi Kingston’s effort to avoid elimination (see the video below) was also awesome.

PTB: It absolutely was, but I think John Morrison’s highlight reel moment last year was better. We’ll include both and let readers decide for themselves.

Below is a complete set of results from last night’s WWE Royal Rumble 2012. All photos courtesy of WWE.com .

• Sheamus won the 30-Man Royal Rumble Match
• WWE Champion CM Punk defeated Dolph Ziggler with Special Guest Referee John Laurinaitis
• Brodus Clay defeated Drew McIntyre
• John Cena vs. Kane ended in a Double Count-out
• Divas Champion Beth Phoenix, Natalya & The Bella Twins defeated Eve, Kelly Kelly, Alicia Fox & Tamina
• World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan escaped the cage to defeat Big Show and Mark Henry in a Triple Threat Steel Cage Match

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Keep up with all of our weekly Monday Night Raw Warm Ups:
January 23rd, 2012 edition / February 6th, 2012 edition