~Royal Rumble 2005 Review~

King Steventon · 10-26-2008, 10:12 AM

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Show opens with Alter Bridge’s “Find The Real”, awesome song.

Edge vs Shawn Michaels
Before the bell even starts, HBK attacks Edge and sends him to the outside before even taking off his entrance attire. Camera gets a nice look at Edge and his face already tells the story, “I’m going to have to get my fucking head in gear for this match”. Michaels with the advantage early on until Edge hits the Edge-O-Matic on the outside (remember that move?). In the ring HBK tries to fight back against Edge, he jumps up for a hurricarana but Edge catches him in a powerbomb in a nice spot. Crowd is pretty hot this match. Edge with a chinlock, HBK manages to fight back and tries to start a come back, but again kills him in his tracks. Edge strikes HBK’s signature pose, awesome! Massive boos! After several failed attempts, Michaels finally gets the come back and starts laying into Edge. Edge realizes he’s in too deep and tries to make a get away up the ramp, but Michaels says oh-noes-you-don’t and follows after him. The ref distracts HBK just long enough for Edge to Spear HBK on the outside out of no where! Nice. Lololol Edge starts prancing around the ring in celebration, pretty amusing and the crowd don’t seem to like it. He even starts “tuning up the band” before going for the Spear on HBK (in the ring now)
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Spear! 1…2…NO! Edge’s reaction is genuinely hilarious after the kick-out… I wish I had a pic lol. They fight at the top and Michaels get the better of Edge before hitting the big elbow drop. He goes for the SCM but NO! Edge catches him and plants him with an electric chair drop. Fucking awesome counter. A nice exchange between them before Edge gets HBK in the Edgecution~! (another move he needs to bring back). HBK gets to the bottom rope after lots of teasing of a tap-out. Edge wins with a roll-up while holding the ropes. Boo for shit finish. Match was pretty good, had a nice story running through it with the younger Edge managing to keep the older HBK down and stop him from making a comeback, and the match got pretty exciting near the end. But I can’t help but wish HBK had just tapped and Edge had gone over the proper way he should have here. 18:32
***1/2

Backstage, we have the Rumble participants pick their numbers from a lotto thing. I’m fairly sure this wasn’t the first or last time they did it this way. Oh well, it’s far better without it, you get more surprise that way. Eddie Guerrero and Ric Flair are in, Flair loves his pick, Eddie doesn’t. Eddie makes the switcheroo and Flair ends up with the crappy number. Lawls all round.

Heidenreich (sp?) segment. He’s on the floor saying he doesn’t like caskets. Snitsky enters and says he heard he doesn’t like caskets. Heidenreich says he doesn’t like caskets. Snitsky says he doesn’t like caskets. Snitsky says he has a plan. Heidenreich doesn’t like caskets.

Heidenreich vs The Undertaker – Casket Match
Heidenreich was so fucking strange, on the one hand was just another talentless big man, but damn the whole crazy poetry schtick was kinda awesome. His name is long and complex so I’ll call him H for now.
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Match starts with ‘Taker trying to pull H into the casket, but obviously it’s way too soon. A few exchanges and ‘Taker hits an armdrag. H “plays the power game” (epic shoulderblocks), so ‘Taker starts working over his legs to slow him down. H tries to make a runner (2 matches in a row?) but ‘Taker chases after him and gets whipped into the casket for his troubles. H tries to act like a boxer or a shoot fighter or something, but his punches look awful. ‘Taker blocks a punch and hits a pretty sweet Triangle Choke counter in the corner. Can you tell he’s going to have to carry this match? Snitsky (ugh) makes a *totally unexpected* run-in and attacks ‘Taker. Lol, Snitsky hits a lariat with his arm which is IN BANDAGES. They double team him and ask for the casket to be opened… but out pops Kane~! I have to admit, I kinda enjoyed that little moment even if it makes zero sense (and yet somehow was predictable at the same time. The wwe works on mysterious ways). Crowd goes nuts for Kane as him and Snitsky brawl to the back. H starts moving the casket up the ramp for no apparent reason, then sends Taker into the steps. H rams the casket into Undertaker. H with a cobra clutch, though he tries to hook the wrong arm at first. H puts Taker in the casket, but Taker gets an arm up before the lid can be shut then pulls H over the apron and hits a BRUTAL legdrop on the casket lid over H’s head. Sick. H then fights back, hits a sidewalk slam then… goes for the cover? lmao. I hope for comedy value that was an accident. Undertaker wins with a Tombstone before rolling H into the casket. Heidenreich was just plain bad and Taker carried his ass by using submissions and big moves and by bumping for him a lot. The Snitsky/Kane stuff made no sense but was kinda fun in a nonsensical way. 13:20
**

Backstage T-Lo is trying to get Eddie to give back Flair’s number, but Evolution barge in. Eddie gives it back… then reveals he also had Flair’s wallet too. EDDIE = LAWLMASTER. They tease more tension between Trips and Batista. That feud was booked pretty epicly.

Elsewhere Christian draws his number… is happy with it. John Cena enters the scene (to a nice pop I should add). Cena asks Christian to show him some street cred. “Tomko give me a beat”, “No”.
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They battle rap…. Christian is lawlerific, Cena is wigga-ific. Yeah, Christian certainly owns Cena at promos.

Kurt Angle vs The Big Show vs JBL – WWE Championship – No DQ Match
The Smackdown before this, JBL and Angle had a Last Man Standing match (underated match IIRC), so both men are coming in pretty banged up, which is even worse considering the Big Show is nice and fresh. Surely this is Show’s night then? Match starts with Angle bottling it on the outside, leaving Show and JBL to slug it out. Show dominates JBL until Angle breaks up a pin attempt, leading to Show dominating him too. JBL fights back a bit but to no avail. Say what you want about JBL, but he has some mean chops and punches. On the outside, Big Show sets up JBL for a Chokeslam off the steps through the table, but Angle makes the save with a low blow. Angle smacks Show with a TV monitor and Show staggers then like a tree in the woods, falls through the announce table. That was a pretty cool spot, you know what they say, the bigger they come the harder they fall. JBL and Angle now battle it out, with Ankle working over JBL’s arm. Angle ducks a Clothesline From Hell and hits a German on JBL. Show gets back in the ring and lays them both out. Show is fired up!~ The strap is down!~ Double Chokesla…..NO! The heels fight back and hit a chopblock/Clothesline From Hell combo on Show. Angle Slam on Big Show. JBL throws Angle out and goes for another CFH, but Show catches him in NASTY Chokeslam! 1…2…Foot on the rope! On the outside, Show charges at JBL and sends them both crashing through the barricade! Back in the ring, Angle has a chair. He hits Show with it but then gets caught with a flapjack by Show and gets driven face first into the chair! Show is just owning this match. On the outside, EMTs are attending to JBL which is a nice touch, but in the ring Show ends up getting attacked by Gindrack & Reigns, Angle’s protégés. Bullshit. Show fight them off on the outside, but meanwhile Orlando Jordan rolls JBL back in the ring, one CFH on Angle later and it’s over. With the exception of the interference, I actually loved how the finish of this was booked. JBL once again steals the win and Show came out looking like a million bucks, and I felt genuinely screwed as a fan lol, in a good way. I didn’t have high expectations for this, but it was way too much fun. Cool to see a triple threat that didn’t repeat the “two faces beating up a heel then each other” formula, and it was allllllll about Show. 12:04
***

Backstage, an extremely young looking Carlito is with Batista. He asks Batista to sign his thing to get T-Lo fired (we should be so lucky). Batista says no. Carlito bites the apple….uh-ohz…. Batista reminds him of him bending a flagpole on Raw and Carlito swallows the apple. Kinda amusing. Batista goes to pick his number and the GMs are arguing about the finish to the last match. “We all know Orton vs HHH is gonna have a tonne of interference” says T-Lo. Haha. Biscoff then bans Evolution from ring side, Batista smiles which gets a pop. He’s pretty much a face already at this point.

Advertisement for WM21, “Wrestlemania Goes Hollywood” with Eugene playing Forest Gump. LOLS. Wow, Eugene was so unbelievably horrible. I hated that annoying, ridiculous fucker.

Randy Orton vs Triple H – World Heavyweight Championship
I have to say, as great as Orton is as a heel, he was also pretty fucking awesome in this face run. Match starts with a bang as Orton slaps HHH in the face to the crowd’s delight and the two lock up. Orton tries an RKO early on but HHH makes the escape. They fight a bit in the ring then they do the spot they meant to do at this year’s One Night Stand, with Orton going for another RKO, but Trips throwing him over the top to the outside. Only this time it looked good. HHH mocks Orton and pulls his signature pose, nice. I miss Trips as a heel. Orton is busted open from being whipped into the steps. Trips hits a chopblock on Orton, and from there on he just starts destroying his leg and knee. Orton tries a cradle attempt from reversing a figure 4, but it gets a two. Trips gets straight back on the attack and locks in a figure 4. He really starts brutalizing Orton’s leg with the hold… uh-uhz HHH using psychology in a match….Orton FIGHTS IT. His face is just pure intensity and the crowd start getting behind him as he reverses the lock. But Trips gets right back on the offence on his leg again. Orton fights back and hits his patented backbreaker, but hurts his leg doing it (the selling in this match by both is pretty good, I should say). Big crossbody from Orton gets a 2. Pedigree attempt gets reversed, followed by an RKO attempt getting reversed too. Orton starts laying into Trips and Trips is pretty much dead on his feet. There’s the feeling that Trips is holding on by just a thread now. Ref bump as Trips knocks Orton into the ref, Trips then goes and fetches a sledgehammer. Ugh. Orton outsmarts Trips and sends him into the ring post. Trips completely oversells and it stumbles halfway round the outside holding his face, oh dear. Speaking of overselling, Orton is doing the same, he acts like he’s almost completely out of it and in a trance, he looks slightly retarded. It’s good that he looks like he’s out of his league here, but that’s kinda what’s wrong. Trips knocks him down and goes to cave his face in with the hammer, but sees the ref coming to a stir and tosses it. Pedigree and it’s over. Ok, the way this match went totally confused me. You have Orton coming in as the man who is better than Trips, he’s uber-intense and shows that he WANTS the title, but at the end he just looks like he’s totally out of his league and Trips looks very strong. I kind of wish Orton hadn’t sold as much and made himself look so weak, but it was kinda strange to see a heel get a decisive win (its HHH though
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) though it made kinda zero sense to have it that way. That said, I was really enjoying the match and was really into it up until the last five minutes. Super-intensity from Orton, really nifty legwork from Trips and the crowd were into it, just a shame it ended the way it did. This loss pretty much killed Orton right there and then. They could have easily had Orton win this and have him face Batista at ‘Mania, but who knows how that could have gone….21:28
***1/4

Backstage, Angle steals Nunzio’s number. A
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poor Nunzio
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T-Lo tells Biscoff that was a great match because of the lack of interference.
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x 10,000. JBL and his cabinet barge in drinking and celebrating his win. Drunk JBL brings the fucking lolcausts with his slightly racist gags and T-Lo tells him he’s facing Show in a Barbwire Cage match at NWO. T-Lo the killjoy.

The Royal Rumble
Match starts with Eddie and Benoit! Fuck yes! What a way to start. Huge Eddie chants during his entrance btw. Some nice chain wrestling before #3….lmao…Daniel Puder. *makes sound of bomb falling* He gets on the mic and says he’s gonna win. If you say so kid. Puder has the whole wannabe shoot-fighter shit going on and Benoit and Guerrero don’t take exception to beating him up together. #4 is Hardcore Holly. Hahahah YES. I have to admit I’m a fan of Holly and I’ve always thought theres so been so much for potential for him as the grumpy veteran who doesn’t take kindly to youngsters, and that’s exactly how this plays out as he joins the ultra-stiff beatdown on Puder
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. Eddie, Benoit and Holly stiffing a rookie, so wrong and yet so right. Puder is out, shortly followed by Holly by Benoit/Eddie. #5 is The Hurricane. He doesn’t last long and soon enough we’re back to Eddie vs Benoit. #6 is Kenzo Suzuki….hmrk…#7 is Edge who gets a pretty big pop for a heel. Edge is a buffet of intensity. #8 is Mysterio. Ah, 2005, the last year before Rey became a pile of garbage. He eliminates Suzuki. #9 is Shelton Benjamin! Benjamin 2005 = the fucking man. #10 is Booker T. Just like Mysterio, Booker really went to shit in 2006, the terrible King gimmick didn’t help.

Biscoff is out for some reason and #11 is Chris Jericho~! Jericho is insanely over, oh, and T-Lo is also out now. #12 is Luther Reigns. Lol, such a drop in talent. All of a sudden the ring seems to split it in two with it being the RAW guys vs the SD guys. Interpromotional hate FTW! They fight and unlucky #13 is Muhammad Hassan. I miss Hassan, so much potential, and the heat he gets here is just incredible. Easily the loudest the crowd have been all night. Everyone stops fighting and all turn on him and beat the crap out of him.
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Hassan is out. #14 is Orlando Jordan. #15 is Scotty 2 Hotty, but Hassan attacks him. #16 is Charlie Haas, ah, how far he’s come
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. Reigns and Jordan out by Booker and RUMBLEROONI! Eddie eliminated the clown! #17 is Dupree, another guy with a lot of potential that never got realised :/ Old school WGTT spot from Benjamin and Haas before Edge eliminates Benjamin. #18 is Simon Dean! YES, FUCK YES! Best jobber ever, I defy you to not have loved Dean. Dean warms up on the outside, mean while we get our first taster of the Eddie/Rey fued as they square off in the ring. Edge eliminates Eddie, then copies his strut~! #19 is HBK and he goes straight after Edge before eliminating Dean. HUGE Eddie chants as he leaves, really, you forget just how amazingly over he was at times. HBK eliminates Haas and #20 is Kurt Angle. HERE WE FUCKING GO. Suplexing the motherfucking world but then NO eliminated by HBK!

#21 is Coach. lolwat? He attacks Benoit and pays the price for it. #22 is Mark Gindrak. Funny how as soon as he left the wwe he somehow gained some talent. Angle is back in and eliminates HBK! Beats him bloody with the steel steps! Simple, yet effective build for their painfully average and overated Wrestlemania match. #23 is Viscera. Why is it the talent levels in the Rumble always start falling after the #20 mark? #24 is Paul London, whatever happened to him? >_> Y2J eliminates Dupree. #25 is Cena and he outs Vis. #26 is Snitsky, yawn. Snitsky eliminating London is so wrong but MY GOD it was a hell of a bump from London as he gets clotheslined off the apron, backflipping onto the floor. Brutal. Epic staredown between Cena and Snitsky, and Snitsky boots Cena down. #27 is Kane. That wasn’t predictable. Wait, didn’t these two just brawl to the back earlier? Ok, this doesn’t make much sense right now. Kane cleans house and Chokeslams EVERYONE. Gindrak is out and the London is being stretchered out. Anyone know if he was legit hurt from this? #28 is BATISTA to the biggest pop of the night! Snitsky is out. Batista and Kane face off! (The two have always had really good chemistry imo). They fight and it ends in a HUGE Batista Bomb. The crowd are now going apeshit. Batista outs Jericho and #29 is Christian. Cena FUs Kane over the top, impressive! #30 is Flair. Evolution eliminate Coach, Christian and Benoit. Edge eliminates Flair and it’s down to Cena, Edge, Batista and Rey, all possible winners here. Edge kills everyone with Spears eliminates Rey. Cena and Batista eliminate Edge and it’s down to two. The future RAW ace vs the future Smackdown ace!~ They battle it out and both end up going over the top together! Both men think they’ve won. Vince makes his first appearance of the night and comes to the ring and FALLS OVER getting in it.
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They argue in the ring and they announce the match be restarted, damn this has a really big feel to it now. Batista reverses a FU and eliminates Cena for the decisive win.

The Royal Rumble is usually the best match with more than four people in it every year, and this one certainly delivered. Rumbles start with a bang, and this one did and kept with the bangs throughout. It was clear Batista and Cena were the two favourites, but not only was it uncertain which of the two would win, but you also had a whole bunch of other credible winners in the match too. I should say there was actually a good amount of *wrestling* here too between entrances, so it wasn’t just boring brawling. That is expected I guess as there was a barrel of talent here. Finish was climactic and made it feel like such a big deal too.
****

-------------------------------------------

I didn’t really have high expectations looking at the card, but this was a surprisingly good PPV. Most of 2005 was utter shit, but this seemed to follow the wwe’s pattern of producing a good Spring season. Every match was enjoyable, even the casket match was decent thanks to Undertaker’s effort. The Rumble delivered and is probably one of the best ones I’ve seen. I also liked the fact there was no shitty half-arsed womens or tag matches banged in dragging the show down.

Match Of The Night: The Royal Rumble
Worst Match Of The Night: The Undertaker vs Heidenreich – Casket Match

Grade: B

KenTheKiller · 10-26-2008, 11:15 AM

My thoughts:

Edge still does the Edge-O-Matic o.O
The Edgecution is the DDT the Edge-acator or whatever is the leg move. Or at least it used to be.
I remember the casket match being pretty meh. As expected with H
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Jindrak* Him and reigns didn't make it far, did they? :P
I remember wanting Orton to win sooo bad. Just like at No Mercy 07 and Backlash/Judgment Day/One Night Stand 08 >.> and even Unforgiven 04. Screw you Trips~!
Simon Dean was damn epic.
Angle/HBK WASNT AVERAGE
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I remember marking so hard when Batista won.
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Great review. I agree the spring is always the best time and this was no different.

Tommy Platinum · 10-28-2008, 01:08 PM

This is a nice review, you should do more.

This happened during the time I didn't watch wrestling, and while I have caught up with other WWE PPVs since, this is one of those which I have never had any desire to check out lol. All I can think of when I think of Royal Rumble 2005 is Batista winning the Rumble. The poster really sucks too. >_>

After reading this review, I actually want to check out some of it, but I wouldn't pick up the DVD unless I saw it somewhere second hand for very cheap. The same goes for most PPVs though. The finish to the Rumble sounds great and I guess it is pretty bad that there are recent Rumble matches I have never checked out, as I do find them highly entertaining and even the worst ones are good.

I wouldn't mind seeing Edge/HBK because it involves two of my favorite wrestlers and sounds pretty decent, and the triple threat sounds as fun as you say it is. I have no desire to see Triple H making Orton look like a joke though. >_>

lul Heidenreich.

And yeah Edge still does the Edge-o-matic.

I think thats all for now. >_>

mj.021 · 10-28-2008, 08:41 PM

Ya the 2005 poster did suck, but batista wasn't my choice I thought like Chris benoit or HBK

horrorfan_1986 · 10-28-2008, 10:46 PM

I agree for the most part with your review, however; I don't believe the Rumble was as good as you make it out to be. The whole fiasco at the end just annoyed me with it's unoriginality. Granted, not every fan in 2005 was watching the 1994 RR when it happened, but the finish is decent, but hardly good enough to do it twice. I loved that Batista won the match though. I was really into Batista at the time and as far as popularity goes, they couldn't have picked a better duo to close out the show. I would of preferred to have them wrestle for a few minutes instead of wasting all that time.

The casket match was bad, but I loved it once Kane and Snitsky came into it. Had Lita never fucked Edge, it would of made a lot more sense in the long term.

PY · 10-29-2008, 01:45 AM

Is this on WWE 24/7? If not, can you up it please.

xXHHHXx · 10-29-2008, 01:52 AM

.. I think I still have the DVD in my collection. If I do, I'll try and up it for you guys.

King Steventon · 10-29-2008, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by horrorfan_1986
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I agree for the most part with your review, however; I don't believe the Rumble was as good as you make it out to be. The whole fiasco at the end just annoyed me with it's unoriginality. Granted, not every fan in 2005 was watching the 1994 RR when it happened, but the finish is decent, but hardly good enough to do it twice. I loved that Batista won the match though. I was really into Batista at the time and as far as popularity goes, they couldn't have picked a better duo to close out the show. I would of preferred to have them wrestle for a few minutes instead of wasting all that time.

The casket match was bad, but I loved it once Kane and Snitsky came into it. Had Lita never fucked Edge, it would of made a lot more sense in the long term.

I may have overated it a tad, but there were alot of moment where I genuinely marked out a bit
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KenTheKiller · 10-29-2008, 07:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by horrorfan_1986
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I agree for the most part with your review, however; I don't believe the Rumble was as good as you make it out to be. The whole fiasco at the end just annoyed me with it's unoriginality. Granted, not every fan in 2005 was watching the 1994 RR when it happened, but the finish is decent, but hardly good enough to do it twice. I loved that Batista won the match though. I was really into Batista at the time and as far as popularity goes, they couldn't have picked a better duo to close out the show. I would of preferred to have them wrestle for a few minutes instead of wasting all that time.

The casket match was bad, but I loved it once Kane and Snitsky came into it. Had Lita never fucked Edge, it would of made a lot more sense in the long term.

At least they changed the outcome so it wasn't two title matches.

King Steventon · 10-29-2008, 07:55 PM

I havent seen the original Rumble with that finish, though I was aware of it all. I didn't mind the finish, though I guess the fact its a repeat is a bt of a downer.

Quote:

After reading this review, I actually want to check out some of it, but I wouldn't pick up the DVD unless I saw it somewhere second hand for very cheap. The same goes for most PPVs though. The finish to the Rumble sounds great and I guess it is pretty bad that there are recent Rumble matches I have never checked out, as I do find them highly entertaining and even the worst ones are good.

If you can find it for cheap (I got it in a bargain bucket with the '03 Rumble) I'd say pick it up. Theres nothing really that cringeworthy on it, and if you can overlook the casket match and the finish to HHH/Orton you've got a pretty fun PPV.

~Royal Rumble 2005 Review~

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