WWE ROYAL RUMBLE

 Philadelphia

THE ASCENSION vs. THE NEW AGE OUTLAWS: This is how out of touch Vince McMahon is. Just watch this show from top to bottom. NXT is the WWE's farm system show. It's great. They have a ton of good wrestlers like Sami Zayn and Finn Balor and Hideo Itami and Adrian Neville. So who do they bring up to put on the main roster? A lame, early 90's style tag team that looks like a rip-off of The Road Warriors. Jesus. The crowd boos them, they're pretty pathetic on the mic, and in-ring they're fairly basic. They beat DX here. *1/2 (out of ****)

THE USO'S vs. THE MIZ & MIZDOW: The crowd loves Mizdow. But this match was comedy and not much else. *

THE BELLA'S vs. PAIGE & NATALYA: Unwatchable (because I didn't watch it).

BROCK LESNAR vs. SETH ROLLINS vs. JOHN CENA: Wow. This was the best WWE match in a long time. The best match on ppv since last June's first MITB ladder match, Lesnar's best match since August of 2013 against CM Punk. It was high-energy, wild, a classic. Lesnar was dominant early...but Rollins and Cena teamed up on him. Cena crashed Lesnar through the ring-side wall. Rollins lept off the rope and through Lesnar on the Spanish announce table. Eventually the doctors were putting Lesnar on a stretcher while Rollins and Cena traded near falls. Rollins did a wicked 360 type moonsault flip from the top rope onto Cena and then Lesnar got off the stretcher, F-5'ed Rollins and won. Sick of the getting-off-a-stretcher-to-continue plot but awesome stuff nonetheless. ***1/2

THE ROYAL RUMBLE (ROMAN REIGNS): So...yeah. Vince McMahon is a classic bully. For the second straight year the crowd booed the winner of the Royal Rumble. After Daniel Bryan got tossed out early by Bray Wyatt the boos reigned down for the rest of the show. There was even a loud "Bullshit!" chant and The Rock even got boos when he came out to save Reigns from getting beat down by Kane and The Big Show (The Rock was not a participant...he was there apparently to counter the anomosity). Bubba Dudley showed up which was fun. DDP and The Boogeyman were also lame surprises. But this show will be remembered for the crowd's hatred for Reigns, who won. I'm not entirely sure why they even put Bryan in this match if they knew it would cause this. They could have saved him for next month's show. And Reigns, let's face it, doesn't have it. He's awful on the mic, his in-ring work is average. Why push him when you have so many other guys that a) the crowd likes and b) are better wrestlers? Cesaro, Ziggler, Bryan. C'mon, Vince. This was just depressing. *