Sometimes I wish the WWE would announce the order of their cards ahead of time. I stayed up til like 6/7 am because I hate myself and I got up ten minutes before the show started but it turns out I could've slept for at least another hour since WWE front-loaded the card with all the matches I didn't care about (sans like the Greatest Royal Rumble, which I ended up watching anyway). So, I didn't really pay that much attention to the early card so I won't be bothering with my regular PPV format or even giving it a rating and I'm not even going to cover everything I saw because there's literally nothing interesting to say about some of these matches, like The Bludgeon Brothers one.
So first off, the stuff I didn't watch. Or at least, not fully. What I saw from HHH vs. Cena, which was about half the match, re-affirmed my opinion that the two have zero in-ring chemistry and I'm glad I didn't pay full attention to it. Kalisto vs. Cedric's finish sequence looked sharp and I like that Kalisto did the Sabu butt bounce off the ropes when doing The Spanish Fly spot. I've seen that spot like three times in WWE matches in this one month which I think is overkill, so I'm glad that Kalisto added a wrinkle to it so it felt fresher. I was playing Super Mario Odyssey and actually groaned when I heard the commentators mentioned The Spanish Fly but then I saw the replay of it and was like, fair play Kalisto.
As for stuff I did watch and have something to say on, Shinsuke vs. AJ Styles actually had a good match this time. I don't know if they just needed a heel/face dynamic, if Shinsuke was just phoning it in at Mania, but I was actually really enjoying this match. Until the finish which don't get me wrong, the finish makes a lot of sense and works well for the story. But it basically confirms I won't ever bother revisiting this match, and the count-out result is kinda deflating. I'd almost prefer if AJ Styles lost temper resulted in him low-blowing Shinsuke, or just something related to getting DQ'd. It was pretty obvious that they were going for a double count-out victory by like two at the latest, which meant not only did we not get a "proper" finish, but we had just kinda wait awhile for it to happen. And I have to tell you, once I got the story they were going with, wasn't super invested with seeing it play out.
Taker vs. Rusev basically confirmed what Taker's deal is. Like at WrestleMania, there were reasons to have Cena get squash, a sense of karmic retribution for Cena taking constant shots at Taker throughout the whole build. The match with Rusev, doesn't even make sense and had nothing going in. And yeah, Taker took two bumps in the entire match, and pretty much all the offense was strike based. Like, not to imply that strike moves can't be murder just saying Taker's two bumps left control entirely in Taker's hands). Also, I can't help but think the reason Aiden took the Tombstone Piledriver (which looked nasty by the way) was because Taker might not have been able to perform it on Rusev. Oh, and the match sucked. I mean to be fair, I think Casket matches generally suck.
Speaking of match types I think generally suck, Steel cage time with Roman vs. Lesnar. It sucked. First of all, let's address the positives, the finish spot looked cool. Spearing someone through a cage is a cool spot and a pretty cool finish. What I don't like about the finish, is it feels like they are definitely setting up for a fourth match. I hope, I really hope they did that just under some weird misguided belief that Roman needed to be protected. But boy, did the commentators ever make a big deal out of that finish. Like Roman's feet clearly touched the floor before Brock did, who only touched the floor with his back through the cage wall. And yeah, Corey definitely mentioned that the was a weird call. This isn't a finish you do to end a feud. You don't have the commentator stress about the peculiar decision on the finish, if it's not integral to the story. Now, I think if say Lashley beats Lesnar for the belt there's an interesting story you can tell there, especially if you say let Lashley use his Spear to beat Lesnar. You get this whole big destiny replacement story between the two that could be interesting, and you could use the messy finish here to help Roman's case. You know like Roman just didn't get his rematch in time to fulfill that destiny, Lashley stole it away, and with the Spear, he did it with a move Roman couldn't. They could have done this to help build to Roman vs. Lashley at Mania or SummerSlam or something but my money's unfortunately on Roman getting another shot. I hope I'm wrong but I kinda think they just want Lesnar to beat Punk's record or are just hoping Reigns will get cheered eventually. As for everything leading up to the finish, well let's just say it's a prime example of making finishers feel completely meaningless & worthless. Granted, Mania wasn't better but Michael Cole keeping track of how many finishers and signature moves were used during the match, oh did it just punctuate how little they all mean.
The Greatest Royal Rumble was not even the Greatest Royal Rumble of 2018. I'm not even sure it's in the top two (Women's is clear number one imo). I only watched this because I thought they might be telling the story of Bryan winning from number one, and when he got eliminated, we were down to two so no way I was tuning it out. Pretty smart to have Cass eliminate Bryan as a way to help ensure nobody boo'd Braun's victory. Match was fun, a big too long and kinda exhausting but a lot of my favorite stuff happened at the end. And I'm glad that even though WWE refuses to give Braun an ugly red championship, they'd at least give him an ugly green championship.
