Friday, March 24, 2023

WWE Greatest Royal Rumble 2018: Match Results, Review, and Analysis

By Evan Cole
WWE
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WWE Greatest Royal Rumble 2018 went down yesterday, April 27th, live on the WWE Network. We’ve got the match results and our overall thoughts on the show for you to check out below. Let us know what you thought about the show by tweeting us, @TheRumbleRamble.

 

John Cena vs. Triple H

 

This was a fun way to start off the evening, giving the Saudi crowd exactly what they came to see. John Cena and Triple H are two of the biggest names in the history of WWE, so it’s no shocker that the live crowd was into this from the moment The Game’s entrance music hit.

This seems like a good time to mention that the crowd, especially the younger fans in attendance, were highly energetic for the majority of the evening. It’s also worth mentioning that WWE did a fantastic job in regards to presentation, which isn’t really a surprise if you’ve been following WWE for any amount of time. The stadium lighting was done well, the set design was great, and the pyrotechnic displays throughout the night were top-notch. Kudos to WWE and their crew for giving the fans two shows of this scale, taking place nowhere near each other on the map, in the same month.

As far as the match is concerned, John Cena got the victory after he hit Triple H with multiple Attitude Adjustments in a little over fifteen minutes. Nothing special, but still very fun to see in 2018.

Winner: John Cena

 

Cedric Alexander (c) vs. Kalisto

Cruiserweight Championship Match

 

Simply put, this match was awesome. These two are fantastic professional wrestlers, and even though they only had around ten minutes to work with, they had our personal favorite match of the night.

Alexander hit Kalisto with a beautiful dropkick at one point, pictured in the gif above, that looked like it about took Kalisto’s head off. Later on in the match, Kalisto came back at Alexander with a seated springboard Spanish fly from the top rope – a mouthful to say, and even harder to do.

The finish of the match was absolutely incredible, Kalisto went for a Salida del Sol, but Alexander countered it into a nasty Lumbar Check to get the win.

Winner: Cedric Alexander 

 

The Bar vs. The DELETER of Worlds

Raw Tag Team Championship Match

 

Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt (The DELETER of Worlds) defeated The Bar to capture the vacant Raw Tag Team Championships. You can watch any episode of Raw and see a tag match like this one; it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t mind-blowingly good, either.

The Raw tag scene needed something different to give it a boost, and this is definitely different. This also set up Hardy and Wyatt for feuds with the likes of The Revival, The Authors of Pain, and the newly formed team of Drew McIntyre and Dolph Ziggler, which should make for entertaining television.

Winner: Bray Wyatt and Matt Hardy

 

Jeff Hardy (c) vs. Jinder Mahal

United States Championship Match

 

Jeff Hardy retained his United States Championship when he defeated Jinder Mahal. Perhaps it was the heat, jet lag, or a combination of the two, but this match was far from good. It’s a shame, too, because these two had done some good things with one another recently on television. With Mahal now on Raw, it looks like Hardy is headed toward a feud with Randy Orton, a matchup that has the potential to be excellent if done correctly.

Winner: Jeff Hardy

 

The Bludgeon Brothers (c) vs. The Usos

SmackDown Live Tag Team Championship Match

 

The Bludgeon Brothers once again defeated The Usos in convincing fashion. Outside of being distracted by Naomi’s dancing, The Bludgeon Brothers have been unstoppable so far, leading us to wonder what could be next for Harper and Rowan.

One thing is for sure, SmackDown Live has a ton of awesome teams right now, so there’s no excuse for the tag division on Tuesday nights to be anything but great for the foreseeable future.

Winner: The Bludgeon Brothers

 

Seth Rollins (c) vs. Finn Bálor vs. Samoa Joe vs. The Miz

Ladder Match for the Intercontinental Championship

 

This wasn’t the best ladder match we’ve ever seen, but it was still quite good, and very stiff. There was more “let’s use the ladder as a weapon” than “let’s use the ladder to do cool stunts,” meaning that these four are probably in a good bit of pain today.

Finn Bálor almost got the win, but as he was climbing up the ladder to retrieve the title, Seth Rollins springboarded onto the ladder, retrieving the title before Bálor could do so. A similar spot was done in the ladder match from NXT TakeOver: New Orleans earlier this month, but the ladder actually broke due to the weight and force, which is scary dangerous. Perhaps this ladder was reinforced, but it held together, allowing for the spot to happen successfully.

Winner: Seth Rollins

 

AJ Styles (c) vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

WWE Championship Match

 

AJ Styles continues to neglect the use of a cup and Shinsuke Nakamura continues to take advantage. Nakamura once again hit Styles in his phenomenal ones, but lucky for Styles, it didn’t cost him the title. We actually enjoyed this match a little more than their bout from WrestleMania earlier this month, but it still isn’t the best these two can do with one another.

The match ended in a double count-out when the two refused to stop brawling outside of the ring. Styles closed out the segment by hitting Nakamura with a Phenomenal Forearm from inside the ring to the floor. This feud is far from over, and will probably continue with Nakamura capturing the WWE Championship from AJ Styles at Backlash next Sunday.

Winner: N/A (Double Countout) 

 

Rusev (w/ Aiden English) vs. The Undertaker

Casket Match

 

Because of the way The Undertaker defeated John Cena at WrestleMania (in less than three minutes), we were not quite sure what to expect from this match. It’s safe to say that we were surprised when the two had a nice back-and-forth that went almost ten minutes. ‘Taker looked pretty good, and Rusev held his own with The Deadman, which is very telling in regards to how the company feels about him.

Obviously ‘Taker got the win; we love Rusev, but this was the right call. Rusev Day (English and Rusev) will hopefully get something going on SmackDown Live soon because their act is still one of the best things in WWE today.

Winner: The Undertaker

 

Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Roman Reigns

Cage Match for the Universal Championship

 

This match was almost everything it needed to be, until the finish. 

The ending to what was a solid match saw Roman Reigns spear Brock Lesnar through the cage, sending both men crashing to the floor below. On paper, this idea is genius, because Reigns can get the win (and the title) without pinning Lesnar, leaving that honor for someone else who needs it more later. It also looked and sounded cool, although we don’t want to see Reigns landing on his neck too many more times in his career. It’s a perfect idea, as long as Reigns wins, but unfortunately, that isn’t what happened.

The referee claimed that Lesnar won the match because his feet hit the floor first, which is a terrible idea, and also not true. In all actuality, Reigns’ feet hit the floor first because Lesnar, who took the bump backward, was still propped atop the chain link fencing, clearly shown by the replay. Lesnar retains, and the Roman Reigns situation gets that much stranger.

Winner: Brock Lesnar

 

50-Man Royal Rumble Match

 

This match was obviously quite long, so we’ll keep it brief and only mention a few noteworthy moments. If you’d like to see the order of entrants, or how many eliminations each man had, check out the Wikipedia page for the show here.

  • Braun Strowman got the victory, eliminating Big Cass to end the match.
  • Titus O’Neill tripped on his way out and slid all the way under the ring. If you’ve been on Twitter at all recently, you’ve probably seen a gif of the moment.
  • Strowman eliminated 13 men, breaking Roman Reigns’ record of 12.
  • Strowman sent Shane McMahon crashing through the announce table from the top rope, which looked like it hurt. Shane O’Mac is still a crazy bastard.
  • Daniel Bryan lasted 1:16:16, also a new record.
  • The match was only about 12 minutes longer than the 2018 men’s Royal Rumble match, an impressive statistic considering there were 20 more participants.


Winner: Braun Strowman

 

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Evan Cole
Rumble Ramble guy. I write things.

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