The Road to Wrestlemania

Oh boy, the Royal Rumble has finally come and gone. The Road to Wrestlemania is upon us. The most exciting Pay-per view of the year lived up to its name and there’s a lot to break down. Pay-per view cards now always seem like they go on for way too long, but with two Royal Rumble matches keeping this card short is nearly impossible.

I’ll talk about all the title matches first, and leave the Royal Rumble matches to their own separate paragraph. So without further ado, here is all you need to know about the 2019 Royal Rumble.

2019 was the year that many fans thought fell flat for the WWE. The company promised that they were moving in a different direction where they would listen more to the fans.

They really prove that with this match card. We saw some matches that fans have been asking for for a while, starting with Becky lynch and Asuka for the SmackDown Women’s Championship.

The perfect opening match, as it started the show with a bang. It was a really back-and-forth, high paced match, that ends with Asuka making Becky Lynch tap out to retain her championship. Asuka really cemented herself as a legitimate threat in the women’s division.

Next, we saw the bar lose their SmackDown Tag Team Championships to the new tag team of Shane McMahon and The Miz.

This is a tag team I didn’t know I needed until now, because boy they put on a show. Really the company could go anywhere from here with this new tag team, but wherever they go I’ll be watching the entire time. Daniel Bryan defended his WWE championship against AJ Styles, and this match was just plain awful.

It came right after the women’s Royal Rumble, which we will get to, and with such a tired crowd there was no energy left for this match. I won’t spend too much time talking about this one as I don’t feel that it’s worth it. If you’ve got 20 minutes and absolutely need something to do, it still might not be worth the watch.

Now Monday night raw had a chance to showcase its championships as well. This next match was one of my favorite matches of the night, as Ronda Rousey retains her RAW women’s championship against the boss Sasha Banks. I was obviously pulling for Sasha to win as she’s my favorite woman in the company, and she put up a fight. Ronda did win however securing her first pinfall victory of her career.

I still predict that she’ll remain undefeated until Wrestlemania. Sasha really put up a great battle though, and proved why she’s one of the best female wrestlers of all time. Now it was time for the match that I was looking forward to the most. I was insanely nervous all day for this one as my favorite superstar Finn Balor challenged the beast Brock Lesnar for the universal championship.

I wasn’t sure how Houston was going to do with such a huge size difference between him and his opponent. He came out firing. He surprisingly got in the majority of the offense. Brock locked him in the Kimora lock and forced him to tap out. After the match Brock got in a little more damage to Finn, to send a message. Although Finn lost, this is a really big sign of great things to come.

Now it’s time for the moments that we all waited for, both the men and women’s Royal Rumble matches. To be honest I thought the women’s was better than last year’s, and the men’s was just as good. Starting with the women, instead of returns they went with a lot of NXT call-ups. With too many to name, just know that it made the match very exciting.

It really showed how bright the future of the women’s division is in the WWE. Now the ending was predictable, with Becky being a surprise entrance and eliminating Charlotte to win. Becky Lynch is the best thing in the company right now and they’re clearly going to push her to the moon. I’m sure she will be in the main event of Wrestlemania.

Now on the men’s side, a few and NXT call-ups but really they focused on the talent that they have on the main roster at the current moment to make this work. No, I will take all credit where credit is due on this one.

I did correctly predict the winner to be Seth Rollins. Now I was wrong with who he would eliminate, as I thought it would be Drew McIntyre. A win is a win though, and I got it right. Seth still has to decide who he’s facing. Regardless of that decision however the show ending with Seth winning the Rumble and pointing at the Wrestlemania sign, was the perfect way to end it. We are on the road to Wrestlemania, so you better buckle up.

-Joe Pegoraro (jpeg1017)