Royal Rumble, and RIP Jack Brisco

Tonight's blog entry isn't going to be exceptionally long or anything, as it's been both a busy AND lazy weekend all at once, and definitely a busy day and it's late now; but I wanted to give my thoughts on last night's Royal Rumble. Tonight's Raw thoughts will be up tomorrow sometime.

Before I do though, I just wanted to extend my thoughts to the family of Jack Brisco, former NWA champion and brother of WWE official Jerry Brisco, who passed away at the age of 68 today. The WWE Hall of Famer will be missed.

The Rumble, however, was not to be missed. The WWE's first $45 pay per view (and the first PPV of 2010) started the year off with a bang. Christian and Ezekiel Jackson wrestled a passable opening match for the ECW title; I'm not sure how I felt about MVP and the Miz being added to the show without advertisement and for such a short match to not ultimately change anything, but they did a good job with what they were given as always; I was intrigued by Orton-Sheamus and the fraying of the Legacy, who, after breeding seeds of distrust of one another in Randy Orton, came out to interfere in his match after he told them not to, costing him his title shot and leading to an angry attack on them. Beautiful drama. I was disappointed the women's match was such a short squash, but much like the DQ finish in the Orton-Sheamus match added to the drama and allowed both wrestlers to come out strong, therefore not being as annoying as it otherwise would be, this squash was the only way this humiliating feud for Mickie James could have ended - congrats to the new women's champion. And the Undertaker and Rey Mysterio, despite my concerns that these two opposite styles might not mesh, put on a decent match as well. Kudos.

Of course, the story of the RR is always the Rumble match itself and there was plenty of story to tell. The story of the first half of the Rumble was CM Punk who consistently emptied the ring and had time to proseletyze between competitors. Of course it got rocky when Triple H entered the ring, and ultimately eliminated Punk. Shawn Michaels' drama of being eliminated 3rd last and beating up a few referees in his torment reminds the world of the 'Angry Young Man' Shawn used to be, and was done well (although comes off as a bit staged and petulent, given Shawn's a much cooler customer these days). Beth Phoenix participating in the match was pretty cool too. But of course the story of the night was mah boy Edge coming in at #29 and winning the whole shebang. While I was hoping for my Shawn to win, Edge winning is a definite acceptable option #2: especially if Chris Jericho goes on to win the Undertaker's World Title at No Way Out and the inevitable battle between former teammates at Mania is for the strap. While Shawn-Taker doesn't need the title to sell it (although I hope Shawn gets the belt again at least once more before hanging 'em up), and admittedly Jericho-Edge doesn't either, I still feel the gold would add a bit of incentive for these two bucks in their prime. Make it so! :)