WWE Royal Rumble 2023 review: Sami Zayn makes his choice

This might be the first Royal Rumble in quite some time where no one’s talking about the Rumble winners.

The first WWE premium live event of 2023 ended with Sami Zayn attacking Roman Reigns with a steel chair after Reigns forced Zayn to make a choice between Reigns and Owens. I will never forget the Alamodome’s reaction when that chair hit Reigns’ back, just white hot. Of course, the rest of the Bloodline (sans Jey Uso, who left due to being conflicted) attacked Zayn, including Reigns, who left both Owens and Zayn in a heap as the show closed. The actual match itself was fine, if not forgettable. But the angle that took place after it was one of the best angles WWE has done in years, you couldn’t do a better job in execution.

Now the question is where it goes from here. A Zayn/Reigns match seems clear for Elimination Chamber, as I can’t see them dropping the Cody Rhodes match in favor of a Zayn match at WrestleMania (though perhaps you could have Reigns defend both nights). And I don’t expect Jey Uso to separate himself from his family. So I can see a situation where Jey is conflicted for the next few weeks until Elimination Chamber, where he ultimately turns on Zayn in the match against Roman, setting up a potential tag team match for WrestleMania and freeing Reigns to focus on Rhodes.

Rhodes and Rhea Ripley won this year’s Royal Rumble matches. The men’s match started out slow, but by the end there were some really cool moments, and it ended up being a good match. Ricochet and Logan Paul’s spot where they both flew off the opposite sides of the ring and collided into each other was really cool. The last several minutes between Rhodes and the runner-up, Gunther, were awesome. If anything, I left this match thinking a future match between Rhodes and Gunther would be great. But I don’t think that’s the direction the company is going in. But it’s something to think about for the future!

The women’s Royal Rumble match wasn’t as good as the men’s match, but the last few minutes between Asuka, Liv Morgan, and Rhea Ripley were great. Asuka, who sported a new-ish look based on her Kana days prior to WWE, looked great. And the finish, with Ripley teasing almost being eliminated only to use her feet to throw out Morgan, was very well done. Seems like it will be Ripley and Bianca Belair at WrestleMania. They could do Ripley and Charlotte as well, but for some reason I’m feeling a Belair match more.

One complaint I kept hearing following the Royal Rumble was that the winners were too predictable. My answer to this is: GOOD! We live in an unpredictable world, so when anything goes according to plan these days, I consider that a thumbs up. Besides, think about all of the times WWE did Royal Rumble finishes to surprise, swerve, or throw off people. Were they good in any way? Most of the time, that answer was a giant no, largely because they made no sense and were only designed to be a surprise. Saturday’s finishes came off great, people popped for the wins, and everyone was largely happy with the results. I liked them. If you want unpredictability, there’s plenty of that in the world right now, so go look at Twitter or something.

There were two other matches on the show, and neither were good. The PITCH BLACK MATCH, which I had bad feelings about the moment it was announced, was pretty terrible as a whole. Bray Wyatt and LA Knight had an uninteresting brawl in a black light with neon weapons and confetti everywhere so you could (unfortunately) see what was going on. Wyatt won the forgettable match. 

After the match, for some reason, Wyatt all of a sudden put on a new mask. He and Knight brawled to a platform, where Wyatt laid out Knight. Uncle Howdy then showed up on a platform above them, did his dumb dance, then flew off a with an elbow that missed Knight by a mile. Pyro then went off. I guess LA Knight died and sank to hell or something? I don’t know. Or care.

To follow this up, more spooky was next, as Alexa Bliss and Bianca Belair had a wrestling match. They did holds. No one reacted or cared. Then Belair won clean with the KOD. Not interesting or good in any way. Uncle Howdy then once again graced us with his presence, saying some mumbo jumbo to Bliss on the video screen. She seemed transfixed.

Apparently all of this is part of a long, overarching storyline that is supposed to ultimately make sense and pay off sometime in the future. On one hand that’s good, as WWE and long term storytelling have been strangers to one another for some time. But here’s the bad news: all of this is so bad I don’t care where it goes, It’s awful. It kills the crowd dead each and every time Bray Wyatt and his merry band of weirdos goes out there and do their spooky time routine. It feels self-indulgent more than anything at this point and I just wish it would end. 

And that was the 2023 Royal Rumble. The highs were excellent, the lows were bad, but the good outweighed the bad by a significant margin. Next up is the Elimination Chamber event in three weeks. The question going into that show is…why exactly are we having an Elimination Chamber? Cody vs. Roman is set for WrestleMania, so that is out of the question. My gut feeling is perhaps a match to determine the other women’s title match for WrestleMania may take place next month.