Review of WWE: Royal Rumble 2006

Introduction

Considered one of the WWE`s "Big Four", where the RAW and Smackdown brands come together to create inter-promotional contests, the Royal Rumble is wrestling`s second most popular event, after the beloved Wrestlemania. Unquestionably, the reason for this is the Rumble`s uniqueness; it is the only time of the year that the Royal Rumble match is held.

If you have never bore witness to a Royal Rumble match in the past, it is simply a new take on the classic "battle royal". Thirty participants enter the Rumble, each of whom draw a number at random. Numbers one and two begin the contest, where the only way to eliminate an opponent is to throw your opponent out over the top rope, where both of his feet touch the floor. Every two minutes thereafter, the next wrestler enters the fray, until all thirty have entered. The last man standing is declared the winner, and gets a World championship match at March`s Wrestlemania.

This year`s event was held at the American Airlines Arena in Miami, on 29th January. Here`s the rundown on the card:

Royal Rumble Match:
Featuring 15 Superstars from RAW and 15 Superstars from Smackdown!

WWE Championship:
Edge ( c ) vs. John Cena

World Heavyweight Championship:
Kurt Angle ( c ) vs. Mark Henry

The Boogeyman vs. JBL

Cruiserweight Title Match:
Kid Kash ( c ) vs Funaki vs Nunzio vs Jamie Noble vs Paul London vs Mystery Opponent

Video

Video is presented in 4:3 fullscreen PAL and is very good for a DVD of this genre. Indeed it looks much better than it originally did on digital satellite, that despite the fact that this transfer is clearly taken from the television master.

Audio

Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 and is also very good. Obviously, the difference between this and the original broadcast is less noticeable, but that is not a complaint in any way.

There are further Dolby options for international viewers: Italian, Spanish, German and French. There are also subtitles from the English track, for Dutch and Portuguese fans.

Features

There is very little here in the way of extras, however as usual I`ll comment that this isn`t to the detriment of the disc, as the video quality on the main feature has shown a noticeable improvement recently with less extras to contend with.

As such, all we have here are vignettes covering the Mark Henry vs Kurt Angle match, RVD greeting Tatanka on his return to the WWE, and a highlights package on past winners of the Royal Rumble. In truth, only the latter is of real value, as there are some lovely clips of Rumbles gone past, and even a clip from the inaugural 1988 Royal Rumble, which has been seen in UK.

Conclusion

This year`s Rumble began with a bit of a surprise, as Cruiserweight champion Kid Kash defended his belt in a tornado match against Funaki, Nunzio, Jamie Noble, Paul London and a mystery opponent. The reason this match was a surprise was that it was never announced on preceding TV shows. In any case, there was some tremendous, and dangerous, high-flying moves in this contest, particularly London`s shooting star press from the top rope to the floor, which ended with a particularly nasty landing. Unfortunately the crowd wasn`t really into this match, despite the effort, and this dragged it down a notch.

Continuing the Trish Stratus/Mickie James storyline, where James is Stratus` obsessed fan, James faced Ashley Massaro with Stratus as referee. I would like to say that this was a good match, but actually the best part of the match was Stratus, and all she was doing was standing there looking pretty.

After going backstage to see Rey Mysterio draw his Royal Rumble number - and conclude that his late friend Eddie Guerrero was playing a joke on him from above - JBL faced The Boogeyman in a match that was just as bad as the previous women`s match. And without being patronising to the hard-working women, that in itself is a disgrace, as Massaro has had barely a few months training as an athlete, never mind a wrestler. I can only be thankful that this one was kept short.

Next up was the Rumble match itself, which was surprising to me because, even though there were championship matches still to come, it is the Rumble that really gets people going. Still, after his comments earlier in the show, Rey Mysterio got the worst draw possible at Number 1. I won`t spoil the other numbers for you, but I will say that good performances were put in by Chris Benoit, HHH, MNM, and Shawn Michaels. It was also exciting to see the return of Rob Van Dam, although he was way out of touch after spending a year on the sidelines after a cruciate ligament injury.

After the excitement of the Rumble match, I did feel somewhat sorry for John Cena and Edge, even though they were wrestling for the WWE Championship. Over sixty minutes of continuous noise seemed to have taken its toll on the crowd and they were a little quieter in this one than for previous championship matches. Again, this detracted somewhat from the match, which was hardly brilliant to begin with, although I must say I found the ending somewhat surprising.

If it was a bad idea to put Edge vs Cena on after the Rumble, it was absolutely inane to put World Heavyweight Champion Kurt Angle vs Mark Henry on last. The fans weren`t interested at all - in fact I`ve spoken to someone who was at the American Airlines Arena and he told me that people were actually leaving during this match - and with Henry (best known for being a champion weightlifter) this match was always destined to be bad. It could have been worse, I suppose, and there was an interesting ending to the show, if not to the match itself. Hey, at least DVD viewers have a fast-forward button.

Overall, 2006`s Royal Rumble was a mixed bag. The Rumble match itself delivered, as it normally does, but even at that it was nowhere near as good as the legendary 1992 match. The Cruiserweight title match was good but was given no build-up time, the women`s match was pretty woeful, and I`m going to stick my neck out and say that JBL vs The Boogeyman was worse. John Cena and Edge worked hard in their championship match, which suffered due to its positioning on the card. The same can be said for Angle vs Henry but I`m less inclined to make excuses for a match that deserved the criticism.

Looked at from this point of view, then, there is about one hour`s worth of good WWE material here, and two hours worth of dross. Unless you are a big Rumble match fan, you might want to save your pennies for the three-disc Wrestlemania.