The Greatest Royal Rumble: The true stars of this record-setting event

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History was made for the WWE on Friday in the city of Jeddah.

Fifty wrestlers -- eventually -- entered the ring to compete for, well, the title of greatest Royal Rumbler, I guess. While story lines unfolded, history was made, and a few scores were settled, there was still time to throw in a few surprise entrants.

And an all-time moment for one of the wrestlers:


World. Wide.

Joking aside, there was the standard mix of very good matches, decent matches, surprising matches, and an ending to a title match that makes no absolute sense.

Daniel Bryan lasted roughly 75 minutes in the Greatest Royal Rumble match, besting Rey Mysterio's record by 13 minutes. Bryan started at entry number one and made it to the final three before predictably being eliminated by Big Cass.

In turn, Braun Strowman eliminated Big Cass to win the Greatest Royal Rumble.

The tag matches were pretty entertaining and the U.S. Title match was decent (even with a botched move or two). And The Undertaker actually looked better in his casket match against Rusev than he did at Wrestlemania 34.

In a move that continues to befuddle me, Brock Lesnar retained his belt. At some point, Vince McMahon needs to figure out if he's going to go all in on Roman Reigns. Even at this juncture it looks like fans are turning on both wrestlers and getting a little tired of this routine.

It's also possible Vince is trying to extend Brock's number of days with the title (390) so he can pass CM Punk's sixth-longest streak of 434 days.


Outside of that educated guess, I'm not quite sure what they're doing.

Stealing the show yet again

The match of the night belonged again to the four men who have been at the top of the wrestling game for the past couple of years.

A ladder match for the Intercontinental Title, involving Seth Rollins, Finn Balor, Samoa Joe, and The Miz, was the highlight of the night (day).

These four men have carried and provided some of the best stories in recent years. And Rollins was able to retain the belt when he leaped from the top rope onto the ladder and quickly snatched the belt away from Balor.

I want these two to keep wrestling against each other forever.

2018 has belonged to Rollins and Balor. They have delivered results in match after match, both playing to the crowds while becoming two of the hardest workers this company has to offer.

Both are capable of carrying the company on their shoulders and will be interesting to see where a bloodied Balor -- who was left standing shocked at the top of the ladder -- goes from here.

Will we get to see Demon Balor face Friday afternoon Rollins? One can only hope.

Having both Samoa Joe and The Miz over on Smackdown will allow these two to not get lost among the shuffle. I was a little skeptical with Samoa Joe moving over, considering he is one man (outside of John Cena) who gets the best reactions/mic work out of Roman Reigns.

But having him on Smackdown will help out a lot of different story lines. 

I'm sure he has one coming with The Miz while the company does a slow burn with the Daniel Bryan/The Miz story. Bryan likely will focus on Big Cass, at least through Backlash, so The Miz needs to have something going.

These four have earned a rightful spot to continued to be featured. Throw in the return of Bryan and a dominating Braun Strowman and the summer months on the men's side of things should be pretty interesting.

Now, let's go take a walk with Elias.

 photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org
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