WWE’s Royal Rumble is the first step in the road towards Wrestlemania. You can usually see where the plans are going when it pertains to Wrestlemania after the rumble. It’s also one of the more special shows of the year simply because you only see one Royal Rumble a year.

At the bottom of this post, Duan, Alan and I will both give our thoughts about the Mosley and Margarito fight as well.

Here’s what the FGB crew thought about the shows.

Royal Rumble

Big D

Show overall rating: Thumbs Up

Best Match: Royal Rumble
Worst Match: None

Awesome Royal Rumble. I always forget just how fun these matches can be every year and they rarely dissapoint. Every single match on the card delivered. I loved the back and forth Hardy vs. Swagger match. Swagger is really getting better and better with each match and I’m VERY impressed with his selling. The women’s match was fun and very similar to the Hardy/Swagger except with women. I loved Melina’s lucha like roll-up finish. I popped. Cena vs. JBL was a decent brawl. The ending was a bit predictable, but it was cool. Cena got his win back and HBK got to boot JBL. Good times. Edge vs. Jeff Hardy NO DQ was an awesome main event caliber match. I loved how they used tables, ladders, and chairs, but didn’t overuse them. The finish made absolutely no sense. I don’t care what stupid excuses and reasons people have for Matt to turn on Jeff – none of them make sense. If he was behind all of this, why did he attack Edge not only on Smackdown this past week, but throughout the past few months. I hated how the supposed reason was for Matt to be “jealous” of Jeff winning the belt… yet he attacks him a MONTH BEFORE JEFF WINS IT at Survivor Series in the hotel? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

I do want to say that I feel bad for Matt. A bunch of disrespectful, uneducated, mouth breathing marks left very crude and rude comments on his myspace page. I actually read one guy say “I know its fake, but fuck you”. I cannot fathom there being HUMAN BEINGS that are like this. At least we can hope they’ll pay to see Matt vs. Jeff and give Matt money for that crap.

The Rumble match is ALWAYS fun and this year was no exception. I was a little dissapointed with the surprise of Regal and Hacksaw, but the RVD return was AWESOME. I broke this on AngryMarks.com before it happened and thought it was still cool that RVD got a shot. I loved how they did the Priceless vs. HHH fight at the end, and I was actually legitimately expecting Ted Dibiase to turn on Orton (payback for the kick in Tampa) and win the Rumble, setting up a new star against Cena. The Marine 1 vs. The Marine 2. It sounds lame, but I love it. Still, Orton’s win was… predictable. I liked how he pointed AT THE SIGN… AGAIN! Just like last year. But I loved the fireworks.

Overall, awesome Royal Rumble show. If you missed it, check it out.

Alan

Show overall rating: Thumbs Up

Best Match: Royal Rumble
Worst Match: Melina vs. Beth Phoenix

Loved this PPV. So good, that not even the closing angle of Raw could wash away the good will I had for WWE after this show. I think I enjoyed the Rumble match more than anyone, so much action and so much stuff I marked for. Swagger/Matt was great too. Didn’t like the Matt heel turn though. That was some bullshit. I wanted a Christian return bad.

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There were two MMA shows last weekend. Both shows featured men who could lay claims for being the best pound for pound fighter in the world. One show was on PPV while the other was on cable television. One had a huge main event, that if it was marketed by the UFC, would’ve done big business. The other had two guys fighting at 155 pounds in the top position on the card with nicknames like “The Cowboy” and “C-4″ (well, Varner has a few nicknames). The FGB brothers have their thoughts on both cards.

Affliction: Day Of Reckoning

Big D

Show overall rating: Thumbs In The Middle

Best Fight: Josh Barnett vs. Gilbert Yvel
Worst Fight: None

I’m not sure if anybody really bought this any more than any big TNA show, but entertainment-wise, Affliction: Day of Reckoning really wasn’t a bad show. The big story coming out of the show was the near-fatal knockout of one Matt Lindland by Vitor Belfort. A lot of people are saying “the old Vitor is back” and I disagree. The supposed “old Vitor” comes back every couple of months, then he ends up reverting to the hit or miss status that we’re accustomed to.

Barnett vs. Yvel, while it wasn’t the most technical of the two fights, really was entertaining. Barnett had some troubles finishing Yvel. I completely underestimated the toughness of Yvel. Barnett kept at it and actually looked *gulp* in shape.

The main event was quite the spectacle. Arlovski entered the ring like he was about to yell “SPARTAAAAA” and Fedor, as usual, was cold and lifeless. Arlovski’s new boxing techniques and handspeed were working quite well for him to start. I could clearly see he wasn’t really afraid of Fedor and was actually winning the fight on points. Then he gets Fedor to a corner and goes for a flying knee (which according to big Dave Meltzer, his corner told him not to do, but he didn’t listen) and gets caught with the shortest right hand in the history of God’s green Earth. The shortest right hand may have also been the most powerful, as it dropped Andrei out cold. This was the most unbelievable thing I had seen in quite some time. Fedor waited for Andrei to make a mistake, he made it, and capitalized. It may be damn-near impossible to find a fighter THIS good at Heavyweight perhaps ever.

Overall, if you ordered the show, you got something good, if you didn’t… eh… you didn’t miss enough to make you go “dammit… I wish I’d seen that”.

Alan

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I’m going to try and write up my Raw thoughts after the shows, at least up until Wrestlemania.

Remember when Stone Cold Steve Austin was beating up Vince McMahon at least once or twice a month? And remember when he came up with a doctor’s note to explain why he was beating up Vince McMahon? Remember, he told Steph that it wasn’t his fault, but he just had an aggressive disorder? No, you don’t? That’s because it never happened! And remember when he threatened to sue the WWF when they tried to take him out of the Wrestlemania XV title match? No? Because it never happened! I understand that they’re trying to keep Randy Orton heel, but this was a terrible way to do it. I actually thought it’d be a much better idea to make Orton re-win his Mania title shot in the Elimination Chamber, but it looks like the belt is going to be defended in the chamber, which doesn’t make all that much sense to me. I thought the appeal of last year’s No Way Out PPV was that the Elimination Chamber matches directly influenced Wrestlemania. Unless something changes, it doesn’t seem to be that way except if the belt changes hands, which would seem odd to do six weeks before Wrestlemania.

Maybe the only good part about Raw last night was Chris Jericho’s promo about Mickey Rourke. By the looks of it, Ric Flair may be apart of the angle which is awesome. Though I’m not sure we’ll get the Flair/Jericho payoff that having Flair in the angle might necessitate, but we’ll get there when we get there. I think having Flair will definitely help the match get over live with the crowd because let’s face it, there’s no way Rourke is going to be able have a good match. Jericho is probably the right guy to carry him, but still, he’s not a magician. Rourke is 56 years old and he walks like he can barely move. I can’t imagine him moving in the ring. But I still think the angle is money.

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Last night at the SAG Awards, Mickey Rourke said that the wrestling community has embraced him and he had talked to Vince McMahon, Ric Flair, and Roddy Piper and then mentioned that he thought he would do Wrestlemania in Houston.

Finally, he called out Chris Jericho and said he was coming for his ass.

Is Mickey actually thinking of getting into the ring? Are we going to see “The Ram” vs. “The Ayatollah Of Rock-N-Rolla”?

Watch below. You’ll have to wait about 1:30 and sit through him talking about how beautiful Brad Pitt is.

We have a new poll on the website that we’ll keep up until the weekend. If you look over to the right, you’ll see the poll and you can vote.

UFC 94 is going to be one of the bigger shows of the year and we’ll have a ton of coverage all week long. Later this week, we’ll preview the show’s top matches with the FGB crew and I’ll see who else I can reach out to for their opinion. We’ll also have the recap of the third and last UFC Primetime show.

Who’s going to win? Vote now!

This is the last of the four big shows this weekend. I’m watching this on tape delay.

Craig Hummer and Frank Mir are ready to take us home.

1. Jose Aldo vs. Rolando Perez

These guys are 145′ers. They’re selling Aldo as the real deal on the feet. It was a kick boxing match for the first few minutes until Perez tried to throw a low jab and Aldo met him with a knee that sent him down. Aldo followed it up and finished him on the ground with strikes. That was pretty impressive. He ran out of the cage and into the crowd before coming back into the cage.

Winner: Jose Aldo by way of 1st round TKO

2. Mike Campbell vs. Danillo Villefort

These guys are fighting at welterweight. Villefort is a good deal taller than Campbell. Campbell was getting in some good strikes and put Villefort down. Villefort went from uma plata to knee bar, but Campbell got out. Then Villefort got the mount on Campbell’s back and stopped him via strikes.

Winner: Danillo Villefort by way of 1st round TKO

3. Scott Jorgenson vs. Frank Gomez

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