WWE Royal Rumble 2017 Review: Results, Analysis, and Grades

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Raw Women’s Championship Match
Charlotte (c) vs. Bayley

Result: Charlotte defeats Bayley via pinfall to retain the Raw Women’s Championship.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Bayley got an early head of steam on Charlotte, tossing her out of the ring twice and had the upper hand for a time. The tide quickly turned, though, with Charlotte grounding the challenger for quite a while. All those taunts that came out during their Poetry Slam 101 session were on display here.

How about that big elbow drop from Bayley? Shades of “Macho Man” Randy Savage all the way there.

The match started to get pretty rough around the edges around 10 minutes through. Bayley ended up causing Charlotte to bleed from the mouth with her elbow drop. A blocked moonsault even looked to cause some pain to Bayley. However, that Natural Selection on the ring apron may have been the most brutal looking of them all.

Somewhat surprisingly, this match lasted only a hair over 10 minutes with Charlotte hitting her nonsubmission finisher for the win. This gave her yet another PPV win, which will be played up heading into WrestleMania 33, a time that may be best for putting breaking this streak.

Bayley is the more intriguing of the two here in regard to fallout. She took the pinfall after a somewhat short Raw Women’s Championship match, so is this the end of her time in the title picture? With the biggest part of WWE’s calendar approaching, I can’t see that happening just yet. There should be a spot for her at both Fastlane and WrestleMania 33.