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

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No Disqualification Match for the WWE Universal Championship
Kevin Owens (c) vs. Roman Reigns

Result: Kevin Owens defeats Roman Reigns via pinfall to retain the WWE Universal Championship.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

The early highlight of this came from Jericho being petrified of being in the shark cage as it rose above the ring. He played it off great and showed how fearful he was of what was about to happen to him.

At one point, it looked like Owens built a fort of chairs like a little kid would with pillows and blankets. It didn’t prove to be much earlier on.

This did, though, which pushed this match to another level of excitement:

This had been one of many times that weapons came into play, including when Jericho dropped down the brass knuckles and Reigns hitting the Samoan Drop on the chair (it looked like the edge of it caught KO). All of these items being used freshened up this matchup to where this could be called the best Owens vs. Reigns match by far. If anything, this was both man’s best bout in quite some time.

Perhaps the most surprising moment of the match came when Owens hit a Stunner out of nowhere. Reigns kicked out of it, though, so could we get an angry Texas Rattlesnake on his podcast soon?

Oh, and about those chairs:

Braun Strowman made a surprising appearance in the match and absolutely destroyed Reigns. Commentary played it up as revenge for everything Reigns did to him in recent weeks. So we’re seemingly in for something big to come between these two heading into WrestleMania season.

As for Owens, he’s now the favorite to walk into WrestleMania 33 with the Universal Championship. Nothing with Jericho got teased here, but that doesn’t mean things won’t combust between the two soon.

An overall great match, however. Owens and Reigns had plenty of lackluster bouts before, so this one at Royal Rumble outclassed anything else they had done. They should both have momentum into Raw.

Royal Rumble Number Selection

Backstage we see Sami Zayn receive the No. 8 spot in the Royal Rumble match. Dean Ambrose also showed up and provided some comedy here.