The opening video package aired showing some historical Royal Rumble clips along with some images of the stars that are set to compete in this year’s show. It also focused on the non-Rumble matches as well.
There was a shot of the crowd in St. Louis with the WrestleMania log high up in the building. I was a bit surprised by the lack of a pyro display to start the show. The Smackdown announce team of Michael Cole and Pat McAfee (in a shiny jacket) were on hand to call the action. It is Pat’s first Rumble as an announcer, so he was excited.
Roman Reigns made his entrance as the Universal Champion for the first match of the show. Cole put over Roman’s lengthy 516-day title reign while noting only four men have held the title for longer: Pedro Morales, Bob Backlund, Hulk Hogan, and Bruno Sammartino. As we knew going into the match, Roman’s cousins The Usos are barred from ringside for this match. Reigns got a superstar reaction from the crowd with a lot of boos, but really it’s a lot of noise. Reigns posed with his title in the ring as the pyro went off in the dome.
Seth “Freakin” Rollins made his entrance with The Shield music starting instead of his actual theme song and then Rollins was in the crowd wearing some Shield attire. Reigns had a frustrated look on his face to show he was pissed off because Rollins was mocking what they did as part of The Shield. Rollins walked down to the ring from the upper decks and made his way down to ringside with a smirk on his face. They stood in the ring for the championship introductions from Samantha Irvin. The crowd was into this match right away.
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