Royal Rumble Rewind: 2006

Starting with this one, the rest of these Royal Rumble review will be new content that has not been posted anywhere else. Enjoy!

2006 Royal Rumble

Emanating from the American Airlines Arena in Miami, FL

As if things weren’t bad enough that this Rumble is getting a midcard slot, we kick off this year’s match with a cheer from the Spirit Squad. Even though they’re uber-annoying, the crowd can barely muster the energy to boo them. Not a good sign. They certainly wake up though upon seeing that Triple H is #1. #2 is Rey Mysterio, who comes out to the ring in a low ride. He drapes one of Eddie Guerrero’s shirts on the hood. Mysterio is dedicating the match to Guerrero who had passed away two months prior. Mysterio uses his speed to gain an early advantage on HHH. He delivers a 10-punch count on HHH as the crowd chants ‘Eddie’. HHH avoids a 619 as Simon Dean rolls out on his Segway at #3. Dean puts the boots to Mysterio as HHH looks on. When Dean asks for a high five from HHH, he gets punched instead. Mysterio and HHH team up and dump Dean to the floor together. As Mysterio connects with a Bronco Buster, Psicosis enters at #4. Psicosis takes it to both guys. As he tries to do a Razor’s Edge on Mysterio, Rey reverses it into a hurricanrana and sends Psicosis out of the ring. Whooo, it’s Ric Flair at #5 and he has issues with HHH. He chops and punches away on HHH. It should be noted that as these two go at, Rey is just lying on the mat. Something he’ll be doing a LOT in this match. Flair makes a charge, but HHH backdrops him out of the ring. Before HHH can catch his breath, Big Show is out at #6. He too was at odds with HHH at this time. Show lays some vicious chops in on HHH as Mysterio continues to lie down. Mysterio gets up long enough to receive a headbutt from Show and he’s back down again. Show delivers a series of elbow drops on HHH. Jonathan Coachman, yes announcer Jonathan Coachman comes out at #7. He foolishly tries to attack Big Show. Show turns around and piefaces Coach right out of the ring. Looks like he’s getting the Bushwacker award tonight. Show returns his focus to HHH as Rey continues to lie on the mat. Bobby Lashley is #8 and he has a staredown with Show. Show attempts to chokeslam him, but Lashley escapes and then backdrops him. Lashley whips Mysterio hard to the corner, so he’ll probably be down for another 5 minutes from that. Big Show’s tag partner at that time, Kane is #9. He slugs it out with Lashley in the proverbial ‘irresistible force meeting the immovable object’ battle. Lashley connects with an overhead belly-to-belly suplex to Kane. After press slamming HHH, Lashley hits Kane with the Dominator. The power moves are nice, but the name of the game is eliminating people, something he hasn’t done yet. #10 is Sylvan and he tries to forge a partnership with Lashley. However, he quickly attempts to double-cross him, which doesn’t end well. Lashley quickly grabs him and heaves him out of the ring. Big Show and Kane are both back up now. They give Lashley a tandem chokeslam and then casually eliminate him. The two tag partners actually go at it while Mysterio and HHH are still lying down. Show and Kane try to eliminate each other when HHH comes up and dumps both of them out of the ring.

#11 is Carlito. He puts the boots to both Mysterio and HHH. Carlito hits Mysterio with the backstabber. That should give Mysterio another reason to take a breaker. Chris Benoit comes out at #12 and delivers chops and suplexes to everyone in the ring. Finally, an infusion of energy into this match. Benoit puts Carlito into the Crossface until HHH breaks it up. Benoit tries to suplex HHH out of the ring, but HHH blocks it and crotches him on the top rope. Benoit knocks HHH down and then connects with the flying headbutt. You better dig it sucka because #13 is Booker T. He goes right after Benoit, who he’s been feuding with recently. Benoit blocks Booker’s elimination attempt and quickly hiptosses him out of the ring. Man Booker gave Coach a run for his money there. Although to be fair, Booker was dealing with a groin injury that probably prevented him from being able to fully compete in this match. Benoit goes back to squaring off against HHH while Carlito has to pick up Mysterio in order to get him to do something. One half of MNM, Joey Mercury, is #14. He attacks everyone until Benoit catches him with a German suplex. The pairs are now Benoit/HHH and Mercury/Carlito leaving Rey to…you guess it…lie on the mat. #15 is Tatanka as a surprise entrant. If that’s the best they can do for a surprise return, things don’t look good for this match. His appearance prompts the Miami crowd to begin the ‘Tomahawk Chop’ chant. Lots of punching and kicking right now with no one near elimination. Mercury’s tag partner, Johnny Nitro is #16. Benoit gets HHH over the top rope, but he manages to hang on. Lawler suggests that Eddie divinely gave Mysterio the #2 entry so he could watch him for a long time. If Eddie has nothing better to do than watch Mysterio laze around for an hour then the afterlife must be extremely boring. #17 is Trevor Murdoch. HHH grabs Mysterio and throws him over, but Mysterio hangs on. He comes back into the ring and immediately clutches the bottom rope. Apparently HHH can’t take the hint that Mysterio has no interest in being active tonight. Another surprise entrant is the returning Eugene at #18. Murdoch punches him, but Eugene no sells it. Eugene gives him an airplane spin that makes both of them dizzy. #19 is Animal from LOD and I’m surprised he can still find shoulderpads that fit over his stomach. We’ve got way too many guys in there right now and most of them are complete losers. #20 marks the big return of Rob Van Dam, who had been out for nearly a year with a knee injury. He delivers kicks to everyone who comes within distance of him. Animal charges at him, but he backdrops him out of the ring to clear some deadweight.

Orlando Jordan is #21, but frankly I think I would have preferred the other OJ. At least he knows how to eliminate people. What? Too soon? RVD heaves Carlito over the top rope, but he manages to hang on. Now the guy who should have been dedicating this match to Eddie, his cousin Chavo comes out at #22. He goes after Mysterio, no doubt miffed at him stealing his rightful dedication. He now delivers Eddie’s Three Amigos to Joey Mercury. Chavo goes up top to deliver a frog splash, but HHH shoves him to the floor before he can deliver the move. So apparently Eddie had no interest in offering his actual family any divine intervention in this match. There’s still way too many guys in there. Matt Hardy enters at #23 as we still wait for a top guy to come out and do some house cleaning. MNM team up and hit Tatanka with the Snapshot. That’s enough to eliminate him. He’s Super…he’s crazy…he’s Super Crazy and he’s also #24. More punching and kicking and a whole lot of nothingness. Oh thank heavens it’s Shawn Michaels at #25. He attacks everyone in sight. Then he gets productive by dumping Murdoch out of the ring. I was hoping for more than just that though. That loud sigh of indifference you hear is the indication that Chris Masters is out at #26. Matt Hardy and HHH come close to eliminating each other, but both manage to hang on. Shawn Michaels uses a headscissors to try and eliminate Mercury, but his partner grabs him to prevent him from going out. The world’s largest love machine, Viscera is our #27 entrant. He grabs Matt Hardy and gives him the Walrus. And if you don’t know what that is, consider yourself lucky. I’m sure Matt created a whiny YouTube video complaining about being treated like that. Hardy tries to give Viscera the Twist of Fate, but Vis picks him up and throws him out of the ring. Led to the ring by his momma, Shelton Benjamin comes out at #28. Meanwhile Benoit manages to unceremoniously eliminate Eugene. It’s yet another surprise entrant as #29 is Goldust. Still more punching and kicking. And if you’re wondering is Rey Mysterio is lying on the mat, well he is. #30 is Randy Orton and I wonder what he did in order to get that number. He runs in and immediately eliminates Benoit. Given how much worthless talent is still in the ring, that seemed unnecessary.

With all entrants out we still have over a third of them still in this match. Carlito and Masters team up to eliminate Viscera. As Masters celebrates, Carlito takes the opportunity to throw him out of the ring as well. Let it be known that nobody will ever confuse Chris Masters for an intelligent man. Goldust grabs Carlito and is able to hit him with Shattered Dreams. However, he then gets blindsided by an RVD kick, which knocks him out of the ring. Meanwhile Orton gets Jordan over the top rope and knocks him off the apron to eliminate him. Shawn Michaels hits HHH with the flying forearm. Before he can get rolling, MNM attack him from behind. They attempt to give him the Snapshot, but he escapes. He then manages to eliminate both of them single-handedly. Michaels turns around only to be hit with a kick by Benjamin. Michaels recovers and gets him over the top rope. Benjamin hangs on, but Michaels hits him with Sweet Chin Music to officially eliminate him. Shawn is cleaning house! But before he can do any more damage, ‘No Chance in Hell’ plays and out comes Vince McMahon. From the outside he starts jawing at Michaels. As Michaels yells back, Shane McMahon runs out of nowhere and throws him out of the ring. Michaels realizes this and chases after him. Before he can do that, HHH cuts him off. Michaels escapes a Pedigree attempt and then runs to the back to go after Shane. That was majorly disappointing. Back to the ring when an RVD spin kick sends Carlito out of the ring. We’re now down to our Final Four consisting of RVD, Randy Orton, but our #1 and #2 entrants, HHH and Rey Mysterio. Mysterio calls over RVD, no doubt asking if he can do all the work for him. They team up to work over HHH and Orton. RVD goes up top for a frog splash, but HHH crotches him. HHH then catapults Mysterio into RVD, causing him to fall down to the floor and be eliminated. Now Orton and HHH, former Evolution teammates work together against Mysterio. Mysterio is able to divide and conquer though. He drops both of them to the second rope and hits a tandem 619. Orton goes for an RKO on HHH, but he blocks it and hits him with a spinebuster instead. HHH attempts to give Mysterio a spinebuster, but he reverses it into a ‘rana that sends HHH up and over. HHH is stunned. We’re down to Orton and Mysterio. HHH pulls Mysterio out of the ring and sends him into the steps. He then puts him back in the ring to leave him for Orton. Orton picks up Mysterio who is deadweight. As he tries to eliminate him, Mysterio once again reverses it into a ‘rana which sends Orton out of the ring and gives Rey the win.

Bottom Line: This is by far my least favorite Rumble. On the action alone, this would have been already near the bottom. There were very few memorable spots and the roster was one of the weakest of the decade. But what makes this one stand out among other lackluster Rumbles is Rey Mysterio’s ‘performance’. There are so many grating things about it. While he had always been a top star, he got a huge push merely because his friend Eddie passed away. These nauseating levels at which the announcers tried to sell Rey’s success as divine intervention was aptly dubbed ‘Eddiesploitation’ around the Internet. It’s also annoying that Rey’s victory broke the longevity record as he lasted over 62 minutes. When Flair went an hour in ’92, he delivered offensive moves from bell to bell. And yet Mysterio goes into the record book for basically lying on the mat for an hour. I don’t mean to sound bitter, but this one leaves a bad taste in my mouth. *