Royal Rumble Results, TNA Impact, & More - January 31, 2010

Sunday night was the WWE Royal Rumble from Atlanta, GA. The show opened with the ECW title match with Christian defeating Ezekiel Jackson to retain the title after winning with the killswitch. The Miz retained the US title by defeating MVP following a small package for the pinfall. They had been teasing dissention between Legacy prior to the WWE title match. Dibiase and Rhodes both told Orton that the other was talking about winning the Rumble and challenging Orton for the title. So, the WWE title match takes place with Sheamus defending the belt against Orton. The finish had Cody Rhodes getting involved in the match. Cody hit Sheamus on the floor. The ref went out and went after Cody. As Sheamus got back in the ring, Orton nailed a RKO. As he went for the cover, the ref rang the bell for the DQ. Orton was DQ’d for Cody’s interference. Cody got in the ring and apologized for what happened. Orton nailed Cody and then just hammered him into the mat yelling that he had screwed everything up. Dibiase ran in trying to step in but Orton nailed him too. He told them that they were both done while both continued to apologize. Sheamus then got back up and laid out Orton with a kick. Legacy left as did Sheamus while Orton was still down in the ring. Mickie James defeated Michelle McCool to win the Women’s championship. Very happy about this obviously!! The match opened with Michelle and Layla doing more jokes on Mickie. Mickie then ran to the ring and took out Layla. Layla was then up on the apron seconds later and Michelle charaged for a kick which caught Layla instead of Mickie. Mickie then hit the DDT for the win and the championship. After that, the divas then came out and put a cake into the faces of Layla and Michelle. The Undertaker defeated Rey Mysterio to retain the World title. The finish had Rey hitting two 619s and then Undertaker caught him with the springboard attempt. Undertaker hit the last ride for the win. That brings us to the Rumble match itself. I’ll cover the major happenings of the match itself. Miz and MVP continued their war into the Rumble. MVP was attacked by Miz as he was set to enter the match and MVP was ruled unable to compete. Later, Miz entered the Rumble and was attacked by MVP and MVP took him out of it. Shawn Michaels entered at number 18. He threw out both Rhodes and Dibiase. DX worked together for a bit and then Cena entered at 19. Here is where it got interesting. Cena took on DX and had Michaels up for elimination. Triple H saved Shawn and then hit a pedigree on Cena. Shawn then nailed a superkick on to Triple H sending him over the top. Triple H out of the Rumble before even number 20 had made his way in. Here comes your surprise at number 29. Edge is back!!! Oh yeah!! This Edgehead since 1998 was very happy. Edge and Jericho face off which goes back to the storyline of their breakup although Edge was of course really hurt. Amazing that he is back this quickly. The time table on his return has been all over the place for months now. Edge nailed spears all around and one of them was for Jericho. Edge eliminated him. Number 30 was Batista which left a final four of Shawn, Cena, Batista, and Edge. Edge and Shawn battled it out with both knocking the other on to the apron. Shawn superkicked Edge back into the ring and then Batista then knocked Shawn out of there. Shawn was furious afterwards and started throwing refs including a superkick to Robinson. Shawn ended up leaving finally. Batista was eliminated by Cena when Cena ducked a charging Batista and pulled down the rope eliminating him. That left a final two of Cena and Edge. Cena avoided the Edge spear and nailed a kick. As Cena ran at Edge, Edge moved and sent Cena over the top rope. Edge wins the 2010 Royal Rumble!! Wow!! Here are the order of the entrants:
1. Dolph Ziggler
2. Evan Bourne
3. CM Punk
4. JTG
5. Great Khali
6. Beth Phoenix
7. Zack Ryder
8. Triple H
9. Drew McIntyre
10. Ted Dibiase
11. John Morrison
12. Kane
13. Cody Rhodes
14. MVP
15. Carlito
16. The Miz
17. Matt Hardy
18. Shawn Michaels
19. John Cena
20. Shelton Benjamin
21. Yoshi Tatsu
22. Big Show
23. Mark Henry
24. Chris Masters
25. R Truth
26. Jack Swagger
27. Kofi Kingston
28. Chris Jericho
29. Edge
30. Batista

Well, last week’s TNA Impact was much more enjoyable than the previous week’s. Solid show. The main storyline of the show focused on Hogan getting to the bottom of what happened last week with Angle. Hogan called Earl Hebner into his office and got the truth out of him. Hebner said that Flair cut him a really good check to do what he did. Hogan was very upset and said that was unacceptable. Hebner was put on suspension. Kurt Angle did a promo in the ring talking about how disappointed that he was with AJ. He said that Flair was using him. Hogan went to talk to Angle about last week’s incident. They had already talked in the office earlier and Hogan said that he did what he said he was going to do and had gotten to the bottom of what the deal was last week. Hogan said that spitting in his face was unacceptable. Angle did apologize saying that it was the wrong thing to do but pointed out that as leader, Hogan is responsible for everything that goes on in the ring. Hogan also had already put him in the qualifying matches for the Against All Odds tournament. The two shook hands and put it behind them. Hogan walked out. Angle was then attacked by Hall and Waltman. They were later kicked out of the building again with Hall saying they’d be back next week. As for AJ, he and Flair were partying it up with the ladies. They kept talking about having 30 days off but Bischoff shut that down. He said that under this new regime that all talent should be ready 24/7. He also said that Flair’s contract was signed and delivered with nothing that they could do cause he signed with TNA before the regime change. I mentioned the tournament. There are qualifying matches underway now with the winners moving on to the 8 Card Stud Tournament at Against All Odds to crown a new number one contender for the TNA title. In the matches on this show, Desmond Wolfe defeated Sean Morley with the tower of London to win the match. Then, Hernandez defeated Daniels to get in it as well. Jeff Jarrett went to Bischoff and Hogan to work things out. He apologized for all the attorney talk and was ready to prove himself even if he had to start from the very bottom. Earlier, Ken Anderson had made a challenge to anyone for a match on the show. Bischoff had Jarrett be the guy. Jarrett assumed it would be at the PPV but Bischoff said it would be on Impact. Jarrett wasn’t happy about it saying that he had been out of the ring for seven months. So, Jarrett goes to the ring for the match. Bischoff had called for his music to not be played. Jarrett was playing to the fans on the way out so he appears to be a face in this thing. The finish had Jarrett going for his finisher but Anderson nailed a low kick with the ref not seeing it. Anderson made the pin and won the match. Afterwards, Anderson got on the mic and then continued the beating on Jarrett laying him out with the mic check. Mick Foley talked to Bischoff and Hogan. Foley said that he had nothing to do with the beating on Bischoff and said that if he had done it, Bischoff wouldn’t be walking. Foley later said that he wouldn’t work for Bischoff but Bischoff threatened him with Abyss and Borash of names that did want to work for him. So, the storyline is that Bischoff is threatening Foley with his friends getting fired. Speaking of being fired, Lashley was brought back in and Bischoff fired him. Security had to pull Lashley out of there. The Nasty Boys and Team 3D had a back and forth segment out in the Impact Zone. The Nastys arrived first but then Team 3D weren’t allowed in the ring by security. 3D talked of how much they had done in the last ten years while the Nastys had been on the sidelines. Knobs came back talking of all the legendary tag teams that they had beaten. Basically, security kept them apart and that was the segment. The Beautiful People took on the team of Kong, Hamada, and Tara. Hamada was set to get the win but Madison nailed her with the ugly stick while the ref’s back was turned. Madison then pinned Hamada. They continued the beating after the match and then Angelina Love ran in and took out The Beautiful People. The Motor City Machineguns teamed with Kendrick against Generation Me and Amazing Red. The Guns were set to get the win when Kendrick tagged himself in. Kendrick ran in and nailed a kick on Red to get the pinfall. Kendrick took the win away from the Guns and they were showing their unhappiness over it. The British Invasion then arrived with Big Rob carrying his X-Division title match briefcase. They attacked Red and then Rob was ready to cash it in. However, Brutus told Rob to give it to Doug Williams. Williams cashes it in and ends up winning the match to win the X-Division title. Williams and Brutus celebrated while Rob was not celebrating at all on the outside looking disgusted of giving up his title shot.

Vince Russo got a lot of people fired up last week when he blogged about doing a 1.3 rating with only having 16 minutes of wrestling on a 2 hour show. He bragged about it after a wrestling writer pointed out that there was only sixteen minutes of actual in ring wrestling on the last Impact. Russo said that he was proud of that with doing actual promos instead of having “fake wrestling on a fake wrestling show”. Yeah, this didn't go over with the talent who are out there getting hurt all the time. Just the latest time that Vince Russo has put his foot in his mouth. Well, Taz was someone that took offense to his comments posting this on his Twitter in reference to Russo: “I’ve seen many workers get bad injuries in our world. I’ve torn up limbs, calling my wife from ER’s all over the U.S. and a broken neck. I can’t throw a baseball with my son for more than a few mins due to bicep rip/shoulder surgeries,…numbness in right arm – all very REAL! I mentioned those injuries for a REASON…not a “fake” reason." Russo later apologized for his comments saying that he got upset over the criticism that he was reading online of his work while talking of the great respect that he had of the workers.

Taz posted on his Twitter account last week that he is going to be needing a knee replacement surgery in the future. He said that he may not do it now but will have to have it done in the next couple of years.

The preview for WWE Classics On Demand for February is “Global Warning”. No real preview as far as programming just yet. It’s getting frustrating trying to find out what is going to be airing.