The Royal Rumble is always one of the WWE’s most anticipated pay-per-view events of the year. The Rumble is the first stop on the road to Wrestlemania, and the nature of the 30-man battle royale normally ensures excitement all by itself. Instead of the Rumble match stealing the spotlight this year, it was the WWE World Heavyweight Title match, an all-time classic between Brock Lesnar, Seth Rollins, and John Cena. The reigning champion, Brock Lesnar emerged victorious to retain his title in the aforemention, despite going up against John Cena and the Money in the Bank contract holder, Seth Rollins. Some had expected Lesnar to drop the belt as his contract with the WWE expires in April and putting him in the main program and main event in Wrestlemania is a bit of a risk. After seeing the performance that Lesnar, Cena, and especially Rollins, put on it’s difficult to argue the direction the WWE is going. Lesnar is still a phenomenal pro wrestler, and Rollins is the perfect foil for him as long as he sticks around the industry. Lesnar closed as a -2600 favorite at Several Bookmakers, but was only a slight -180 favorite at 4:00pm this afternoon. The 2015 Royal Rumble was one of the worst in WWE history. Between nearly every fan favorite being eliminated almost immediately (Daniel Bryan, Mizdow, and Dolph Ziggler), the lack of surprise entrants (Bubba Ray Dudley was awesome, DDP was alright, and The Boogeyman was a waste of an entrant), the lack of memorable spots (nothing interesting from Kofi Kingston), the 2015 iteration of the Rumble was rather bad. The worst part of all was that eventually, Roman Reigns survived the 29 28 other men (Curtis Axel never made it to the ring, by the way) in the ring and earned a shot at the WWE World Heavyweight Title at Wrestlemania 31. This was absolutely not what the WWE Universe wanted to see, as Reigns was booed heavily by the Philadelphia crowd from the moment his music hit. Due to the nature of WWE betting lines skyrocketing in the final hours leading up to the PPV, Reigns closed as a -2600 favorite to win the Rumble after being a slight +110 underdog this afternoon. There were some props available on the Royal Rumble as well involving Reigns. After setting the record for eliminations in a single Rumble last year (12), he had an Over/Under of 7.5 eliminations heading into this year’s event. This line didn’t see the same type of movement as the others, and hovered around a pick em since it was opened. Reigns only eliminated 6 competitors, so the under cashed. The other prop was whether or not Reigns would have more eliminations than any other contestant. The options available were a points handicap of -0.5 for Reigns to have the most eliminations or +0.5 for him not to. Once again, the line was close to a pick em, and Reigns failed to hit the mark, as both Bray Wyatt and Rusev equalled his total of 6 eliminations. Other results on the Royal Rumble card saw The Usos (-4000 close/-475 early) retain their tag team championships over The Miz and Mizdow, the Bella Twins (-2000 close/+125 early) defeated the team of Paige and Natalya, and new additions to the WWE main roster The Ascension (-6000 close/-1050 early) dispatch former tag team champions the New Age Outlaws. On the Royal Rumble pre-show, Cesaro and Tyson Kidd (-2000 close/-175 early) got the 1-2-3 on Kofi Kingston of The New Day.
