It took two sittings to watch it, because a five hour show is asking too much for anyone, much less anyone actually in attendance, but I just made it through watching the WWE’s Greatest Royal Rumble special out of Saudi Arabia.
Mercifully.
It goes without saying that I did not have high hopes for this special, therefore it was of zero shock and surprise that it turned out to be the mediocre, glorified house show that I figured it would be. The events of Greatest are for the most part non-canon to current storylines, but the performers still have to put forth the effort and the work to next to zero story advancement to the rest of the events that are happening in current WWE programming, which is about as zero-sum as it gets, considering the sheer amount of time, resources and physical effort necessary to hold what’s basically an unnecessary show.
The matches were almost all terrible, the performers were clearly jet-lagged, a step or more slow, and completely uninspired performing in front of a mostly confused and/or apathetic crowd. Predictably, zero titles changed hands, and the only notable thing that occurred in the entire show was the crowning of Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt as winners of the vacant RAW Tag Team Championships. The rest of the card was underwhelming and underperformed, and the 50-man Rumble match itself was loaded with jobbers, no-names and C-listers who would otherwise have no chance of performing regularly on the average North American tour rotation.
Not to mention the fact that due to the antiquated misogynistic Saudi culture, none of the WWE’s women were permitted to perform, much less any women really be present in King Abdullah Stadium without the supervision of a man, which is a little bit of egg on the company’s part, as they could have really made a global statement by refusing the show in the first place because of their cultural restrictions but whatever, that’s Saudi Arabia for you.