Hi guys, I'm Adam Wilborn from Whatculture. He's Michael Hanflot from Whatculture and we're here to talk about what the hell

Triple H was thinking with the Royal Rumble. We've just come off the live stream of the Royal Rumble reactions. What did you make of the show, Hanflet? Right, I thought it was really good. Yeah, I thought it was really good. now our caveat which we often try and do is that we is that we've done a stream, the vibes are fun, the vibes are nice, we're engaging with the people on the chat, we're watching, we're trying to pop each other, we're being silly, your main line in jelly.

It's that kind of thing, it's that kind of energy, but to be analytical, in a fun way, funalytical, the men's Royal Rumble in particular stuck out to me as having answered so many of the criticisms of the prior Triple H Royal Rumbles. There was very key chapter points. There were moments of light and shade between the comedy and then the periods of dominance for certain wrestlers or stables or whatever. There was a couple of surprises, maybe not the one big surprise a lot of people thought,

but surprises nonetheless.

And ultimately, like a winner that at long last carved out a direction that I think

potentially a lot of people can get quite excited about when you kind of start to look at

where the two titles are going to be.

Gunther A.J. Stiles was absolutely mission accomplished.

Yeah. I think in terms of like quality of the match and indeed the outcome and the type of pathos they've been going for with this speed run, AJ Stiles retirement run.

Sammy Zane, Drew McIntyre for me, revealed a level that maybe Sam is at currently that if they do want to get the

world title on him, they simply cannot ask him to go out and cut a promo every week saying

it, they need to actually show conviction in the booking all year long.

I think we've kind of not...

Everyone was far more behind him a couple of years ago.

Definitely.

And I think we've maybe learned a lesson or WWE have maybe about that if they want to

try and get there in time for WrestleMania and Saudi Arabia next year? I don't know if they will anymore. We will see, we will see. The Women's Royal Rumble was another case a little bit of I think Triple H relying on the roster to do the heavy lifting. It's a pretty good roster at the moment. We've talked about the tag divisions being over. There's a lot of interesting combinations that could get you to WrestleMania that does feel like there's a smell in the air of a women's main event this year. Yeah. Like if you look at some of the key players and again, a lot of them were featured. Not without its charms and a great winner, but not a particularly memorable one, I wouldn't say. On balance, for me, a pretty good show. And I say all that, because we sort of have to talk about the reaction we saw in the aftermath that differed from that.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, like I say, we can only go on our experiences of watching it, which again is slightly skewed from the fun we have on our live streams,

to the chat, to social media.

And again, looking back on what happened last year with Jay Uso, for example,

that occasionally can be a bit of like the internet bubble compared to, you know,

everyone loves doing yee at the end of the day.

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