WWE: Royal Rumble 2024 [Premium Live Event]

Every year, WWE's Royal Rumble 'PLE', or Premium Live Event, is routinely one of their best and most popular shows. The reason being, of course, the two 30-person 'Royal Rumble' matches, in which 30 wrestlers enter (per match), once every 90 seconds, with one person left standing at the end. It's an exciting and fast paced format that has endured and thrived since its television debut in 1988.

2024's rendition of the event had just 4 matches, but with 2 of those being the men's and women's rumble matches, that still meant a show with a runtime of 4 hours, which is steep to some, but particularly if you are an international viewer, such as myself. The show only officially starts at 1am GMT, and was going until nearly 5am GMT.

The 30-Woman Royal Rumble match started off proceedings with a superb bang. This was by far the match of the night, and the best women's rumble yet, since the women's first event in 2018. I was hooked, I was excited and I was absolutely thrilled with the surprises, debuts, returns and, most importantly, the winner. The final three was particularly excellent, with a sudden and thrilling climax.

The 'fatal-4-way' match for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship followed, featuring the defending Roman Reigns, and his challengers AJ Styles, LA Knight and Randy Orton. The match was pretty decent, and was at a fairly fast pace. However, it suffered from a lack of any serious doubt about the eventual winner, which definitely killed some of the drama in the match. Not only this, but the now stale interferences from the same faces in the same ways, has begun to drag down the legendary title reign of the champion.

The United States Championship match between defending champion Logan Paul, yes, that Logan Paul, and Kevin Owens came next. It was a fun, if admittedly forgettable match - the main highlight being the finish, which was both creative and well-filmed. Usually, I would hate that kind of frustrating ending, but the sheer cleverness and audacity of it, as well as the execution, was too good for me to ignore.

Finally, it was time for the main event: the 30-man Royal Rumble match. Things started off strongly with the opening competitors being the twin brothers, and now rivals, Jimmy and Jey Uso starting the match. Unfortunately, the match was very sloppy from there on in. It felt a little unrehearsed and messy. The match did at least reach a compelling final four, and boiled down to the correct final two to provide maximum drama. I personally thought the right man won, but boy, this one became a bit of a slog by the end.

Overall, this was a pretty solid show, especially for the first PLE of the year. That said, I thought the crowd reactions were underwhelming after the opening match, and the main event was far too much of a mess to back up the strong men's rumbles of the last few years, 2022 excluded. The women's rumble match stole the show and them some - it was by far the best match of the night, and was easily the best women's rumble so far.

The road to WrestleMania 40 in Philadelphia is here at last, and with the Elimination Chamber coming next month, there looks to be more excitement in store for the WWE fan base. I for one am looking forward to the next few months of television and PLE's. This was a good start to the wrestling year, and I think it should only get better from here.