It’s obvious that art is subjective, and wrestling is a performance art, so everyone’s take on a show is going to be different. But the men’s Royal Rumble match January 26 doubled down on one thing: Brock Lesnar, and your desire to see him smash or be smashed, comparatively, and that’s no longer a safe bet.

The match was built around Lesnar, the former UFC superstar in his fifth reign as WWE champion, starting from the No. 1 position. His size and real-world expertise have legitimacy with a mainstream audience, and so he’s a safe bet for the WWE every time they want a name draw for a big event. But there have been 1,997 days since he won the belt in 2014, his first since returning to the company, and he’s held one of the promotion’s two top men’s championships for 1,036 of them (52%). He’s different from everyone around him, but he’s also just the same every time he’s used: thumping German suplexes, knee strikes, and the F5. Kofi Kingston was anointed as the first African-born WWE champion at Wrestlemania 35 last year, but when the show debuted on the Fox network, Brock walked in, hit Kofi with a single F5, and pinned him to retain again. More of the same.

Brock is both the immovable object and the irresistible force, and so it’s hard to find him opponents. So this match is, on paper, meant to make him look like the baddest man possible and then immediately imbue that energy onto another man; someone who can seem even badder by the fact he took Brock out. But because everyone who isn’t the new challenger gets sacrificed, you have to pick him well. And that’s the rub: everyone has their favourites. The man with the most popular support is Kofi, my favourite is Shinsuke Nakamura, the friend you brought to the Royal Rumble party may remember John Morrison. But they all got tossed, fast, and every time it just sucks away your passion for it. Eventually it was a collaboration between Ricochet and Drew McIntyre, combination nut shot and finishing move, that sent Brock packing, and Drew rode that wave to win the match (he unceremoniously eliminated Ricochet, who is the most recent person to be pressganged into the role of Tiny Man Wants To Fight Brock But Can’t, LOL.) But he has had so little momentum heading into the match, so even though you could say it’s a breath of fresh air or something different, it fell flat for me in the moment because I just don’t care about the guy.

So was it good? A booking-ology perspective, that tries to see how best to get wrestlers over and build interest for future shows, would say it was flawlessly drawn up and executed, and it got the desired reaction in terms of the massive pop when Brock went over, so it must have made Drew. If you are tuning in to see big bruisers wreck house, you probably loved it. But if you have an attachment to wrestlers that were in the first half of the list, there’s nothing for you there. And it left me cold. I have been in and out of the product since before SummerSlam, and I hoped for something satisfying, or at least something which didn’t make me feel actively bad for watching (like the Santina segment in the otherwise excellent women’s Rumble, which spoiled my mood for the whole final sequence) and I was left mostly cold.

There was one good thing

It had been widely discussed leading into the Rumble, but Edge’s return during the match was still shocking and emotional! My first thought on seeing the 46-year-old Canadian make his return almost nine years after retiring with cervical spinal stenosis was, is this okay? After Daniel Bryan returned, and Katsuyori Shibata got physical at the G1 Climax Finals last year, Edge always seemed like the outlier, the one who could never come back, on pain of death. So seeing him make his smoke-filled entrance filled me with joy and concern, but he looked good, even if you couldn’t see his first spear back due to a camera cut. Oops. It wasn’t till I looked back on YouTube that I could really see his joy and excitement to be back in the ring and pump myself back up to see someone that was involved in my favourite matches growing up return.

Destino fulfilled

One of New Japan Pro Wrestling’s most ambitious Wrestle Kingdom weekends saw Tetsuya Naito’s long-running chase of that moment in the sun culminate in his Double Gold Dash to becoming double IWGP heavyweight and intercontinental champion. The two-day event was anchored by a tournament of sorts, where on night one Kazuchika Okada defended his IWGP heavyweight championship against G1 Climax winner Kota Ibushi in an excellent match while Jay White lost the Intercontinental belt to Naito, the leader of Los Ingobernables de Japon. Naito’s chase of a big-ticket Tokyo Dome win has seen shock surprises before, namely his 2018 Wrestle Kingdom 12 loss when he was red-hot and the fact that he lost the IC title just months ago at Destruction, so there were arguments for extending Okada’s long run or giving Ibushi his moment, but there seemed little doubt that this is when they would finally pull the trigger with Tetsuya Naito. The win pulled together a tapestry of stories that includes getting bounced from the Wrestle Kingdom 8 main event by fan vote, founding LIJ, trashing the IC belt, hitting the Stardust Press and, silently, wrestling most of 2019 with a serious eye issue that required surgery. Of course, he had only minutes to lap up the win before getting bowled over by the Bullet Club’s KENTA, his New Beginning challenger, because Naito suffering is one of the key tenets of New Japan.

This show also featured the return of another problematic neck: Hiromu Takahashi, who nightmarishly broke his neck in July of 2018 in a IWGP junior heavyweight title match which he FINISHED, made his return to defeat Will Ospreay and I’m just so happy to see that bundle of fluff. Though he kept the flame alive, it looked like it might not ever happen, and he’s just so creative and wonderful to watch that I’m full of relief that we get this version of Hiromu back. He then pinned Jushin Thunder Liger in his retirement match, which fits with tradition, but Liger’s losses in his final matches were mismatched with our desire to see this heroic wrestler stand tall one more time before bowing out. He’s a wonderful person who has left us a legendary career.

Mox is the coolest

One of the biggest stars right now might be Jon Moxley, in line for a shot at Chris Jericho’s AEW world title at the promotion’s February PPV. He’s got just the right mix of humour and violence, and performing at the top level with two great IWGP U.S. title matches at Wrestle Kingdom 14 while also being a weekly presence on Dynamite is fun to watch. He refused to join Jericho’s Inner Circle stable and got a spike in the eye for his trouble, which both helped reinforce his character as someone who does only what he thinks is right, regardless of the outcome, and gave him a kayfabe eyepatch, which he wore even while singing Sweet Caroline on karaoke during the Jericho Cruise. Next up is a match with Minoru Suzuki, my god.

Chris Brookes heads back to Japan

One of the most curious introductions of 2019 was DDT, the comedic Japanese promotion, unveiling British indie star Chris Brookes in an ad meant to spoof Jon Moxley’s NJPW vignette. Brookes went on to totally endear himself to the audience and wrestle in swimming pools, zoos and more; after losing to Masato Tanaka in the promotion’s Jan. 3 Koruaken Hall show, he announced he’ll be spending a year there. His going-away party from the U.K. scene included a PROGRESS title challenge and a pair of Schadenfreude & Friends shows, one of which featured him manipulating a Minoru Suzuki blow-up doll. He’s incredibly creative and fun to watch, so it’ll be exciting to see what he puts together, and who he puts through the ceiling of Gatoh Move’s Itabashi Chocolate Square next. The most frenetic thing I watched all month was an hour-long minigames deathmatch Gake No Fuchi Pro wrestling against homicidal princess Miyako Matsumoto, which included badminton and somehow, human darts.

Kagetsu please don’t go

It’s great how much attention Stardom has been getting since being acquired by Bushiroad, with a dark match at Wrestle Kingdom 14. But the retirement of Hazuki and, sadly, Kagetsu have come after Oedo Tai has seemed a little sidelined compared to Tokyo Cyber Squad and Hana Kimura, as well as newer acquisitions by the company like Giulia. The goodbye gauntlet for Hazuki and Kagetsu’s tag match with Hana Kimura were so warm and showed what a great presence those two were, and I hope both of them are happy and, once Kagetsu heals up, they may want to come back to wrestling. Kagetsu will retire in a self-produced show Feb. 26 in Osaka, with a match against her trainer, Meiko Satomura.

Maritime Wrestling’s next step

I had a great time checking out North Pro Wrestling’s inaugural event at Casino New Brunswick in Moncton, Ante Up! The scene in the Maritimes can feel stagnant sometimes with the same wrestlers popping up constantly and only rare connections to the vibrant stars of the indie scene elsewhere in Canada and to the south. This show, which I suppose represents a continuation of the UCW brand, was a refreshing attempt to present the product in a major-league setting, at the same place where New Brunswickers might go to see the big-ticket rock and heavy metal tours that don’t hit the Avenir Centre or TD Station. They had teased Marty Scurll, in promoting a mystery ROH wrestler with the #woopwoop hashtag, and while it was Flip Gordon instead he had a great match with Matt Angel, being well-received by the crowd, winning a local belt and, shockingly, not losing it the next day in Halifax. Nick Aldis defended the NWA World Heavyweight title against Markus Burke, a real old-school encounter which felt just like the classic formula of the world champion coming to defend against your local hero. The main event was a bruising three-way between Channing Decker, fresh from a tour of Big Japan and bringing that deathmatch energy, Marko Estrada and Saint John’s Dick Durning, who won the belt months after returning from retirement.

ANDREW BATES likes wrestling and will write about it every month maybe? Tweet at me @teambates if you liked this.