AJ Styles Retains WWE Title at the Royal Rumble

The 2018 incarnation of the WWE Royal Rumble got off to a hot start as AJ Styles defended his WWE title against Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn in a handicap match to start off the broadcast.

From the start, the Philadelphia was loud and ready for the event to start. Anyone who watched the kickoff show heard a crowd that was on a higher level than virtually any WWE crowd of late, and that energy carried over perfectly into the opening contest.

The match was worked as a tag team match with Zayn and Owens tagging to take on Styles, rather than AJ trying to fight them off simultaneously. Early on, Styles held his own, with some chain wrestling going back and forth as Zayn and Owens tagged in and out of the match.

Eventually, two opponents was too much to overcome as Zayn and Owens took turns working over Styles around the ring (and ringside).

After several minutes of taking punishment, Styles dodged a cannonball attempt from Owens in the corner. Owens immediately sold the injury from this past week’s SmackDown and rolled to the outside as Zayn entered the ring and Styles began a comeback. Owens was quickly tagged in (so much for the injury) and took a Pele kick for his efforts. When Zayn came in, he missed a Helluva Kick and took a moonsault reverse DDT.

One particularly awesome moment involved Owens throwing Zayn into Styles, who immediately executed a head scissors takeover on Zayn. This lead to a near finish as Styles locked on the Calf Crusher on Owens until Zayn broke it up.

As we closed in the finish, Styles continued to take a beating from his two opponents and was nearly pinned at one point after a Blue Thunder Bomb. Even so, we got a controversial finish with Styles defeating both men. Zayn missed a tag on Owens (which the replay later showed) just prior to the pinfall, but Owens entered the ring anyway. He went for a pop-up powerbomb on Styles, but Styles quickly reversed it into a pinfall for the victory.

We’re likely to see some major storyline ramifications coming out of this finish on Tuesday’s SmackDown. It was a good opening match, though handicap matches are always a bit awkward and, well, handicapped.

Styles will continue his reign and looks likely to head into WrestleMania 34 as SmackDown’s champion.