But how is Seattle a menacing football town which I am to respect or be a-feared-of? Bunch of whiny, coffee-chain-supporting, hippie arteets they are. Football's highest honor should be limited to manly cities. Big cities. Dirty cities. Cities with a bit of grit to them. In fact, the only city west of the Mississippi who should be allowed to host a Super Bowl Contending Franchise should be Oakland. And possibly Dallas.
 

I mean, look at this:

The Toughman Contest rolls into Dayton tonight. That's always good for a solid night's worth of watching

fights (and not just the ones in the ring that you paid for) and drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, should those things hold any appeal for you.

Then Saturday marks the first of two Dayton/Xavier basketball showdowns this year. The game is in Cincinnati, and the Flyers are over-matched, but since UD has already played its way out of ANY post-season play (not even the NIT will touch us), you have to get excited about moral victories. And getting a Season Sweep over the Hated Musketeers would be count. Which means you gotta get Flyered Up, no matter if our record is under .500 or not!

And then Sunday? Hey, we all know what Sunday is: the Royal Rumble. Only the second-biggest PPV -- and usually the #1 most exciting continuous hour of action -- of the year in the wrestling world. The first two elements of my Holy Trinity of Crapulance might be geography-specific... but the Rumble is one thing that anybody reading this is gonna feel a little tingly about.

Does the undercard for Sunday's show seem a little weak? Nope, not at all; it seems CRIMINALLY weak. But guess what? Doesn't matter so much, because we know we'll be in for an hour long roller coaster ride at the end of the show, when 30 men go into the ring, and at the end of the night, one stands tall. Not just as the winner of the match, but as a guaranteed main eventer at WrestleMania 22.

That aspect, moreso than in years past, might even hold greater significance, just because of how cloudy the Road to WM appears to be at this juncture. In other words: WWE's chaotic situation (some of it their fault, much of it the result of unfortunate circumstances) means WAY more drama and uncertainty for fans heading into this Rumbler versus any Rumble in recent memory.

It oughta be a good time on Sunday night, and if you're wrestling fan enough to read this website, my guess is you're wrestling fan enough to checking out WWE's single most exciting hour of the year.

And then the other 2 hours of crap that'll go along with it. Here's how the staff of Online Onslaught are thinking about Sunday night's announced 5-match Royal Rumble PPV Card...  
 

THIRTY MAN OVER THE TOP ROPE
ROYAL RUMBLE MATCH
For a WM22 Main Event WWE/World Title Shot

The premise is simple: 30 of WWE's biggest stars enter the ring at 2 minute intervals. OK: so about a dozen genuine stars enter, and are joined by about 18 b-show guys. But nonetheless, the match ends with 29 of those 30 men being eliminated from the match by being thrown out over the top rope. And the One Man Who Remains is guaranteed to be in the main event at WrestleMania 22, contending for either the WWE or the World Title.

For the record, WWE has only announced 27 of the entrants so far, and will likely hold all three slots back until the Rumble itself. RAW's 13 confirmed entries are: Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Big Show, Kane, Carlito, Ric Flair, Shelton Benjamin, Rob Van Dam, Chavo Guerrero, Trevor Murdoch, Viscera, Chris F. Masters, and Coach. SD!'s 14 entries are: Chris Benoit, Rey Mysterio, Randy Orton, Booker T, MNM, Matt Hardy, Orlando Jordan, Bobby Lashley, Simon Dean, the Mexicools, Road Warrior Animal, and Sylvan Grenier.

The three open slots? Well, let's just say I'd be stunned if Undertaker didn't flesh out the SD! half. But the RAW guys are a total crapshoot, depending on what storyline purpose those two slots serve. They could be anybody from genuinely surprising major stars down to Gregory Helms and Lance Cade. Or anything in between. Hell: in my Fantasy Universe (now suspended), Goldust was going to be one of my two "surprise" entries, and as long as his dad's a top writer for WWE, that's always as decent a bet as any. 

Basically: yes, there are three slots open. But here in the straight-preview section, I always warn against getting wild expectations, because that invariably only leads to disappointment. Think small, and then be happily surprised! Or at most, think medium and then be essentially satisfied.

Among the 27 announced men, are there any real pressing storylines one must be aware of heading into the Rumble? Well, since the Rumble's prize officially became the WM Title Shot, the custom has been to have one guy the fans are really rallying around to have to survive the other 29 men to earn his precious title shot. And since the Brand Split, it's basically turned into there being two men (one on each brand) who are kind of vying for titles, and who need to win the Rumble to get that guaranteed spot.

This year: there's none of that. NONE. The current champions on both brands have held their titles for less than 3 weeks, and so it's impossible to have any of that same sort of "slow-building/long-spanning title push" for any challenger. Both champs are less than 3 weeks old; by definition, any challengers' storylines are even younger than that. So for the first time in a long time, there's no clear cut choice(s) in terms of guys who are OBVIOUSLY in the hunt for WM Title Matches. I mean: there's definitely a few worthy contenders, it's just that from a storyline perspective, there is absolutely no reason to rank-order any one of them ahead of another. 

One of maybe 4-5 guys could certainly win and make for a compelling WM headliner... but the point is, the story will then be told entirely AFTER the contender is determined, instead of having any seeds sown before the Rumble.

There is, however, one HUGE story that sort of replaces the lack of compelling title contenders.... that story is that Shawn Michaels is in the Rumble, and would normally be on that short-list of very plausible winners. Except that in the last month or so, Michaels has offended Vince McMahon (suggesting that Vince "move on" past Montreal)... and though indications are that the original plan was to have the vague discussion lead up to Bret Hart showing up on WWE TV, that's apparently out the window (as Bret, unlike Vince, actually IS past Montreal).

So instead, the storyline took a twist and Vince McMahon has decided to go psycho on Michaels, latching on to that one moment as justification for trying to run Michaels out of WWE. Or at least put him in his place, if Michaels is determined to stay. So far, Shawn has leapt every hurdle and survived every scheme... but Vince McMahon promised on Monday that Shawn's luck would run out at the Royal Rumble. In fact, he guaran-damn-teed it.

So far: we know for sure that this will probably entail Michaels entering the Rumble in the #1 position. That's because Vince has given himself the power to personally conduct the drawing for Order of Entry. Since Vince already tried to screw HBK by making him enter the Elimination Chamber first three weeks ago, it stands to reason that history will repeat itself here. [It would also be interesting to see what, if any, significance can be gleaned from who Vince favors and selects to enter later in the match.]

And then there's also the matter of RAW's two open slots. Could those be used or abused by Vince as part of his vendetta against Shawn Michaels? It's at least a possibility.

I think that's just about everything you need to know about the Rumble match this year... so I'll just close out the section by quickly re-hashing the rules for the OOfficial Royal Rumble Game, as played at The Rick's Rumble Parties for at least 7-8 years, now. The rules may seem almost retardedly-simple, but trust me: history has shown this to be the perfect way to have a game that forces you to latch on to and cheer for a wrestler you would normally hate, all while having a scoring system simple enough that you can easily keep track of things no matter how many beers you've had.

What you do is you assign everybody in your group a number, 1 through however-many-people-in-your-group. The game works best with either 5 or 6 players, and is also fair and even with either 3 or 10 players. But 4, 7, 8, or 9 can work, too. You either pull your number out of a hat, or just agree upon the order, or whatever you want to do. And then: once the Rumble begins, you will be assigned wrestlers according to the number that you drew.

For instance, if you have a five-person game, and you draw #2, you will be assigned Rumble Entries #2, 7, 12, 17, 22, and 27. If you're #4 in a 6-person game, you'd get Rumble Entries #4, 10, 16, 22, and 28. And so on and so forth. It's not rocket science.

Important Note: it has been determined that if you play an "uneven" game (where not all players will receive the same number of wrestlers), you immediately give the players who are short one wrestler a 2-point head start. So: say you have a four-person game (which is likely what we'll be stuck with in my neck of the woods, since that's about how popular wrestling is anymore), #1 and #2 would each end up with 8 wrestlers, while #3 and #4 would get 7. So both #3 and #4 get the two-point head-start.

Then the way you accrue points is easy: one point for every single elimination performed by one of your wrestlers. You get one-half-point for any elimination where your wrestler was part of a team or group elimination (so when 8 guys team up to eliminate Viscera, yes, that's a 4-point elimination, and you just need to spread the half-points out accurately). CHANGE FOR 2006: you get 2 points for every wrestler you have in the Final Four (this replaces an old Final Five rule that increasingly made less and less sense). Then the runner-up gets 5 points. And the winner of the Rumble scores you 10 points.

No need to keep track of time/duration; just keep an eye on your wrestlers (even if they are Trevor Murdoch) and cheer for him to help you out with eliminations early. And then, since half the points are still up in the air when you get to the final four, almost everybody in the game should still have a mathematical chance to win until their final assigned wrestler is eliminated. It's really a fun (and easy) way to spice up the Rumble. You are encouraged to play along at home.

A final note: last year, the Rules Committee officially determined that even if one of your wrestlers has been eliminated, he can STILL get points if he illegally enters the ring and contributes (either singly or in a group) to an elimination, and that elimination is upheld by the officials. Fair? Maybe not. But it adds in the element of Potential Referee Screwjobbing, which DEFINITELY adds to the fun and the angry smack-talking. Especially if you mix your screwjobbing with a crew of drunkards!

Winning the OOfficial Royal Rumble Game may not result in you going to WrestleMania's main event.... but it could, at the very least, result in you being excused from paying a your share of the PPV/snacks/bill-at-Hooters costs. Which is nothing to sneeze at!
  

EDGE vs. JOHN CENA
WWE Title Match

Edge wasn't even in the title picture 3 weeks ago. Now, he's the champ.

After Cena survived a 30 minute Elimination Chamber match against 4 Worthy Adversaries and one Chris F. Masters, he was beaten and bloodied... and under the misapprehension that his night was over. It wasn't.

Edge, holder of the Money In The Bank Title Shot for almost 9 months, made a withdrawal, and wanted his title shot right then and there. On the orders of Vince McMahon, this is exactly what happened. It took Edge less than two minutes to polish off Cena and win the title.

In the ensuing three weeks, the "feud" has essentially consisted of Cena demanding his rematch, getting it locked in for the Rumble PPV, and then calling Lita a "ho" a whole bunch of time.

Edge, at least, has made slightly better use of his time, putting an exclamation point at the end of the sentence that was his feud against Ric Flair. The two had an amazing TLC Match 2 weeks ago. Edge has also had strong promo showings in the last two weeks, openly addressing the issue of fans perceiving him as a "transitionary champion," and promising that that won't be the case.

The fact that Edge is still carrying around Cena's gay-ass Bling Belt might suggest otherwise, but Edge telling the fans "I know what you're thinking, and I'm gonna prove you all wrong" has been a perfect way for his character to generate a ton of heat. And to generate a ton of ratings. 

Edge's 3 weeks as champ have resulted in ratings of 4.3, 4.3, and then this week, a 4.5. That, my friends, is RAW's strongest 3-week ratings average since April 2002. I'm a loser, and I have all this stuff in a spreadsheet, and I guarantee you this is true: the last 3-week stretch where RAW averaged a 4.3 or better was almost four full years ago. I know WWE is trying to act like this is attributable not to Edge, but rather to fans like me who DVR RAW and watch it on a time-shift instead of in real time (Tivo/DVR households only got added into Nielsen ratings starting on January 9)... but by saying that, WWE is also admitting that at least a half-ratings point worth of fans (about 12% of their audience) are so bored with RAW that we just record it and watch it later when we can fast-forward all the crap. That's not necessarily anything to be proud of, dum dums. At the very least, it'll be interesting to see if this has any effect on WWE's thinking, which (given that they didn't allow Edge to wear a Real Title Belt right out of the chute) I'm guessing was to just use Edge as a 3-week transitionary champ. But I think all signs point to Edge having earned the right to at least be CONSIDERED as the champ moving forward after the Rumble.

To me, that's where the intrigue lies. Like I said, the feud is pretty "meh." Edge uses his brains to get a fortuitous title shot and cashes in, Cena demands rematch and cuts promos mostly at his usual 7th grade level of tauntery, and that's that. But I also like the chances of this being a strong match. One way or the other, fans will respond strongly to both characters, and that's at least half-the-battle.
  

KURT ANGLE vs. MARK HENRY
World Heavyweight Title Match

So basically: this match is happening because Batista banged the holy living hell out of Melina. Hand to god, that's essentially the truth.

But then, as soon as Melina brought Mark Henry in as her own personal walking, talking restraining order, Batista got injured, and had to forfeit the World Heavyweight Title. WWE's Hollywood Writer Monkeys, being the crafty and clever sumbitches they are, were told "OK, we're gonna give you Kurt Angle from the RAW Roster to work with," and instead of crafting anything new or interesting for the guy, they pretty much just decided to cram the square peg that is Angle into the round hole that is Melina. Oh, and her storyline and Mark Henry, too.

Angle won Batista's Title in a Battle Royale, and was then immediately handed Batista's hellish job of trying to make Mark Henry watchable. Without the sexual harassment storyline, the transition wasn't exactly smooth, but they did at least make a token effort to remove Melina from the equation and replace him with Angle's disgraced former manager, Daivari, who is now in control of Henry's reins. 

And yet, that didn't stop Kurt Angle from being put into a handicap match against Melina's MNM tonight on SD!... probably just because the Writer Monkey had already written it up on their flow-chart for Batista, and lacked the effort or intelligence to shake things up to make more sense. Oy.

Anyway, I figure this is basically Angle-as-Batista's-proxy wrestling against Mark Henry. And it's only after Sunday night when this title reign will truly become Kurt's and things can get interesting.

The best we can hope for at the Rumble, though, is that WWE knows enough to keep this short and sweet. And that Angle doesn't injure himself trying to make Henry look like a credible threat, and have the same fate befall him that befell the man he's replacing here. It won't be pretty, but if they let Angle show-off as just a total bad-ass (instead of actually doing an extended mid-match babyface in peril bit), it could still be a very effective little 5-6 minute special.  No actually asking the fans to feel sorry for Kurt or to believe in Henry: just a painless orthoscopic procedure in which Kurt takes care of business quickly and removes some fatty tissue, placing it off to one side, where it can try not to bother anybody else again until its unfathomable 10-year contract from right after the '96 Olympics finally runs out. Tick tock, Mark Henry, tick tock.
  

DIVA SEARCH ASHLEY vs. MICKIE JAMES
Trish Stratus is the Special Referee

Oddly enough, this match is easily the one on the card with the most and best back-story. Which is not to say there weren't a few rough moments back about a month ago, but WWE (reportedly with a bit of input from the participants themselves) has done a nice job re-un-fucking things and making this twisted little Friendship Triangle one of the more compelling issues on RAW.

You have to go back almost 6 months to get to the start of this, when Ashley found herself in over her head as the new chick on the block, and was losing matches and getting her narrow ass beat with regularity. Until she finally called for back-up: Trish Stratus, who returned from injury to lend a hand to the new girl.

Trishley made for an effective duo, but on the depleted-roster-hellscape that is the women's division these days (oh to still have Molly, and Gail, and even Spaz!), there wasn't a whole lot to do until ANOTHER new chick showed up: Mickie James, who came out of nowhere to attack, Berzerker-style, anytime Trish appeared to be in peril.

Turns out Mickie is Trish's #1 Fan, and totally idolizes her (and has even impersonated her on one occasion, and stolen moves from Trish's argot on many others). And Mickie is also prone to violent mood swings and may be downright psycho. I'm still saying that for this to really pay off, you just have the Monkeys read "Misery" (or see the movie, it's just as good), and this thing could be a red-hot feud heading into WM...

But anyway, there was a little bump in the road when Mickie earned a title shot at Trish, and turned into a pretend-lesbian for a bit as part of an ill-conceived "mind game." But then Trish won that match, and somebody flipped a switch and untarded the feud. They remembered, "Hey, Trish is friends with Ashley!" (Ashley had gotten lost in the shuffle, and for reasons unexplained had briefly taken to palling around with Maria)... and then they realized that they could use it.

Trish, understandably so, just sort of wants to distance herself from the nutjob, and started hanging out with Ashley again. Mickie had no choice but to get increasingly jealous of Ashley. This manifested itself in Mickie attacking Ashley in the middle of a six-woman tag match when Trish decided to tag in Ashley instead of tag in Mickie. And then attacking Ashley again when Ashley was wrestling a singles match. At which point, Trish tried to confront Mickie about this, and Mickie broke down and cried because Mickie's really only doing these things because she's trying to impress Trish. Trish, being a far more decent and caring person that I, actually half-heartedly consoled Mickie.

So what happens next? Trish decides to be partners with Ashley for a tag match, and after they are victorious, Mickie sprints out and brutalizes Ashley for stealing what Mickie thought should have been HER spot as Trish's tag partner. And her best friend. Cuckoo, Cuckoo.

Which brings us to where we'll be on Sunday: Ashley's finally had enough of Mickie, and Mickie's insanely jealous of Ashley, and poor Trish is caught in the middle. There's no doubt that Mickie is the smoother and more seasoned wrestler, but this past Monday, Ashley showed a new ability: the ability to cloud minds with sweet little Highspots, so that we don't care as much that her more basic moves like headlocks and armbars look clunky. So Mickie's good, Ashley's looking willing to do some higher risk stuff, and you've got Trish and the Storyline... I think prospects are good for an entertaining palate cleanser. I don't think you ask them to stretch it more than 8 minutes or so, but that's still two minutes longer than I think you give to Mark Henry.
  

THE BOOGEYMAN vs. JOHN BRADSHAW LAYFIELD

The Random Booking Generator spat this one out three weeks ago.

JBL was in the middle of making sure that Matt Hardy stayed firmly on the undercard by beating him to hell and back again in a mini-series of matches.  But then, for no good reason, after boasting that he's a wrestling god and nobody on SD! could beat him, JBL's match with Matt Hardy was interrupted by the Boogeyman. The distraction caused JBL to get counted out in that match, and JBL no likey losing matches.

JBL tried again against Matt Hardy the following week, and won. But his celebration was cut short when the Boogeyman came out of JBL's limo after the match. JBL demanded justice from Teddy Long, but all Teddy gave him was a PPV match against the Boogeyman.

Both guys were on Piper's Pit a week or so ago, and in that exchange JBL used what has become his only ploy to evade the Boogeyman: he sacrificed his image consultant Jillian Hall. Boogeyman wound up eating that thing off the side of her face. Thank christ! At least one good thing has come out of this feud: the end of Jillian's retarded little gimmick.

Of course, Jillian and JBL didn't see Boogey's gratis plastic surgery as a good thing, and it only made them angrier. And blah blah blah, I'm sure there were worms or something involved, but I think I FF'ed any JBL/Boogey stuff from last week (and will again on tomorrow night's episode). 

I get that this will probably be a crowd-pleaser because Boogeyman is throwing himself into the role, and JBL makes a great patsy for stuff like this...  but anybody out there who -- like me -- has a notion of what Marty Wright is capable of if you tell him to stop eating worms and wrestle, well... you know this is gonna be ugly.  If it's short and sports-entertainment-y, it might be tolerable fluff... if it's anything else? Well, let's just say that history proves retardedly one-dimension shit like the Boogeyman can get popular, but it also has a shelf-life before it goes totally rank. Boogey's shelf life? 10 more months, tops; after that, it's Doink-the-Clownsville for him, and everybody will wonder why the hell he ever got over to start with. A really bad showing here (one where even the markiest of marks who ever marked realizes "Hey, this is 6 minutes of shite wrapped up in a 15 minute package") might accelerate that process.
  

EXTRAS/CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

There's only five matches. Only 2 of them have any business lasting more than 10 minutes. And one of those 2 still has three open slots in it.

I'd say that amounts to a blank canvas upon which the trOOps can apply some (Broad) strokes of Extra-y Goodness...
  

That's about all we got, and that's about all you need. If you can find a better Royal Rumble preview, anywhere, it only means you have horrible judgment!

I keed, I keed. But nowhere else has the OOfficial Royal Rumble Game, now do they? At least, not unless they stole it.

Anyway, we're done here for the preview. On Sunday night, I'm back with the recap. Should be at some point in the midnight (eastern) hour, but it might be a tad later depending on the caliber of drunkening I exercise, since that'll severely reduce my motivation to sit in front of a computer. But I promise that at some point before I got to bed on Sunday, a Rumble PPV Recap will be yours to keep. So come on back for that, and then more involved analysis and fall-out in my Monday column, too.

Happy Weekend, everybody!