Royal Rumble 2009 is in the books from Detroit, Michigan. Lets get right to the results!

 Match 1: ECW Championship- Jack Swagger (c) vs. Matt Hardy

A good fast paced opener. Matt is able to connect with a moonsault in the later part of the match that came very close to Hardy’s knee smashing Jack in the face. Regardless, Swagger recovers and hits the Doctor Bomb to retain his title.

WINNER: Jack Swagger

Match 2: Women’s Championship – Beth Phoenix (c) w/ Santino Marella vs. Melina

The match started off well, including a cool spot where Phoenix was able to kick Melina in the head while having her in an ankle lock! Things got sloppier near the end and it looks like the ladies were told to finish up early since the ending came out of nowhere. Melina picks up the 1-2-3 courtesy of a sunset flip. Santino stands shocked in disbelief after the bell.

WINNER: Melina

Match 3: World Heavyweight Championship – John Cena (c) vs. JBL w/ Shawn Michaels

Before the match backstage Bradshaw tells HBK that if he wins the title tonight that he will allow Michaels into the Rumble. A so so back and forth battle with nothing too noteworthy taking place until the referee goes down about 15 minutes in. HBK enters the ring and…Super Kicks JBL! Cena looks happy, but then he receives some Sweet Chin Music as well. Michaels then puts JBL on top of the champ. As the ref regains his senses Cena is able to kick out at two. Following the kicks HBK walked to the back. Cena is able to bounce back and nail Bradshaw with the FU to keep the gold. So no Royal Rumble for Michaels.

WINNER: John Cena

Match 4: WWE Championship – Jeff Hardy (c) vs. Edge w/ Chavo Guerrero

Before the bell GM Vickie Guerrero informs the audience that this is now a NO DQ match. A terrific effort from both Superstars, but the best was saved for last. Jeff hits the Swanton Bomb, however, Vickie stops the referee from counting to three. Brother Matt Hardy sprints down for the save, gives Jeff a chair, and then grabs one for himself. They line Edge up for a con-chair-to…and Matt cracks Jeff in the head with the chair! It is rare when a true surprise swerve occurs these days and this was certainly one of them. The live crowd was all over Matt. I’m guessing they will go with a jealousy angle as to why Matt turned on his brother. Anyway, Edge pins Jeff and is the new WWE Champion.

WINNER: Edge

Match 5: Royal Rumble

Rey Mysterio is #1, John Morrison #2, Carlito #3, and MVP #4. The first elimination of the night comes when Vladimir Kozlov immediately takes out The Great Khali. Triple H is in at #7 and tosses out Kozlov like a sack of potatoes. Randy Orton arrives in the 8 spot. The Game is running wild as he eliminates both Miz and Morrison. The Undertaker is announced as the 15th competitor to a huge fan reaction. Lots of wrestlers in the ring now as a surprise entrant is #25… Rob Van Dam! 42 minutes into the match and Rey Mysterio is still in the match. #28 Santino Marella may have set a new record for the quickest exit from the Rumble as he is tossed out in a couple of seconds. Jim Duggan and Big Show are the final two men into the match. The final four are: Triple H, Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes, and Ted DiBiase Jr. The Legacy team up on HHH, however, The Game is able to eliminate both DiBiase and Rhodes. Orton creeps up behind Triple H and hurls him over the top rope, and wins the Royal Rumble. Randy Orton will go on to headline WrestleMania 25!

WINNER: Randy Orton

Overall the Royal Rumble delivered and was a solid card from top to bottom. With the watering down of pay-per-view quality these days it’s nice to see one that lives up to the hype.

Andy’s Royal Rumble picks: 3 out of 5

Overall pay-per-view picks: 24 out of 38 (63.2%)

Andy McNamara is a SLAM! Wrestling writer, and play-by-play broadcaster for Toronto Maple Leafs inter-county league baseball, along with hockey, basketball, and volleyball on Rogers Television in Toronto. He is also the Host of Oakville Blades hockey on TV Cogeco. Contact Andy at andymcnamara@hotmail.com

Well it is that time of the year again for the WWE’s 2nd biggest pay-per-view this Sunday. The showcase of the Royal Rumble is the Rumble match itself where 30 Superstars will battle it out in an over the top rope elimination. The winner will get to main event WrestleMania and get their shot at the WWE or World championship….technically they could go for the ECW title, but who the hell would want to do that!?! Alrighty lets get to the matches:

30-Man Royal Rumble Match
Named participants:
Finlay, Mark Henry, CM Punk, R-Truth, Carlito, Brian Kendrick, Triple H, Big Show, Vladimir Kozlov, Shelton Benjamin, Undertaker, Randy Orton, Chris Jericho, Kofi Kingston, Rey Mysterio JR., Miz, Morrison, Cody Rhodes, Ted DiBiase Jr., Santino, Kane
 
My finalists are Triple H, Undertaker, and Randy Orton. On a side note, I believ that Orton will be saved numerous times by Rhodes and DiBiase only to eliminate one or both of his teammates in the end. When it is all said and done it will be The Game going to Mania. Although Undertaker is overdue for a world title storyline…

Pick: Triple H

ECW Champion Jack Swagger vs. Matt Hardy
 
If WWE wants to keep the push on Swagger then he’ll retain at the 2nd biggest pay-per-view. More good can come from Swagger getting the rub at a major event than Hardy so I’m going with Jack.

Pick: Jack Swagger

World Heavyweight Champion John Cena vs. JBL w/ Shawn Michaels
 
Hopefully these two will be able to use plunder, because a pure wrestling match will be hard on the eyes. Shawn Michaels finally betrays JBL and costs him the match allowing Cena to keep the gold. This will then spin off to HBK vs. JBL at WrestleMania.

Pick: John Cena

Women’s Champion Beth Phoenix vs. Melina
 
Melina comes back against all odds and picks up the feel good underdog win and the title. In my book Melina is the undisputed champion forever in regards to her ring entrance!

Pick: Melina

WWE Champion Jeff Hardy vs. Edge
 
This one is very intriguing as the outcome will give a good read on how the company feels about Jeff as a top guy. The winner will most likely be going to main event WrestleMania, and does WWE feel he can be the guy on the big stage? Edge is a phenomenal champ, and if he wins they could always add another component to make it a 3 way dance at Mania, thus keeping Hardy in the main event. My heart says Edge, but my brain tells me Jeff…Hardy retains.

Pick: Jeff Hardy

Check back in Sunday night for all the results of the Royal Rumble, it should be a good one.

Andy McNamara is a SLAM! Wrestling writer, and play-by-play broadcaster for Toronto Maple Leafs inter-county league baseball, along with hockey, basketball, and volleyball on Rogers Television in Toronto. He is also the Host of Oakville Blades hockey on TV Cogeco. Contact Andy at andymcnamara@hotmail.com

With the emergence of Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes, and Ted DiBiase Jr. as Legacy on Raw this past week could we be seeing the next great stable? Only time will tell, but what is for sure is the spot that history holds for the feature stable this week…The nWo.

The original version of the New World Order revolutionized North American wrestling, kicked the Monday Night Wars into gear, and made for some of the most exciting wrestling storylines ever seen. Eric Bischoff was the brains behind the nWo, but a little known fact is that he actually borrowed the invasion idea that the stable was based on from Japan. Regardless, the magic all began in 1996.

Fans have to remember that this was just before the internet boom when wrestling enthusiasts were given a lot of access to the inner workings of the business. Razor Ramon (Scott Hall) and Diesel (Kevin Nash) just had their contracts expire from WWE, and unknown to the general public had signed with Ted Turner’s WCW. On May 27 Hall was shown in the crowd at WCW Nitro, but was not mentioned by name. He grabbed a mic and gave his famous “You want a war” promo, essentially calling out all of WCW. Some people legitimately thought that Vince McMahon had sent over Scott Hall to invade and take out the competition. Scott interrupted matches, and had confrontations with Eric Bischoff (an announcer at the time) and Sting. Soon Hall unveiled his big surprise…Kevin Nash. The pair’s slogan was “we’re taking over” and were dubbed The Outsiders as they wreaked seemingly real havoc on WCW – even being chased away by security.

They challenged Bischoff to tell Turner to have his 3 best wrestlers show up to face them, and this ‘Hostile Takeover Match’ finally happened at the Bash at the Beach pay-per-view. It was at this event when wrestling history was changed forever.

Team WCW consisited of Lex Luger, Sting, and Macho Man Randy Savage. The Outsiders said that their third member would join them during the match at just the right time. When Luger went down injured part way through the contest out came Hulk Hogan, who seemed set to help out the good guys. Well the leg drop heard around the world fell on the neck of Macho Man courtesy of the Hulkster in arguably the biggest heel turn in wrestling history. Originally Sting was set for the spot to create the New World Order, however, Hogan politicked his way in instead, which of course created a lot more buzz.

The live crowd pelted the ring with garbage following Hulk’s turn as the ultimate babyface became part of the most hated trio in WCW, coining the group “the new world order of wrestling”. From there the nWo did just what they said they were going to do and destroyed everyone in their path in a quest to take over the company. Soon the newly named “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan defeated The Giant for the world heavyweight championship and defaced it by spray painting nWo on the legendary title. This became a theme as these outlaws would spray paint the group’s initals on the bodies of unconcious victims.

The nWo’s popularity exploded and new members started joining including: Ted DiBiase (the finacier of the group); Vincent (formerly Virgil in WWE as head of security); The Giant; and Syxx (formerly 1-2-3 Kid). Hall and Nash won tag team gold at Halloween Havoc 1996 putting nWo well on their way to taking over World Championship Wrestling. The faction “bought” air-time on Nitro to produce anti-WCW campaign ads, and things got worse when Roddy Piper revealed that Eric Bischoff (now an on-air executive of WCW) was actually a member of nWo.

Bischoff’s alliance meant numerous screw jobs on WCW talent as well as a threat to the lockerroom that those who did not join the New World Order would become a target. Soon the stable’s numbers began to grow as Marcus “Buff” Bagwell, Scott Norton, Big Bubba Rogers, and eventually Curt Hennig all put on the white and black. nWo was given its own pay-per-view ‘Souled Out’, programming changed to WCW/nWo, and with more members joining all the time, it had truly become a company within a company. This is what makes nWo unique. No other group had ever grown to its size or be apart of every angle on TV.

New World Order certainly matched the qualifications of a successful stable in having members at varying levels to compete for all the championships because they had grown to include about 1/4 of the roster! Hogan or Nash were on top in the world title picture, Scott Hall was the U.S. champ, Hall and Nash had tag team gold, and several other groupies were all at the Television Title level. The nW0′s popularity was the catalyst in Nitro’s 82 week television ratings win streak over WWE’s Raw, as their unpredictability led to some phenomenal viewing.

In my view the trouble began when the nWo got so big that it split into the red and black Wolf Pac, led by Kevin Nash. In-fighting (mainly between Nash/Savage against Hogan) was the cause for the divide and on May 4, 1998 Nash, Konnan, and Savage all appeared on Nitro with the new red/black shirts. Sting would later join the Wolf Pac as well in a huge surprise twist.

As you can begin to tell things were starting to become needlessly complicated as the nWo’s monster success was turning into its own storyline nightmare. The stable had become so popular that the WCW creative team were able to get wrestlers over by simply putting them with the nWo. This began to water down the brands of nWo as swerves to who was coming or going became jumbled and confusing. The amazing part of it all is that despite all the on-air angle blunders the faction’s name recognition with fans allowed the two seperate gangs to run strong throughout 1998. Hollywood Hogan even had celebrities participating as he tagged with NBA star Dennis Rodman against Tonight Show host Jay Leno, and other basketball phenom Karl Malone.

The wheels finally fell off in 1999 as the nWo, and WCW as a whole, was falling into total dissaray. The low point for me came when Eddie Guerrero started his own variation called Latino World Order. The struggling company tried revamping the group to attempt and capture its previous success on a couple of occassions, but to no avail. In 2000 WCW ‘started over’ and made all the titles vacant in a last ditch attempt to save the organization. It also marked a quiet end to arguably the most influential stable in the company’s history.

Once Vince McMahon bought WCW in 2001, it wasn’t long before he brought back the nWo. Hogan, Hall, and Nash invaded the WWE (at McMahon’s request) and immediately went after the top two stars: Stone Cold and The Rock. This edition of the famed faction started off strong having some entertaining and intense encounters with the top babyfaces. Behind the scenes Scott Hall’s drinking and marriage troubles became an issue and Kevin Nash had some nagging injuries. The big culmination of the feuds were to come to a head at WrestleMania X8 in Toronto where it would be Hall w/ Nash vs. Steve Austin, and the dream match of Rock vs. Hogan.

The original plan for Mania was for Hall to go over Stone Cold (with the help of Nash), however, Austin nixed the idea because he didn’t think Hall would be in the company for that long because of his personal issues. Turns out Austin was absolutely right. So Stone Cold went over, and ended any momentum the former Outsiders team had. Of course the Hogan against Rock match is legendary as the Toronto crowd (including yours truly) gave the Hulkster a thunderous ovation throughout the battle and turned him babyface. The WWE creative called an audible at Mania and had Hall/Nash attack Hollywood Hogan following the match because he showed good sportsmanship to Rock.

In my book WrestleMania X8 put the nWo to bed once and for all. WWE tried to keep it going once Hogan had turned good and Scott Hall had left the promotion by adding some other members. Former members from the WCW days X-Pac/Syxx/1-2-3 Kid and Big Show joined up. In a matter of weeks Booker T joined, then was kicked out, Shawn Michaels came aboard, and Big Show also got the boot. The stable was already scrambling to survive when disaster occurred.

In his first match since returning from a biceps injury, Kevin Nash was involved in a tag match where upon his first steps into the ring he tore his quadriceps. For McMahon enough was enough and on the July 15, 2002 Raw he came down to the New World Order theme music and officially disbanded the group. No members were out in the ring. There was no resistance. He just said the words and *poof* the nWo was gone.

 Is the New World Order the greatest stable of all time? I would at least say that they were the most influential. As discussed earlier, the group definitely met all the requirements of championship calibre individuals at different levels. Their size and dominance from 1996 – 1998 had never been seen in pro-wrestling and I doubt will ever be duplicated.

The next edition of The Greatest Stables of All-Time will showcase Evolution.

Andy McNamara is a SLAM! Wrestling writer, and play-by-play broadcaster for Toronto Maple Leafs inter-county league baseball, along with hockey, basketball, and volleyball on Rogers Television in Toronto. He is also the Host of Oakville Blades hockey on TV Cogeco. Contact Andy at andymcnamara@hotmail.com

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a relaxing holiday season and are ready to get back into what should be an exciting first few months of 2009.

Under the Christmas tree this year Santa brought me the new WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009 video game for Playstation 3. Now not being a big gamer myself, this was my first wrestling game since the incredible ‘No Mercy’ offering put out by N64 (Nintendo) way back in 2001, which was widely regarded as the best wrestling video game ever.

THQ was the maker of this most recent WWE version, as they were back in ’01, and as always they make the game play simple, straight forward, and fun! The graphics are phenomenal, the story modes unique, and the create-a-player options so detailed it’s scary.

Lets start with the storylines. There are Career Mode and Road to WrestleMania.

In Career Mode you pick a Superstar and battle for the different titles on Raw, Smackdown, and ECW. Unfortunately there are no seperate talking segments, just match after match. This works out well though as you have to battle through 4 different wrestlers before fighting for a #1 contender spot, after which you go for whichever championship you are playing for. The neat part is that along the way you unlock different types of matches and the odd character or costume. So for example when you go for the Intercontinental belt you unlock the steel cage option.

In Road to Wrestlemania you have the choice to fight as Triple H, CM Punk, The Undertaker, Chris Jericho, John Cena, and Batista/Rey Mysterio. Each of these Superstars has a very unique storyline on their ultimate quest to get to the ‘grand daddy of ‘em all’ WrestleMania. I have not played through all the characters as of yet, but so far The Undertaker’s is the most unique. I won’t give too much away, but you get to unlock Hell in a Cell (complete with being able to knock someone through the top of the cage or throw them off the top), along with some entertaining far fetched angles (such as turning Santino Marella into a zombie). In John Cena’s storyline you unlock the Tribute to the Troops arena, an army Jeep you can ride to the ring in, and a U.S. army member named Tony. Cena’s road is filled with overly good guy patriotic segments, which left me wishing I could switch to his opponent and lay the smackdown on him!

The additional match options to the usual are: Inferno Match (where you actually set your nemesis on fire!); Hell in a Cell; Tables Ladders and Chairs; Last Man Standing, and The Elimination Chamber.

The folks at THQ have also upped the ante when it comes to foreign objects. In Extreme Rules matches you can cycle through different weapons underneath the ring and grab some from fans in the crowd! Instead of simply striking your opponents you can also slide a steel chair over a head or foot, and set up all sorts of weapons against or jammed into the turnbuckles. There is also an option to take the padding off of a turnbuckle to expose the steel. Oh and did I mention you can set some wooden objects on fire?

The Create modes are exceptional. You can upload your own music, use a current wrestler’s theme, or one of the unique songs provided. From there you pick your videotron, fireworks style, and entrance walk. When developing your own character the game lets you get so specific that you can adjust the width of your nostrils, height of forehead, and overall width and depth of your face to name just a few. The options are limitless. The real fun comes in the brand new – create your own finisher- mode. The gamer can pick up to 10 different animations from a list of moves to make a unique finisher. For example, my brother chose to: spit green mist; poke the eyes; deliver 7 consecutive groin kicks; and polish it off with a Stunner. Of course the options to be more creative are there!

This year’s game is really big on tag team wrestling offering many new features. The player can distract the referee to let his teammate do underhanded deeds, work together to deliver legal and illegal moves, and even use the referee as a shield. An interesting option is the ‘hot tag’. This means that while waiting on the apron you can get the crowd into the match and when your partner tags you in you are flashing special and ready to kick some butt. Creating your own tag teams/stables is also available as is disbanding teams that are defaults in the game.

A friend of mine has the 2008 edition of this franchise and said that there were not enough changes to this year’s game. Again, having not known a wrestling game since the beginning of this century I think it is absolutely incredible! If you can believe it there are still numerous other details I have not touched on in this review, as I have not played through the entire game yet, so I’m sure there is plenty more to come.

For any WWE fan who hasn’t picked up a wrestling game in a while I whole heartedly recommend grabbing this one…you may want to take a sick day or two from work though because you will be hooked!

Andy McNamara is a SLAM! Wrestling writer, and play-by-play broadcaster for Toronto Maple Leafs inter-county league baseball, along with hockey, basketball and volleyball on Rogers Television in Toronto. He is also the Host of Oakville Blades hockey on TV Cogeco.