Last night was the 2011 Royal Rumble, and along with it the Royal Rumble drinking game. The game is designed to get you pretty smashed in a typical 30 man rumble if you play at the highest level of hardcore rules; adding an extra ten guys has a pretty predictable outcome in terms of the game’s results.

If you want a recap of the Rumble itself, check out Justin Houston’s delightfully snarky review at ProWrestlingPonderings.com, this article is mostly going to be about the experience of watching it and playing the drinking game.

First off, as per the rules of the drinking game, we all had to select two of the participants in the Royal Rumble whose successes and failures in the Rumble match would lead to either us or everyone else drinking more. Naturally, you want to pick guys who you expect to do well, since his success leads to more drinking for your friends and less for you. There are some pretty obvious picks each year (John Cena is pretty much always going to toss some guys, most of the big guys put a few people out before they get dumped, and the handful of guys that could reasonably win it are good picks), but once you get past those it’s really a matter of guessing who might have a breakout performance and get a bunch of eliminations, or at least last for a while. We rolled dice to determine picking order, and I did poorly. My first pick was Sheamus, since a lot of the big names had been taken already (although I misread the sheet, thinking CM Punk was taken already when he wasn’t). My second pick was tougher, since the majority of the remaining selections were obviously just filler. I settled on Wade Barrett as a guy who could feasibly have some success, or at least last for a little while. He turned out to be a pretty good choice.

The Royal Rumble match started off with my friend Dan having to chug his first, full drink as CM Punk entered in the number one spot. That’s a rough way to start. When Ezekiel Jackson walked out, Dan thought he was number two, groaned, and chugged his second drink before realizing that the whole stupid brawl at the beginning of the match (which really didn’t play any significant part in the rest of the Rumble) wasn’t actually part of the match and that Daniel Bryan was the real number 2. Although the first quarter of the Rumble, with Bryan and Punk going at it, was the best part.

I know I said I wasn’t going to recap the matches, but I can’t resist mentioning a few things. Dolph Ziggler vs. Edge as the opener was really good. I enjoyed it a lot, despite the screwy booking. Seriously, Kelly Kelly runs in for no reason? What the hell? Miz vs. Orton was pretty lacklustre. Miz is acceptable in the ring, but not spectacular, so pairing him with Randy Rest Hold and expecting something not-terrible to happen was asking way too much. Also, the screwy finish with Nexus and Punk running in for no reason. The Divas title match, with Eve inserted for no reason (are you sensing a pattern here?) was actually pretty good, as far as the Divas go. Nattie Neidhart is the only one who actually looked like she knew what she was doing, but it was a lot better than most Divas matches get. The Rumble started off ON FIRE, then ebbed and flowed until the last few minutes, where things got screwy again. The Cena/Miz thing was dumb, and could have easily been accomplished in any number of other, more elegant ways. The Alberto Del Rio/Santino thing was kind of funny, but unnecessary.

Fun Quotes:

On Kelly Kelly interfering in the World Heavyweight Title match:
1: Hey, it’s Kelly Kelly beating up Vickie Guerrero for no reason!
2: Wow, that’s a lot of ass-crack right there. They must have brought her out just to get that ass-crack on TV.
1: Well she’s not all that hot from the front, so really it’s all she has going for her.
2: Is that why the camera’s been behind her the whole time.
1: Probably.

On Randy Orton:
1: HAHA look how tiny his package is! Look at it! It’s sooo small!
2: Maybe that’s what his abs are compensating for.

On Daniel Bryan:
1: Hey who’s this guy? He looks Canadian. Is he Canadian?
2: No, he’s from Washington… WHY DO I KNOW THAT!?
(there were a bunch of other instances that ended with “… WHY DO I KNOW THAT” but I can’t remember what led to them.)

On Wrestlers’ Trunks
1: Nobody wears pants anymore, everyone’s in shiny black trunks.
2: So all it takes to be an individual is to wear pants?
1: Uh huh.
3: What!? I hate pants!

On The Divas:
1: I think I saw that one in a porno once.
2: Well all the woman wrestlers are former porn stars and models now, so it’s possible.
(This led into a conversational path that resulted in pantomiming a midget trying and failing to reach around a full-sized woman’s hips to do her doggy style)

On Husky Harris standing a little too close while protecting CM Punk:
1: I don’t think that faceful of henchman ass is helping him.
2: Yeah, he’s waaay too close there.
3: That must be tough to explain when he gets home from work. “What’d you do at work today, honey?” “I don’t wanna talk about it.”
1: Yeah, I don’t think there’s a way to gloss over having your henchman’s asshole in your face.