WingedEagle

Akira Taue vs. Kenta Kobashi 1/26/93 Kobashi on fire early but Taue puts a quick stop to that with a Nodowa sending him to the floor. Such great back & forth offense with Kobashi looking to show he belongs on this level with the opposition's de facto ace in Jumbo's absence. Taue does so many little things here add up. His facials while wrenching an abdominal stretch and punching Kobashi's ribs. The way that much of his offense looks clumsy, but is so deliberate and impactful. Meanwhile Kobashi looks like someone who just got a huge weaons upgrade but doesn't quite know how to put it all together yet. The crowd is huge behind Kobashi looking for the upset and setting the stage for a year's worth of that. Really fun. Not sure why this was left off of the set, but glad I checked it out. ***3/4

I find it a bit amusing that Punk will not hesitate to dump on the fans who generate his fat checks, but takes his ball and goes home to play in part over not liking his wrestling storyline heading into a particular show.

All of this was almost worth it for HHH taunting the crowd there. Almost. He clearly had a lot of fun with it and it was great comedy.

YES! YES! YES!

It is the question. Let's say it has no tangible impact on bottom line results, but does result in sustained, uncontrollable and contradictory crowds that make for an awkward television product. Can they stomach that if the dollars and cents are still there? I can't begin to speculate what the answer to that is or the answer to if or when this impacts business. But it'll be interesting to watch.

Yep, if there's no appreciable impact on business then there's no reason to change course.

Basically sums up my thoughts as well, although you could argue it should've been more heated given the stakes. Perfect was taking some really exaggerated bumps here. Bartlett on commentary may have been a disaster, but this was a great example of Vince's unrelenting enthusiasm and ability to sell things as a big deal. He was in full Red Bull mode and was going to rise to the occasion even if no one else was. Perfect basically hulks up, Flair flips the turnnuckle, runs to the other and comes off to get nailed. Perfect hits the perfectplex on a backdrop attempt and wins. This was nowhere near as good as I remembered it. **3/4

Just wanted to echo 2 big points others brought up here -- 1) First time the Rumble directly leads to the Mania main event, and 2) Yoko's win felt like it came out of nowhere. When we join, there's no one you could even imagine winning other than Yoko until Savage joins as #30. Yoko looks much smaller than in later years. Owen's elimination looked nasty landing on his knee, but I don't remember any big injury coming from this so he must've gotten pretty lucky. The finish with Savage going for a pinfall was pretty weak, even if it was a nice toss by Yoko to send him out. We then get some some Vegas characters out to set the stage for Mania.

This. Might as well ding Magnum for his work at the Crockett Cup not living up to the I Quit standards.

Whoops, I missed that. Sounds like Misterio was catching hell no matter where he was slotted.

I think Rey gets a pass on that one. The crowd may have been willing to get behind Reigns a bit at the end, but I don't think it made a difference which of the 30 entrants came in at #30. If the name wasn't Daniel Bryan, they were catching hell.

He suffered a stroke and it was an extended make-good angle / moment. Anyone who views that as a "match" is missing the point.

I'm with you, but its time to make things official by bringing back the winged eagle belt.

Dolphins1925 with his picks up for those interested.

If they were going to give Bryan a win and push him that way, wouldn't they at least have the confidence in him as a draw to promote that he'd actually be in the Rumble itself?

To add onto what Loss said, if there's no bottom line support for him, why hotshot his face turn? Just to capitalize on a days old Sportscenter clip? That's buying a stock *after* it popped following great quarterly numbers and expecting you'll see the same jump the next day. That ship has sailed. Either you're in it for the long haul or you're not. If he's not moving numbers and there's no confidence he will, then plug him into his role and stick to the plan so that the big picture product is consistent and follows a logical long-term path.

That finish always troubled me. Can you imagine the uproar if WWF pulled that today?

Lesnar is signed through next year's Mania. No reason to hotshot that now.

Yeah, I have no doubt they could keep the crowd into it and both come out stronger.

Fair point. I know it would never, ever happen in WWE, but I'd be kind of interested to see them book a time limit draw in that kind of match. Cena's "protected", Bryan loses nothing and you build for a 3rd match when one of them (likely Bryan because Cena needs to get his win back) has title. Or you let Cena get the win at Mania with plans to put the title on Bryan shortly thereafter or over the summer. All fun to think and talk about.

Also, am I crazy to think that even a Cena/Bryan rematch without the title would mean more to the show from a business standpoint than the current plan? You can book that to go longer than either Bray or Sheamus match, find a few extra minutes for other deserving matches (Taker, Shield) and improve the show's bottom line and in-ring product.

Agreed, would like to have heard a bit more about it, but it may have been as simple as concerns whether Taker could withstand a Brock-style physical match and now those concerns have been put to rest. Or not -- in which case the answer becomes more interesting.

I'd like this if I could!

Exactly. If you gave me any of those matches on TV with ample time, I'd be pretty stoked. I expect more than a good match with sufficient time at Mania, whether it be a fresh match up or compelling angles setting the stakes and table. Last year's show didn't meet expectations in the ring, but if this is the lineup, I was a hell of a lot more stoked heading into that show than this one.