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Royal Rumble 2015 Thread


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I heard the Rusev chant loud and clear.

 

I'm trying to think of the worst possible WrestleMania card. Which means what WWE thinks is the best possible card.

 

Brock Lesnar defends against Roman Reigns

HHH vs Sting (Ziggler as Stings cornerman)

Cena vs Rusev (Cena wins)

Big Show & Kane defeat The Usos for the tag titles

Bryan vs Wyatt opener

Orton vs Seth Rollins

Six divas vs six other divas

Everyone else in a battle royal

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Well, I could bank on [HHH Vs. Sting ][Cena Vs. Rusev] [Reigns Vs. Lesnar] & [seth Vs. Orton] for sure. Maybe we'll get a Money in the Bank Cash-In which could change things but I doubt it. I think WWE view Daniel Bryan as the odd man out at this point. His comeback match was on Smackdown. He lost on his RAW match to Bray. He looked like a jobber in the Rumble tonight.

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Just recorded a long podcast on this, but basically that Rumble comes down to this - everyone ended up looking worse. Everyone. Hard to imagine booking a worse match if you tried.

 

Hah, just came in this thread to post - even ignoring how the crowd reacted to the outcome, was there a single thing in this match layout that was done well?

 

- Reigns didn't look good in winning at all - manages to beat Kane and Show because they start fighting among themselves.

- Not a single interesting elimination. Several babyfaces got dominated and tossed out by heels.

- #2 babyface and most over guy on the roster does absolutely nothing in the match.

- Kofi's big spot was totally shitty.

- Mizdow deal was done in pretty much the worst way possible.

- What the fuck was the point of that Rusev thing?

 

I'm sure there's more bad decisions I'm forgetting...

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Just recorded a long podcast on this, but basically that Rumble comes down to this - everyone ended up looking worse. Everyone. Hard to imagine booking a worse match if you tried.

The sad thing is even if the booking is asleep at the wheel, the Rumble at its worst can still be entertaining. You have to be actively trying to fuck up something as bulletproof as the Royal Rumble match.

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In retrospect anyone think all the positive press Bryan got last week, including Steph and Hunter putting him over in the BR article was done in hopes of lessening the backlash when he didn't win? Like don't worry we still like him! Just not as much as you do though

I was sort of debating this with Loss on Twitter.

 

I don't think HHH and Steph are perfect or total fan advocates or anything, but they come off as way more in touch than Vince. Total speculation on my part but I have to assume Vince insisted on Reigns winning and couldn't be talked out of it. I imagine HHH and Steph (and probably others) saw what a bad idea that was and did all they could to soften the blow for both Bryan and Reigns. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that bringing in the Rock was HHH or Steph's idea to try and keep things from getting too out of hand knowing that if they couldn't talk Vince off the ledge the could at least soften the landing.

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Well, the world title match was fun...that Rumble though. Horrible in almost every way I can think of. A real shame - it could have been a fantastic, emotional climax, but they are stubborn. Whisper it quietly, but sometime, just sometimes, its good to give people what they want...

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It's really hard for me to see what they did tonight as anything but a deliberate attempt to devalue Daniel Bryan because the company does not want him to be as over as he is. They know how to book guys - look how they protected Reigns for so long, and look how they book Rusev. They just choose not to protect people they don't have pre-ordained for those spots. Whereas previous attempts to take Bryan down a notch ended up benefitting him in the long run, sadly, I don't see a way out of this one. I think they have finally succeeded.

 

This post sounds angrier than I really am about it. I'm more stunned than anything. The kind of thing they did to Bryan tonight is the type of thing usually reserved for someone on their way out of the territory or headed to the competition.

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quick thoughts:

 

- Everyone called the backlash coming against hotshotting Reigns coming. I was calling it last summer. It's been painfully obvious since he came back, with the general apathy towards him, that he wasn't ready. Sad and predictable booking. And now what? Your hardcore audience just shit on your chosen one. I feel bad for Roman and I feel bad for WWE, but it was entirely forseeable. And I can understand how they thought getting Bryan out early, and then putting in some guys the crowds likes later to get the mood back up would work in like 1988.....but holy fuck how do they misread their audience this bad? They literally just didn't shit on Reigns, they shit on the entire rest of the match, all of the action, and other than Mizdow, Ambrose, Ziggler and BNB nobody got any sort of positive reaction.

 

Like Meltzer said on the LAW after the show, if they were going to go thru with the Reigns plan, why didn't they wait til after the Rumble to bring Bryan back? Were they that clueless?

 

- there was some good stuff in the match (Bully Ray and DDP were fun), but so much bad booking that overshadowed it.

 

- Triple Threat was incredible. It really felt like they were improvising when Brock was down for so long, which made the drama of it that much better and Brock's Hulk comeback even better. Brock took so much punishment in that match. He's unkillable. Seth put on the performance of his career thus far, and Cena was big match great as always. Can't say enough good things about this match.

 

undercard: time filler.

 

I like the Cesaro/Kidd team and the odd pairing with Rose a lot, and I like the guys in New Day but not the gimmick. Good opener.

 

I thought the Mizdow/Usos match kind of sucked. A lot of it was really sloppy, and this tag formula with Miz and Sandow has run it's course. Miz takes the whole match, which makes the Usos look bad, and all the crowd cares about is Sandow. The crowd was booing The Usos who are the ace babyface team and are over everywhere because all they care about is Sandow. Miz was even getting cheered! It would have been great booking if the blowoff was happening on this show, but it didn't.

 

I actually like the Diva tag which a lot of people seem to have hated. There was that weird tag spot where the ref insisted Paige get in when Natalya was working over one of the Bellas, but other than that I thought it was one of the better Diva PPV matches, and I love that they got time. I like that they're going the LayCool route with the Bellas, and Nikki has improved a ton.

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I agree with Loss, this seemed like a concerted attempt to devalue Bryan. Now kayfabe wise they can say "see, we gave your favorite a chance and he blew it without anyone screwing him over". This seems to have the chance to be even worse than last year's backlash since they don't seem to have any way to redeem themselves like before. So they've basically set up their biggest show to have the main event get booed out of the building and their most popular guy by far in a go no where mid card match no one wants to see.

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What still amazes me is that they don't understand the people who show up to WM aren't the casual fans. It's the hardcore fans. It's not like there's 50,000 pro wrestling fans in the Bay Area with the disposable income to go to the show live. There are people from all over the world who save money up just to come to WM for the weekend. If they think they're gonna get by Philly because the crowd is a "Philly crowd" and everything will be good at WM, Vince really IS Xerxes against the Spartans.

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Outlaws not jobbing would be appalling.

To whom? That one guy somewhere that likes The Ascension?

 

To anyone who is sick of the WWE putting ancient stars on a pedestal over current workers. I don't care about the Ascension, but the Outlaws shouldn't be beating anyone.

 

 

Since when was the last time a Legend who made WWE what is is today went over a current guy apart from Rock/Punk?

 

Im sick of the Legends being jobbed out all the time. It devalues their legacy. Either let them win or dont have them appear on TV. Actually thinking back to Raw had this been 1996 NWO would have slapped the piss out of the Assention because no one would have even dared to get in their face without taking a kicking.

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Outlaws not jobbing would be appalling.

To whom? That one guy somewhere that likes The Ascension?

 

To anyone who is sick of the WWE putting ancient stars on a pedestal over current workers. I don't care about the Ascension, but the Outlaws shouldn't be beating anyone.

 

 

Since when was the last time a Legend who made WWE what is is today went over a current guy apart from Rock/Punk?

 

Im sick of the Legends being jobbed out all the time. It devalues their legacy. Either let them win or dont have them appear on TV. Actually thinking back to Raw had this been 1996 NWO would have slapped the piss out of the Assention because no one would have even dared to get in their face without taking a kicking.

 

lol at Outlaws being legends "who made WWE what is today".

 

And newsflash: nWo in 1996 were not part-time legends. They were full-time wrestlers. They were the main heels of the show.

 

As for your question: The Outlaws beat Usos last year and Rock punked out RUsev. There are a million other examples, but these two are the latest.

 

Also, it is the jb of legends to help get young wrestlers get over and climb the ladder by putting them over. That has been true since the beginning of wrestling.

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John Cena desperately needs to come up with a new finish and retire the AA for a while. At this point it's about as effective as a bodyslam in big main events.

 

He never went for the STF in the match IIRC which I thought was odd. The only sub attempt I remember was Brock's Kimura which Cena stood up out of leading to a flying knee to Brock's skull from Seth

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Dave mentioned in the WO show tonight that WWE indeed had Bryan go out early since they thought it would let the crowd get the booing out of their system. Also they expected there to be a backlash but not as vociferous as what happened. So despite what happened last year, they apparently were completely shocked at their handpicked choice being soundly rejected by the crowd again. Also Rock was pretty pissed off at changes that were made and his annoyed reaction to the crowd booing was pretty much a shoot.

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Also Rock was pretty pissed off at changes that were made and his annoyed reaction to the crowd booing was pretty much a shoot.

 

 

It's somewhat hilarious at how far they went for Reigns endorsement - paying The Rock to make an appearance - and the crowd still shits all over the fucking mess they created here.

 

I didn't watch the show, I was unable to, but I'm surprised - actually scrap that, I'm not surprised, more bemused at how WWE can completely learn nothing from last year. They have not only ignored the audience (McMahon always says shit like: "At the end of the day, our audience makes the product"), but potentially fucked up Reigns too, people just aren't going to accept Reigns as the intended Mania headliner. He'll be booed out of the building against Lesnar and their will be "We Want Bryan" chants throughout the match.

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I did get to watch the triple threat, that was an awesome match. I really don't want Lesnar to go back to MMA. He's easily in the top three workers (along with Cena and Bryan) in WWE and put on a hell of a performance last night, that being said, I can't see even the talents of Lesnar bringing out a ****+ match against Reigns. Not to discredit Reigns who has shown he can be good, but it's just not going to work methinks.

 

Part of me wants Heyman to turn on Lesnar and for Rollins to cash in on Lesnar sometime between now and Fast Lane (maybe tonight on Raw?) and for Reigns to face Rollins at Mania for the belt with Lesnar getting Bryan. That's the only thing that could save the mess that was last night - Bryan being the one to end Lesnar's reign of terror (even if Rollins wins the title through nefarious means, which will be irrelevant because Bryan will win cleanly and fairly).

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