I didn't have a lot of hope going into the Rumble, but it always has the potential to be a good show. This year, it was definitely a good show.
First thing to note is the Rumble itself, which was filled with surprises. And unlike the joke Rumble a few years ago, these were actually a few decent surprises! The surprises ranged from Bubba Ray Dudley (getting a huge pop from the Philly crowd), Diamond Dallas Page, and The Boogeyman. Daniel Bryan coming at #10 got one of the biggest pops of the night, except for me, because I just knew that meant he wasn't going to win and, sure enough, they eliminated him in the most anticlimactic fashion possible. And sure enough, it killed the entire crowd to the point that Kofi's annual circus save got completely ignored. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia crowd is not, and never has been, stupid and they knew the minute that Reigns' music hit that he was taking the whole thing and they immediately turned on him. And then he threw out Kane and Big Show to win the thing to the most heel heat I've heard in one of these matches in quite a while. Kane and Show do the post-match beatdown, only for The Rock to make the save. Then you find out Rusev was never tossed, so Reigns throws him out to even MORE heat. Dumb! Dumb! DUMB! It's all SO dumb and they've CLEARLY positioned Reigns as THE GUY, fan reaction be damned. I feel bad for the guy. I really do. It's insane how much he's been set up to fail as a top face.
#1. The Miz (eliminated by Bubba Ray Dudley) #2. R-Truth (eliminated by Bubba Ray Dudley) #3. Bubba Ray Dudley (Surprise #1)(eliminated by Bray Wyatt) #4. Luke Harper (eliminated by Bray Wyatt) #5. Bray Wyatt (eliminated by Big Show and Kane) #6. Curtis Axel Erick Rowan (eliminated by Luke Harper) #7. The Boogeyman (Surprise #2)(eliminated by Bray Wyatt) #8. Sin Cara (eliminated by Bray Wyatt) #9. Zack Ryder (eliminated by Bray Wyatt) #10. Daniel Bryan (eliminated by Bray Wyatt) #11. Fandango (eliminated by Rusev) #12. Tyson Kidd (eliminated by Daniel Bryan) #13. Stardust (eliminated by Roman Reigns) #14. Diamond Dallas Page (Surprise #3)(eliminated by Rusev) #15. Rusev (eliminated by Roman Reigns) #16. Goldust (eliminated by Roman Reigns) #17. Kofi Kingston (eliminated by Rusev) #18. Adam Rose (eliminated by Rusev) #19. Roman Reigns (WINNER) #20. Big E (eliminated by Rusev) #21. Damien Mizdow (eliminated by Bray Wyatt) #22. Jack Swagger (eliminated by The Big Show) #23. Ryback (eliminated by The Big Show and Kane) #24. Kane (eliminated by Roman Reigns) #25. Dean Ambrose (eliminated by The Big Show and Kane) #26. Titus O'Neil (eliminated by Roman Reigns) #27. Bad News Barrett (eliminated by Dolph Ziggler) #28. Cesaro (eliminated by Dolph Ziggler) #29. The Big Show (eliminated by Roman Reigns) #30. Dolph Ziggler (eliminated by The Big Show and Kane)
Also, is Randy Orton lost in Cleveland or something? You'd think that THIS would have been the time to bring him back, but what do I know? Clearly not as much as this company, who thought to take the fan favorite by a mile and have him not only NOT win the big one, but not even come close.
The title match, on the other hand, was INCREDIBLE! Brock played dead for a good chunk of it after taking a hellacious table bump! That left Rollins and Cena to have their standard good match and it was even better than anything they've put on in the past, right down to Rollins busting out a PHOENIX SPLASH~! right before Brock came back to life and killed everything in sight. The finish was fantastic with Rollins trying to finish with the Curb Stomp on the briefcase and getting F5'd to oblivion. I loved the hell out of this match, more than anything The E's put on since Punk/Lesnar in 2012.
(edited by It's False on 25.1.15 1947)
"Playing guitars. It's hard to sing while playing...guitars."
Why the fu.... I mean, Rusev.... at the end?... and that's how it goes?... and DBry... I don't get.... Screw it. As far as I'm concerned, the rumble is not over til Axel or Reigns goes over the top rope.
This blew on so many levels. Creative knows dick about what the WWE Universe wants.
EDIT: The title match WAS awesome. The Rumble was the crappiest I ever recall seeing.
Really liked the WWE World Heavyweight Title match. Rumble was fun but UGH ending. Fans chanting BULLSHIT and WE WANT REFUNDS. Didn't like how Ambrose and Ziggler were knocked out and thrown out like garbage. They knew people would be mad so they tried to get the Rock to send the crowd home happy.
The title match was fantastic and the first half of the Royal Rumble was pretty exciting but that last half, what the hell?
Okay, Daniel Bryan didn't win it. I'm okay with that. But they had the two most boring, stale wrestlers in the company (Big Show and Kane) eliminating all the fan favorites? Were they trying to make the fans angry on purpose? Then the ending where Reigns wins, but gets double teamed and The Rock saves the day but then oops, Rusev is still alive and gets in the ring just to immediately be eliminated? Makes no sense.
I was 99% sure that Reigns was going to win so that's no surprise. But at least have it come down to Reigns vs. Bryan, Ziggler or Ambrose so the fans don't boo until the very end. Instead they had Big Show/Kane dominate for the last 10 minutes so the fans could take a nice long dump on it.
Also, what was up with Heyman saying that Lesnar would take care of Sting? I thought they were going to switch from Sting/Triple H to Sting/Lesnar but now it's clearly Lesnar/Reigns at WM. What?
Brock-Cena-Rollins was such a fantastic match. Brock threw those two around like children and it took a massive effort from Cena and Rollins to put the big man down ... and that still wasn't enough. Brock is amazing. Brock is bigger than everyone ... except maybe one, which make me wonder...
... why you dump him like he was Fandango in the middle of the Rumble? Bryan is the only person who should be beating Brock. I don't know what you do now. I'm starting to think the WWE was bummed out when they learned Danial Bryan was actually returning from his injury.
The opening bits with Buh-Buh were cool even if R-Truth was playing D-Von. I would like to see more Harper vs Dudley. I would have loved to have seen a lot more Bray and Harper vs the world. DDP was neat even if JBL had to mock all things yoga.
Everything else was not good to really curious, and I don't get the Rusev spot at the end. Not even The Rock could bail them out so I don't know what they do now. Rusev vs Cena should be good.
Originally posted by QuezzyBut they had the two most boring, stale wrestlers in the company (Big Show and Kane) eliminating all the fan favorites? Were they trying to make the fans angry on purpose? Then the ending where Reigns wins, but gets double teamed and The Rock saves the day but then oops, Rusev is still alive and gets in the ring just to immediately be eliminated? Makes no sense.
I can explain the WWE thinking but it's still nonsensical.
- there's no big obstacles (aka more impressive) people Roman Reigns can fight back against than giants Big Show and Kane
- they're concerned enough about Roman being boos to have Rock make an appearance to get a big positive reaction and transfer it to Roman by endorsing
- BUT Roman's still got to be man enough to win this thing on his own, so Rusev shall awake from the dead (with the referee yelloing at him to get back in right now) to take a big move before being thrown out.
You can almost see it working in a context less environment. They're just missing their own context.
It's probably too soon to switch to "poor Roman" because he's still going to main event WrestleMania at this point. But this is clearly the part of the Roman Era DVD documentary where they're playing down beat music or, worse, they're not making the DVD set at all.
Kids, let your old dad tell you about a time long ago, when I was even younger than you are now, when the face Royal Rumble winner was actually cheered by the crowd.
"They showed Kazarian talking on his cell phone. Tenay said that was a sign of disrespect. West suggested that perhaps Kazarian was phoning in the moves to someone who is going to help him prepare to face one of these wrestlers. That's one of the worst guesses in history for why someone is on the phone."
Did anyone really think that it would be Bryan once Brock retained? I just thought they'd let Bryan make it to the end and get screwed by the Authority somehow.
Bad booking or no, that Philly crowd was atrocious for the last hour. "Our guy didn't win so we're going to throw a tantrum until it's time to go home." I get showing your displeasure, but they booed everything that moved not named Rock or Ambrose.
Originally posted by me in the prediction threadDaniel Bryan wins the rumble. They want Reigns to win but won't want another Batista moment. So they'll blink and give it to Bryan.
As I typed out the above the other day, I thought 'Hmm, that goes completely against their demonstrated past behaviour. But surely they wouldn't try two years in a row?'
Originally posted by StingArmyBad booking or no, that Philly crowd was atrocious for the last hour. "Our guy didn't win so we're going to throw a tantrum until it's time to go home." I get showing your displeasure, but they booed everything that moved not named Rock or Ambrose.
- StingArmy
If crowd's didn't act like this last year we would've gotten a Orton/Batista and Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus Mania. The W's own Justin Shapiro sparked a revolution in Pittsburgh last year and it must continue.
Originally posted by StingArmyBad booking or no, that Philly crowd was atrocious for the last hour. "Our guy didn't win so we're going to throw a tantrum until it's time to go home." I get showing your displeasure, but they booed everything that moved not named Rock or Ambrose.
- StingArmy
See, what the crowd should have done was start walking out enmasse. I would have enjoyed the shit out of that.
Chuck Norris drives an ice cream truck covered in human skulls.
As the show was progressing, I somehow managed to "WWE-Logic" the booking before each stage progressed. And, I managed to hit the nail on each step, which either means I'm an out of touch 70 year old man, or I've been watching this stuff for far too long.
When Bryan drew number 10, I decided his night was going to be a short one. Because, if Roman Reigns was the man of destiny, they wouldn't want a repeat of LAST year's "booing", and by WWE logic, that would mean eliminating Bryan as early as possible. By doing so, Roman doesn't have to be the jerk-off responsible, and hopefully by the time they wind down, they'll have forgotten their disappointment ha ha.
Next, I noticed that all the Internet favorites were around nearing the end; Ambrose, Wyatt, and Ziggler all seemed like logical second choices the fans could rally around. Again, if Roman puts them out, he draws even MORE heat, but by WWE logic, if they're eliminated by the UNSTOPPABLE BIG SHOW, then Roman's the hero when he takes out the Big Baddy. They one-upped me by including Kane, but that's why they're the former billionaires.
Then, JUST to make sure, if everyone's favorite star The Rock, who hasn't been booed in the 5 years since his big return, were to anoint Roman as The Man, then SURELY if all else had failed to this point, this was cherry.
When we were down to 3 (excluding Rusev), I decided I wanted Kane to win. I don't like Kane. I have never had any use for Kane. You could eliminate the last 12 years of Kane from the WWE and I don't feel like I'd have missed anything. But since all else had failed, I decided this would be the most satisfyingly bizarre decision to end the night. Remember when you wanted Team Hell No to split up so we could endure the mega-singles push you've all been asking for? HERE IT IS!
This was the ultimate in "I'm Vince McMahon DAMMIT!" shows, and they never fail to make me laugh. As I watched Ambrose, Ziggler, and Wyatt get tossed one by one by a couple of WWE lifers, I imagined him standing by the Gorilla position, rubbing his hands (or something) in glee, screaming "FUCK YOU, INTERNET!"
Wow, that is something. I wouldn't be angry at all if Angle hung up the boots right now. He's been a hell of a performer for the past six years and has already sprung himself into the class of one of the best ever. Not many people can say that.