Ok a couple of you have asked me for my thoughts on the latest Royal Rumble from WWE. I thought I’d give it a shot as 3 out of 4 of my best friends are die hard wrestling fans so it comes up in conversation quite a lot when we hang out so I know my fair bit plus I used to watch it when I was younger. I know some of you may consider wrestling ‘lame and fake’ but tbh I don’t look at it as real I’d go and watch UFC if I wanted to see men punch the s*** out of each other. I treat it as a soap opera for guys I mean would you rather watch Dot Cotton washing her granny pants on Eastenders or guys beat each other up with steel chairs and barbed wire? I know what I would prefer. Anyway I digress it’s time for my review.
Dot Cotton or WWE the choice is simple really
The Royal Rumble has been around almost as long as me and it was my favourite yearly event from the then-WWF I mean what other chance would you get to see 30 of your favourite superstars battle it out for a chance to be in the Wrestlemania main event? It had everyone from your Rock’s, Triple H’s to your Doink’s and Brooklyn Brawlers, everyone was in and everyone had a chance. The aim of the rumble is easy be the last remaining and throw as many people over the top rope as possible. Now I’ve explained the concept to my non wrestling fans I’ll get down to my review.
The preshow featured the tag team bout of Cesaro and Tyson Kidd squaring off against ‘The New Day (Big E Langston and Xavier Woods)’. The match was a solid preshow warm up but a couple of things stood out to me. The first being they don’t know what to do with either Cesaro or Kidd who are both largely talented but arguably both have the charisma of my socks, the answer is simple, ditch Natayla and bring in a decent mouthpiece and have them as the anti-americans, they’ll get over as heels, win the fans over with their decent in ring ability and their manager can do the talking. As for The New Day I have one word and one word alone LAME. For weeks management had been teasing a the group as a modern day version of ‘The Nation Of Domination’, which in my eyes would have succeeded instead they debut as some happy clapper cult, once again this is poor booking and I unfortunately see them headed down the job squad route now that 66% of 3MB were released.
The first match up featured the teams of The Ascension versus The New Age Outlaws and this match was essentially a squash match for The Ascension but my thoughts were this. The Ascension will flop, I bet you’re thinking why is a team that is being pushed to the moon and back gunna flop, again the answer is lazy booking. In NXT the team was a mysterious broody almost vampiric group but when they got called up the debuted as a loud, brash, post apocalyptic mix of The Road Warriors and Demolitions. The team built up a following based on what they had done in NXT, note to WWE writers don’t change a successful gimmick that’s like having Brodus Clay a badass bruiser in NXT debut as a modern day pimped up version of The Godfather! Why did they face arguably one of the biggest teams from the biggest era of modern professional wrestling? Again the answer was simple lazy booking, for weeks the team had been facing jobbers then when it was realised they had no match for the rumble they shoot an angle of Raw when they mixed it up with The New Age Outlaws, APA and NWO and hey presto a match was made. If it was up to me I would have had The Ascension face the The New Age Outlaws, APA and NWO in a 2 on 6 handicap match where the Ascension essentially destroys the other teams. I mean what other way to give a new team a rub and show their dominance then beating 3 of the biggest teams of all time at once, it wouldn’t look bad as everyone in those teams is pushing 50, but hey that’s my thoughts on this match.
Spot ‘The Ascension’
The next match was a tag team, championship match between The Uso’s and The Miz and Damian Mizdow. The match itself was won by The Uso’s but it was essentially a look into the crystal ball teasing a face turn from the exceptionally talented Mizdow. The Miz refused to tag Mizdow into the match creating tension between the two, for the third match in a row I thought the story played more of a part than the actual match and this is how I see it going down. Mizdow is a great comedian he plays the role well, it’s one that has been missing since Santino retired but he’s also a great wrestler (you’re welcome) but his problem was his connectability with the audience. When he debuted he portrayed a character similar to one in the 1980’s dubbed ‘The Genius’ where he would talk down to people and believe he’s better because well quite simply he’s smarter. He went on an undefeated streak for months until those script writers again lost direction and turned him from a character gaining momentum to essentially a jobber and that’s where he entered an agreement with The Miz. He is The Miz’s stunt double in other words he does his dirty work, takes the hard hit’s whilst The Miz gets the glory. Why were they paired up the answer was simple, the help get Mizdow over with the audience and with the tease of tension between the ranks I wouldn’t be surprised of a Mizdow face turn followed by a match at Wrestlemania 31 between the two.
Miz-Pac
The next match was a match between ‘The Bella Twins’ and Paige and Natayla, I’m not gunna lie this match SUCKED, the words toilet break came of mind. Why do you ask that? The answer is simple it’s not because it’s a diva match it’s because once again we see The Bella’s who are only being pushed to the moon and back because of who their boyfriends are (John Cena and Daniel Bryan) triumph over a much more talented duo. I would have rather have seen a match between Paige and Natayla then this, don’t get me wrong if The Bella twins improve in ring I’ll eat my words but for me they should stick to appearing in music videos looking broody.
The Bella’s doing what they do best
Finally we move on to the one match that was about the wrestling. It was the WWE championship match between Brock Lesnar, John Cena and Seth Rollins. I would strongly recommend this match for anyone who isn’t into wrestling, which you may think surprising as it features John ‘5 moves’ Cena and Brock ‘meathead’ Lesnar. This match in my eyes saved an otherwise poor rumble. The main talking points from this match was Rollins, Rollins, ROLLINS! Seth Rollins formally Tyler Black in ROH has had quite the push in the last couple of months going on from being an afterthought in The Shield to being Mr Money In The Bank and headlining the rumble. I for one knew what how talented Seth was from seeing him years ago in ROH so I knew this would be good. It surprised me how insane everyone went over his phoenix splash on Cena, then I realised that’s because the WWE has banned so many move these days when someone pulls out a move like this it’s gunna steal the show. The only thing I was disappointed about was Brock running in to break up the count, if it was up to me I would have the ref count to 2 the have Brock run in that way everyone would be on the edge of their seat to see if Seth could win. The match itself flowed very well and I believe that was down to Seth being the speedy glue that held the two bruisers of Cena and Lesnar together. I expect big things from Seth and I predict he will be WWE champion this year, I predict a cash in on the new WWE champion at Wrestlemania 31 to further get him over and cement his status as a main event player.
Bring back more moves like this
The last match was the rumble, who was going to win and face Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania 31? It started off with The Miz and R-Truth neither of who were going to win but at number three the first entrant was Bubba Ray Dudley! The crowd marked out for this seeing one of their ECW heroes back in Philly and he did not disappoint dispatched Truth and The Miz in quick succession. Bray Wyatt entered at five and showed his promise eliminating most of the existing participants in quick fashion. Then the rumble progressed at a relatively steady pace with a nice surprise return from The Boogeyman until Daniel Bryan entered at number 10, how would the crowd favourite fare? After being screwed out of the rumble last year would this year be his year? . At number 14 was the ledge that is DDP, I’ve met him in real life and he is by far the nicest wrestler I’ve ever met so I was happy to see him for a quick nostalgia trip. Back we went to Daniel Bryan before he was swiftly eliminated by Bray Wyatt! WHAT??? Daniel Bryan eliminated already? What the f*** was that, one of the favourites the crowd favourite gone already? I was not happy but I understood the logic it was to get publicity and it worked, it helped to set up the possibility of a Wrestlemania match between Bray Wyatt and got a piss poor rumble trending. As evident by the fact that #cancelwwenetwork was trending on Twitter this was the only smart booking move of the night in my eyes. As the match went on the crowd grew hotter arguably booing all the entrants since their favourite had gone out, the most hostile reception was for Roman Reigns, the crowd only really cheered for Dean Ambrose at 25 and Dolph Ziggler at 30. By now I had an inkling who I thought was going to win (Reigns) but I was hoping either Ambrose or Ziggler would win when in reality I knew that I had a bigger chance. Towards the end of the match the lazy booking came into play the heels Big Show and Kane decided to team up and eliminate both Ambrose and Ziggler leaving me even more pissed. The last four came down to Rusev who had been hiding outside the ring for large parts of the match, Kane, Big Show and Reigns. If you didn’t know Reigns was gunna win before it was obvious now. Reigns hulked up ala Hulk Hogan and threw Big Show and Kane out, he had done it, he had won the rumble!!! WRONG!! Enter Rusev before swiftly being dispatched and Reigns being crowned the winner.
You would think this would be the end of it, right? Well you’re wrong. Big Show and Kane who I’ll call Bane from now on entered the ring and proceeded to beat down a weary tired Regins. WHY??? Well done script writers you had made the winner of the rumble look weak and built him up and knocked him in down in 10 seconds, you silly silly writers! Just as I was about to switch it off, enter THE ROCK. Can you smellllllllllllllll, who doesn’t love The Rock? I mean if you hate wrestling you’ll still love his movies. Cue The Rock clearing house and saving his cousin from a further beating.
So what was my opinion on the rumble from a non die hard wrestling point of view? The answer was frustration, frustration at the lazy booking, I mean I could write a better product. Pushing the wrong stars (except Seth) and wrong gimmicks (The New Day), change these things and I may come back and watch you, if not I’ll just nod my head politely as my friends discuss it pretending like I it’s the best thing since sliced bread!