What a rather insane roller coaster the last 48 hours or so have been for WWE fans. I'm guessing for WWE employees too. They had their second biggest show. Which included a match of the Year Contender. They had a hot crowd in the palm of their hands, loving every minute of the first half of the Royal Rumble Match itself, and then… the wheels fell off… and a caught fire… and a group of hooligans attempted to rock and tip the bus over. THEN? Mother Nature decided to weigh in and Blizzarded (yes its a verb now) all over whatever they may have had planned for Raw. The Arena show got cancelled. The Television show got moved and reformatted.
So let us bring out our trays and scalpels because THIS is a few days as Wrestling Fans that, like a complex digestive track, has enough twists and turns that its just BEGGING For a dissection.
Lets start here. Roman Reigns as way back as last year's Survivor Series was being mentioned as far as being groomed for a possible Rumble win at THIS Rumble. He broke Kane's record at the 2014 Rumble. People chanted for him when it boiled down to him and Batista last year. The SHIELD Broke up, but Roman's rise up the ladder got derailed by an injury. He was out for a few months. Months where he could have more organically gotten traction and continued to build upon the fan support he already had. That didn't happen. He appeared sporadically. Did a few interviews that ranged from decent to awkward and stilted. When he returned to the WWE, he won Superstar of the Year. In this humble writer's opinion that Award belonged to Seth Rollins or Brock Lesnar. Dolph Ziggler could have been an outlier for the award especially on the strength of his last 4 months of 2014. So that immediately got people's ire up. We were staring at the plates WWE was serving up for the "Wrestlemania Corridor", and without any kind of order placed we were all being given a heaping helping of Roman. Like we all experienced as kids. We get served the dinner Mom and/or Dad want to make. And you best finish your plate, or no dessert for YOU, Mister!
The Royal Rumble was the tale of two wrestling experiences. Up to Daniel Bryan's elimination? The Rumble was exciting. Crowd was loving it. We (i was there live) had just watched, quite possibly, the greatest Triple Threat match WWE had ever put on. We saw one of Brock Lesnar's best performances in a WWE ring since his return 2 years ago. We saw Seth Rollins steal the show. We saw John Cena do what he does (give the devil his due, he has entertaining matches with all types of opponents). We got the return of Bubba Ray Dudley. That was an awesome moment, albeit a too short stint in the match. Bray Wyatt looked amazing early on, and dominated… HARD until Daniel Bryan's music hit. The place erupted and the match really felt like it was hitting its stride. And… that's where it went to hell. Don't get it wrong, this isn't about Bryan losing… at least… not to me, and most of the fans I talked to since then. Its NOT about Roman winning. I actually preferred neither of them win, for a host of reasons, but like I pointed out in my Over/Under columns. The addition of Bryan lend doubt and drama to the Rumble proceedings. So when the unceremoniously and un built up or teased elimination of the most popular guy IN the match went down? Well…
THE Reaction(S)
Lets start with in the Arena. The crowd was stunned silent for a few minutes. Couldn't be bothered to even count down. I turned to my buddy and muttered, "they just did Roman NO favors. We're going to murder him when he comes out." I had already predicted Reigns to get "Cena Heat" in Philly that night. His handling the last six weeks was already getting some mixed reactions. So as the crowd went through a litany of chants from "Daniel Bryan" to "Bullshit" there was a parade of guys we weren't going to care about. When left to stew, Wrestling fans are not going to slowly work their way out of the funk… and anything short of WWE releasing some sort of aerosoled antidepressant? It was about to get ugly. SO… when Roman Reign's music hit and the place lost its collective mind. Last year it was Batista. Again the two or three rows around me just couldn't believe they'd actually book the match this way. Not Roman winning, but totally robbing us of any drama in the process. Even the slim and desperate hopes for guys like Ziggler, Ryback, or the excitement for some fun from Mizdow… clearly NO ONE READ MY FACES OF MIZDOW DISSECTION!?!? (*insert wailing and gnashing of teeth here ——> ) – Gone almost as quickly as they perked the crowd up. And with EACH and every elimination of anyone who would lend drama to the proceedings? It came off more and more as "this is our guy, and you'll like it." So the crowd responded in kind. Countless stories that could have been told and executed, outside of some dominance by Bray and Rusev? Largely ignored, so this Rumble fell flat on excitement. And if there are two guys who more represent the frustration people can feel for the WWE Product? It is the two men dominating near the end. See: Kane and Big Show. So the crowd gets louder and angrier. "Same old Shit" chants ring out because, basically… Reigns was a colorful shirt, flat top, and turning his cargo pants into cargo shorts from being John Cena. Eventually Reigns eliminates the two giants in an impressive feat of strength and perseverance and is booed out of the building, and quickly followed with a �WE WANT RUSEV' chant… which brings me to a tangent.
People loving the argument and memes, (Jericho even retweeted one) – "they chanted for Reigns last year, now they don't want him to win this year"… that's a weak crutch to lean on. That chant was due, in LARGE part because they didn't want Batista to win. Similarly its not like chanting for Rusev at the close of THIS match is tacit year long approval that the fan base wants to see the Russian Flag drop from the Wrestlemania Sign NEXT year… THAT said? That'd be pretty funny. If I photoshopped better (read: At all) I'd put that picture right here.
Tangent over. But before Rusev, Kane and Show return… start a beat down. Rock's music hits. Rocky helps dispatch the baddies. Eventually Rusev who… I had NO Idea was still IN the match returns. One spectacular spear later (it really was a nice spear, high velocity. Reigns was totally horizontal.) – Reigns is the Rumble winner and the live crowd is going insane. Even Rocky's help and hand raising of his cousin elicited crazy loud boos. To the point where Rocky's non verbals told a story… he was shocked. Little to my knowing, the Internet? Also going insane. #cancelWWENetwork was trending worldwide and in the US. This gained enough traction that outside news sources were covering it. The hilarious thing about THAT? The WWE announced today that they've finally cracked the one million subscriber mark. But back to the Rumble. The crowd started filing out as soon as the match ended. Not many were thrilled to stay and watch the celebration. People were underwhelmed and disappointed. A far cry from the amazing time we had for so much of the night.
Random Commentary: I'd LOVE to see backstage reaction to the Rumble match from Roman's entrance on. I hope like hell that'll be an episode of 24 in the future. Because to see Rock's reaction. To see Vince's reaction. To see Roman backstage after his win? All would be good TV. Oh to be a fly on THAT wall.
With the "WWE Universe" all twitter pated, the weather was either conspiring FOR or AGAINST the WWE… Hindsight, and my humble opinion says "FOR". A blizzard and travel ban cancelled Raw. So they headed to Stamford and did a studio show and showed both the World Title Triple Threat match AND the Royal Rumble match. Very nice, and as a Network Subscriber? This doesn't irk me in the least. If I bought the PPV outright? I guess it would, but its a crazy circumstance. So I guess if you're that upset you can always just hope for Natural Disasters in towns WWE heads to post PPV's so you can see it free. What they did WELL? Were the sitdown interviews with Seth Rollins, Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman, Daniel Bryan, Roman Reigns, and then a show closing Face Off with Heyman, Lesnar, and Reigns. Oh and throw in a great bit of work from Dean Ambrose ta boot. Here we got to have the wrestlers sit and answer questions and tell their stories and share their feelings from the Rumble. From Rollin's confidence in "KNOWING" he won that match when he hit the Phoenix Splash… TO Lesnar's cockiness saying he'd sting around to "meet this kid" in reference to Reigns, or "Someone's pissed he got his ass whipped" in reference to Rollins. To Bryan's shoot tinged promo about wanting that match with Lesnar so badly… that he was the "Ultimate David to go against the Ultimate Goliath", but where he also expressed his disappointment for letting the fans down. That he felt he owed US another WWE World Heavyweight Championship win. There was also the very real disappointment you felt from Reigns about how his big moment went down in terms of the crowd reaction. The show closing sit down with Heyman winding a brilliant tale about Reign's lineage in the wrestling bidness… He talked about his respect, and how the Rock faced Lesnar once, and never came back for more. He flipped it eventually, in typical Heyman brilliance and asked Reigns what it'll feel like to let his whole family down. An intense stare down between Reigns and Lesnar, a handshake, and a quick exchange of words and it was absolutely a great course correction after the Royal Rumble. The weather gave us this unique show, and they really made it something interesting, and it definitely benefited from a lack of a live crowd. Especially for all things Reigns. Would have been hard to maximize everything that happened in that studio with a crowd that very likely would have continued down a similar track.
In 48 hours we kicked off the "Road to Wrestlemania", and right out the bat we were like "WWHHHHHEEEEEEEE!!!! THIS IS AMAZING!" Then we hit a pot whole and we lost a couple people…
But we successfully are back on track and things are looking up. I try like hell to be a "half glass full"… wait… that's not right… "Full Half Glass"… no… whatever. You know what I mean. I was frustrated by the way the Rumble played out. It felt lazy and that they ONLY cared about Reigns, and it led to a lackluster Rumble with a predictable finish a year in the making, but the Triple Threat Match and the SnowDay Raw show really buoyed me. Wrestling fandom is like sports fandom. Sometimes you win… sometimes you lose by fifty…. sometimes you spend a week and a half arguing about deflated balls. There will NEVER be a shortage of drama!
Scalpels Down. Wash your hands, or they'll smell like formaldehyde.
