With Sunday night’s Royal Rumble in the books, many fans were left a little disillusioned at how it had all gone down.
Going into the Rumble, the clear favourite was Roman Reigns, followed by a strong pack of Daniel Bryan, Bray Wyatt, Rusev and Dean Ambrose; however when Bryan was eliminated early on in the Rumble match, it caused an unnerving feeling. It all relates to last year’s Royal Rumble match, where everybody wanted Bryan to win, but in the end, he did not even get the chance to participate, and it was left to the final two of Batista and Roman Reigns. The winner there was obvious from early on, and it was no different in this one I’m afraid to say.
With Bryan out of the match, one of the biggest challengers had been lost, and with that, a little bit of everyone’s hearts as they were watching. Sure, there was still Wyatt and Rusev, both of whom entered the match at a fairly early stage, but a star with Bryan’s pulling power should not have been eliminated that early by any means. At this point, it doesn’t look like Bryan is coming back to a strong position within WWE after a loss to Wyatt and now this Royal Rumble performance. Looking at the stats, Bryan spent less time in the 30 man Rumble than the likes of Stardust, Big E, Jack Swagger and Ryback, none of whom scream WrestleMania main eventer any time soon.
In fact, looking at the match, it’s hard to pick out many people who actually gained any strength within the company – Wyatt looked incredibly strong at the beginning, but was then knocked out by Big Show and calmly placed over the top rope, Ziggler looked athletic and energetic for the two minutes he was inside the ropes, before getting knocked out and calmly placed over the top rope, Ambrose looked as wild and crazy as usual until he met Big Show’s right hand and was… calmly placed over the top rope. Is anybody sensing a recurring pattern here?
This is the problem with the WWE. They have focussed so much attention on how to make Reigns look strong that they have forgotten they actually have other stars on the roster. It’s obvious that after Big Show’s ‘impressive’ showing, that he will face off against Reigns at WWE Fast Lane (These names are getting worse guys), who will then soundly beat the dominant giant; therefore making him a viable threat to Brock Lesnar. This all stems back from last year’s WrestleMania where Lesnar beat the Undertaker, which made him look indestructible. This is now going to be a vicious circle because Reigns is going to have to beat Lesnar and look indestructible, and the dominos will just continue to fall.
Another trouble is seen at just looking at the roster that entered the Rumble. It would be akin to something you might find on WWE Superstars, with everybody competing to get that one match on the main show. What was the need to bring The Boogeyman back? Or include any of the likes of Zack Ryder, Sin Cara, Titus O’Neil, R-Truth, Curtis Axel or Fandango? It shows that the WWE has a lack of depth in the roster and has no real idea of how to fill it. Where was the usual NXT spot? Why did we not get an Adrian Neville or a Sami Zayn inclusion? Oh no, of course, you have to save them for the actual PPVs that wrestling fans might enjoy down in NXT.
The worst thing is how the Rumble has ended. Every year for god knows how long, the last guy to go just gets soundly tossed over the top rope. Cena did it to Ryback, Batista did it to Reigns, and now Reigns has done it to Rusev. The last four that were seen in the ring were Big Show, Kane, Ambrose and Reigns. Why could there not be a face off between the two former partners at the end? Both of them eliminate Kane and Big Show and then go toe to toe to see who the better man in The Shield was. The answer to that is obvious though; Seth Rollins stole the show in the championship match at the Royal Rumble. A match which was from my point of view the shining star in an otherwise bleak and dark night.
Hand on heart though, you have to feel sorry for Reigns. Sure, he may not be the most talented in ring worker or guy on the microphone, but to receive boos like that after winning the Rumble must have crushed him inside. To see him looking genuinely quite emotional at realising what must be a lifelong dream only to hear a chorus of boos, or chants for CM Punk etc, I cannot imagine what that must have been like for him. In all honesty, it’s not his fault – it’s Vince’s.
As you can see from Triple H’s view on how to run NXT, he’s got the right idea; at least for wrestlers anyway. Signing the likes of Balor, Owens and Itami are absolute strikes of genius. However that’s not who is running the company. The company is currently run by a 69 year old who is undoubtedly stuck in his own ways and doesn’t understand why the world has changed without him. To book the Rumble to finish in such similar ways year after year shows that Vince has no idea of what the audience want or need anymore.
Who remembers the Monday Night Wars? Who remembers how Vince Russo actually helped bring WWE back to the top of the roost? Chances are that not many of you do, because VKM took all the credit. Granted, he should, but Russo was the one who brought edgy ideas to the forefront of the business and essentially created arguably the greatest era of professional wrestling to date – the Attitude Era. Then do you remember when Russo took his ideas over to WCW? None of them panned out. They were either too edgy and out there, or they were too frivolous, with title change after title change. One thing still stands out to me more than most when it comes to WCW – standards and practice. Remember how WCW had to tone down their bad behaviour because Time Warner was trying to appeal to a more ‘family friendly’ market? Hmm… What else does that remind you of?
Oh, that’s right, the PG Era! In order to capitalise on merchandise sales from young children, WWE fans all over the world have found themselves in the dying stages of WCW, but what can anybody do about it? The next largest organisation would be between TNA and ROH, both of whom just do not have the star power to draw the level of audience that WWE does.
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Vince has played his cards shrewdly but not subtly, and in doing so, has angered fans across the globe. The number one trend on Twitter last night was #CancelWWENetwork; there were even reports that people were cancelling so quickly that the website jammed and people had to phone up to cancel. (Editor’s note: The news that WWE Network has hit 1 million subscribers seems to put that campaign in the “all talk” bracket)
But hey, every cloud has a silver lining – Bubba Ray Dudley is back.
