Royal Rumble 2015 Discussion *SPOILERS FYI*

[King Pitcos]

Yeah, Cena winning every year wouldn't help anyone. You need (and get) him in title matches year round as well, so him challenging for it at WrestleMania is no big deal anymore.

[Dr.PeterVenkman]

 

I still don't see whats wrong with the old way of doing things and having your most popular babyface in the Rumble win it and have them go to Wrestlemania

You want John Cena to win every Royal Rumble???

I said most popular babyface in the Rumble, Cena wasn't in the Rumble

[Au]

Top trolling by WWE. I wholeheartedly agree with them. Fuck one "smart" crowd who were determined not to enjoy themselves. They made the right decision.

 

I'd say they were pretty keen to enjoy themselves until Bryan got unceremoniously dumped out early on. They were so deflated over that they just didn't care - the result was a foregone conclusion and the booking was so shite there was never a point where it looked like anyone other than Reigns might actually pull it out of the bag.

 

 

 

Also, on the footage of the pre-show, the crowd were going insane for Kidd & Cesaro winning some match. When Cesaro came out late, they didn't make a fucking sound. What was that about?

They were sat on their hands after the Bryan elimination. There were people in the first few rows visibly sat there on their phones. The closest we got to them being into the match again after that was for Damien Sandow only for him to last all of 30 seconds in the ring. By the time Cesaro came out they just couldn't give a fuck. It was abundantly clear that Reigns was going over but he'd done nothing to make himself look like a credible a winner. Although it did amuse me when they realised that Rusev hadn't actually been eliminated and started chanting for him. At least he's someone who's been booked consistently strong, I suppose.

 

WWE got the reaction they deserved for that match. They were so determined to have Reigns go over that they refused to let anyone else look strong. Ziggler, Sandow, Ambrose all meant nothing. At least we got Ziggler's Young Bucks superkick party tribute act for his fired up entrance.

 

They probably made the right decision having Bryan go out early on because if you think the crowd shat on Reigns this would have been exponentially worse had he actually interacted with Bryan or even eliminated him. Best thing they could have done was have Reigns turn heel on Rock last night after he came out to make the save. Prove that he could win his own battles and didn't need him stealing his spotlight. But no, the Rock was there to give him the rub and he looked utterly put out that the crowd still booed him.

 

Edit to add: They clearly wanted to make Reigns the next John Cena and that's exactly what they've ended up with. A main event babyface who isn't over with a large vocal percentage of the crowd. Job well done?

 

That title match, though. Fucking great stuff.

[tiger_rick]

 

 

I still don't see whats wrong with the old way of doing things and having your most popular babyface in the Rumble win it and have them go to Wrestlemania

You want John Cena to win every Royal Rumble???

 

I said most popular babyface in the Rumble, Cena wasn't in the Rumble

 

By your logic, he can never be in one again!

[Dr.PeterVenkman]

 

 

 

I still don't see whats wrong with the old way of doing things and having your most popular babyface in the Rumble win it and have them go to Wrestlemania

You want John Cena to win every Royal Rumble???

I said most popular babyface in the Rumble, Cena wasn't in the Rumble

By your logic, he can never be in one again!

Cena doesn't need the belt though, Bryan never got a run with the belt so you can see why his hardcore fans moan at anyone else winning

 

Personally I'm not fussed about Bryan not winning, rather that Reigns realistically is about 5th or 6th most over babyface, and the crowd will shit on him at Mania, not exactly a great start for their big new babyface

[Fanny Pack]

Looks like i'm the only happy one on here about the Rumble, i had the winning entrant number at 50/1 thanks paddy power. Shame i only had 10p on it. Also had the runner up E/w

50/1? Be honest what did you get really? The biggest price for an entrant number with Paddy Power 25/1.

[tiger_rick]

It was abundantly clear that Reigns was going over

Yeah, last January. No-one realised half way through last night unless they were a fucking moron.

 

WWE got the reaction they deserved for that match.

Nah, they got the reaction they expected. This argument is fucking stupid. The match isn't good in front of any other crowd. But the crowd isn't different for any other match (with that result). A shit match is a shit match and a cunty crowd is a cunty crowd.

 

Edit to add: They clearly wanted to make Reigns the next John Cena and that's exactly what they've ended up with. A main event babyface who isn't over with a large vocal percentage of the crowd. Job well done?

They've ended up with nothing yet. John Cena is the biggest star in wrestling. I like Roman but he's got years ahead of him before he's John Cena.

[Au]

 

Edit to add: They clearly wanted to make Reigns the next John Cena and that's exactly what they've ended up with. A main event babyface who isn't over with a large vocal percentage of the crowd. Job well done?

They've ended up with nothing yet. John Cena is the biggest star in wrestling. I like Roman but he's got years ahead of him before he's John Cena.

 

 

Yeah, I've been thinking about this point specifically. When did people finally start warming to Cena? It must have been a good few years into his main event run. It's sort of surprising that he'd managed to be such a success with the kids and made a ton of money through merch and buyrates/box office but he must be sort of unique in this sense, surely? Has there ever been another babyface main eventer who was booed everywhere he went but still made money? More over, can Reigns be that guy? I still think the best thing they can do is turn him heel before an inevitable face turn. They should have done it with Cena, I think the unwavering white meat babyface schtick was likely one of the problems.

 

The closest I can think of, coincidently, is The Rock. When the crowd just refused to buy into his happy clappy babyface routine so he turned on them and won them over.

[digforvictory]

It'll be interesting to see if the boos for Reigns continue.

 

I remember thinking the Batista reaction would be a one off thing at the Rumble and the next night on Raw he was booed even harder. I thought Reigns looked a bit shellshocked in that promo after the PPV last night with The Rock. As much as I wanted Bryan to win and as much as it was a fucking terrible Rumble I did feel sorry for him.

[Kaz Hayashi]

The old way of doing things??

 

John Studd

Ric Flair

HBK (heel)

Yoko

Vince

Can go on...

 

The puzzle for me is why bother having Bryan there at all? Surely.... Surely.... They knew the fans wouldn't be best pleased, it was fucking obvious.

 

If he was going to make it to the last 2, possibly to be 'screwed', fair play. Otherwise, don't have him there. Even then, they were pushing their luck hoping for a positive reaction to a face win.

 

The reality is, they were hoping his retrurn would gain further network buys... Instead you have the cancelation page crashing.

 

Both the fans and WWE are at fault, if this is seen as a flop. The fans for shitting over as much as they could follow DB being chucked... WWE for not thinking (or caring) of this prior to the show or during it. Not having anything worth cheering for.

 

It wasn't 'good' but i still watched the rest of the rumble, not personally feeling deflated by the elimination. I didn't mind it as much as some. The outcome was inevitble following the Show and Kane spots... Shame the Rusev bit at the end was poor.

[Vamp]

To be fair their motivation makes complete sense. They already made Bryan last year at Mania, they wanted to make a new star this year at the rumble. They just got it all wrong. But I can definitely see them looking at Bryan as the guy who beat HHH and won the world title at mania and not seeing why people think he needs to win the rumble.

 

There are big issues they need to look at though. They've booked Reigns wrong, people were chomping at the bit for him to be a star but he's lost all that momentum. They're out of tune with what a very vocal portion of their audience want. The bad booking clearly occurred before the rumble. They should have been able to get Reigns into a position where the fans wanted him to win, they knew that's where they were heading.

[King Pitcos]

They should have been able to get Reigns into a position where the fans wanted him to win, they knew that's where they were heading.

 

Short of a time machine and Ring of Honor contract, there's no way they were ever getting the people who booed him tonight to cheer him in this spot.

[Sphinx]

Every last weird decision of the Rumble just made me even more convinced The Rock was gonna be no. 30. Yes, I got so wrapped up in the action that every little audience-killing booking just strengthened my resolve they were building up to an explosion.

 

Meh, I thought the Rumble match was actually really fun for the first twenty minutes or so. Then it gradually died on its arse right to the bitter, bitter end.

 

On the bright side, my student bar was showing it live so I was in amongst a horde of cliches, but the girl that served me behind the bar, I intend to go back tomorrow and read her E. E. Cummings until dawn. Oh, and the title match was great fun.

Which bar was it out of curiosity?

[quote the raven]

Ive read a few 

 

"hahahha that showed the smart fans" posts. Thats all well and good until they cancel on them. Which by all accounts is what happened. 

 

I really dont know how they can change things but what they are doing now isnt working. It would be very interesting to see a set of finance's from the network  

[ColinBollocks]

The last couple of Rumble matches haven't been up to much, action-wise. Whoever is laying out the matches needs a kick up the arse.

Anyway, I didn't mind Reigns winning, as I'm a fan. However, that's two years in a row now where this show has ended with the babyface winner getting booed out of the building. What was a bit sad about this one is that WWE clearly knew what they were getting, but had a complete inability to "work" that scenario, despite trying, and now you're left with a lot of annoyed fans. I felt bad for The Rock, he's too big for this nonsense.

 

The title match was absolutely spectacular. All three men played their parts well and Lesnar winning it at the end was a bit of surprise, seeing as they seemed to be making him look super strong for a loss (he took about 5000 AAs and Curb stomps pre-table). Babyface Lesnar overcoming the odds was great fun - more please.

 

If they still go that way, Reigns v Lesnar could get nasty. Can't see anything other than Reigns getting booed like crazy, as Lesnar is the babyface we all hoped Reigns would be and is so much easier to get behind because he's cooler. It's a shame how all this has went. It was all going so well for Reigns until a few months ago.

 

Reigns may still go on to be a big star, but WWE can do so much better with him. He shouldn't be getting booed out the building - it was only last year where fans were cheering him on to win it.