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WWE Royal Rumble 2021


tiger_rick

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Up until a few years ago, I always watched and enjoyed the Royal Rumble. I have seen the highlights of both rumbles from last night, and both seemed pretty dull to me. I appreciate the lack of crowd doesn't help, but it was just so 'paint by numbers'. The whole "they've gone over the top rope but their feet haven't touched the floor, so they are now going to do some convoluted spot to get back in the ring" bullshit is so cliche now and needs to stop.

I think I need to just go back to watching old stuff, as the current product makes me less of a fan of wrestling every time I give it a go.

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I definitely must be sleep deprived because I really enjoyed it. There was little nods here and there like Ricochet waving at Ali, the Edge and Christian reunion the Hurricane throwback and a lot of other little bits I really enjoyed as it seemed to add a tiny bit at a time.

That being said Reigns and Owens bored the crap out of me. I'm still waiting for the handcuffs to be unlocked.

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I couldn't believe when Cole said that Ziggler has the second highest number of entries in a Rumble after Kane. Ridiculous for such a nonentity as Ziggler. He always gets decent shifts as well which is even more bullshit.

 

I also saw Jeff Hardy chucking himself over the barricade. 

 

The only people who came out of the men's rumble looking good were Damian Priest, Big E when he turned it on, and Lashley lobbing Dominik Mysterio sky high. 

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My Rumble thoughts - 

Heard a backstage interviewer refer to someone as pesky. Who talks like that other than the villain in Scooby Doo?

That new camera definition looks like a video game.

Did I imagine that if you didn’t get into the rumble before the next entrant you were out? In kayfabe if that’s not a rule what’s the point in getting into the ring? You could have a cracking rumble one year with everybody refusing to get in the ring; all sat round having a brew and a pie. And I still think it’s bollocks you can be eliminated by someone who isn’t in the match.

Some of kings commentary was a bit dated shall we say.

They totally missed Bayleys elimination. Why was Charlotte laughing after being eliminated?

I’m sure Corey called Cole “Vince” during the Last Man Standing match.

Pissed myself laughing when the ref had to stop the count when Heyman was fumbling with the key to the handcuffs.

Shame we can’t have crowds safely yet as I reckon Zigglers entrance would have received a massive collective groan. 

Enjoyed the Riddle-Rollins interaction brief as it was.

Enjoyed the ending; I’d actually forgot about Orton at that point. 

Edited by Project Nim
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17 minutes ago, rollthedice said:

Having a few shandys and people to watch along with certainly aids the experience

This. If I hadn't been ripping the piss out of it with one of my mates on messenger I wouldn't have found it anywhere near as bearable as I did. 

@Project Nim I was wondering that with the Billie Kaye stuff. The rules seem to be flexible and exploited depending on what narrative they want to push. I'm pretty sure if the ref had been counting Reigns down on the table rather than bothering about Owens oreoaring the forklift for his senton we'd have a new Universal champion right now as well. That definitely took more than 10 seconds to set up. 

Edited by jazzygeofferz
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It’s worth noting that they originally announced that they’d announce the #30 entrant to the Men’s Rumble ahead of time only to announce #1 and #2 instead.

They announced Orton as #1 and Edge as #2, only to flip the order on the night.

It seems at the minute that they have no ideas and no confidence and are just making things up as they go along.

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In his seventh Rumble, they were Big E's first eliminations last night!

Kane has now been in 20 Rumbles. Ziggler and The Miz are joint second with 13. Randy Orton joins the group in joint third with 12.

Randy moves into second for time spent in Rumbles with 260 mins, overtaking Kane, Rey, HBK and Trips and now trailing only Chris Jericho (296). Rey needed 5 mins to overtake HBK but didn't even last that long.

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Maybe it's because I haven't seen much of any WWE since last WrestleMania but I enjoyed most of the Rumble.
Yeah the piped in crowd noise and chants is cringey as fuck but at least it gives it SOME atmosphere, even if that atmosphere is as authentic as a hooker's smile.

I really enjoyed the women's Rumble, my big gripe over the past several years has been Rumble matches that have loads of people just laying around and while the match did have that at times it seemed more 'all-action' than the male equivalent which I did find pretty dull.
Plus, I genuinely had no idea who would win which is always nice.

Oh, but enough of this 'their FEET didn't hit/the floor is lava' bullshit. It was over-done a LONG time ago.


I thought Melina and Eva Marie were signed/coming back?  Nice to see the likes of Christian and Victoria back though. Carlito looked in the best shape I've even seen him.

Paul Heyman really couldn't undo that lock could he?

The Rumble has always been my favourite event of the year so I'm thinking that's probably me now until WrestleMania (if something grabs me) but, overall, I expected it to be terrible yet I actually found it quite entertaining in fairness.


 

 

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25 minutes ago, FelatioLips said:

My issue with the Rumble matches now is that everyone who enters has been there 10+ years so outside of the surprise entrants and NXT callups, you may as well watch the same rumble on a loop. I lost count of how many times Michael Cole said on commentary tonight "and *wrestler* entering their *massive number* Royal Rumble!" and the wrestler is the likes of Miz, Dolph Ziggler, Big E and Kane. It's truly appalling. 

That was my overriding thought with the men's 'Rumble too.

With the way time seems to simultaneously fly by and be constantly suspended with WWE, I feel like we're just finally shot of all the Attitude Era nostalgia and big guys for the most part, and now already I feel the same way about the crop of stars that came afterward. 

It's not like they don't look great and ready to go - and this is the kind of lifespan WWE truly would have wanted from the guys that caught on during the Attitude Era - but at one point I was watching the 2009 'Rumble. You had Christian, Sheamus, Edge and Orton facing off. That's great if you're putting as much fuel into the new guys, but that's not the case. It was like watching a free to air 'Rumble on Raw. Someone like Big E winning would have been a big boost. I imagine the idea is to get Edge his moment in front of paying fans, though. 

Not to be overly negative, I did really enjoy Goldberg/Drew and Roman/Owens. The former didn't outstay its welcome and done its job nicely, and the latter was a good bit of silly empty arena stunt work. Enjoyed watching both as I headed into the event with zero expectations. 

That 'Rumble was dull as dishwater though. 

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I watched a little of it last night, having not watched any WWE at all for a couple of years now. I watched Goldberg - McIntyre, which I actually thought was pretty cool, and then the women's Rumble, which I found a right chore and generally thought was garbage. At that point, I packed it in and went to bed.

I actually ended up feeling a little depressed watching much of what I saw. I couldn't help but think of my days as a pre-adolescent and as a teenager when I was completely obsessed with WWE and the Royal Rumble felt like Christmas to me. To realise now just how little a shit I gave about any of it or any of the faceless individuals being paraded one after another, was a little sad. I guess it really represents a death of a childhood interest and outgrowing it, which is never a very cheerful prospect. This was compounded by me thinking that I'd check out the men's Rumble tomorrow only to know deep down that I had very little interest in doing so. I think I need to accept that the glory years of 98-2001 were heights of pro wrestling that will never be topped for me and that I should try to keep my viewing to that era, courtesy of the Network and its fantastic archive. 

2 thoughts that came to mind during my brief foray into the event: The set up with all the screens of people's webcams looks dystopian as fuck, like something out of a sci-fi novel. It all looked a bit sinister. Also, I'm sure I read somewhere in this thread that Natalya was facing Tamina the other night for a spot in the Rumble (2 names I was familiar with and I still think Natalya's great)....and then both end up appearing in the match? If so, then what was the point? To get the #30 spot I'd guess, but I can't remember if that was specified. 

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I think its indicative of how shockingly shit the direction is with the cameras that they completely missed Bayleys elimination and then had to shoe-horn a reply into give the commentators the chance to talk about it.

They missed Edge's spears last year, now this. Its the same bloke running it as years ago no, so why is it so piss poor?

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1 minute ago, marc2j said:

I think its indicative of how shockingly shit the direction is with the cameras that they completely missed Bayleys elimination and then had to shoe-horn a reply into give the commentators the chance to talk about it.

They missed Edge's spears last year, now this. Its the same bloke running it as years ago no, so why is it so piss poor?

Yeah that was really fucking annoying. Should've been a big thing for Bianca on the way to winning but nope. Let's just miss it completely. Twats.

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5 minutes ago, SpiritOfTheForest said:Also, I'm sure I read somewhere in this thread that Natalya was facing Tamina the other night for a spot in the Rumble (2 names I was familiar with and I still think Natalya's great)....and then both end up appearing in the match? If so, then what was the point? To get the #30 spot I'd guess, but I can't remember if that was specified. 

The match was for the guaranteed spot at #30 but not sure if they announced both would be in the rumble anyway. Tamina was #25 so the ‘random drawing’ aspect of it in laudable wasn’t too bad for her in terms of having a later number.

They did a similar thing with Miz & R Truth for 2012? Truth beat Miz on Raw so Miz was #1, and then Truth ending up being #3 if I remember correctly.

Aside from that I enjoyed the show overall. I had to restart the network countless times watching it live and then gave up and watched It this morning, that’s more because my Sky broadband is shit though.

Natalya and Ziggler are so poor, the mind boggles they’ve been in the company so long, and have nothing redeeming about them to justify having them there.

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Aren't they (Belair and Bayley) feuding at the moment as well, meaning it'd play into that as well? Maybe if one of them was in the hall of fame it would have gotten some attention. Is 2 time royal rumble winner Edge older now than Hogan and Savage were when Vince was showing the vignettes ripping the piss out of WCW for hiring all the old guys in the mid 90s?

Edited by jazzygeofferz
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