Dr. Alan Grant’s Royal Rumble Adventures

[RedTwoster]

Given that Logan Paul eliminated Punk, and that Punk took a pop at Owens for losing to Paul, and that Rollins attacked Reigns in a rather brutal way, I’m a little worried we’re about to get Punk/Paul and Reigns/Rollins at Wrestlemania. It hadn’t really dawned on me as being a possibility until this morning.

[The King of Old School]

Reigns/Rollins does make sense for Mania to me, I know there will be tears galore on here at the thought of it but Rollins was brilliant taking Roman out with those stomps, all the history they have to play off, seems a perfect way to end it at Mania.

Save Punk/Roman for Summerslam where you can get the belt on one of them beforehand.

Not sure if they go with Cody/Punk or Cody/Cena, but think whoever doesn't get Cody will get Logan Paul.

Fill the card out with Gunther/Jey, Sami/Owens, Charlotte/Tiff, Fatu/Priest & Breaker/Penta, plus all the other crap they will fit on.

Just don't do a Punk/Reigns/Rollins triple threat at all please.

[d-d-d-dAz]

If Rollins/Roman is the price we have to pay to not have both Punk and Roman caught up Seth's nonsense, I'll pay it.

I'm not above fast forwarding the Tribal Chief.

To me, it's wild that Cody/Cena and Punk/Roman was right there, and they're potentially going a different direction. But what do I know.

[Devon Malcolm]

It really doesn't matter what direction it goes and they know that. They can put any combination of the top lads in the company in the main event and it's a huge deal. That's where they are right now. The best thing about it is that nobody has a real clue what they're going to do except them.

I think we get:-

Punk vs Rhodes

Rollins vs Reigns

Cena vs Paul

Gunther vs Jey Uso

Owens vs Zayn

Charlotte vs Tiffy (although they might be tempted by a Charlotte vs Rhea rematch as their other one was so good)

Rhea vs Trish

Bianca vs Jade Cargill

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

Gunther v Jey has to go on last on night 1 or he becomes KISS Demon Jay Uso rather than Main Event Jey Uso. 

Cody vs whoever wins the Elimination Chamber headlines night 2. I'd probably go with Punk and have him win so you can go with Punk/Roman in the summer. 

 

[air_raid]

12 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Charlotte vs Tiffy (although they might be tempted by a Charlotte vs Rhea rematch as their other one was so good)

This is my fear, as they are 1-1 at Mania including that year Charlotte decided to assimilate the NXT title. And then lose it to Io without getting pinned herself. Cunt.

[The Reverend]

I haven't watched an event live, or actually even all the way through, in aaaages. But seeing that it's now on Netflix (the complete ballache of trying to navigate the Network saw me giving up on it) and a Saturday night when I didn't have to get up the next morning I thought I'd give it a watch. 

I didn't bother with the Women's Rumble to be honest, but I generally enjoyed the rest. A few things that did annoy me though: 

As has been mentioned on here, the music is absolutely shocking these days. They do need to sort out proper, distinguishable music for each star. 

I may now be more about making money, but the adverts and crap inbetween the matches kill the momentum of it all. Same as the adverts on the ring apron - minor bug bear, but why not one big Rumble logo and two small ads either side, instead of vice versa? That probably only upset me though.  

I know they'd set up a huge aisle (which I thought looked pretty good) but they needed to cut down on the camera following the entrants walking down and more on in-ring action

Which then would cut out the ridiculous moment that most new entries had, where when they got to the ring everyone was laying down in the corners, other than one wrestler, who would take a flurry of moves before everyone jumped up and carried on for two minutes and then fell down again. 

What happened to the old thing of wrestlers who weren't involved in the centre ring action having someone on the ropes as a way of having them not involved? I know it looked a bit ridiculous at times, but better than everyone having a nap in the corner.  

Otherwise though I liked it. 

[air_raid]

I just remembered something great - they gave the Kofi spot to Logan. Which means I finally enjoyed it, because Logan's annoying, and I always thought it was annoying when Kofi did it even though he was a face.

[thatvinylgeek]

I think it's a lock that Punk gets his main event, and there is no way that is going to be against Logan Paul...in my head Mania looks something like this IAssuming the Chamber is something like Punk v Cena v Logan v Seth v Roman v KO)

• Punk vs Rhodes (after Punk wins the Chamber)
• Rollins vs Reigns
• Cena vs Logan Paul (after Paul costs him the Elimination Chamber similar as he did to Orton)
• Gunther vs Jey Uso
• Owens vs Zayn
• Sheamus v Bron

Also purely cause I fancy it for some reason, I would like to see AJ go up against Jacob Fatu, there was a blink and you missed it comment about them knowing each other very well from their time in other places...so I can dream

 

[BomberPat]

On 2/1/2025 at 9:40 PM, Dr. Alan Grant said:

I’m probably in the minority, but I can’t stand the rule where your feet have to hit the floor to be eliminated. If you’re thrown over the top rope and you hit the floor, that’s it, you’re done. HBK skinning the cat? Eliminated. Kofi doing a handstand? Eliminated? Kacy Catanzaro climbing up the ring post, impressive though it was? Eliminated. John Morrison is fine, he only touched the guardrail. I will die on this hill. With my feet firmly on the ground. 

I think HBK skinning the cat is fine, because the point there was that the referees had to make a judgement call as to whether he was eliminated or not - he had gone over the top rope, but hung on, was it really enough to say that he had gone out? That's fine, and I think "two feet touching the floor" is a good rule of thumb for how that should work. I wish it hadn't led to a point where every fucker in the match is doing a skinning the cat equivalent, or letting one foot dangle near the floor for ages, without realising that if everyone does it for the entire match it stops looking impressive. 

But stuff like Logan Paul landing on the announce table? Yeah, fuck off, that's an elimination. The "two feet hit the floor" thing is to say that the wrestler has inarguably been thrown out of the ring. It's not meant to the turn the Rumble into a game of The Floor Is Lava. Getting thrown over the top rope and landing six feet away is an elimination, even if there's a table in the way. It's what happens when you stop trying to book wrestling as anything resembling a sport, and only try and book viral "Moments".

55 minutes ago, The Reverend said:

What happened to the old thing of wrestlers who weren't involved in the centre ring action having someone on the ropes as a way of having them not involved? I know it looked a bit ridiculous at times, but better than everyone having a nap in the corner.  

I was going to say exactly this. There was a point when Jacob Fatu and Sheamus were squaring up, they cut to Roman Reigns' entrance for two minutes, and when we're back in the ring everyone is just having a lie down. Every time the camera was following entrances, or the brawl on the outside, or the bollocks with Tozawa and Speed and Triple H (who hates being on TV so much, I can't believe he keeps ending up in these situations), they didn't even bother pretending that anything might be happening in the ring, or that someone might get eliminated, everyone just stopped wrestling because they weren't on camera. I thought it was the best Rumble in a few years, but all of that nonsense really just served to remind me that even "best in a few years" is grading on a curve, and that no matter how much people tell me they've improved, WWE is still very much not for me, and is pretty much completely at odds with how I want to see wrestling presented.

[The Reverend]

26 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I was going to say exactly this. There was a point when Jacob Fatu and Sheamus were squaring up, they cut to Roman Reigns' entrance for two minutes, and when we're back in the ring everyone is just having a lie down. Every time the camera was following entrances, or the brawl on the outside, or the bollocks with Tozawa and Speed and Triple H (who hates being on TV so much, I can't believe he keeps ending up in these situations), they didn't even bother pretending that anything might be happening in the ring, or that someone might get eliminated, everyone just stopped wrestling because they weren't on camera. 

It made me think how annoying it must have been for those in attendance - all of a sudden everyone goes down like 9 pins whilst you wait for the next participant to get in the ring. 

[Vamp]

48 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I think HBK skinning the cat is fine, because the point there was that the referees had to make a judgement call as to whether he was eliminated or not - he had gone over the top rope, but hung on, was it really enough to say that he had gone out? That's fine, and I think "two feet touching the floor" is a good rule of thumb for how that should work. I wish it hadn't led to a point where every fucker in the match is doing a skinning the cat equivalent, or letting one foot dangle near the floor for ages, without realising that if everyone does it for the entire match it stops looking impressive. 

But stuff like Logan Paul landing on the announce table? Yeah, fuck off, that's an elimination. The "two feet hit the floor" thing is to say that the wrestler has inarguably been thrown out of the ring. It's not meant to the turn the Rumble into a game of The Floor Is Lava. Getting thrown over the top rope and landing six feet away is an elimination, even if there's a table in the way. It's what happens when you stop trying to book wrestling as anything resembling a sport, and only try and book viral "Moments".

See, I'd agree with you, but the fact that people on here are talking about the technicalities, implementations and spirit of the rule has changed my mind. I can't think of anything more like a real sport than that. 

[boshealecta]

Similar to what other people have already said, the fact that once their entrance is over they don’t seem to do anything and just lay in the corner really ruins it for me. Cena and Jey were the last two, but it’s not like I’d seen much of them to think they’d achieved anything. It should feel like a slog and they have been the best in there to win. 
 

One thing that also confused me (I know the timings aren’t exactly accurate, but you think they would pretend they were) but after Penta got eliminated, they showed a graphic showing he had been in there 44 minutes. But he got eliminated around about No20. But No1 & 2 start at the same time. So that’s 18 entrances at 2 minutes each. I was bad at maths but I’m sure that’s 36 minutes.
 

Or did he gain an extra 8 because how he walked to the back, only one foot was touching the floor at any one time and it wasn’t until he got in the showers when both feet were touching that he was officially eliminated 

[Snitsky's back acne]

The ONLY time the 'both feet touching the floor' thing was good was on a random episode of WWF Superstars in 1995 when was Lawler was eliminated from a battle royal, hopped away from Bret Hart and Hart just casually followed him around the ring, trod on his foot and then beat the piss out of him - the ONLY time. 

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

3 hours ago, The Reverend said:

I haven't watched an event live, or actually even all the way through, in aaaages. But seeing that it's now on Netflix (the complete ballache of trying to navigate the Network saw me giving up on it) and a Saturday night when I didn't have to get up the next morning I thought I'd give it a watch. 

I didn't bother with the Women's Rumble to be honest, but I generally enjoyed the rest. A few things that did annoy me though: 

As has been mentioned on here, the music is absolutely shocking these days. They do need to sort out proper, distinguishable music for each star. 

I may now be more about making money, but the adverts and crap inbetween the matches kill the momentum of it all. Same as the adverts on the ring apron - minor bug bear, but why not one big Rumble logo and two small ads either side, instead of vice versa? That probably only upset me though.  

I know they'd set up a huge aisle (which I thought looked pretty good) but they needed to cut down on the camera following the entrants walking down and more on in-ring action

Which then would cut out the ridiculous moment that most new entries had, where when they got to the ring everyone was laying down in the corners, other than one wrestler, who would take a flurry of moves before everyone jumped up and carried on for two minutes and then fell down again. 

What happened to the old thing of wrestlers who weren't involved in the centre ring action having someone on the ropes as a way of having them not involved? I know it looked a bit ridiculous at times, but better than everyone having a nap in the corner.  

Otherwise though I liked it. 

I miss having like 20 of them all in the ring at once. I think the most we had was about 9/10 and it just doesn't look as good. Plus with such a long entrance way by the time the wrestler gets there and is climbing in the countdown was almost starting for the next entrant. Give them a chance to get going lads please!