Let’s start at the very beginning, the pre-show. The
pre-show match was changed from the originally planned six-man to another tag
match (making it four tag matches in a row). WWE got their first warning they
got a smarky crowd with Cesaro getting big chants and the New Day getting heat.
At this point WWE should have gone, ‘have we booked this Rumble correctly?’
Anyway, we’ll get to that later. We get a good tag match, helped by a lively
crowd and some awesome faux-Bullet Club T-shirts. You can’t go wrong with
Cesaro and Kidd, they make a great team. Adam Rose makes the distraction (who
is at ringside, someone forgot tell him it wasn’t a six-man tag anymore) which
leads to the finish where Kidd and Cesaro pick up the win.
The main show opens with the New Age Outlaws hyping up the
Philly crowd (as if they need to). The Ascension then make their way out. On a side note, I’m glad the camera angles
stayed the same from WWE to NXT, Ascension make a cool entrance. This does what
it needs to do, Dogg and Gunn do their old moves but Ascension win and look
strong. All okay but why the hell did they have to look weak on Raw? Surely
that could have been done with the Ascension beating some jobbers then the
legends berating them on the mic?
What’s next? Another tag match. Yay! The Uso’s put the
titles on the line against Miz and the stupidly, but rightfully over Mizdow.
Miz refuses to tag out to his stunt double and looks good against both Uso’s.
The match is booked well as the dissention continues to brew between the two
Miz’s but the match being relatively even. Uso’s go for dives but one of them
lands on his head trying to do a sention. I’ve never liked the Uso’s suicide
dives, they look like backyard kids trying something they saw on TV, just
sloppy. In the end the Uso’s retain and Miz blames Mizdow for the loss. I like
the Miz, I have always liked him. He’s always great at getting heat and can put
on a good match between the ropes. The eventual feud between the A-Lister and
his stunt double should be fun. I just wonder what happens to Damien after
that?
And now, for the fourth time tonight, a tag team match. I
have no problem with this, it does fit more people onto the card. This time it
was Divas action, as the Bella twins took on Paige and Nattie. It was a good little
tag match. Strangely the referee was pretty noticeable here. It’s an odd thing
to say but a good referee is one you don’t notice. Here, he repeatedly kept
bothering Paige to stand in her corner. Paige and Nattie controlled the match at
first until the Bella’s isolated Nattie. Nattie then went to make the hot tag
but Paige was pulled off the apron and the Bella’s won with a punch. Yes, the
Bella’s won with a forearm strike. What is she the female Big Show? Really,
Nattie and Paige should have won leading to Nikki v Nattie, Nikki v Paige then
either a triple threat or a four way. Easy booking but who knows, maybe in some
sort of way this will still happen.
Onto the big title bout. And it was epic. Totally worth going
out of your way to watch. Right away Brock goes into rampage mode. Rollins
plays the sneaky heel exiting to the outside, allowing Cena to take suplex
after suplex. Rollins gets involved, takes some suplexes then hits his first
cool spot of the night,a springboard knee to Lesnar’s head. Later, Lesnar
catches a springboarding Rollins onto his shoulders for the F5, great spot. J & J Security get involved, they do the
Shield triple Powerbomb on Cena but he soon gets revenge hitting a double AA on
both Mercury and Noble which they sell for the rest of the bout. The action
spills to the outside where Cena tackles Brock through the timekeeper’s wall. Brock
soon finds himself on the announce table but where’s Seth? Oww, he’s just about
to steal the show. He hits an insane diving elbow from the top rope through the
Spanish announce table. Brock stays down and medics come out.
Keeping Brock out
allows Cena and Seth to go at it. It’s a little bit over the top as they kick
out of each other’s finishers but it’s keeping me on the edge of my seat as I
think Seth is about to win the title. Mr. Money in the Bank climbs the top rope
and I’m thinking he’s going for a moonsault, instead he busts out the Phoenix
Splash, madness. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s a corkscrew 450 and it’s
insane. Especially the height he got on it. Someone needs to check he hasn’t
got rabbit legs. Lesnar then enters but Seth hits him twice with the briefcase.
He goes for the Curb Stomp on the case but Lensar scoops him up and hits the F5
for the win. What a match. And best of all of three men are booked looking
strong. Cena gets his whole hero role and was never pinned, so stays Strong.
Rollins steals the show with that performance and guarantees his role as the
future of WWE. They would be mad to misuse him now but then again, they’ve done
stranger things. And Lesnar looks unstoppable heading into 'Mania.
How do you follow that? Well, it’s the Royal Rumble match,
that can’t let us down right? So the first two out are The Miz and R-Truth. Never
mind, I’m let down already. The early highlight was Bubba Ray Dudley who does
his Dudley Boy move-set with R-Truth because D-Von isn’t here. Slightly racist
booking by WWE, don’t ya think? Bray Wyatt comes in and goes on an absolute tear,
evening cutting a promo waiting for people to come out. Would have made more
sense if he was entrant one or two. There’s a cool moment where Wyatt, Harper
and Rowan face-off. It looks like Harper and Rowan will team up, then Harper
turns on sheep-face, then Wyatt eliminates both. But Rowan took Curtis Axel’s
spot which would make sense but Cole kept putting over that Rowan isn’t in the
rumble, that means Axel’s still in right? Wrong, apparently we are meant forget
about this. Rusev then comes in and teams with Wyatt throughout the Rumble
becoming the best thing in the Rumble. Although, I did see Wyatt hit Rusev
once, why I don’t know. Maybe he said something about his Sister Abigale.
Kofi does his Rumble spot but it’s really tame compared to
his usual madness. He gets thrown over the top rope onto the Rosebuds. They
catch him and carry him around the ring, that’s it. Miz and Mizdow have an altercation,
Miz wants his stunt double’s spot but gets knocked out before entering,
allowing Mizdow to enter. He hits a few moves then like most of the competitors
gets eliminated needlessly early, a list that includes fan favourite Daniel Bryan.
Fans get pissed and boo the majority of the competitors in the match. Next up they
try and break Santino’s record of one second with Titus O’Neil but he botches
falling over the top rope, lame. The Big Show and Kane begin to look strong but
the commentators ruin the rest of the rumble with their constant spouting of statistics.
I don’t care, commentate on the match, tell me after the match has finished.
Ziggler is the final man, that must mean something right? Nope, he gets the
Knockout Punch from Show and gets hoisted out by Kane and Show.
We’re down to the final four: Kane, Show, Reigns and
Ambrose. Ambrose soon goes out because WWE doesn’t care about what the fans
want. Instead we get Kane and Show versus Reigns and we all know how this is
going to end. Show tries to turn on Kane and they argue. Why do WWE think we
are interested in Kane and Show? Kane and Show re-enter and attack Reigns until
The Rock shows up. He’s clearly there because they’ve failed at building up Reigns
successfully. It doesn’t help, after he deals with Kane and Show, the fans
still boo Reigns. The match isn’t over because Rusev was never eliminated (neither
was Curtis Axel but whatever), Reigns spears him and dumps him over the top to win.
Cue more boo’s.
Many people think the problem is Reigns. They feel that this
push has come too early. For me that’s not the problem. The problem isn’t
Reigns, it is the booking. If booked correctly Reigns could have won the Rumble
and be cheered. Instead WWE booked Reigns as if he was Cena which was the exact
opposite of how they should have booked him in Philly. It wasn’t just Reigns
booked badly, it was the entire Rumble match. All of the booking went to hell: Why
was there so many jobbers (Ryder, Sin Cara, Fandango etc), where was the NXT
star (Neville or Zayn would have gone down huge) or big returning name (Orton
or Sheamus) and where was the plucky early entrant who constantly avoids elimination?
It’s going to be interesting what happens next leading to
Mania. WWE are going to have to work hard to get the fans believing in Reigns. You
would have thought they would have learnt from their Batista mistake last year.
They certainly aren’t going to turn him heel after all the effort they’ve put
into him. Brock v Reigns should be a massive fight, Reigns being built up as
the only man who can match Lesnar’s power and de-throne the Beast. Instead, if
WWE continues like this, the rest of the card may push the title fight out of
the main event spot. Especially with the card including Rusev v Cena, Sting in
some match and Rollins, Bryan and Ambrose all in other matches.
What are your thoughts on the Rumble? Was Reigns winning the
right call? How would you have booked the bout? Let me know @marcusandberg
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