Royal Rumble Review

Last year the WWE had Batista win the Royal Rumble and we saw a crowd turn on the WWE.  A year on and nearly everyone, myself included, thought WWE could not make the same mistake again.  Sometimes, the most obvious story is the best one and last night the most obvious, and best, storyline, was to have Daniel Bryan win the Royal Rumble.  Yet, once again, WWE went with their idea of the perfect superstar and a crowd turned on the product.

Roman Reigns can be a big guy.  He needs to seriously work on his promo skills and stop relying on the same couple of moves in every match, but he has a bit of that cool factor.  Last night, that cool factor died.  Reigns was booed out of the building and he didn’t react.  He acted as if the fans were cheering and he looked like an idiot because of it.  Even The Rock coming down to the ring, one of the most consistently over guys in wrestling history, failed to make a difference.  All because WWE failed to take the obvious route.

The sad thing is, earlier on in the night they did take the obvious route.  Brock Lesnar retained the WWE Championship, after an incredibly physical match with John Cena and Seth Rollins.  I have seen some people declaring it one of the best triple threat matches of all time and while I wouldn’t go that far, it was car crash wrestling and highly entertaining.  Brock once again looked like a beast and yet didn’t take anything away from Seth Rollins, who also looked great (that Phoenix Splash, just beautiful).  It seemed to be setting up the ultimate David vs Goliath encounter.  Instead we have David vs David and Wrestlemania will most likely end with Reigns, once again, being booed out of the building.

Of course, the main event wasn’t the only thing on this show and what the Rumble really showed up, was just how thin on the ground the WWE mid-card is.  Which is ridiculous, because they have shit loads of good wrestlers.  However, the crowd don’t care about any of them.  Crowds enjoy watching people like Tyson Kidd and Cesaro work, but they don’t care about their characters, because they aren’t given the chance to have one.  Sure Cesaro might not be the best promo in the world.  But then again, neither are the guys that won both main event matches, it doesn’t seem to hold them back.  It all leads to moments in the Rumble where guys come out to crickets and the crowd sit back down looking disappointed.  The most over mid card act in the company is a guy playing a stunt double, an act which has an expiry date and let’s be honest, history suggests WWE is going to shoot right past that expiry date.

However, possibly the biggest issue with the Rumble was that even if you don’t agree with the result, it was still dull as shit.  Was there any truly interesting moments?  Kofi Kingston’s yearly acrobatics didn’t actually involve him doing anything.  While the likes of Bryan, Ziggler and Wyatt were eliminated with far too little ceremony.  Even Rusev’s pop up at the end felt flat and Curtis Axel was never actually thrown over the top rope, since he didn’t enter the ring.  The one thing done well, was the cameos.  Buh Buh Ray Dudley was a nice moment and the perfect guy to wake up the Phillie crowd after the triple threat.  While DDP is always fun to watch.  Boogeyman was the worst of the three, but even he was short and painless and led to an amusing encounter between him and Wyatt.

Last night Vince McMahon proved that he doesn’t have a bloody clue.  He is a stubborn, old man who is so out of touch with his audience that he is living on a different planet.  Suddenly, the road to Wrestlemania isn’t interesting because of the matches or the performers, it is interesting because of how badly the crowds might turn.  Something which isn’t good for the company and damn well isn’t good for me either.