Back with the List in this early week to look at the Rumble weekend. Not going to recap it cause that would take forever. Instead, I am just going to give my overall thoughts on the happenings with what I liked and didn’t like.
Let’s just start with the Royal Rumble event itself. This show was one of my least enjoyed Rumbles in recent years. There were several things that I just didn’t like on the show but I also say that I wasn’t really that excited about the build coming into it either. With this Rumble show, I said all through it that I couldn’t figure out if the show just wasn’t as good or if the Kobe story of the day had just taken me down to where it was effecting my enjoyment of the show. I listened to three different people that I listen to on a weekly basis with wrestling news and all three of them really liked the show. So, I thought well, maybe it was just me and my mood then. LOL. Then, I talked to and have seen others that also had similar criticisms of the show that I did. So, basically it is a like if you liked and not if you didn’t kind of show apparently. I have heard the arguments on the good of the show that people liked that I didn’t like. I see the points of view on it too. No wrong answer here on whether the show was good or not. For me, I didn’t enjoy it as much. Let’s just talk about the main points of the show. I didn’t watch the kickoff show matches. So, I jumped in with Roman and Corbin. I have said this over and over that I zone out at this feud. Last week, I turned on Smackdown and saw that they opened with it and I turned it right back off. I have one thing on each show that lead to an automatic channel change for me. One is Corbin on Smackdown. They have oversaturated that character so much since the GM that I just groan every time he shows up. I’m tired of the Corbin/Reigns/Ziggler stuff. Put them on and you will get a remote on my hand. On Raw, it is the Lana/Rusev/Lashley/Liv stuff. Every time they promote something of them, I say out loud that I can’t wait to not watch that. When they show up, I channel change. Reigns and Corbin was fine for what it was. It was just a big brawl all over the building. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it honestly so I can’t talk much on it.
Women’s rumble match. Ok, here we go. Excited for this one. I have mixed thoughts on the happenings. I’m just going to hit points on talents and stories of the rumble. It would take ages to recap it as it went. Alexa Bliss out number one. Like that. With how bad they have booked Bayley, Alexa has moved into my number one favorite. Not Bayley’s fault. We’ll get into that in a minute. When I saw Alexa entering at one, I said ok, this hopefully means she is going to get a big run here. She did and made a lot of noise. I was riding with Alexa through a lot of this one and booed on her elimination. LOL. Who eliminated her? That would be Bianca Belair who they were making look like an absolute monster of a competitor in this one. I might have to say that as far as building someone through this rumble that she may be the one that got the most build. Tons of eliminations and she was eliminating big names. When Belair was eliminated, she was taken out by Charlotte. So, some major momentum gained for Belair in this rumble. Mighty Molly. Awesome surprise. Loved that. When I saw her, I said I hope that they put the Hurricane in the men’s rumble where both of that pairing is represented. That didn’t happen obviously. Molly got a nice run and always happy to see it. One of the genuinely great people in this business. Lana and Liv. Whew, at least it was short. THANKFULLY. And great, so now Liv Morgan looks like the average WWE female now and lost all her uniqueness. Sarah Logan squashed. Every time I see Logan or Liv get bad treatment, my common complaint out loud at the TV is what was the point of breaking up The Riott Squad? I wasn’t a Riott Squad fan but I knew how good that group was and respected what they were doing. A bunch of NXT talent in this rumble. I popped for Dakota Kai obviously and Candice. Two of my NXT favorites. Interesting that they had Dakota and Tegan in the rumble but on opposite sides of it where neither saw one another. I thought it might be fun to have a little brawl between the two and maybe they eliminate each other cause of their hatred for one another. That builds to this week’s match on NXT. Something that could be short and simple to cross promote brands. The Otis save on Mandy. Whatever. LOL. Just another one of those overbooked things where WWE loves to find creative ways to play up the not touching the floor thing. The crowd popped for it so I’m clearly in the minority on not liking so I’ll just stay quiet. LOL. Speaking of the not touching the floor with your feet thing, let’s get to something that drove me crazy. Naomi. WWE in the last few years is obsessed with booking something to play off the well, their feet didn’t touch the floor so they are still in thing. Let’s talk about Naomi. Naomi gets bounced off the apron. She spiderwoman’s the barricade basically landing on it and then walks across over to the announce table. She then spends what SEEMED LIKE TEN MINUTES trying to figure out how to get from the table to the steps. I said immediately that she is going to have an awkward jump just cause of how the top of the announce tables are shaped so awkward. After minutes, she finally rips the top of the announce table off. I said yep, that eliminates that problem. She then stands there looking clueless for what felt like ANOTHER TWO MINUTES scared to make a little jump from the table to the steps which looked even more ridiculous when they zoomed in on how manageable of a distance that it was. LOL. Naomi is a high flyer and just spiderwoman’d the wall but can’t make this jump? Just jump and get back in so we can get back to business. She finally jumps and gets eliminated immediately by Shayna which I popped for just cause I was so tired of how long that took to play out distracting from the match. Beth Phoenix and Natalya continued their friendship teaming up in the rumble and then one eliminating the other. Beth dumped Natalya this time. Their previous rumble moment had Natalya dumping out Beth. So, friends turn to every woman for themself each time they are in there. Kelly Kelly had a nice run for her appearance. Santina Marella. Whatever. I think that might been funnier for me earlier in the rumble. That late is when I am in serious mode of ready for a winner. Speaking of serious, Shayna Baszler in at number 30. When she walked out, I said this is the logical winner here with the groundwork already laid with her and Becky having words. Shayna wins and challenges Becky. That is a marquee style match. Shayna is taking people out left and right and I am popping for it. This is funny cause I am not a Shayna fan per say as far as someone I really cheer for. I tend to cheer against her in NXT. LOL. But I know how good she is and have a lot of respect for her. I also liked the tease of Shotzi in there trying to take out Shayna again in a battle royal but Shayna dumped her with a nope, not happening again reaction. So, I am ready for Shayna to win this thing. Thennnnnnn, Charlotte wins. So, Vince does what Vince does. When it gets to WrestleMania season, he always goes to Charlotte. I thought this was Shayna’s to win. She had a lot of momentum here and it just felt like her moment and then we went back to the normal. Hey, Charlotte wins again. I’m still remembering last year when we had the dream match of Becky and Ronda that we wanted and Vince was absolutely determined to get Charlotte in that match no matter what the crowd was calling for.
Bayley and Lacey Evans. This match just had nothing to it with excitement. Bayley is not working as a heel. I have said that since after two weeks of her heel turn. The heel turn itself was done so well that it had potential of momentum. Everything with Bayley feels forced as a heel. She is just not a natural heel. Being a heel takes everything away from her personality that has gotten her over to begin with. The reason that we are here is because Vince has never known how to book Bayley. Triple H knew how to book that babyface character of Bayley. Let’s keep in mind that that character was so hot with fans that they kept her on NXT cause they wanted her as one of the top draws along with Balor as NXT was really getting rolling with touring live events. When Bayley would do the one spot matches on events, she was getting MONSTER reactions from the main roster crowds that already loved her in NXT. She was monster over when she moved up. Then, she slowly started getting less loud reactions over time. The booking on her was terrible. There is a great lovable underdog story of how to book Bayley and Triple H knew how to do it. Vince is clueless and has ruined what was the most ready super babyface to hit the main roster. He forces that stuff with Cena to the fans and kids and here he had Bayley hand delivered to him and he has ruined that character. She doesn’t get heel reactions or face reactions. Bayley is just wandering in that no man’s land of not getting either reaction. All of her personality has been taken away. It’s not working. At this point, I say we do some sort of any silly story line to make it to where Sasha is forcing her to do these things. I am reaching, yes. I know this but we need the hugger back and we never should have had her taken away. The step was to do a legit Bayley/Sasha feud where she is just finally tired of Sasha treating her like garbage. They teased it countless times. We had the one moment where Bayley finally snapped and destroyed Sasha. The crowd was POPPING for it and what happened next? Vince took us into let’s get them into counseling story mode which ruined every bit of momentum on it. Bring back the hugger. NOW. Find a way for anything logical to bring her back. You are supposed to be creative. Figure out a way to where this was all against her will or something. BRING BACK THE HUGGER.
Bray Wyatt and Daniel Bryan. It was what it was. I think the momentum is somewhat off of Bray Wyatt too as The Fiend. Does that all go back to the horribly booked cell match? It’s hard to feel of anything believable in this match when Bray was hit with everything in the cell only for him to keep getting up like an indestrucible horror movie villain. They have booked themselves into a spot where you have made him so indestructible that it may not be believable when he finally does lose.
Becky and Asuka. I thought this match was good. Granted, I was feeling tired from the day at this point so I wasn’t as into it as I might have been. I have liked the build of Becky with the attitude of I have to beat Asuka cause she has been who I haven’t been able to defeat going back to last year’s Rumble. Becky gets her win.
Men’s rumble match. Ok, I thought this was one of the most boring rumble matches of all time. I have seen others that have said it was one of the best so it is all opinion clearly either way. LOL. If you liked it, that is awesome. Glad you thought it was awesome. For me, watching Brock lay waste to everyone for half of the rumble bored me. I get the story. I get the build. I see where they are going. You clearly knew someone was going to come into this rumble and this was going to set up Brock for WrestleMania. Maybe my fatigue in this match is that I have just watched Brock lay waste to so many people and win the belt so many times over the last few years that I am still in Brock fatigue. The story all made sense. Some guy is clearly going to come in here and take him out. When we got to Keith Lee and Strowman, I said, ok, we’re done with the quick eliminations now. Now, this ring will start filling up. Lee got a nice run on Brock for a bit which I was glad of but eventually Brock takes out both of them to which I groaned huge. Enter Drew McIntyre. Also, enter Ricochet. They had laid the groundwork for how this played out on Raw. Ricochet stepping up to Brock and Brock treating him like a child of yeah, ok kid. So, Ricochet gets the shot in on Brock which sets up Drew to throw Brock out. Now, Drew gets the big spot of he was the guy to take out Brock and also wins the rumble. I’m good with that. I said through most of the rumble that this was clearly Drew’s match to win. The story groundwork was there. I just couldn’t stand how many talents just got wasted. It even continued with Drew when Miz got thrown out like he had never even been in a rumble before. I was surprised they wasted Morrison as much as they did feeding him to Brock. Just too many quick eliminations in this one. I get it. I see the story. They got there. I understand the people that loved it. I just found it boring but a lot of that could be that I am just bored of Brock steamrolling over the last several years anyway. It was like force feeding more food that I don’t like in a meal that I had been excited about eating. Let’s get to my highlight of the night. EDGE! I popped and I popped huge. When that music hit, that building of 45,000 fans when absolutely crazy. The rumors of Edge returning have been going for a couple of months. Even to the point of him trying to shut it down himself. I even laughed at his post over the weekend of hey, I’m hanging out with my kids. Are you? LOL. Cause I am waiting to see if you show up. His face when he was walking out was one of pure overwhelming. Here is this guy that was forced into retirement cause of injury to where he didn’t even get to do a farewell match is now walking back out on one of the biggest stages that there is. His face told the story. If I would have been there live and he ran over toward my area doing his stage running all pumped up, my voice there would have been gone immediately. LOL. We got the moment of missing his first move when the director missed taking the camera which was shame. Ziggler even commented on his social media about it saying that he wished someone had cell phone video of it so he could see it. That moment got a lot of heat with the directing. Here is my thoughts on someone that does this stuff. One, I noticed all night that it seemed like they were getting awkward camera shots all night just from how that building is set up. Being in that baseball stadium is whole different set up from what they are used to. I though the camera angles last year were awesome in that baseball stadium. This one just seemed like they couldn’t capture everything. Two, we don’t know what kind of day those production people are having just on a personal level and from the overwhelming day that had been the news. I was working church stuff all day and I thought I did a terrible job with my job there all day cause the Kobe stuff had my mind all distracted. Three and this is a big one. WWE is OBSESSED with capturing crowd reactions. It is to the point of me noticing that fans are overselling reactions to the smallest of things that most people would care nothing about because they are trying to get their facial reactions on camera. I notice that a bunch. I spoke sometime in the List over the last year where they were cutting way too much to crowd reactions at a show. I can’t remember when or what it was but there is a balance to this. I like crowd reactions too and there is a way to balance it but there is an edict somewhere in that company of crowd shot, crowd shot, crowd shot, reaction, reaction, and fans are now overselling at ringside trying to get in on it. Anyway, these things happen with missing shots. I’ve missed shots in my job. I’ll miss them again. It is just awful that this is when it happened to where we got to see the very first spear. WWE has even acknowledged it and released a re-edit of his entrance into the rumble. Edge had a really nice run in there. All the way to the final four. I liked the Rated RKO reunion. Crowd popped for it too. Orton was pretty hilarious with little gestures of conversation. One of them was him teasing the RKO and Edge catching him before he could do it. Orton then gave a shrug of you know me, I’m a snake. LOL. Edge later took him out by surprise too eliminating him. We were laying groundwork clearly for Raw with these two. I was groaning once again when it turned into Rollins and his crew taking over the rumble match. After the Brock stuff, the last thing I wanted to see was hey, here is me and my whole crew and we’re going to beat up everybody. LOL. Thankfully that didn’t last long. Crowd popped for everyone surrounding Rollins. I did laugh at Rollins looking at Reigns and saying hey, Shield brothers, right? LOL. Nope. So, at least that all didn’t last long. They didn’t help Roman’s popularity when they had him as the guy to take out Edge. Notice that these bad moments to make the crowd boo him keep happening at Rumble events? LOL. Styles got injured during the rumble somehow. I’m not sure of the moment it happened but I have heard reports of a separated shoulder. MVP was another surprise return entrant. Was I the only one holding out that tiny glimmer of hope of hearing that static noise and then Cult Of Personality?
Just going to touch on the final segment of Raw. Edge returns and gives his comeback speech. Very well done and a lot of him choking back tears in giving it. Then, enter Randy Orton. I said, yep, here we go. This is going to be his comeback feud and that makes sense. Whew, did they know how to pull on the fans heartstrings in this one? Orton teases getting Rated RKO back together for one more time? Edge is all for it. Then, RKO. Edge is left laying. Orton looks to take it further grabbing a chair and putting Edge’s neck in it. You could hear the emotion coming out of the crowd on every moment of this. It wasn’t boos. It was legit gasping and emotional shrieking. When he set the chair up. When Orton got up on the ropes teasing that he was going to do it. The air returning to fans when Orton stepped down off the ropes looking like he wasn’t going to do it. Orton then ended up doing it after all after teasing that he was leaving. They had the fans in the palm of their hands in this segment. That real life history of his neck ending his career and the tease of his neck in this storyline so early had those fans in full fear shrieking. And I get it cause I am watching this knowing what they are doing and building to with this segment but I am even having a tough time watching it too. And Edge’s reactions are heart wrenching too. Those two guys in this segment did such an incredible job of building this with what they were doing as this went along that it was like you were getting pulled into a movie. One thing I was thinking about from a logic standpoint is where are all the jerks in the locker room that are just letting this go on? LOL. From a story perspective, Orton has plenty of opponents in that locker room that don’t like him and NONE of them can come out here and stop this. Nobody can stop this in almost five minutes of build? I know, logic. This was a super powerful segment though. They pulled all the emotions from those fans and all of us watching at home. They have the groundwork laid for Edge’s return to where he will come back to take out Orton for revenge. They’ll set up the match which I really hope is going to be at WrestleMania and not anywhere else. This is a WrestleMania match and will be a card building match in a year to where they don’t really have a lot of sure things going into WrestleMania. If you didn’t see that last segment, go out of your way to watch it. I can just visualize those two after the show sitting around saying, yeah, there was something good there and that worked. Two veterans that have worked with each other so much and know each other so well. Lot of potential for these two to work a great program together and they got it off to a hot start cause whew, that was tough to watch with Edge.
If you missed it, here is the Edge moment from the Rumble.
Wow, this was longer than I anticipated so I am going to save my NXT Worlds Collide thoughts for the Wednesday Night Wars List later in the week. Have a great week!
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