Hello all, and welcome to this abridged, Rumble-based column. I started a long-delayed wish list, but chose to table it for now because everything I write is just too Rumble-based. So fuck it, I’ll just spew out all my thoughts here and start clean next week. Unless there’s another disaster coming. Which these days are pretty good odds.
First let me say that I was pleased to see my personal trainer Diamond Dallas Page make a return. Yeah, after a year of not really making any headway in bringing back my pre-illness sexy, cut body I felt the bang and bought DDPYoga. Or Yoga For Regular Guys. I think he changed named halfway through. I’m coming around week eight of the Beginner track, and I gotta say it’s going okay. I probably could’ve skipped ahead to Intermediate but I’m a lazy, lazy man so I wanted to make sure I could do it. I already know I’m tapping out on the diet part, as my man doesn’t do any dairy, gluten, or diet soda. I’m pretty big on all three. Still, don’t be surprised if I’m a surprise entrant next year.
Now the Rumble is typically a pretty fun event. Exciting to watch, with a hyped up crowd and usually featuring either returning injured superstars or beloved veterans. It takes a special type of alchemy to screw it up, and it’s an alchemy they’ve had for two years straight. Last year they ignored how white hot Daniel Bryan was and how hungry people were for a Batista-Orton rematch. It was so bad that CM Punk quit. Not specifically over the Rumble, but it probably didn’t help.
This year, taking into account how popular Bryan is, along with certain rising underdogs like Ziggler and Ambrose… they just had Roman Reigns win it like people suspected from last year and tried to trot out The Rock to be the Samoan Spoonful of Sugar that makes the medicine go down. It did not go down.
http://time.com/3682093/cancel-wwe-network-royal-rumble/
Fans has come to terms on the release of the WWE Network as of today,The Fans wishes The WWE Network the best in all of its future endeavors
— JTG ( JAY THA GAWD ) (@Jtg1284) January 26, 2015
My bud BD thinks that WWE is trolling, and that they’re just trying to recreate what they accidentally stumbled on last year. My bud BD has way too much faith in the intelligence of the writing team and Vince McMahon. I think Vince fell in love with Roman years ago, handpicked him as the Shield breakout, and is willing to jam him down our throats as the new Cena whether we like it or not. And we don’t like it.
Which is not to say that Roman is bad, just that Roman is green, and Roman is not The Rock. The Rock, once he got comfortable on the mic could sell ice cream to an Eskimo. Roman is… spotty on the mic. He’s also fairly inexperienced in solo matches as well. How many has he had on the big stage? And to be the main event in Wrestlemania? If that dude doesn’t want to get booed out of the building he needs to lose his smile, quick.
I will concede that Bryan repeating last year’s Wrestlemania moment was impossible… but he wasn’t even in the Rumble last year. You’re not repeating anything by having him win and face Rollins for the belt this year. If anything, you’re having your absolute biggest star go against your absolute best heel at the moment in the main event of your biggest show. No one is taking away your Cenas and Ortons and Romans and Lesnars, just keep them out of the main event. Lesnar’s probably leaving soon anyway. It’s 2015, people read rumors.
And I get that the money is in the chase and that for dramatic purposes you have to have the heels win more and more often, but there’s building suspense and then there’s spitting in the face of an increasingly apathetic audience. I don’t really have any tear stained pillowcases for the fate of a huge corporation, but I do feel bad for the Zigglers, Rollinses, Ambroses, Cesaros, Kidds, Kingstons, Langstons and others who try so hard and fall so short.
There’s always New Japan and the Bullet Club, eh fellas?
