The Midnight Mystery Starring GRUT: The Royal Rumble Retort

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There should be shame in Titan Towers. Deep rooted shame, unforgivable shame. Awful, horrible shame. The WWE put out one of its big three pay per views last night, and it was not just bad. It was down right embarrassing. Shall we list the problems?

1. The opening match sucked. You know that if they let any two of those cruiserweight wrestlers just do what they’ve been trained to do, what they love to do, you could have a match of the night from any combination of them. Instead, the style they’re forced to incorporate makes them look light years behind the X-Division. I counted three big spots in a match with six high flyers. That’s just ridiculous.

2. The women’s match sucked and contained no lesbianism. WWE, wanna give us crappy matches revolving around a lesbian angle? Fine, but the chicks make out. If that doesn’t happen, well, I don’t need to see what seemed to be an hour long match between Captain Gives Away Her Phone Number For Votes and a shockingly mediocre Mickie. Come on Mickster. Turn it up a notch, and that doesn’t mean scream louder.

3. The Boogeyman match could have happened on Smackdown, and it sucked. I love the Boogeyman. He’s awesome. He eats worms and paints his face and dances and people are scared of him for some reason. Plus, he beat JBL in like 2 minutes. But come on., the second biggest show of the year and we get this? You know what? Never mind. Keep the Boogeyman coming.

4. The Royal Rumble SUCKED. I’m glad Rey won, but I have a question for him: Have a nice nap, Mr. Mysterio? You sure looked relaxed for the hour or so that you were out there for. Until the big finish, Rey spent most of the match laying there in pain, or in a corner either holding on to the top rope or as one of two men trying to coax someone out of the ring. At one point Eugene saw there was no one working with Mysterio, so he walked over to him and literally petted him. The Rumble should be a showcase for the winner, especially if he’s number 2. There was not one memorable Mysterio moment.

There was no flow to the match, no original spots, no cool gimmicks. The fans love Matt Hardy, and Viscera butt humped him and sent him packing. VISCERA. Hey, just goes to show that no matter how much you’re loved, if you don’t kiss ass kiss yours goodbye. Goldust, Tatanka and Eugene were the surprise entrants. Good thing there was no spot for William Regal or Paul Burchill but Tatanka made his triumphant return. RVD looked like a fool when he kicked Carlito and Carlito barely reacted, then jumped over the top rope. Shane eliminating Shawn was a crappy surprise, and then the other wrestlers just watching as Shane danced was just so stupid. It was boring, no one got a big push and the eventual winner got his head rubbed by a retard for the lack of a spoon.

Artists like Ric Flair and Chris Benoit have lovingly crafted their Rumbles, playing HUGE roles in the match itself before the big finish. Hunter and Rey proved they do not have the vision to be in the 1 and 2 to the end positions, and the result, to be kind, was forgettable. This should be a match of the year candidate every year. Oh well.

5. Edge vs. Cena didn’t suck, but it was nowhere near good. “I swear to God John, I SWEAR TO GOD! We are going to lower a damn platform from the sky that blows smoke. Lights will shine everywhere. Fireworks will go off. You will walk out on that platform and set off confetti guns. Then, you will jump into the ring. If I hear one boo, one goddamned boo, you’re going back to OVW.” Vince, I’m choking here. Stop shoving Marky Mark down my throat. Nice intensity to the match, if a little boring with all the punching.

6. Mark Henry vs. Kurt Angle should win worst match of the year. There may be worse matches, Ashley vs. Mickie comes to mind from this PPV alone, but none as high profile and involving a wrestler of Angle’s stature. When the wrestler who can’t have a bad match meets the wrestler who can’t have a good match, some one has to win out. It wasn’t Kurt, that’s for damn sure. And Mark Henry is suddenly this undefeatable monster? The greatest wrestler in the world has to whack him with a chair fifty times? I call shenanigans. Again, without the slightest memorable spot, this seven minute match felt like an eternity. Oh, yeah, the two minute or so bear hug in the seven minute Kurt Angle match. I won’t forget that one.

Special bonus suck for Undertaker’s terrible CGI destroying the ring. Hey, asshole, don’t have enough clout that you can just come back and tell Kurt you want a title shot? And where were you when Eddie passed away and Batista went down? By not showing up for Eddie’s tribute, well, that told me all about the kind of man you are. Then you show up to get blown up in his low rider. Now on the night when his apparently lazy friend wins the Rumble in tribute to him, you get that bumped from the main event so you can make the ring explode after the worst main event possibly in WWE PPV history that didn’t involve you fighting yourself. Did Eddie leave the ring when you were supposed to chokeslam him or something incredibly important like that?

From the awful looking sets to the poorly acted vignettes (except by Shelton’s momma. You two are doing awesome!) there was not one aspect of this show that made me feel as though it was worth paying a cent to see (thanks for paying Widro!). Vince recently said in a promo to Shawn that he wanted to go back to the mid-90s. If he meant cheesy gimmicks, bad matches and losing his audience, well, good news Vince. You’re well on your way. You should be ashamed of the show you put on last night, ashamed of tricking your mostly middle and lower class viewers into paying 30 bucks for that drivel.

Whatever happened to the pride that came from having the “greatest athletes in the world”? Whatever happened to the claim that you are a creative genius? What happened to anything can happen in the WWE? I guess when you took the F out, it stood for fortitude. No one can work their style, no one you don’t like can get over regardless of how the fans feel… nothing can happen in the WWE. Not a damned thing.