WWE Royal Rumble

[briantw]

2 minutes ago, lessthanluke said:

Worst mania I have ever watched.

This is like the worst WWE PPV of the past year.  Not just the worst Wrestlemania.

[Jack Bauer 24]

Reigns going to get booed out of the building.

[Martini Sigil]

Holy shit, Shane.

[briantw]

Dear god that was an awful PPV.

[Joe Pesci]

That blew. Women's match was the only thing worthwhile. Just pathetic.

[briantw]

That was easily the worst Wrestlemania I've ever seen.  The wrong person won every fucking match (except the battle royal, but who cares about that?), or in the case of the main event the right person won in the wrongest possible way.

I actually think that's the worst WWE PPV of the past year.  

[Jack Bauer 24]

So where does Reigns go now? Who does he start a program with? Cena?

[briantw]

15 minutes ago, Jack Bauer 24 said:

So where does Reigns go now? Who does he start a program with? Cena?

I honestly don't even know who they can put him against right now.  The crowd has turned on him.  If they keep trying to push him as a face it's going to continue to be absolutely embarrassing.  If they put him against Cena, the crowd will just cheer for Cena I think.

[GrimTuesday]

I think you all are overreacting a bit. Sure there are things that were highly problematic, Roman Reigns  going over when he clearly isn't ready to be the guy (or to look at it another way, the crowd isn't ready for him to be the guy), AJ should have won so they could move on from this feud (I really enjoyed it the whole way through, but I felt this was the logical conclusion, but it won't be with Y2J winning because the heel shouldn't win in the end), and I fucking hated what they did with Bray. This is literally a job for the social outcasts. This what they have been doing for the last fucking two months or so. I'd have liked to see the Shane Undertake match end different, Taker tombstoning Shane then pulling him on top of himself for the pin would have been great and would have been a giant fuck you to Vince for putting him in that position. It was still a great match, Shane jumping off the cell was the highlight of the night (along with New Day's entrance even if that match was fucking nonsense, maybe they're trying to convince Barrett to stay)

 

That said, I loved Ryder winning the ladder match, the Owens Zayn feud is as hot as it has ever been, and hopefully this is the beginning of a resurgence for Ryder, because the guy is super talented and frankly, after how they treated him, this is the least he deserves. Maybe it's because once I found out how the main event ended, I just didn't watch, but I actually didn't mind this mania, it wasn't the best thing in the world, but it wasn't that bad.

[briantw]

12 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

I think you all are overreacting a bit. Sure there are things that were highly problematic, Roman Reigns  going over when he clearly isn't ready to be the guy (or to look at it another way, the crowd isn't ready for him to be the guy), AJ should have won so they could move on from this feud (I really enjoyed it the whole way through, but I felt this was the logical conclusion, but it won't be with Y2J winning because the heel shouldn't win in the end), and I fucking hated what they did with Bray. This is literally a job for the social outcasts. This what they have been doing for the last fucking two months or so. I'd have liked to see the Shane Undertake match end different, Taker tombstoning Shane then pulling him on top of himself for the pin would have been great and would have been a giant fuck you to Vince for putting him in that position. It was still a great match, Shane jumping off the cell was the highlight of the night (along with New Day's entrance even if that match was fucking nonsense, maybe they're trying to convince Barrett to stay)

That said, I loved Ryder winning the ladder match, the Owens Zayn feud is as hot as it has ever been, and hopefully this is the beginning of a resurgence for Ryder, because the guy is super talented and frankly, after how they treated him, this is the least he deserves. Maybe it's because once I found out how the main event ended, I just didn't watch, but I actually didn't mind this mania, it wasn't the best thing in the world, but it wasn't that bad.

It probably doesn't help for a lot of us that we've still got that incredible Takeover from two nights ago on the mind where basically everything was booked well and there was only one match that wasn't great (and Corbin/Aries wasn't terrible...just not nearly as good as the other four matches).  Going from that to this Wrestlemania where everything was booked like absolute shit and the wrong people won virtually every match is just jarring.  

As far as Ryder goes, I feel good for him, but he shouldn't have won that match.  You can't make a guy feel like an absolute afterthought for years and only add him into the match because you needed another warm body and then have him win the IC title out of nowhere.  Ryder wasn't even really involved in the match build, and he's probably dropping the title on Raw tomorrow.  Now, if he drops it to a new guy like Samoa Joe or Finn Balor, I'll live with how the match tonight ended because it means they had a plan in place and didn't want to have Owens or Zayn drop the belt on Raw and wanted to keep both guys strong.  But if he immediately drops it right back to Owens (or drops it to Zayn), it was a swerve just to have a swerve, and all that does is weaken the integrity of the belt to no real gain.

[GrimTuesday]

2 minutes ago, briantw said:

It probably doesn't help for a lot of us that we've still got that incredible Takeover from two nights ago on the mind where basically everything was booked well and there was only one match that wasn't great (and Corbin/Aries wasn't terrible...just not nearly as good as the other four matches).  Going from that to this Wrestlemania where everything was booked like absolute shit and the wrong people won virtually every match is just jarring.  

As far as Ryder goes, I feel good for him, but he shouldn't have won that match.  You can't make a guy feel like an absolute afterthought for years and only add him into the match because you needed another warm body and then have him win the IC title out of nowhere.  Ryder wasn't even really involved in the match build, and he's probably dropping the title on Raw tomorrow.  Now, if he drops it to a new guy like Samoa Joe or Finn Balor, I'll live with how the match tonight ended because it means they had a plan in place and didn't want to have Owens or Zayn drop the belt on Raw and wanted to keep both guys strong.  But if he immediately drops it right back to Owens (or drops it to Zayn), it was a swerve just to have a swerve, and all that does is weaken the integrity of the belt to no real gain.

 

I agree that it is bad if this is just a swerve for the sake of it, but I prefer to believe that they know what they are doing, otherwise you just end up hate watching things and that is no way to live your life.

 

I forgot to mention how wrong I think you are about the womens match. Charlotte is doing great work as a heel and by denying Sasha and Becky the title, especially with Sasha being screwed over with Ricks interference, it gets more heat on Charlotte and Rick, as well as gets the crowd even more on the side of Sasha, making it all the better when Sasha wins the title, likely at the next PPV. It also makes it so Sasha has a legit grievance with the outcome, and because Becky got pinned, it takes her out of the picture, and refocuses on just Sasha and Charlotte, giving her a chance to win it without any weirdness. I think allowing Charlotte to retain only made the feud better in the long run.

[briantw]

Just now, GrimTuesday said:

I agree that it is bad if this is just a swerve for the sake of it, but I prefer to believe that they know what they are doing, otherwise you just end up hate watching things and that is no way to live your life.

I forgot to mention how wrong I think you are about the womens match. Charlotte is doing great work as a heel and by denying Sasha and Becky the title, especially with Sasha being screwed over with Ricks interference, it gets more heat on Charlotte and Rick, as well as gets the crowd even more on the side of Sasha, making it all the better when Sasha wins the title, likely at the next PPV. It also makes it so Sasha has a legit grievance with the outcome, and because Becky got pinned, it takes her out of the picture, and refocuses on just Sasha and Charlotte, giving her a chance to win it without any weirdness. I think allowing Charlotte to retain only made the feud better in the long run.

I'm not terribly confident that the WWE knows what they're doing simply because the booking has been bad for so long.  If they hadn't signed so many guys that I really like, I certainly wouldn't be watching any more.  The only thing that keeps me invested in the product is the occasional quality PPV matches we get to see from guys like Owens, Zayn, Styles, Rollins, etc.

See, I think that, if the plan is to crown an uber-popular woman like Sasha Banks who has all the tools to be a megastar in your newly minted Women's Division, you do it at fucking Wrestlemania, not the PPV next month that no one cares about.  This is the WWE's biggest show of the year.  Now was the perfect time to crown a new champion to go with that new belt.  I think Charlotte is fine as a heel, but anyone who watched her in NXT knows that Sasha is an absolutely incredible heel.  She was able to turn a Full Sail crowd that absolutely loved her totally against her over the course of a thirty minute match with Bayley.  It was honestly some of the best heel work I've ever seen, especially when you factor in the context that the crowd loved her at the start of the match.  About the only other person on the main roster who can manipulate a crowd that loves him like that is Kevin Owens (when he threw the "Dusty" ladder out of the ring in disgust tonight, that was brilliant).

I also personally think that it sucks if they remove Becky from the equation, by the way, as she's the second best wrestler in the women's division.  She quietly did most of the working in the match earlier tonight.  It's sad that they basically just put her in there to eat the pin (or submission in this case), because she's so much more talented than that.

[GrimTuesday]

2 minutes ago, briantw said:

I'm not terribly confident that the WWE knows what they're doing simply because the booking has been bad for so long.  If they hadn't signed so many guys that I really like, I certainly wouldn't be watching any more.  The only thing that keeps me invested in the product is the occasional quality PPV matches we get to see from guys like Owens, Zayn, Styles, Rollins, etc.

See, I think that, if the plan is to crown an uber-popular woman like Sasha Banks who has all the tools to be a megastar in your newly minted Women's Division, you do it at fucking Wrestlemania, not the PPV next month that no one cares about.  This is the WWE's biggest show of the year.  Now was the perfect time to crown a new champion to go with that new belt.  I think Charlotte is fine as a heel, but anyone who watched her in NXT knows that Sasha is an absolutely incredible heel.  She was able to turn a Full Sail crowd that absolutely loved her totally against her over the course of a thirty minute match with Bayley.  It was honestly some of the best heel work I've ever seen, especially when you factor in the context that the crowd loved her at the start of the match.  About the only other person on the main roster who can manipulate a crowd that loves him like that is Kevin Owens (when he threw the "Dusty" ladder out of the ring in disgust tonight, that was brilliant).

I also personally think that it sucks if they remove Becky from the equation, by the way, as she's the second best wrestler in the women's division.  She quietly did most of the working in the match earlier tonight.  It's sad that they basically just put her in there to eat the pin (or submission in this case), because she's so much more talented than that.

I think that a lot of fans fall into the trap where they start to buy into their own intelligence, and become too smarkish for their own good. It seems lately that the second folks don't get exactly what they want, they rebel without actually letting the situation play out. I mean, in the case of Reigns, the fans are justified in their dislike and demands for somethingdifferent, WWE has been trying to get him over for two years now with little success. When it comes to the women's division, I feel like they actually kind of know what they are doing (with the exception of actually trying to make Eva Marie a thing, that is just baffling). I think that they are trying to get the fans clamoring for Sasha so that when she wins, it means even more. Some fans just need to realize that it won't always go the way they want, and that that is ok. I think that this gives Sasha a monster to fight, and that's what makes it even better. This felt like the final match of the Charlotte Becky fewd, and the true beginning of a Sasha Charlotte feud.

I'm also a huge Becky fan, but I also don't think that it is her time yet, I'd rather have Sasha win it at Backlash (or whatever the next ppv is), have her do a face run for a couple month, then either turn heel, with Becky or Bayley winning it next from her at one of the big PPVs, or with her losing to one of the other women who is heel at the time to act as a transitional champ.

[briantw]

25 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

I think that a lot of fans fall into the trap where they start to buy into their own intelligence, and become too smarkish for their own good. It seems lately that the second folks don't get exactly what they want, they rebel without actually letting the situation play out. I mean, in the case of Reigns, the fans are justified in their dislike and demands for somethingdifferent, WWE has been trying to get him over for two years now with little success. When it comes to the women's division, I feel like they actually kind of know what they are doing (with the exception of actually trying to make Eva Marie a thing, that is just baffling). I think that they are trying to get the fans clamoring for Sasha so that when she wins, it means even more. Some fans just need to realize that it won't always go the way they want, and that that is ok. I think that this gives Sasha a monster to fight, and that's what makes it even better. This felt like the final match of the Charlotte Becky fewd, and the true beginning of a Sasha Charlotte feud.

I'm also a huge Becky fan, but I also don't think that it is her time yet, I'd rather have Sasha win it at Backlash (or whatever the next ppv is), have her do a face run for a couple month, then either turn heel, with Becky or Bayley winning it next from her at one of the big PPVs, or with her losing to one of the other women who is heel at the time to act as a transitional champ.

See, I don't think it's really about getting what you want so much as it is about booking generally not making sense.  For example, I wanted Kevin Owens to win tonight because he's my favorite wrestler in the WWE, but I would have been totally fine with Zayn winning.  Hell, I would have been fine with Miz winning, because at least he was booked as a part of the feud and not just thrown in like Stardust, Ryder, and Sin Cara.  I would have been fine with Ryder winning if the build for the match hadn't made him a complete afterthought.  If they had built it like he had at least some shot of winning, I could have been fine with it.  But it just felt totally random, like they drew his name out of a hat before the match started and so he won.

The build for the women's feud had Charlotte being an overconfident heel who was so sure of her own victory solely because of her pedigree that it would be all the sweeter when she finally got her comeuppance on the grandest stage.  If Sasha wins the belt next month, it just won't mean as much as if she had won it tonight.  

And, I mean, it's Wrestlemania!  The good guys are supposed to win some matches.  It's the one show of the year where the crowd can generally expect to go home happy, or at least satisfied.  That's kind of how it works.  This should have been Becky or Sasha's night to shine in front of an adoring crowd, and it would have felt significant.  They had to know the crowd was going to turn on the main event, especially since it was going to play out that way, and so they should have given us more feel good moments throughout the show.  Instead, the heel kept the women's title, a jobber walked out with the IC title, Styles lost to Jericho for absolutely no good reason that I can think of, Shane's loss proved that his story was never meant to go anywhere and there will be no breath of fresh air to a stale product, and the main event was just about the most tone deaf thing I've ever seen to the point where they had to pipe in cheers when the "face" won the title.

I should also add that 'Mania is supposed to be the PPV where storylines culminate, and then tomorrow's Raw begins the reset as we start a new year with new stories.  That's why you tend to get a lot of happy endings at Wrestlemania, because generally in wrestling the good guys win in the end.  That's why so few of the results made sense tonight, as heels won basically every match except the main event, and in that one the crowd hated the good guy.

You can also contrast 'Mania with Friday's Takeover and see the difference between competent booking that makes sense and whatever it is the WWE did tonight.  One show sent the crowd home happy and also either culminated or furthered story lines.  One did not.

[briantw]

Unrelated, but the best comment I read all last night was that Kevin Owens should name his splash the Five Guys Frog Splash.  That was hilarious.

[Jack Bauer 24]

And the Miz is your new IC champion...

[Joe Pesci]

Well, AJ Styles as the new #1 contender was quite a surprise. I guess since he's the most over guy on the roster atm, it can help cover the booing of Reigns. Plenty to like on Raw overall though.

[briantw]

14 minutes ago, Joe Pesci said:

Well, AJ Styles as the new #1 contender was quite a surprise. I guess since he's the most over guy on the roster atm, it can help cover the booing of Reigns. Plenty to like on Raw overall though.

No idea why they have him lose last night at his first Wrestlemania only to turn around and give him the title shot tonight.  Just totally illogical writing.  

Can't complain too much, though, at least not until he gets buried by Reigns.

[GrimTuesday]

4 hours ago, Jack Bauer 24 said:

And the Miz is your new IC champion...

 

Ok, I think I get how they are doing this, I think this is gonna be a midcard push for Ryder, giving him a feud with The Miz over the title. If it was just a swerve for the sake of it, they would have had him lose it clean in a shorter match (9 minutes isn't bad for a midcard match that is setup for a larger feud) and there is no way they ignore how positive that reaction for Ryder was. Not only did it get a good amount of time, but Ryder came out looking great, and his getting distracted like he was gives him a legitimate grievance, and a bad guy to vanquish. I could be wrong, but I really hope not, because this could be a great feud, and would continue to elevate the IC title with some great matches.

[Jack Bauer 24]

There's pretty much no chance AJ wins the strap I take it?