BRM Reviews WWE Royal Rumble 2015 (deja vu)

[Big Red Machine]

WWE Royal Rumble 2015 (1/25/2015)- Philadelphia, PA

PRE-SHOW:

NEW AGE OUTLAWS PROMO- this was SOOOOO ANNOYING that for the first time in my life, I actually WANT to see the Ascension have a squash match.

BOOKER T INTERVIEWS SHAWN MICHAELS- it’s a f*cking interview! The point of it so that we can hear what Shawn has to say. I get splicing in videos, but don’t playing the f*cking background music the whole time.


KOFI KINGSTON & BIG E. LANGSTON (w/Xavier Woods) vs. CESARO & TYSON KIDD (w/Natalya, Adam Rose, & the Rosebuds)- 6/10
The crowd loved Cesaro and Tyson, and were not into The New Day at all. But we all saw that coming. Kidd & Cesaro won pretty much cleanly.
I’m sure I’ve complained about this before, but they REALLY need to stop doing commercials in the middle of pre-show matches. They have the entire rest of the pre-show to build up the rumble. Don’t do it in the middle of a damn match. I’m already paying for the WWE Network. Do they really think there is someone who will tune in for the pre-show but won’t watch the main show itself?

INTERVIEW WITH RYBACK, ZIGGLER, & ROWAN- boring
Ryback said that Hunter & Steph have no souls. Ziggler says that he doesn’t root for John Cena very often. You’d think he’d have learned his lesson about not opening his mouth by now, but I guess not. Rowan said stuff.

RENEE TELLS US THAT THE ROCK IS HERE- again: there is NOBODY watching the pre-show who isn’t going to watch the PPV, so why spoil such a HUGE surprise?

MAIN SHOW:

THE NEW AGE OUTLAWS vs. THE ASCENSION- 2.25/10
Apparently someone told Billy how old he looked on Monday, because in the past six days he has both gotten a haircut and dyed his hair. Ascension win. It wasn’t very good.

They plug Austin doing a live podcast with Hunter after Raw on Feb 2.

HUNTER & STEPH BACKSTAGE- Hunter says that if Sting shows up again, he’ll kick his ass. Heyman shows up and offers to have Brock kick Sting’s ass for them.

I spotted a sign saying “Angelo Poffo for Hall of Fame.” That’s really mean. The least WWE could have done was give Lanny a seat in the first few rows.

WWE TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Usos(c) vs. The Miz & Damien Miz-Dow- 5.75/10
Fans hated The Miz and liked the Usos, but they loved Miz-Dow. Not new, I know. Perhaps the biggest piece of news out of this is that Miz and Miz-Dow didn’t split up here. Well… there’s always the Royal Rumble.

JOEY MERCURY & JAMIE NOBLE SHILL WWE IMMORTALS- Mercury was secretly playing as Cena. Rollins yelled at them for playing games instead of focusing on his match. He said he was tired of being the future and is ready to be the present.

PAIGE & NATALYA vs. THE BELLA TWINS- 4/10
Lawler asked “which one is actually older: Nikki or Brie?” which is a reasonable but irrelevant question. What I heard, though, caused me to do a double take: “Which one is actually over: Nikki or Brie?”
The fans chanted “Ole” for Sami Zayn. JBL tried to spin it as “a European football chant for Paige.”
Nikki wins clean, pinning Nattie I definitely didn’t see that one coming. I guess neither Paige nor Nattie will be challenging for the Divas Title at Wrestlemania.

GUYS CUT “I WILL WIN THE RUMBLE!” PROMOS- it is what it is.
Reigns and Big Show were good, Rusev was great, Bryan was okay, and the Dust Brothers were bad. Miz & Miz-Dow teased dissension. Fandango’s promo was notable for two reasons: 1) Rosa was allowed to speak and 2) he said that the whole roster underestimated “the power of the tango.”
I was utterly astounded that the Dusts and Fandango were allowed to talk, but Bray, Ambrose, and Barrett were not.

WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Brock Lesnar(c) (w/Paul Heyman) vs. John Cena vs. Seth Rollins (w/Joey Mercury & Jamie Noble)- 9.5/10
The crowd is singing “John Cena sucks.” JBL claimed that that made them “unique.” He clearly doesn’t know what that word means. Either that or Vince is yelling in his ear so often that he can’t hear the crowd every week. Probably the former, though.
Huge pop for Rollins. Even bigger pop for Brock.
They started off great, making use of the elements they have spent the past few weeks building up.
DOUBLE GERMAN OF DEATH TO THE STOOGES!
We had some good three-way action, but a lot more of it was one-on-one while the third guy takes a break. Brock was practically no-selling AA’s right now. BROCK WAS A MONSTER here…
Until he ate a F*CKING GORGEOUS DIVING ELBOW DROP THROUGH THE SPANISH ANNOUNCE TABLE!
They called for a stretcher for Brock, and while that was happening Rollins and Cena traded CRAZY false finishes until Rollins hit a PHOENIX SPLASH… but Brock showed up to hit the F-5 on hit and win! This match was AWESOME!

2015 ROYAL RUMBLE MATCH- 5.5/10
The story of the match was that the ring got fuller and fuller as the match progressed, generally staying at three to four people until about half way in, which was kind of a new story. Aside from that, though, this rumble really had very little going for it. There were some good spots, but really no interesting stories, and once Bryan was eliminated, the people crapped all over it, again. More on that later. First, though, here are my semi-stream of consciousness thoughts, later edited together to hopefully make them easier to read.


Miz is first. Truth is second. Miz is not impressed by Truth’s singing.
BUBBA RAY DUDLEY! (I guess New Japan wasn’t interested in booking Dudley Boyz vs. Bullet Club)
The whazzup spot with Truth was very clever. The 3-D was excessive. It made Truth feel like Replacement Devon.

Bray and Harper work over Bubba. Fans want Devon. Bubba just got eliminated though, so I guess they won’t get him. The fans wanted to see Harper and Wyatt face off, but they made an alliance instead.
Erick Rowan jumps Curtis Axel then Harper pretends to turn on Bray to team with Rowan against him, but it’s all a trap that everyone but big dumb Rowan saw coming. Isn’t this guy supposed to be a genius? This whole thing winds up with him and Harper both getting dumped at the same time by Bray.
The Boogeyman? Really? Why? Was literally everyone else in the wrestling business busy tonight?
Big pop for Ryder.
HUGE pop for Dragon. AIRPLANE SPIN!
Tyson Kidd got a good pop.
Barely any reaction for Stardust.
The announcers keep claiming that this is “Stardust’s debut” in the Royal Rumble. Not only is that just plain wrong, but even if we pretend that Stardust and Cody Rhodes are supposed to be kayfabe different people (which they’re not), then this would still be inconsistent because WWE counts one elimination that Isaac Yank’em got in Kane’s total.

DDP! He’s done wonders with Jake, so maybe he can help get Cody off of whatever he is smoking.
DIAMOND CUTTERS ALL AROUND!
Rusev eliminates DDP (and Fandango, but no one really cares about Fandango).

BRYAN IS OUT! WHAT THE F*CK?! ARE THEY CRAZY?!
And the booing begins.

Cody turns on Goldust. The people care for a moment, but then the “DANIEL BRYAN” chants start up.
It’s a constant buzzing of boos at this point.
Adam Rose at 18. Mandy Leon is front and center with him. The Rosebuds save Kofi because they’re dumb. Then Kofi gets eliminated a minute later, so what did it matter?
Roman Reigns at 19. He gets pretty roundly booed.
Reigns eliminates both Dusts, so I guess they’re not actually turning on each other, which would be about twenty-eighth time this team has teased a break-up in the sixteen months they’ve been together.

Miz-Dow actually got them to cheer. A huge accomplishment at this point.
Miz comes out and says he is taking Miz-Dow’s spot. Miz gets knocked out by Reigns, so Miz-Dow comes in and runs wild! That was a great spot. Then he gets eliminated by Rusev a few seconds later. Miz-Dow is then back to imitating Miz on the outside… so in other words, nothing new happens.

Good pop for Swagger, but then the boos return.
Boos for Ryback. Also, “CM Punk” chants.
KANE! (That’s me being excited. The crowd booed him, too)!

Huge (almost Bryan-level) pop for Ambrose. The crowd soured on him decently quickly after that, though. Ziggler got a similar reaction.
Titus was supposed to be the super-quick elimination, but Reigns and Ambrose couldn’t get him over the ropes on the first try.
Not much of a pop for Cesaro, especially considering how loved he was earlier on.
Big Show comes in and everyone gangs up on him. He does a roars. No one cares.
Kane & Big Show up to eliminate Ryback, Dolph, and Bray, reclaiming the record from HBK! Hooray for Kane!


Reigns & Ambrose vs. Kane & Big Show faceoff was good, but the people booed it. They really should have seen this coming.

Ambrose is out. Now we’ve got “BULLSH*T!” chants. Reigns’ comeback is getting booed.
“WE WANT REFUNDS!” chants.

NO ORTON?!

Reigns dumps Kane and Big Show a the same time after they turned on each other and were trying to eliminate each other. The people sh*t all over it. The spot also looked bad. If they want to make Reigns look good, why not have him clothesline them both over the top rope and look dominant, not like some punk who got lucky because the two big man had already gotten each other over the top rope?

Beatdown of Reigns by Kane and Big Show right afterwards. The people are chanting for Rusev for some reason. Then THE ROCK SHOWED UP… and even HE is getting booed!
Apparently Rusev is still alive. Well… not for long. Reigns eliminates him, too. The people still boo.

Rock gets in the ring and raises Reigns’ hand. The people still boo. I guess they’ve figured out that this was the entire purpose of The Rock’s appearance here: to get them to not boo Reigns. It didn’t work. Nice try, Vince, but we’re too smart for you!

Actually, now that I think about it, the match should still be going on, because Reigns stepped between the ropes when he left the ring after his celebration, and Curtis Axel never made it to the ring, so he was also never eliminated! A TIE!

POST-SHOW:
CENA & RUSEV PULL-APART- good.

PANEL DISCUSSION- complete with incessant booing and “DANIEL BRYAN!” chants in the background.

THE NEW INTERVIEWER INTERVIEWS ROCK AND REIGNS- Finally they get smart enough to go somewhere where we can’t hear the booing. Rock’s promo SUCKED. Reigns was pretty good, though.


Sooo… let’s talk about Daniel Bryan not winning, shall we?
It’s been pretty clear since Reigns came back the people aren’t as into him as they should be for a top babyface. Both Ambrose and Ziggler have been both getting bigger pops and putting on better matches. Then, when Daniel Bryan came back, it became abundantly clear who needed to win the Royale Rumble. It’s not like it would take much work. There is already a story built in with Bryan trying to climb his way back up to the top to regain the title that he never lost. He could beat either the big scary dominant beast Brock Lesnar, or he could beat The Authority’s chosen one, Seth Rollins (he never actually beat Orton last year: Batista was the one who tapped). Either way would work fine (and if you still want to have Reigns be the guy who gets the win over Brock, you could have Cena pin Rollins here, then have Rollins cash in on Cena to get the belt on him so that you have Rollins vs. Bryan for the title and Brock vs. Reigns at Mania).
But WWE decided to go with Roman Reigns instead…and seriously: HOW THE F*CK COULD THEY NOT SEE THIS HAPPENING?!
Last year they were in Pittsburgh, which isn’t known as an overly smarky city, and the crowd told them exactly what they wanted. This year they to PHILADELPHIA, and the world capital of indy wrestling... and they expected something different? That’s like burning your tongue on the food, but then assuming that you won’t get burned if you stick your tongue in the fire on the stove.
The moment Bryan was eliminated- in a completely unspectacular or notable fashion, just like the many random midcarders in the match- all of the life was sucked out of the crowd, and as a result, of the match as well. It was all just bland. Nothing felt exciting. None of the eliminations and none of the teases felt like they meant anything, (and the way that Ziggler and Ambrose were eliminated- just being dumped over the top rope without a fight- didn’t help, either), and nothing came anywhere close to feeling special like a Royal Rumble should. Oh look: Roman Reigns overcame the odds and again and beat Kane and Big Show… just like he does every week on Raw.
They tried brought The Rock in to have him endorse Reigns at the end, hoping that that would get the people to cheer, but they forgot two important things: 1) even The Rock got interrupted by “YES!” chants the night of the first big pro-Bryan crowd protest (the Raw after WrestleMania XXVIII), and more importantly, 2) the moment that Rock gets in that ring and raises Roman Reigns’ hand, he ceases to be The Rock, and he just becomes some guy telling the fans that they are supposed to be cheering for Roman Reigns… and they’ve made it quite clear that they don’t want to do that.
So WWE has taken that first major step to crowning Roman Reigns as their new top guy… and while it’s happening, the fans are booing loudly and chanting “BULLSH*T!” and “WE WANT REFUNDS!” and chanting for someone else- for the guy WWE doesn’t want.
I ended my review of last year’s Royal Rumble with the following observation: “Daniel Bryan and the Yes Movement are a giant snowball running down the side of a hill. Gaining size, speed, and momentum. WWE can either get behind it and start pushing it, or they can futilely try to stop it and they and Wrestlemania XXX will get crushed and buried underneath it.” And they did. But they also seem to have assumed that the snowball had reached the bottom of the hill, become as big as it could possibly get, and would start to melt once Bryan went down with his injury. From the moment he returned, though, it was clear that they were wrong. That snowball is still rolling down that hill, gaining even more size and speed and momentum, and WWE again faces the same choice. Get behind it and start pushing, or else they, and WrestleMania and Roman Reigns and their future will get buried underneath it. In Philadelphia tonight, on social media since then, and with the massive wave of cancellations of the WWE Network (enough to crash the cancel my subscription page) in just the few hours since the Royal Rumble ended the fans have made their position about WWE’s main event picture very clear: No Bryan= No Buy.

[KILLdozer]

Sorry, but I'm with WWE: I just don't like nor want Bryan. He's not who I wanna see. I'm tired of him and quite frankly (no offense intended nor is it directed at you even indirectly. ) of hearing he needed to win this and shouldn't have came back if he wasn't. He had his moment, enough already.

[kiel297]

Sorry, but I'm with WWE: I just don't like nor want Bryan. He's not who I wanna see. I'm tired of him and quite frankly (no offense intended nor is it directed at you even indirectly. ) of hearing he needed to win this and shouldn't have came back if he wasn't. He had his moment, enough already.

The wants of the many outweigh the wants of the few when determining what will be successful and what will fail. In any kind of entertainment, you absolutely NEED to be in tune with what your audience wants to see. And if you aren't going to give them what they want to see, you need to give them something that's so good that they forget about what they want to see.

In this case, it doesn't matter whether you like Daniel Bryan or not. The fact of the matter is that the majority of WWE's audience want to see Daniel Bryan as the top guy right now. It's now been a few years of people shouting to WWE that this is the guy the majority is supporting, and granted him being screwed over so many times trying to get there fired people up for when he made it, but doing it again now?

There's no point. Bryan's already proven himself. He shouldn't have to be playing second fiddle again because he's already shown WWE that he is over as fuck, sells merchandise and is incredibly gifted in the ring. Moreover they had Daniel Bryan's underdog story written FOR them. The man finally won the WWE title and then was injured to a point that this time two months ago we didn't even know if Bryan was ever going to wrestle again, so the clearly the best way to capitalise on that momentum is to have him be eliminated in unremarkable fashion after just ten minutes and eleven seconds in the match.

Maybe this is WWE's warped way of thinking that if they screw him out of the rumble, he's gonna be over as fuck on RAW the next night. Because that's literally the only reason I can think of as to why they would put out a product that is so blatantly not what people want to see.

[Big Red Machine]

Maybe this is WWE's warped way of thinking that if they screw him out of the rumble, he's gonna be over as fuck on RAW the next night. Because that's literally the only reason I can think of as to why they would put out a product that is so blatantly not what people want to see.

Which, when you think about it, is exactly what happened last year, so it wouldn't surprise me if this was their thinking. What they seem to have missed, though, is that if you done something like this you have to give him something huge to do at Mania to replace challenging for the world title.

[cero2k]

Maybe this is WWE's warped way of thinking that if they screw him out of the rumble, he's gonna be over as fuck on RAW the next night. Because that's literally the only reason I can think of as to why they would put out a product that is so blatantly not what people want to see.

Which, when you think about it, is exactly what happened last year, so it wouldn't surprise me if this was their thinking. What they seem to have missed, though, is that if you done something like this you have to give him something huge to do at Mania to replace challenging for the world title.

that is us in denial. And what really can he do at Wrestlemania? break the streak? fight Triple H? beat Rusev for America? Dragon is not about epic encounters in WWE, he's about winning the big one and getting the gold despite the odds. Anything that is not challenging for the title (and not by weaseling himself into the main event) doesn't work for Bryan at this point.

also, 9.5 for the 3way seemed a bit generous for me, I gave it a 8.5.

Some stuff i found4

From Meltzer:

According to Meltzer on his audio show, Vince doesn't want to do a three-way at Mania because he feels like it'd be a repeat of last year. They expected the backlash but not to this degree. And Rock is NOT HAPPY.
EDIT: Apparently they are also trying to paint this as a Philadelphia issue. Blaming the city and the crowd and such. Basically they think it wouldn't have been this bad if they were somewhere else.

from a fan reporting after attending the show

Believe it or not, the WWE actually did a really good job of muting the crowd noise after Bryan got eliminated. In person, the boos were VERY loud compared to what was heard on the broadcast. In general, the audio on the broadcast did not do the atmosphere in the building justice. There was constant booing and negative chants. On the broadcast, the crowd comes off as merely deflated and listless with only a little booing whenever Roman would get going (and to be sure there was some of that), but in person it was much more raucous and angry. As pissed off as I was, it was very cool to be a part of that crowd.

[Big Red Machine]

Maybe this is WWE's warped way of thinking that if they screw him out of the rumble, he's gonna be over as fuck on RAW the next night. Because that's literally the only reason I can think of as to why they would put out a product that is so blatantly not what people want to see.

Which, when you think about it, is exactly what happened last year, so it wouldn't surprise me if this was their thinking. What they seem to have missed, though, is that if you done something like this you have to give him something huge to do at Mania to replace challenging for the world title.

that is us in denial. And what really can he do at Wrestlemania? break the streak? fight Triple H? beat Rusev for America? Dragon is not about epic encounters in WWE, he's about winning the big one and getting the gold despite the odds. Anything that is not challenging for the title (and not by weaseling himself into the main event) doesn't work for Bryan at this point.

That's what it was about last year. That doesn't have to be what it's about this year, or at any point in the future. In fact, I'd argue that it shouldn't be. Last year (including everything from Summer Slam on) was about Bryan beating the odds and proving that he is an A player. That journey culminated with him beating Triple H and then beating Orton and Batista to win the world title all in the same night.
This year's story should be about Bryan's quest to regain the title he never lost (and if you really want to do the underdog thing, you throw him in there against THE BEAST Brock Lesnar).

Some stuff i found

From Meltzer:

According to Meltzer on his audio show, Vince doesn't want to do a three-way at Mania because he feels like it'd be a repeat of last year. They expected the backlash but not to this degree. And Rock is NOT HAPPY.
EDIT: Apparently they are also trying to paint this as a Philadelphia issue. Blaming the city and the crowd and such. Basically they think it wouldn't have been this bad if they were somewhere else.

If they didn't expect a backlash to this degree in PHILADELPHIA, they're f*cking stupid. I agree with the three-way feeling like a repeat of last year, but again: they had to know that this would happen, and the most obvious way to prevent it (and the best idea, booking-wise) would have been to either give Bryan the win (which would have gotten a monstrous pop) or DON'T BRING HIM BACK UNTIL AFTER THE RUMBLE!

[KILLdozer]

I'm just gonna say this: I find it extremely strange that two former members of The Shield have guaranteed title matches at the same time (AT THE SAME DAMN TIME! Badnewz I see ya boy! ). Where Ambrose plays into this/equates, I'm not quite sure and really haven't figured it out. Think about it. Remember that old floating around fan rumor that the breakup was all a ruse to fully stick it to The Authority? And the news of possibly bringing them back even as early as this year?

Well it all ties in. There you have it.

[badnewzxl]

I'm not so upset that Bryan didn't win; I'm more upset that NOTHING HAPPENED IN THE RUMBLE! Every chance they had to put the fans back into this thing fell flat.

1. Bubba should not have come out so early; save that surprise for the midway point when the crowd is bored with the regular roster coming out. I liked his showdown with Harper and Wyatt but doesn't seem like anything will come of it. Also sad that they had Truth go first just so he could be Devon. Kinda lame, Wwe.

2. I'm probably alone here, but I did like that boogeyman came out to stand in there with Bray; and even more glad he was disposed of quickly. My problem with this was that it meant nothing and really got no pop.

3. When Rowan came down and all Three Wyatts were in the ring I thought they'd reunite and just start wrecking everybody till a few babyfaces came in to fight them off (which could have made Bryan look way stronger if he got eliminated after fighting off the whole family; also actually gets heat of Bray, bc the way it actually went down, Bray got NO heat).

4. If you're gonna have Ziggler get knocked out, at least have him go in around entrant fifteen or so. Why take one of the guys the fans really wanna see and only have him in the match for two minutes? Especially after you did the same thing to Bryan just minutes before! And this all leads me to my final point....

5. WWE has to stop thinking the fans will just cheer bc you force them to. I'm sure HHH thought that having Show and Kane decimate the last five guys would get heat on the two giants but that only shows how fucking stupid they are bc WWE took that heat for horrible booking instead. You had Ambrose, Ziggler, Reigns, Wyatt, And Rusev left in there and allow two giants (whom ppl boo almost constantly bc they've become predictable and therefore boring) beat almost all of them down and just drop them over the top like Dead bodies. How the fuck is that spose to help the future? Why not make all your younger talent look strong? All they did by leaving it up to Reigns was put him right into the position no one needs to be in: the new Cena spot. They wanted to make it seem like he overcame insurmountable odds but one can only believe that if they hadn't watched wwe I n the last few months to notice that Kane and Show can be easily beat. This didn't make anybody seem are ok Nguyen AT ALL. And the Rock coming out was absolutely random and pointless; just not as pointless as Rusev hiding outside the ring. Why not have Rusev and Reigns eliminate the giants and then showdown against one another? The crowd would have definitely been more into that than what actually went down.

The rumble match was just a complete missing of the mark (no pun intended) by booking.

The title match was GREAT tho

[cero2k]

1. Bubba should not have come out so early; save that surprise for the midway point when the crowd is bored with the regular roster coming out. I liked his showdown with Harper and Wyatt but doesn't seem like anything will come of it. Also sad that they had Truth go first just so he could be Devon. Kinda lame, Wwe.

2. I'm probably alone here, but I did like that boogeyman came out to stand in there with Bray; and even more glad he was disposed of quickly. My problem with this was that it meant nothing and really got no pop.

1. as a lot of people have already mentioned, i was really disappointed that after Ray became such great wrestler/character in TNA, he came back as a nostalgia act with the goofy attire. He deserved better.

2. I was hoping that Boogeyman would eliminate himself from the rumble out of fear of Wyatt's freakyness.

[badnewzxl]

1. Bubba should not have come out so early; save that surprise for the midway point when the crowd is bored with the regular roster coming out. I liked his showdown with Harper and Wyatt but doesn't seem like anything will come of it. Also sad that they had Truth go first just so he could be Devon. Kinda lame, Wwe.

2. I'm probably alone here, but I did like that boogeyman came out to stand in there with Bray; and even more glad he was disposed of quickly. My problem with this was that it meant nothing and really got no pop.

1. as a lot of people have already mentioned, i was really disappointed that after Ray became such great wrestler/character in TNA, he came back as a nostalgia act with the goofy attire. He deserved better.

2. I was hoping that Boogeyman would eliminate himself from the rumble out of fear of Wyatt's freakyness.

2. That would have justified him being there, lol

[Big Red Machine]

I'm just gonna say this: I find it extremely strange that two former members of The Shield have guaranteed title matches at the same time (AT THE SAME DAMN TIME! Badnewz I see ya boy! ). Where Ambrose plays into this/equates, I'm not quite sure and really haven't figured it out. Think about it. Remember that old floating around fan rumor that the breakup was all a ruse to fully stick it to The Authority? And the news of possibly bringing them back even as early as this year?

Well it all ties in. There you have it.

I don't think they'll come back together and reveal it to be a ruse, but to have Dean win the title at Fast Lane and then have Rollins announce that he is cashing in at Mania to make it a Triple Threat match would be really cool.

[Big Red Machine]

1. Bubba should not have come out so early; save that surprise for the midway point when the crowd is bored with the regular roster coming out. I liked his showdown with Harper and Wyatt but doesn't seem like anything will come of it. Also sad that they had Truth go first just so he could be Devon. Kinda lame, Wwe.

2. I'm probably alone here, but I did like that boogeyman came out to stand in there with Bray; and even more glad he was disposed of quickly. My problem with this was that it meant nothing and really got no pop.

1. as a lot of people have already mentioned, i was really disappointed that after Ray became such great wrestler/character in TNA, he came back as a nostalgia act with the goofy attire. He deserved better.

2. I was hoping that Boogeyman would eliminate himself from the rumble out of fear of Wyatt's freakyness.

1. I never found the Dudleys WWE attire to be goofy at all.

2. That would have been awesome.

[cero2k]

1. I never found the Dudleys WWE attire to be goofy at all.

2. That would have been awesome.

1. he came back doing the Slapshots glasses instead of the later attire, or even something between the initial Team 3D attire. As WON mentioned, he even looked fatter with this attire

[Big Red Machine]

I'm not so upset that Bryan didn't win; I'm more upset that NOTHING HAPPENED IN THE RUMBLE! Every chance they had to put the fans back into this thing fell flat.

1. Bubba should not have come out so early; save that surprise for the midway point when the crowd is bored with the regular roster coming out. I liked his showdown with Harper and Wyatt but doesn't seem like anything will come of it. Also sad that they had Truth go first just so he could be Devon. Kinda lame, Wwe.

2. I'm probably alone here, but I did like that boogeyman came out to stand in there with Bray; and even more glad he was disposed of quickly. My problem with this was that it meant nothing and really got no pop.

3. When Rowan came down and all Three Wyatts were in the ring I thought they'd reunite and just start wrecking everybody till a few babyfaces came in to fight them off (which could have made Bryan look way stronger if he got eliminated after fighting off the whole family; also actually gets heat of Bray, bc the way it actually went down, Bray got NO heat).

4. If you're gonna have Ziggler get knocked out, at least have him go in around entrant fifteen or so. Why take one of the guys the fans really wanna see and only have him in the match for two minutes? Especially after you did the same thing to Bryan just minutes before! And this all leads me to my final point....

5. WWE has to stop thinking the fans will just cheer bc you force them to. I'm sure HHH thought that having Show and Kane decimate the last five guys would get heat on the two giants but that only shows how fucking stupid they are bc WWE took that heat for horrible booking instead. You had Ambrose, Ziggler, Reigns, Wyatt, And Rusev left in there and allow two giants (whom ppl boo almost constantly bc they've become predictable and therefore boring) beat almost all of them down and just drop them over the top like Dead bodies. How the fuck is that spose to help the future? Why not make all your younger talent look strong? All they did by leaving it up to Reigns was put him right into the position no one needs to be in: the new Cena spot. They wanted to make it seem like he overcame insurmountable odds but one can only believe that if they hadn't watched wwe I n the last few months to notice that Kane and Show can be easily beat. This didn't make anybody seem are ok Nguyen AT ALL. And the Rock coming out was absolutely random and pointless; just not as pointless as Rusev hiding outside the ring. Why not have Rusev and Reigns eliminate the giants and then showdown against one another? The crowd would have definitely been more into that than what actually went down.

The rumble match was just a complete missing of the mark (no pun intended) by booking.

The title match was GREAT tho

Can't disagree with anything you said here, but I think the point of The Rock showing up was to get people to cheer for him so that it would at least look like they were cheering for Reigns, too.
Also for The Rock, NWK had an interesting idea last night: We all know that Reigns vs. Lesnar will probably be a lot better a No DQs match than as a normal match, so establishing the familial connection here between Rocky and Roman sets up for Brock kicking Rock's ass in the build to Mania, so Reigns has a reason to get super-pissed and want a No DQs match.

[badnewzxl]

I'm not so upset that Bryan didn't win; I'm more upset that NOTHING HAPPENED IN THE RUMBLE! Every chance they had to put the fans back into this thing fell flat.

1. Bubba should not have come out so early; save that surprise for the midway point when the crowd is bored with the regular roster coming out. I liked his showdown with Harper and Wyatt but doesn't seem like anything will come of it. Also sad that they had Truth go first just so he could be Devon. Kinda lame, Wwe.

2. I'm probably alone here, but I did like that boogeyman came out to stand in there with Bray; and even more glad he was disposed of quickly. My problem with this was that it meant nothing and really got no pop.

3. When Rowan came down and all Three Wyatts were in the ring I thought they'd reunite and just start wrecking everybody till a few babyfaces came in to fight them off (which could have made Bryan look way stronger if he got eliminated after fighting off the whole family; also actually gets heat of Bray, bc the way it actually went down, Bray got NO heat).

4. If you're gonna have Ziggler get knocked out, at least have him go in around entrant fifteen or so. Why take one of the guys the fans really wanna see and only have him in the match for two minutes? Especially after you did the same thing to Bryan just minutes before! And this all leads me to my final point....

5. WWE has to stop thinking the fans will just cheer bc you force them to. I'm sure HHH thought that having Show and Kane decimate the last five guys would get heat on the two giants but that only shows how fucking stupid they are bc WWE took that heat for horrible booking instead. You had Ambrose, Ziggler, Reigns, Wyatt, And Rusev left in there and allow two giants (whom ppl boo almost constantly bc they've become predictable and therefore boring) beat almost all of them down and just drop them over the top like Dead bodies. How the fuck is that spose to help the future? Why not make all your younger talent look strong? All they did by leaving it up to Reigns was put him right into the position no one needs to be in: the new Cena spot. They wanted to make it seem like he overcame insurmountable odds but one can only believe that if they hadn't watched wwe I n the last few months to notice that Kane and Show can be easily beat. This didn't make anybody seem are ok Nguyen AT ALL. And the Rock coming out was absolutely random and pointless; just not as pointless as Rusev hiding outside the ring. Why not have Rusev and Reigns eliminate the giants and then showdown against one another? The crowd would have definitely been more into that than what actually went down.

The rumble match was just a complete missing of the mark (no pun intended) by booking.

The title match was GREAT tho

Can't disagree with anything you said here, but I think the point of The Rock showing up was to get people to cheer for him so that it would at least look like they were cheering for Reigns, too.
Also for The Rock, NWK had an interesting idea last night: We all know that Reigns vs. Lesnar will probably be a lot better a No DQs match than as a normal match, so establishing the familial connection here between Rocky and Roman sets up for Brock kicking Rock's ass in the build to Mania, so Reigns has a reason to get super-pissed and want a No DQs match.

That's a good point

[e-moose]

They may have left the arena, but the 2015 Royal Rumble iz not yet over. Curtis Axel haz not yet been eliminated.

"So @TripleH says there was a “controversy” at the #RoyalRumble? Damn right there was! I won and I want my #WrestleMania match! @WWE"

— Curtis Axel (@RealCurtisAxel) January 30, 2015

[Big Red Machine]

They may have left the arena, but the 2015 Royal Rumble iz not yet over. Curtis Axel haz not yet been eliminated.

"So @TripleH says there was a “controversy” at the #RoyalRumble? Damn right there was! I won and I want my #WrestleMania match! @WWE"

— Curtis Axel (@RealCurtisAxel) January 30, 2015

e-moose!

[Big Red Machine]

They may have left the arena, but the 2015 Royal Rumble iz not yet over. Curtis Axel haz not yet been eliminated.

"So @TripleH says there was a “controversy” at the #RoyalRumble? Damn right there was! I won and I want my #WrestleMania match! @WWE"

— Curtis Axel (@RealCurtisAxel) January 30, 2015

Actually, I'm pretty sure it should be over because I'm certain Reigns went over the top rope on Smackdown! Axel for champion!

[WrestlingJoker]

They may have left the arena, but the 2015 Royal Rumble iz not yet over. Curtis Axel haz not yet been eliminated.

"So @TripleH says there was a “controversy” at the #RoyalRumble? Damn right there was! I won and I want my #WrestleMania match! @WWE"

— Curtis Axel (@RealCurtisAxel) January 30, 2015

e-moose!

The moose is loose!



That was terrible. I apologize.

[e-moose]