Why re-watching the 2014 Rumble is a fascinating experience

[cero2k]

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Source: Reddit by EmtyThe1st

This years Royal Rumble is AMAZING in a case study point of view. It's a brilliant piece of media to analyse. The match itself wasn't even bad. In fact, it was much better than some Rumbles in recent years. The finale of it though, told everything the audience needed to know, and they let WWE know right back what they thought.

The audience was pumped and excited for it to start with, but as time starts to go on, you can literally see the crowd begin to question "wait we're at what number now?", counting the amount of people left to enter and realising "There's no room for Daniel". Then the reaction slowly changes. When Rowan enters complete silence falls as the penny drops for a large portion of the live audience.

And then Reigns eliminates Rowan and people look around confused "Wait, shouldn't Daniel eliminate the Wyatts when he enters?" More pennies drop. Baitsta is #28 only to be met with boo's as by this point there's a couple of grand in pennies being dropped on the arena floor. But wait, Big-E is #29, that MUST mean something big is being held back for #30. The cluster of "Daniel Bryan" and "Yes" chants continue, as they are the ones who still had hope till the bitter end.
And then the music hits.

It is toxic. Rey Mysterio has entered as the last person, there is literally no possible way for Daniel to enter. The crowd all now know for certain. You will NOT be getting Daniel Bryan. You WILL be getting Batista. Rey Mysterio is torn apart by the fans. The man who rarely (if ever) got boo'd in his entire WWE career gets nothing but jeers. Every single thing he does has venom as a response.
In the space of 50 minutes you can watch an audience go from excitement into full on disgust at the company they are supposed to be entertained by. And this isn't "OH NO THOSE DASTARDLY BAD GUYS" fan anger. No one was being cheered. Not even Punk was getting an overly positive reaction. Rey is thrown out to momentary glee. But that isn't enough. The fans attention returns to the ring and the abuse continues. But now there's no union in the response. There's boo's, "No", "Yes" and "Daniel Bryan" chants scattered everywhere, and they won't stop for the final 15 minutes of this PPV.

Then Punk is eliminated and the last possible hope for any form of salvation, even if it wasn't anywhere near what the fans wanted, is gone. The three left include Sheamus, who just returned from injury and beat the man they want to see back at WM28 in 18 seconds. The second is a 45 year old man who already got his moment back in 2005, has literally been back for 6 days after having spent the last 4 years distancing himself from the product and is about the be given a Wrestlemania Main Event despite that. The final option is a wrestler who has outperformed every other person in the Rumble, but they know he makes the least amount of sense to win. And that third option is what they choose to root for. Because they KNOW he isn't going to win, and they refuse the alternative, being dragged kicking and screaming to the very end by WWE.

The fans know it. The viewers must know it. The commentary knows it but can never acknowledge it. The camera zooms in on all three at one point. Reigns is determined and knows that even though he is losing, he can prove himself here. Batista has a look of utter bewilderment on his face and the crowd has done nothing but boo him from the moment he entered the match. He can't handle it at all. Sheamus however, looks dead inside. He knows this isn't what they want. He experienced this kind of backlash before at the Post-WM Raw in 2013. But this is very, very different to then. The crowd are not being "bizarro" like they were back then. They are insulted. But he does what he has been told because there is no other choice and points at the Wrestlemania sign. He then goes to set up the Brogue Kick and is meant with resounding "NO" chants without the crowd even missing a beat. After he is eliminated he quickly scurries to the back without drawing any further attention to himself despite his return seemingly spoiled at the last moment in tragic fashion.

Then there's two and the crowd is even more determined to piss all over the man the WWE chose to be the hero. They don't cheer Roman Reigns the Wrestler, they are cheering the final road block before WWE does what THEY always wanted. They refuse to endorse any form of comeback Batista does, still with a look of utter confusion on his face (apparently still etched on there the next day on Raw). "This isn't what they are supposed to do. They are supposed to cheer for me".This is still evident after the final bell has rung. The commentators deliver their lines, but they are clearly rushed as they attempt to cover up the backlash by focusing on how amazing Reigns was, as it is clear Batista is not being received back with open arms as expected. The volume of his theme appears to have been increased three times during his celebration in an attempt to drown out the audience, but it is to no prevail as they have also caught onto this and just voice their disdain even louder.

And then when they are "clear", the 45 year old man-child is revealed and he thinks no one will know. He gets pissy and storms off whilst insulting the man they wanted to see (their are conflicting reports about having flipped off a fan at ringside, but some reports suggest the fan in question pushed children out of the way to hurl abuse at Batista). The man that as far as everyone is meant to be concerned, is a babyface closed the show by insulting the paying fans in attendence. And then social media exploded in objection. Not "smark" objection, but you can see fans, journalists and veterans alike all joining in a unique moment of hatred for the company that did this.

Even some 24 hour period afterwards, a constant twitter stream gave about 45 tweets a minute about how Daniel Bryan had been fucked over. Taking into account how the huge the reaction was at the time (Mick Foley's "Does @WWE actually hate their own audience? I've never been so disgusted with a PPV" got 22,000 retweets alone), along with other keywords fans could have used, it isn't too far-fetched to imagine the messages of protest and disust reached the 7 digit total on Twitter alone (not to mention all the retweets of said messages). A poll on the official WWE Facebook page "Thumbs Up or Thumbs down for the Rumble?" got 4/5 thumbs down (over 26,000 down) along with practically every post having a comment about WWE screwing the fans. Here is a list of recent posts by WWE, with the top rated comments alongside.

. LIKE or SHARE if you enjoyed the 27th annual Royal Rumble! - "Good job Pittsburgh crowd for booing the hell out of Batista."

. From shattered records to Superstar debuts, the 2014 Royal Rumble Match was packed with a ton of memorable moments, but here are the absolute five coolest things to occur in this year's version of the over-the-top-rope classic! - "memorable moments" aka the night bryan got shafted

. The WWE Universe's biggest gathering of the year, WrestleMania Axxess, takes over the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center April 3-6, and tickets for the huge event will be available starting this Saturday, Feb. 1. - No Bryan, No Buy. One thing's for sure after last night's Royal Rumble Match: "The Animal" Batista is going to WrestleMania XXX to meet the WWE World Heavyweight Champion! - sounds like the entire wwe universe doesn't like it

This Rumble is an amazing case study in audiences having a say in what they want to see in modern media and the reaction of production companies when they can't handle it when it occurs. But the best part was WWE had no excuse to hide behind. If a Heel had been sent out in Mysterio's place, they would have the flimsy excuse of "haha we tricked you with a bad guy" but that didn't happen. Many people are suggesting they should have sent out Bad News Barret to get nuclear heat. But it didn't happen. The fans are pissed off at the company itself when they weren't supposed to be, and let everyone watching at home know that as well.

Rumour has it that last nights Raw had a shit-ton of re-writing done due to the Universally negative response (Mainstream News sites such as the BBC reported on it), but it waits to be seen whether Daniel Bryan being put into the Elimination Chamber is just an attempt to get the fans to accept Batista getting the Wrestlemania spot. Once again, Batista got a negative reaction from the crowd (the camera even quickly cut away when Batista pointed at a "#BOOtista" sign), however the commentary didn't acknowledge it and the sudden quieting of the crowd suggets they may have been muted at one point, which likely points to heavy damage control in regards to him if that is true. If Elimination Chamber ends without the fan knowing for certain that Daniel will be going to Wrestlemania to fight for the WWEWHC (whether he goes as champion or challenger), then I expect another HEAVY reaction from them.

But even then it may be too late. Daniel Bryan will not get the story everyone not only expected, but actually WANTED. He hasn't won the Rumble. He won't be going to Wrestlemania to finally redeem himself and prove to The Authority they were wrong and the fans were right. He could win the Rumble the next year but it doesn't matter. This was the perfect moment to unleash him onto the world as the face of the company. The fans may have told Batista what they truly think of him but it doesn't matter to him in the slightest. He casually walked back into the company after 4 years and had the Wrestlemania Main Event presented to him. That can not be done over. WWE has dropped the ball and it is clear.

Triple H attempted to work it into an angle the next night "Aww, did someone not get what they wanted last night?". Notice "attempted". They tried to play up the bad guy act even more with "You fought already we were worried about you", yet despite the fact that would be a slightly valid heel reason, The Rhodes Brothers were both in the match and neither Triple H, Stephanie, Daniel Bryan or the commentary team spoke of it. It made no sense in connection to the previous night. If WWE wanted people to be mad Daniel wasn't in the Rumble, they would have the commentators pick up on it to make it as obvious as possible like they always do.
WWE were not prepared for the response they got and now they are struggling to scramble to a rescue.
Daniel Bryan. The man who may very well have won the Royal Rumble without being in it.

[Big Red Machine]

Fantastic write-up.

If Raw was hastily re-written, though, they did a sh*tty job of it. That DQ finish at the end was a terrible mistake, and wasking Brock in the Elimination Chamber (in his home town, no less) is a bad idea, too.

[e-moose]

I imagine they'll be hastily re-writing the entire course of thingz to come. Batista haz inadvertently stolen half of Randy Orton'z heat, perhaps more than half, and it all surroundz Daniel Bryan. I think this all may lead to an Evolution reunion / corporation, where the original Evolution becomez the corporation faction, eventually dumping Kane, turning him face, and having him fued with them, and eventually meeting Batista one on one at a PPV.

[cero2k]

I imagine they'll be hastily re-writing the entire course of thingz to come. Batista haz inadvertently stolen half of Randy Orton'z heat, perhaps more than half, and it all surroundz Daniel Bryan. I think this all may lead to an Evolution reunion / corporation, where the original Evolution becomez the corporation faction, eventually dumping Kane, turning him face, and having him fued with them, and eventually meeting Batista one on one at a PPV.

Evolution Reunion vs Bryan, Punk, and Kane? sure, count me in