As far as a royal rumble card goes it had its good points and bad points.
On the good side the actual rumbles were quite good and the right winners came out with Rhea and Cody winning. They did a lot of surprises like Brock going out fairly early and Bayley on the woman's side. I also appreciated that for the first time in a long time in the woman's match they didn't do the goofy suplex pyramid. On the mens side they didn't do the koffi spot even though if you watch he did land on the chair and wasn't eliminated.
They literally made Gunther a major main event player tonight, it was well booked. They also have nicely set up a Logan Paul vs Rollins wrestlemania match as Paul continues to show that he's pretty natural.
The Wyatt vs LA Knight match was a squash plain and simple, and didn't really belong in a major ppv. It was the typical Wyatt relying more on gimmicks and make up and mask changes but while I love his creativity, I don't think he delivers in ring and its whats going to kill this gimmick. We also saw a major botch when Uncle Howdy did a monster elbow drop off of a 10 no 20 no 600 foot platform and completely missed LA Knight. This was a wasted feud designed to make Wyatt look like a monster.
The Alexa Bliss Belair title match wasn't great. I would actually call it flat and the two competitors had very little chemistry. I've said here that I've always liked Bliss, she's smart, she understands the psychology side of the business and she's brilliant on the mic. But her actual in ring skills have never really recovered since her multiple concussions and she seems to be really unsure in the ring and it caused a lot of herky jerky moments. And again at the end we get more of the Uncle Howdy stuff as we are going back to witch Bliss.
The woman's royal rumble was a lot of fun, It was good to see Asuka getting to the end but the star was Ripley. She even viciously headbutted I think Zoey Starks and you could see a nose explosion of blood. I also really liked seeing Roxanne Perez who I think is tremendous.
The WWE though does continue to protect Liv Morgan as the gutsy underdog but I don't think she belongs in the main event picture.
Oh we saw Nia Jax enter into the Royal Rumble in what is likely her last wrestling appearance, and she was larger then ever did a few of her spots and then was thankfully quickly eliminated.
The Owen's Reigns match was fantastic. Owens and Reigns receipts aside are tremendously good together and this was a really physical snug match. This match was really all about Sami and the bloodline, we knew Roman was going to win.
The aftermatch was fantastic and it was something that I loved because it was an amazing piece of story telling based around the battle between good and the devil for the the soul of one man. The brutal beatdown and destruction of Owen's was beautiful. The tearful Sami telling Roman that Owens was done and to stop and Roman basically handing the chair to Sami, and Sami sacrificing himself was all tremendous story telling.
We're now heading to a long awaited Sami Roman main event at wrestlemania with Roman and the blood line having nuclear heat and Sami clearly becoming the number one baby face in the company.
What I didn't see happening is the choice that Jay Uso made to walk away instead of joining the beatdown of Sami. So we're likely going to get this interesting conflicted Jimmy Jey with Solo being heavily involved.
As a side note I'm watching the after press conference with the wrestlers out of character and its fascinating seeing Rhea the super heel being really complimentary towards Roxanne Perez and the other NXT girls and seeing Wyatt in a rare out of character interview.
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Honestly they should have saved Cody push for Summerslam.
Imagine if they started the night with that KO-Reigns ending with Zayn...but then had Zayn come back out all beat up to end the night and win the Rumble.
The pop would have blown the roof off the Stadium.
I get that, I don't think I would want to see it though, the beatdown has to mean something, if they do this right we don't see Sami or Owens on TV for a while as they really need to see those injuries. I wouldn't want to see Sami win the rumble, he's earned a main event spot with the beat down that happened.
I expect that we're going to see a split of the heavy weight championship and Roman is going to lose one belt before Wrestlemania so Cody can fight the new championship.
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If the Rock truly isnt coming back they could do Cody vs Reigns for WWE Title one night and then Sami vs Reigns for Universal title for night two.
But honestly feel like doing that takes away from the moment for the other guy if both Cody and Reigns were to go over.
I think the only real payoff here that makes sense is Zayn beating Reigns for the undisputed title on night two, maybe you have Reigns beat Cody night one.
Although part of me hopes it's Jey in the end that dethrones Reigns. He was the first title defense, it was Reigns just being an absolute a-hole to him that started bloodline to start with. Would be a cool long term story to tell.
Last edited by SuperMatt18; 01-28-2023 at 11:19 PM.
Part of me hopes Sami comes out and hits KO with a chair at some point in this story too.
The endgame here should actually be Sami realizing that KO always used him and betrayed him, just like Reigns was using and betraying him.
KO is to Sami, what Reigns is to Jey in this story, in terms of guys that gaslight, and abused them to get their way for years and then act like best friends.
That's actually what made it all work, fans actually don't care if Sami would have cost KO the match tonight either because the fans know KO cant be trusted either.
I actually think that should have happened before the turn, would have made it even more impactful. Sami should have helped Reigns win. Reigns does the same thing after the match trying to get Sami to "prove his loyalty", then Sami finally snaps because he's proven it enough.
I don’t like Logan Paul, the human. But dammit I can’t help but like Logan Paul the wrestler. He does this part time and has been not only the hands down greatest celebrity wrestler ever but he’s been better than a large portion of the main roster. That springboard clothesline with Ricochet was absolute perfection.
One of my best friends did commentary/play-by-play for NJPW with Lanny. He has nothing but amazing things to say about him, really praised him with not only regard to his knowledge of wrestling, but even moreso as a human being. Just a genuine amazing guy, no ego.
I should note, he said *one* negative thing. Lanny really, Really, REALLY sucked at colour commentary.
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One of my best friends did commentary/play-by-play for NJPW with Lanny. He has nothing but amazing things to say about him, really praised him with not only regard to his knowledge of wrestling, but even moreso as a human being. Just a genuine amazing guy, no ego.
I should note, he said *one* negative thing. Lanny really, Really, REALLY sucked at colour commentary.
Cut him some slack! He was reading his notes off a frisbee after all!
First of all, he was suppossedly a super nice guy.
He might have been saddled with a lame gimmick in WWE but he made milk with it to the point where at times he was paid when he wasn't working and they used a cardboard cut out of him during Mr Perfect promos.
He was signed to a 6 figure deal by WCW during the Eric "it ain't my money" Bishoffs time in charge and literally got paid for 2 years and didn't make one appearance on any WCW show.
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He was signed to a 6 figure deal by WCW during the Eric "it ain't my money" Bishoffs time in charge and literally got paid for 2 years and didn't make one appearance on any WCW show.
Well he was 'The Genius'!
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I have to give the devil his credit. Young CaptainCrunch hated the hulkster. I cheered on King Kong Bundy and Macho Man and anyone else that stepped in the ring with that cheese ball. I knew from a young age that Hogan was just a big fake phony.
But you can't deny his charisma. I was shocked in that match that Hogan actually executed a nice back suplex. Shocked I was. However if you look at some early tapes of Hogan working in Japan he was a fairly passable wrestler.
The Genius was that. He was a great heel, and while he was extremely good off the ropes, he didn't rely on that to get heat. Him scribbling plans down. Doing the slap in the face to get Hogan to make him made and the two of them built a fun little match. Yes with really bad looking offense at times.
I still think modern wrestlers are missing the point, and matches like this or matches with Bret Hart kind of prove it. You don't need 8 billion flips 15 finishes with kickouts and tremendously bad blade jobs (I'm looking at you Moxley). You just need to understand how to tell a story and understand your audience.
In a lot of ways as much as we all love ECW, it was also a bad thing where we started moving to the get your shyte in generation of wrestlers that didn't let the audience breath of actually watch an in ring story.
I don't watch as much wrestling as I used to because it feels like the workers are working for the entertainment of the wrestlers in the back and the producers and have 0 understanding of the audience that they're performing for .
On another side note. Lanny was a really good wrestler, he was that guy that could do it all. He could do ground based and aerial wrestling and you could argue that he was better then his brother athletically off the top rope. He was a good character guy and a natural heel. You could argue that he could have been a main event villain if booked right. But in the 80's in WWE most of the midcard villains weren't there to get over long term. They were built up quickly and then fed to Hogan's ego.
Yes I hate Hulk Hogan. More then any other wrestler in history he did more to screw talent then anyone else.
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Hogan could actually be a technically-competent wrestler when he wanted to be, Him vs. Muta in '93 in NJPW is an example of this; suprisingly good match and Hogan even drops an enziguiri!
Of course, 80's/90's Muta is the ####ing GOAT and is the reason for my CP handle, so maybe I'm biased with his stuff, haha.
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I heard that he wasn't a spotlight kind of guy. Kind of like the polar opposite of his brother. He later signed with WCW, but even then, only made rare appearances..
Talent-wise, he probably deserved a bigger push if it was something he wanted.
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Last edited by FlamesAddiction; 02-04-2023 at 06:59 PM.
If Reigns is going part time I wonder if they would do a shocking turn at WM where Heyman helps Cody win.
I could see them doing it based on the promo tonight...Heyman is a bit of a mercenary.
If we see Reigns start to treat Heyman the way he has the rest of the bloodline then I could see it being part of it. Especially if Reigns is off TV for a bit and tou want Heyman to have a spot.
