Perfect Balance: Cavs-Spurs, Behind the Box Score
January 31, 2016Birthdays and Editors and Summer Sixteen: While We’re Waiting…
February 1, 2016In this edition of WFNY on WWE…Triple H goes over everyone, Roman Reigns unwittingly acts a bit heelish, AJ Styles debuts, Brock Lesnar takes his Royal Rumble elimination in stride, Kevin Owens feuds with everyone, and the next pay-per-view is right here in Cleveland
Derek: Before the reign of Roman … before CENA WINS LOL … one man set the standard for predictable WWE victories:
Yes, the only one of my potential surprise entrants to actually take part in the Rumble entered 30th and left Orlando with the strap. Ol’ Trips is married to Vince McMahon’s daughter, Stephanie, and could very well take over WWE should Vince get bored with the affairs of mortals and go back to his upper management position in Hell. Haitch has used his position to put himself over more often than not (including over Sting at WrestleMania last year), which is surprising considering he has pretty much always been a heel. Now he’s champion again and on a likely collision course with Roman in a match that will somehow have no loser.
Will: Triple H’s entering 30th was perhaps the most predictable “surprise” Sunday, but that didn’t take away from the fun of the moment. Once his wrestler music — as opposed to his executive music — hit, business picked up. He and Roman Reigns had a neat little anything-you-can-do exchange, executing their respective finishing moves on relative jobbers and tossing them over the top rope. He had an enjoyable staredown with Bray Wyatt. He broke out the old “suck it” gesture after eliminating Roman. His entertainment-per-minute average was off the charts.
Derek: Speaking of Roman, he did manage to stick around until the end, albeit in what I perceived as, dare I say, heelish fashion. It was virtually a lock that Reigns wouldn’t be part of the match the entire time. The guys who enter early on never are. They get taken off on a stretcher or lie “unconscious” in the corner or simply join the commentary team. It’s all been done before. But Roman, after taking his inevitable beating from the League of Nations, was able to walk out of the match under his own power. Then he chilled in the back for 30 minutes and came back guns blazing. And this is what a good guy does? Sounds to me like something Kevin Owens or the Miz would do, not the supposedly ultra babyface Reigns.
Consequently, it came as no surprise when the crowd cheered after “heel” Triple H tossed “face” Roman from the match. Trips is already revered in Orlando because of NXT, and booting Roman just increased his legend. But at least Roman didn’t win and we weren’t subjected to all of the overcoming-the-odds talk Michael Cole no doubt had in his back pocket.
Will: Not having Roman Reigns and Triple H as the final two was essential. Reigns earned a fair bit of goodwill between last year’s Royal Rumble and this one, but the Orlando crowd did not reflect as much. He got his share of boos this year, enough so that any final Trips-Roman standoff would have garnered a reaction opposite that which WWE would presumably be seeking. Instead, Dean Ambrose worked as a Roman proxy — and showed that he has the juice to get the crowd fully behind him in a big spot. The Rumble is often a means for testing new feuds and/or seeing how a wrestler measures up to a certain spot. Based on the reactions he got, Ambrose was one of the winners of the Rumble.
Derek: The most indefensible move of the evening turned out to involve Brock Lesnar. Lesnar was tormented, and eventually eliminated, by the four members of the Wyatt Family. That was fine, I suppose. What really bothered me was how Lesnar just limped, defeated, out of the arena. I’d like to know who thought that was a good idea.
Let’s go back to SummerSlam 2014. Lesnar was challenging John Cena for the championship. Paul Heyman was at the top of his game as he verbally sparred with Cena in the buildup to the match. There was one thing Heyman said to Cena that has always stuck with me. It was something to the effect of “You may win the match, but Brock Lesnar will win the fight.”
After all of Heyman’s promos and Lesnar’s actions over the past couple of years, the point has been made that Brock likes to hurt people. That’s his thing. He doesn’t care about titles or respect as much as he cares about conquering whoever stands in his way. So what did he do when the Wyatts (most of whom had already been eliminated) stormed the ring and tossed him out? Well, nothing. He just sadly headed toward the exit while Heyman complained to the official. Why? Everything we’ve learned about Lesnar in WWE pointed to him going into a blind rage and assaulting one of them.
Remember, this is a guy who wants to hurt people and doesn’t think before he acts. He destroyed a car with axes and injured a fan when he threw the car door into the crowd. He shoved a doctor who tried to help him when he was bleeding. The man does not think things through. So while it makes logical sense that he would do nothing, as you or I wouldn’t attack those four large men with no backup, it didn’t make any sense with his character. Then he didn’t even show up on Raw to explain. He just got automatically placed into a triple threat match with Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose that the Wyatts will no doubt interfere with. Not a great 48 hours for Brock.
Will: One would hope that whenever Brock comes back, this will not be ignored. It would be easy enough for Heyman to spin this, as he didn’t want Brock in the Rumble in the first place. Throw something together about how he is focused on the title now, but a beast never forgets. The absence of both Heyman and Lesnar Monday night, however, does not inspire confidence that that’s the case. It could be swept under the rug, just another skirmish between Oceania and Eurasia erased from WWE’s Orwellian history books.
As of now it seems like the Wyatts will interfere in the Reigns-Ambrose-Lesnar match at Fastlane, putting in place at least two WrestleMania matches in the process: Triple H vs. Roman Reigns for the title, and Brock Lesnar vs. Bray Wyatt for revenge. I hope we see something more clever than that, if only so the entire month leading up to Fastlane isn’t for naught. My hopes are not high.
Derek: WWE did get a boost in the from of the long-awaited debut of AJ Styles.
Styles has bounced around promotions like TNA and New Japan Pro Wrestling for 18 years, and arguably became the highest profile wrestler to never appear with WWE after Sting joined the company. He lived up to the hype, putting on a great show with pretty much every guy he crossed paths with during the Rumble. It was easy to daydream about the possibilities, particularly an eventual feud with Seth Rollins. I was surprised to learn the match actually already happened in a high school gym 10 years ago.
Best of all, he got tossed by Kevin Owens, who also reignited his feud with Sami Zayn. If these three are headed for a triple threat match at WrestleMania … whoooooo boy. That will be the main event, no matter who ends up at the top of the card.
Will: Styles’ was a name that I had known for years, but I don’t think I even knew what the man looked like before Sunday. His debut was wrestling at its best. The timing (he was the third entrant) brought immediate gravity to the match. He spent plenty of time in Orlando with TNA, and the crowd’s familiarity with him resulted in a great pop. His music and entrance were on point. The commentary team even put him over, likening his championships in other organizations to those of Brock Lesnar. Everything about his introduction to the WWE audience worked.
Derek: As for Owens, he was arguably the MVP of the night despite losing twice. He had an excellent Last Man Standing match with Ambrose that ended like this:
It would have looked much better if WWE had a sober producer running the show. Thankfully, the camera angles were better when he limped out to take part in the Rumble …
… and when he reacted to Zayn’s return.
Will: Owens entering the Rumble kicked off a killer three-man sequence: Owens at No. 18, Ambrose at 19, and Sami Zayn at 20. Owens promptly went at AJ Styles, tossing him out of the ring with a “Welcome to WWE!” Then Ambrose came out so that he and Owens could keep their brawl going. Then Sami’s music hit.
I marked out for Owens-Zayn more than any other part of the Royal Rumble. I don’t even know the full history between these guys, but I know that they’ve been wrestling together for a long time. I know they were a tag team and that they’ve feuded. I know that, in the WWE canon, they were best friends until Owens turned on Sami in NXT, putting him on the shelf for months. It’s just great wrestling. Sami is the purest babyface you’ll find this side of Bayley, and Owens is a mean, old-fashioned heel.
As much as I’d love to see these two fast-tracked to WrestleMania, they have this feud whenever they want it. Owens can finish out his program with Ambrose, Zayn can (hopefully) get involved with someone else, and then these two can go at it in earnest.
Derek: Looking ahead, the next PPV (Fastlane) will take place in none other than Cleveland, Ohio on February 21. That means you guys will get front row seats for the triple threat match between Reigns, Ambrose, and Lesnar to see who (Reigns) will face Triple H for the title at WrestleMania. You’ll get to act surprised when the Wyatts interfere. You’ll get to see all of the cool stuff WWE apparently doesn’t want you to see. You’ll get to boo at the inevitable Johnny Manziel/David Blatt joke. I’m jealous already. Do me proud, Clevelanders.
Will: If anyone makes a David Blatt joke at a professional wrestling event, I will die happy.
7 Comments
Good breakdown of the event. I understand the reasoning behind Triple H being champ. They are doing everything to get him over. He’s got terrible mic skills and he is still getting pounded from interviews he did previously saying “i don’t care what I do as long as i get paid”. You also had to have some way to keep the “heat” on Lesnar instead of someone bouncing him out of the ring like a nobody so the gang up by the Wyatt’s made sense. I think with the 4 members of Bullet Club coming in it will make both NXT and the WWE interesting in the coming months. I just wonder how they will get Balor, Styles, Gallows and Anderson in the same stable.
Good write up, always enjoy the WWE writing. My only comment on the Rumble…
Isn’t HHH winning the strap kind of like the general manager at a McDonald’s naming himself Employee of the Month?
anybody remember the mighty igor (pictured) ? or how about killer brooks , pompeiro firpo , the sheik , bobo brazil , flying fred curry , andre the giant , tony marino , haystacks calhoun & many others ?
i remember watching BTW saturday mornings as a young lad.
Putting the strap on HHH was the best available option, unfortunately. They’re trying to sell out Jerry World and have lost so many big names to injury. The only options were putting the strap on Lesnar or HHH and we saw RR/BL at last Mania. I just hate how predictably it all went down.
Other complaints: I understand we’re suspending our disbelief, but this year’s Rumble had a few too many logical loopholes for me. If the eliminated Wyatts can come back and eliminate Lesnar, why didn’t Bray have them help him for the rest of the match? Why didn’t the League do that to Reigns? And similarly illogical: if Reigns can relax on a stretcher in the back for half the match, why doesn’t everyone do this? Yes, yes… it’s fake. But fictional worlds need some internal consistency too.
Also, I hated how Roman Reigns walked to the back. The pro-wrestling rule is: if a face can walk, he drags himself to the ring. Especially when they dramatically pull themselves off a stretcher. And in a match where you had Kevin Owens, a heel!, a guy we’re supposed to boo!, heroically limp down the aisle to compete. This kind of poor booking is why Roman has had such a hard time getting over.
Complaints aside: the Rumble was a pretty solid match on a very good show. With the new talent coming from NJPW, I’m overly excited. Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Bullet Club, Nakamura… Guys you’d never expect to see in a WWF ring. It hearkens back to the days when WWF, WCW, and ECW were all running strong and you never knew who would show up where. Hopefully, it translates to the on-screen product.
A Bullet Club lead by a demon would be sort of odd. And it’d be a shame to see Finn Balor get completely scrapped in favor of Prince Devitt. Don’t screw it up, Vince!
Well WWE registered a trademark for Balor Club so I’m guessing that is the way they will be going with it. He only does the Demon entrance for PPV’s I think. When I’ve watched NXT he is without facepaint/bodypaint unless it is a PPV.
Ah, okay. That will work. I don’t watch NXT and had assumed he always did.