Death From Above

WELL NOW THIS IS INTERESTING

It's here! I'm such a mark.

Sasha Banks is fire.

The finish was weird but otherwise this has been a good segment. The crowd is way more invested in this than in Kalisto/Del Rio.

Charlotte is so much more tolerable when she does stuff she's actually good at and not the Flair Tribute spots they had her doing there before.

There were a couple unfortunately sloppy moments there but still the story they told was sound. Del Rio might be the best natural heel in the company. I can't imagine him as a face he'd have to shelve like 75% of his material.

Wait, how long has been thrown into the crowd been referred to as "thrown into the WWE Universe"?

I love these idiots.

Goes without saying the old FMW fan in me enjoyed that.

WHAT WAS THAT I mean other than awesome

I already like this better than their last PPV match. This is a fight not a wrestling match.

Yeah you'd better get the foreign announcer shout outs in now because those tables are gone baby gone in this one.

Heath Slater > Heath Ledger. #HotTake

Mark Henry with the first point to the Wrestlemania sign of the night lol

If this crowd is any indication on the pre-show they have no excuse for not getting strong reactions tonight.

Fatal Fourway is on the pre-show now if you're only coming in to catch that.

Here's the whole thing, which I love for wrestling nerd reasons: http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/wwe-linear-championship/

If Roman drops and wins the belt again it will mark the 4th time he's been WWE linear champion, and we're just getting to his coronation. I'm not sure how damning that really is but it does bug me a bit.

Yeah I'm sort of in agreement with a combination of Grimmas and Coffey's opinions here. I think it's bad to take the belt of Roman again and I also think making him #1 is a big mistake UNLESS you are taking the belt off him, because I think having him run through 29 guys risks a big backlash, and if you wanted him to defend you'd be better off with him having a later number. It's a strange spot to put themselves in. Still, I love the Rumble, I hope I enjoy it, but I'm not sure how they get their way out of this one.

Yeah I only suggested Sting as an out-there solution for the "what does Undertaker do at Wrestlemania" white elephant really, but I don't honestly expect to see him again.

It's a real shame that Vader's WCW debut where he just squashes Z-Man appears to no longer be on Youtube because it's legit one of my favourite 5-ish minutes (with entrance) thing in wrestling.

Wild scenario that just occurred to me: Sting comes out at 30, eliminates The Undertaker to carry on his in-joke of never winning the Rumble, sets up a match 15 years too late at Wrestlemania that could be a reasonable send off for both guys. This won't happen but I wouldn't totally hate it.

Roman is tripped by a fan and falls down the stairs during his entrance, requiring medical attention. Likelihood: Extreme.

I realize this could just be wishful thinking on my part but the whole "NO HE'S NOT REALLY CLEARED AND COMING BACK" thing reminds me of the year WWE worked the whole internet about Cena's injury and then he came out at 30 and all those guys with Cena Sucks shirts forgot to boo for a few minutes.

Feels like the card is still at least one match short so I kind of expect a throwaway Divas tag match in there too. I could see them doing a thing where Brock and Triple H somehow eliminate each other, leading to a 3-way match at the next PPV, leading to Roman vs. (one or the other) at Wrestlemania. But most of my predictions have been wrong so far. Seems inevitable that Jericho runs deep in the Rumble too, unless they had him cut long promos about it for no reason whatsoever. I'm a giant mark for the concept of the Rumble match so hopefully it's a little less straightforward than it seems to be with Roman being handed #1. I actually find that pretty unnecessary and I don't really think it adds a ton to the Rumble's story UNLESS they do something really out of left field that nobody is seeing where Roman goes out much earlier than expected. But I absolutely cannot see that happening with they way they are booking him.