Jamie Noble was the agent for the RR match, and they didn't have the guys in the ring putting it together until 6PM last night so he is getting blamed.

It wasn't a bad rumble by any means. There were a lot of fun/good moments, more so than in most years, I'd say. The crowd was going to shit on anything that wasn't what they wanted.

 

Actually, my biggest problem was the end. Reigns hits the spear, and then when he goes to throw Batista out, Batista just reverses the throw out. That was kind of goofy.

An easy solution would be to have Batista vs Orton vs Bryan at WM; have Lesnar come in and take Batista out, and that sets up a mega feud through to the summer if Brock is staying around. Daniel Bryan gets the huge win, the crowd goes home happy.

 

Having said that, they might be planning to run Brock vs Batista at Mania anyway with Brock beating Orton at Elimination Chamber. Not sure where that would leave Orton for the big event, maybe opening with Sheamus or Ziggler.

 

And not sure how Jamie Noble is to blame for anything. The match was put together just fine, other than the absurd, deflating CM Punk elimination. The crowd shit on it because of the booking, and because the most exciting, over guy in the company was left out. Last night was almost a confirmation that all the Daniel Bryan stuff is going nowhere; people still held out the hope that it was all leading to the huge WM XXX payoff, and when it became clear that wasn't happening the crowd turned.

An easy solution would be to have Batista vs Orton vs Bryan at WM; have Lesnar come in and take Batista out, and that sets up a mega feud through to the summer if Brock is staying around. Daniel Bryan gets the huge win, the crowd goes home happy.

 

Having said that, they might be planning to run Brock vs Batista at Mania anyway with Brock beating Orton at Elimination Chamber. Not sure where that would leave Orton for the big event, maybe opening with Sheamus or Ziggler.

 

And not sure how Jamie Noble is to blame for anything. The match was put together just fine, other than the absurd, deflating CM Punk elimination. The crowd shit on it because of the booking, and because the most exciting, over guy in the company was left out. Last night was almost a confirmation that all the Daniel Bryan stuff is going nowhere; people still held out the hope that it was all leading to the huge WM XXX payoff, and when it became clear that wasn't happening the crowd turned.

Noble was blamed for the timing issues. Doors didn't open until something like 20 minutes before the pre-show, maybe less. It's usually advertised as more like 45 minutes.

The biggest let-down of this whole thing was Punk's Rumble performance. I was expecting '92 Flair and instead he had a few high spots and got eliminated by someone who was already out of the match.

For what it's worth, Bryan Alvarez said on the live Figure 4 Daily call in show that people in WWE told him that they're sure people would have thrown trash at the ring if they were in the "right" city like Philadelphia. So it's a legit concern internally.

The only real way you are going to see real change is if the live attendance starts tanking.....if people boo like hell and still keep going when they come back to their town then it doesn't matter.

Holy shit. WWF just got their Great American Bash 91. Amazing to watch.

 

Yeah, Punk got to shine early, but was rather quickly forgotten, had a comedy spot with a midget right in the middle of the match and got eliminated Giant Gonzalez style by motherfucking KANE. In 2014. K-A-N-E.

 

No one is over. Ok, Sheamus got a pop, so did Roman Reigns. But outside of these two, no one got any reaction coming in. The quiet music of the Wyatts demonstrated how no one gave a shit about them, they had no heat despite doing a number on Cena earlier. Del Rio is downright embarrassing when he's doing all kind of "intense" faces and body movement trying to get some kind of reaction and getting zilch.

 

They should only bring Kingston once a year, because apparently doing a yearly cute acrobatic spot in the Rumble is the only role he has in the company.

 

Rusef had quite the debut, eliminating... no one.

 

As soon as I heard Mysterio's music, I felt for the guy. They sent him to the slaughter. Gotta admit I got a huge kick out of the entire crowd shitting hard on the 619. Still, that was brutal.

 

So yeah. Orton wins the title. Batista wins the Rumble. What an horrible, dull, straight from the mid/late 00's main event for WM 30.

 

The crowd was hilarious. In the old days, they would have rioted.

 

I feel for anyone who's invested a cent or any emotion on WWE's product.

 

And yeah, the notion of adult Dewey is making me feel old, but his post is quite funny. "My dad made your ass". Post modern wrestling. I love how they are blaming the fucking agent for this debacle.

For what it's worth, Bryan Alvarez said on the live Figure 4 Daily call in show that people in WWE told him that they're sure people would have thrown trash at the ring if they were in the "right" city like Philadelphia. So it's a legit concern internally.

Imagine if they did that at MSG?

If they are going to book Bryan vs. Sheamus at Wrestlemania, why they didn't let Bryan enter and eliminate Sheamus in/under 18 seconds.

Then Sheamus re-enters hits him with a chair throws him out, then they brawl into the crowd for the next 5 minutes . If they do a hot enough brawl it would distract the crowd that he was gone, put heat on Sheamus and set up the Wrestlemania match.

18 sec vs. 18 sec feud,

That would make Bryan look better. I would not be shocked if they book Bryan to lose to Sheamus faster this year, and then just send him crashing down to the lower card ala Zach Ryder.

 

Do not dare defy the almighty Vince.

 

In all honesty this made me decide to not get the network. I'll be darned if Vince gets another dime of my money until he starts listening to his audience. Youtube and dailymotion can suffice.

The only real way you are going to see real change is if the live attendance starts tanking.....if people boo like hell and still keep going when they come back to their town then it doesn't matter.

Yep, if there's no appreciable impact on business then there's no reason to change course.

In theory, wouldn't dead/hostile crowds have an impact on the channel changers who flip past RAW? Also, isn't the aura of your main eventers - and thus their drawing power - hurt over time when someone else's name is being chanted during their segments? Just throwing the question out there. I don't know the answer.

It is the question. Let's say it has no tangible impact on bottom line results, but does result in sustained, uncontrollable and contradictory crowds that make for an awkward television product. Can they stomach that if the dollars and cents are still there? I can't begin to speculate what the answer to that is or the answer to if or when this impacts business. But it'll be interesting to watch.

Massively hurt Loss. You didn't hear any Austin chants during say Undertaker-Kane at WM XIV. Why? Because the fans knew they were getting what they wanted.

 

At this point they pretty much either bite the bullet and make Bryan the guy now (which won't happen) or flush away yet another chance to escape the predictable mediocrity of the past decade.

I also don't understand the difference in fan response and drawing power. If Batista has so many fans, why don't they cheer him loudly in the buildings?

I don't think Batista has many fans. But they announced his return, first one since Brock (and that was a shock to the general public) so it was a "hey let's check this out" moment for the fans.

 

If they announced a week in advance Bryan vs. Orton Title match no DQ if Bryan loses he's fired the ratings next week would be a hell of a lot higher than Batista's return IMO.

I also don't understand the difference in fan response and drawing power. If Batista has so many fans, why don't they cheer him loudly in the buildings?

Cena has been booed for the last 8 years. Didn't affect his standing on top as the main face in the company. I don't see why crowd reaction would change their plans now if it hasn't in the past.

This show was a series of errors that compounded to make a giant clusterfuck.

 

First Batista - the intended "big surprise" of the Rumble - was revealed early. I think this is being undersold significantly. By no means am I saying that the crowd would have responded precisely as the WWE wanted them to if Batista had been a surprise entrant/winner, but there is no way in hell the response would have been nearly as bad as it was.

 

Then Bryan works a great match in the opener and looses clean to Wyatt. The opener is supposed to fire a crowd up, instead this cooled - if not killed - this one off. This was made even worse by the world title match, and especially the post-match where Bray kick started his feud with Cena, effectively indicating that Bryan was just a stepping stone for him and that he's already definitively won that feud.

 

Then the Rumble, which I honestly thought was pretty bad. Unless you count Sheamus, there was no other "surprise" of note in the Rumble. This included no "feel good" vet like they have done in the past, unless you count Nash, which is really stretching the definition of "feel good." They decided to call up an NXT guy, and instead of Zayn - who likely would have gotten a very good reaction, and might have taken some of the "where the fuck is DB" non-heat the match suffered from down a peg - it is Rusev (who I like, but is not even close to the same thing). Then they decide to throw the comedy in the back third of the match which felt really forced, and almost seemed like a pathetic attempt to get the crowd chuckling before they took their fucking.

 

The whole thing was a comedy of errors.

I also don't understand the difference in fan response and drawing power. If Batista has so many fans, why don't they cheer him loudly in the buildings?

Cena has been booed for the last 8 years. Didn't affect his standing on top as the main face in the company. I don't see why crowd reaction would change their plans now if it hasn't in the past.

 

We've had time to decipher the reaction Cena gets, why he gets it and what it means, along with why it's not really a bad thing. Batista's appeal isn't the same as Cena's, so that's why I'm asking the questions I'm asking - so we can figure that out as well.

And although Pittsburgh may not be a top smark town they still have some smart fans and if this show took place somewhere a little more southern or even western it could've been different.

 

Like I said earlier the fans were hot for Dolph Ziggler and there are a lot of towns that don't pop for him like the northern cities. Also a ton of fans were Fandangoing as well and that's been pretty dead for months.

It's funny because Vince changed the entire direction of what was supposed to be the biggest angle in wrestling history (the Invasion) 13 years ago for the exact same reasons that we saw toward the planned direction last night.

I'm sure Vince also had a feeling in the back of his mind that he wanted the WCW thing to fail so he could show everyone that WWE was better even though they bought out the company.

 

When Vince gets the reaction he really wants he'll act on it....in their heart of hearts they probably hate that Bryan gets the reaction he does.

It does make me wonder though if they rework Mania to bring Bryan back into the Authority angle with Punk with some type of shooty promo tonight.

I also don't understand the difference in fan response and drawing power. If Batista has so many fans, why don't they cheer him loudly in the buildings?

Cena has been booed for the last 8 years. Didn't affect his standing on top as the main face in the company. I don't see why crowd reaction would change their plans now if it hasn't in the past.

 

We've had time to decipher the reaction Cena gets, why he gets it and what it means, along with why it's not really a bad thing. Batista's appeal isn't the same as Cena's, so that's why I'm asking the questions I'm asking - so we can figure that out as well.

 

I guess I still miss the point of how the company's #1 babyface getting routinely booed is a good thing. If it were me, I'd be trying like crazy to find someone new who can appeal to most segments of the audience.

I'm sure WWE feels the same way. The problem is that they haven't found that person, or at least haven't found that person that moves numbers better than Cena *and* fits their preconceived notions of what a star should look and perform like.