somehow i feel lucky to have not seen it now. didn't even realize he did one cuz i was away with family stuff for a few mins.

It's nice to see that actors who have no business in a wrestling ring are winning world titles again.

I'd give the Rumble a solid B. It helped a lot that I watched it with two buddies who I used to watch the Attitude Era with (one who's barely kept up since then), so there was a lot of nostalgic talk. I thought the WHC and Tag Title matches were throwaways. I thought the Rumble needs to go on last. But the Rumble itself was solid, up until Cena being SuperCena. And Punk/Rock was a great, except for Punk losing to the Ppl's Elbow (c'mon, kick out, attempt the GTS and get Rock Bottom'd at least.)

The crowd makes an event, and when half the crowd started chanting for CM Punk during the Championship match, it added a ton to it.

seemed to be more atmosphere where i was watching than at the actual venue

had to love the albert chants when albert entered, and goldberg chants when ryback entered

i still find it amusing faces won all 4 matches and the final 4 of the rumble were all faces. it's like the e's response to declining ratings was "if they cheer for every result, they'll be sure to watch now!"

Excuse me? No business in a wrestling ring?
We talking about the rock?
The same rock who shaped the attitude era?
Who gave smackdown its name?
Who is also a 3rd generation wrestler?
The same Rock who has held 17 total championships in WWE?
The one guy who is simply..."Electrifying"?

Yeah, what kinda business has this guy got in the ring, huh?

All of this is true, but the guy who did all of that and the guy who buried CM Punk last night are two different people. I would love if the Rock came back to WWE, but he didn't, Dwayne Johnson did.

After a day to reflect, I have decided to look at the positives. We got about 2 hours 15 minutes of really good stuff in the ring(including preshow Cesaro match). The LMS match was alot of fun, and the tag match was good. The rumble was very good, until the last 5 minutes.

The Super Cena part of the rumble and the over booked mess that was Rocky left a lot to be desired, but I am middle of the road on the PPV as a whole.

yeah with a little objectivity im giving the rumble ppv a B. i really loved the rumble itself, found myself weirdly bored with the tag, but liked LMS as well, thought ADR was fantastic. the main event was horrendous and embarrassing, but it was only one match.

also lol @ anyone that thought depokergod was serious, pretty sure thats someone getting their friend to level here. (altho if he was serious then wow just wow)

Rewatched the Rumble itself. In no particular order:

* Bo Dallas is AWFUL. srsly wtf. i don't care if he is Hulk Hogan and Linda McMahon's lovechild get him the **** out.

* Kofi's "stunt" was really dumb. He could have just put one leg/foot down and hopped to the apron in about two hops. Or hopped to the ring steps in probably one.

* Jericho's entrance was fantastic.

* Lil Naitch is so epic he is doing his facial expressions selling the moves even crouched down on the floor where no one can really see him.

* Goldust is working indies and Vince has historically been anti Goldust v. Cody for some reason (source: Meltzer) but they have to let this be a WM match ffs. His entrace was also amazing.

I really liked the rumble match, never care that much about results so not bothered that cena won, although would have preferred a less predictable finish.

Don't care much that rock beat punk, its not like punk won't still be having high profile story lines. Whats inexcusable though is how bad the match was. Pretty sad that we get it for the main event of wm last year, the rumble, and then again at wm this year.

Most importantly Y2J is back!

bo dallas was great in terms of getting barrett further over as a heel, which is all he was there for. i dont know anything about him beyond that

Using tpir's post as a leaping off point, my thoughts:

Bo Dallas looks like one of Omar's boyfriends on the wire, just with long hair.

Kofi's save this year was terrible. Jump from the table to the apron and I mark the **** out hard but that **** was awful. GTFO. At least walk the rail and leap to the steps.

Goldust vs Cody has to happen at some point imo. The twitter stuff, which I havent followed, and the booking of the Rumble all looks like a worked intro to a future feud.

The PPV overall was like C quality. When we are last four and I am like "wait, are they really gonna be this obvious and pick Cena" through to "oh, **** you Rock you hack no mic skill gassed out piece of **** actor" it sucked, but the first two hours or whatever was at least B+. People saying its the worst rumble of all time are forgetting a lot of ****ty rumbles.

Oh, but yeah, the duct tape was just a complete rip off from what Cena did to Batista. It was pretty dumb then, it was extra dumb now.

And that WWE title match, who booked that ****. ****ing awful ending. Commit to something one way or another, dont ride the ****ing line both sides. Also has Rock ever won with the people's elbow? And who books the end of the 15 month title reign to one standing elbow drop that was invented as a joke anyway? Rock was completed gassed at the end and outside of selling the knee Punk was completely fine. From what I remember of the ****ty Rock vs Cena match last year they did the same thing where Cena was fine all the way then took one move to lose.

How do you even book this **** going forward? Punk has beaten Cena in like four or five straight title matches, Rock beat Cena in their once in a lifetime ****tard terribleness and they are both faces and dont work well together. Like we saw the two of them wrestle last year to a completely meh 2.5 star snoozefest full of rest holds - neither have improved over the past year. It makes no sense how they can do a WM main event for the WWE title and not have Punk involved. Like no sense = you are ****ing ******ed to do it, in this context

Grading the PPV is hard because the finishes of every match KILLED them.

Action in the Rumble was above average and the surprises were decent. Last 10 minutes was brutally bad though.

Finish of the WWE title match has already been covered. I don't mind the restart since it saves me infinity tilt when they give away the end of the dusty finish for free on Raw. Booking still awful though.

Taping Big Show's feet makes almost dying off the set piece not worth it IMO.

Ultimately, even though I hate that we will have to sit through the build to Twice In A Lifetime they are following through with their plans and not trying to swerve people nonstop and that seems like a step in the right direction(?)

Finally caught up on the thread, should remember to follow it live.

We had the same problems with the sound as whoever else mentioned it. The music would be really loud and the commentary barely audible at various times through the show.

For the people that think the hate for the show is an overreaction because the results were what we all assumed they'd be, I'd point out what someone mentioned in the Undertaker discussion (not sure where or who) about the journey vs. the destination.

On one hand, yes, it's great Ziggler had the longest run, but doesn't it feel pretty hollow? There's no reason he couldn't have finished second and be remembered for it. Teasing a Cena/Ryback match-up at the end was completely unnecessary when that's not going to be in the immediate plans. Overall, I did really enjoy the Rumble until it got to the final 4 and became overly obvious Cena was going to win, and we didn't even get a decent ending spot.

I really can't even put into words how much I hated the way the Punk/Rock match went. I just don't see how this does anything positive for the WWE long-term. Even if in the short-term it does bring in some higher revenue, you can't build your company around continually bringing in "The Rock's" for 2-3 matches a year and beating your biggest superstars.

While they are functionally the same changing your mind and doing a swerve arent actually identical.

Rock vs Cena for the title with Rock beating Punk is really stupid and them following through on that stupid idea doesnt excuse it.

yeah that was confusing on my part, i meant "swerve" in "Vince trying to swerve the smarks" and always changing his mind.

i don't disagree, but them possessing the quality of being able to execute on plans is a start!

Why do people even think it'd ever be anything but Rock/Cena? It got the most buys of any WM of all-time, and it will be topped again this year with Rock/Cena 2. Rock and Cena could sit in the ring farting for the last 10 minutes of every RAW until then and it'd still do 1.4m buys, because they're over no matter what, and no one else draws at all, not even CM Punk.

it's true. and it shows how out of touch the E is and how badly they've failed that in the last decade they've been beholden to 1 constant (cena) as their draw and without him they're truly ****ed. at no point were they ever this barren

Shield kills Vince one time.

Edit: wrong thread.

Someone should gif that spinebuster from last night

Pretty much. Its also worth noting that:

1, effectively stripping Punk of the title in a really ****ty way wont increase the buys/ratings he does
2, what makes anyone think Rock vs Cena for the title will do more buys/ratings than Rock vs Cena for the nothing but bragging rights and torch passing (which they then ****ed up having Rock go over)

How did the worlds largest wrestling company be all about a guy who wrestles half a dozen times a year? Rock isnt even a wrestler in my book, he quit that **** and went to Hollywood and is now an actor. Who cant even bring solid acting skill when he returns for his quarterly huge paycheck while the work a day guys dont make enough to be "rapper rich" pretending to be rich relying on paycheck to paycheck to cover their credit card bill. That isnt even touching on how he is out of shape so he cant work a proper 20 minute match anymore and he relies on the other guy to the degree that Cena (who cant carry a match with a broomstick) and he put on a pretty bad snoozefest in their "once in a lifetime" match last year.

(not seen Raw yet, if it makes a difference to my rant)