Royal Rumble XXXVI - 1/28/2022

[Lawful Metal]

Oh yeah -- no backstage stuff made it to the arena, so still totally in the dark about what happened to Rey.  Technically, Cody only outlasted 28 other men.  Rey (or a replacement) is still out there!  The match is still going on!  Lawful Jr. also noticed that when Cody left, he went through the middle ropes.  He knows!

[Dolfan in NYC]

I wanna say Shinsuke has a bum shoulder.  But I could be wrong.

Rey never coming out was followed by Dom holding his mask and trying to rip it up.  But since it's Dom, he was just stupidly struggling with it the whole way down to the ring. (A rare case where a botch works perfectly for the character.)   

They never actually showed what happened, but the strong implication is Dom and J.Day took him out.  

[Raziel]

They're not splitting the titles, as split titles cheapens someone finally taking the Universal at least and ending Roman's 5th longest reign of all time.

 

But it's lucky Roman actually has a second streak active to break and that can actually be done without giving up a belt.  Roman hasn't been pinned since December 2019 (a fact Cole brought up a few times last night).  You can satisfy both stories without splitting the belts.  Sami pins Roman in a tag match and ends that streak, then Cody wins the belts at Mania.  Sami doesn't need the belt to "win" the feud.  He just needs to break either of Roman's streaks and prove he's beatable.

[Lawful Metal]

11 minutes ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

Rey never coming out was followed by Dom holding his mask and trying to rip it up.  But since it's Dom, he was just stupidly struggling with it the whole way down to the ring. (A rare case where a botch works perfectly for the character.)   

They never actually showed what happened, but the strong implication is Dom and J.Day took him out.  

Dominick should come out dressed as Rey and have Judgment Day beat down Cody and throw him over the top and declare himself the winner of the rumble since he ("Rey") was never eliminated

[Shadow]

Gotta give a lot of love to KO for selling that ass beating. When KO got thrown into the stairs twice, that's the first move that's made me cringe in a long time. KO more than earned his paycheck.

The Bloodline story: *chef's kiss*

[HarryArchieGus]

11 hours ago, HumanChessgame said:

This may be an unpopular opinion around here, but The Bloodline is way past its sell-by date. I like all the members as far as in-ring work goes and Sami's antics are good for a chuckle, but their interminably long entrance and the same promos every week have long since gotten old. 

Further potentially unpopular opinion, but a strategy, one should only watch WWE on tape delay with a FFWD button close. I completely agree on the long entrances, etc. The Rumble in particular worked a lot better skimming those guys to the ring. That was a long ass entrance way.

10 hours ago, Infinit said:

Whoever thought that the best way to get Cody over as a babyface ace was by letting him come in at 30 and eliminate a heel who drew number 1 and wrestle 80+ minutes should be fired immediately. 

Absolutely. I wonder if Codmeister General might run into some further hurdles inadvertent, possibly political. I don't wish any ill will, I dig the American Nightmare, but I really look forward to the return of the Elite boobirds and the ultra Cody Weird Heat!

Rumble was fun tho. I'm sorta new to WWE since the regime change, but anybody else find it kinda shitty how McIntyre and Sheamus go from total asskickers to Brock fodder? McIntyre would be better served not filling the post-IC run Tito Santana role. Dropping the silly sword and some of the trad scot bullshit might be good too. Loved seeing Lashley toss Lezzy. Really neat high spot between Paul and Riccochet. I wonder what a match between the two would look like? I also dug that momentary Gable-Woods grapple. I would've liked more. WALTERGUNTHER is fantastic. Neat to see Booker T and even better seeing him act like a moron and get tossed. It goes nicely with the constant stream of headlines I read of modern day Booker's dumb hottakes. Man, Cody is one of the clumsiest-looking yet still fun wrestlers going. His need for atheletic maneuvers he can only barely do is, umm, cute. Loved seeing Walter beat the fuck out of him, tho I felt a tinge of worry. 

2 hours ago, For Great Justice said:

Last thought from me is that I thought the announce team really stood out last night. Cole and Pat are the best in the company since JR/Heyman and Graves was great in his role of reminding the viewer of long term continuity while toning down the overt heelishness. They really ran the full gamut from high comedy to serious drama and nailed it.

Shit for large parts of this show they were basically Excalibur and Taz on Dark. Cole’s continuous shitting on Top Dolla is just tremendous.

What!? No, the first part, they were really great! WWE commentary is generally pretty excellent (Kevin Patrick excluded). To each their own on the needlessly distracting Excalibur-Taz mild-comedy hour. 

10 hours ago, DreamBroken said:

The persistent idea of Sami actually beating Roman is about as ludicrous as the constant takes of him winning the Rumble were. The pop for the chair shot was nice, but personally thought it was absolutely stupid why he would randomly hit Roman after all this time for no real reason. Could've walked away like Jey did later, like now after WarGames and everything else, this is suddenly too much.

Absofuckinglutely. Like, trying to break Owens goddamn neck with the chair wrapped around it wasn't enough? I dunno, I ended up liking it because Zayn is great, the crowd was molten, and one clearly ought to restrict their better senses while watching a WWE show, but I totally agree. 

Edited January 29, 2023 by HarryArchieGus

[Cobra Commander]

By this point, whatever way that Roman loses the title will seem underwhelming to someone but…

Would it be too cheap to have Roman lose the title in an Elimination Chamber match? Maybe to somehow outside the orbit of his current angle? Meaning that Roman/Sami could clash in one way or another without having Roman/Cody on the other day.

[The Natural]

Keep replaying the show closing Bloodline angle. That was fucking fantastic. The Bloodline story is one of the best I've seen in all my years watching wrestling which started at five years old.

Edited January 29, 2023 by The Natural

[peterien]

I saw it on TikTok but there’s a great video of the announce team reacting silently to the ‘Fuck You Roman’ chants and it’s just another example of how over that whole angle really is. 

[Matt D]

Since they’re cowards, the way to go is Sami going nuts on Reigns in the Chamber and Brock winning. Cody vs Brock and Sami vs Reigns (no belt) at Mania.

[Curt McGirt]

I can't wait until Botchamania -- somebody post photos of all the crapulousness of the MOUNTAIN DEW PITCH BLACK (TM) match.

EDIT: Well I guess Raw is tomorrow night and Botchamania is probably tomorrow too but still... pics or it didn't happen

Edited January 29, 2023 by Curt McGirt

[EVA]

Lesnar worked the same amount of time as Angelo Dawkins.

Would love to compare their hourly pay stubs.

Edited January 29, 2023 by EVA

[The Natural]

Nuclear NSFW heat.

[The Natural]

[NoFistsJustFlips]

I dont know. There's a million ways to go with this. But what I think makes the most sense with the way they tend to book is this. They make Reigns defend the titles separately each night of Mania. They've already kind of started plating the seeds for this with The Usos defending the tags separately. Night 1 he defends the Universal against Sami. The match everyone wants. But Reigns retains. People won't be happy about it. But that's not that important long term. Night 2 he defends the WWE Title against Cody. Cody wins.

You get that big WM babyface win. Cody gets the rub of being the first one to pin Reigns in 5 years. He gets the title he's been talking about in promos. That story gets a happy ending. But Reigns' giant Universal Title reign continues since he retained against Sami. He still has another rub to give to the person who takes that title from him. Kind of getting to play both sides with the booking. I almost see Reigns holding The Universal Title for another year or two. He won't be Bruno's or Backlund's records, but I think he ends up third place ahead of Pedro & Hogan.

[Coach]

I absolutely loved the Rumble matches. Being able to chat back and forth with friends helped that.
 

Gunther might be my new favorite wrestler at least for modern time. Give the man his roses he looked amazing. 
 

The 1997 Video Arcade match Brought To You by Mountain Dew Pitch Black made me want to listen to Warp Brothers on repeat. Nothing offensively bad but underwhelming. 

The women's title had a foregone conclusion feel to it. 

Women's rumble delivered and I dig Rhea getting the win. 

Reigns as King Dickhead is fantastic and Zayn's chairshot made me pop at home. Sometimes the beauty of pro wrestling is beyond the obvious conclusion, but how they execute it. Loved everything about this. 

Possible Mania Card: 

Reigns vs Rhodes Night 1 (Cody loses)

Reigns vs Zayn Night 2 (Zayn gets an all time babyface underdog win)

Rollins vs Logan Paul 

Gunther vs Lesnar 

Sheamus/Mcintyre vs Usos 

KO vs Solo 

[Doc Townsend]

2 hours ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

I wanna say Shinsuke has a bum shoulder.  But I could be wrong.

He worked house shows last week, fwiw.

Personally, I don’t believe that Riddle is injured.  Rehab or simply suspended seem more likely to me.

Probably not a good sign for Jonah Rook that they left him out of the Rumble.  Even worse sign is that he’s just come back to the company and I’ve already forgotten his WWE name.

Cole was still shitting on Top Dollar last night.  Lol, the way the keep going back to that makes me think it’s about more than a botched dive.  

[Greggulator]

The Bloodline stuff is some of the best storytelling in wrestling history. Everything is more compelling by the week. It ties in two years of storytelling and even to the early days of NXT considering Sami and KO’s friendship. 

It really is the best thing on television at the moment. It is one of those things where wrestling really shows itself as art and is doing so without wearing that on its sleeve.

The catharsis of the moment is not going to be Sami beating Roman. The moment is going to be Jey returning to his place under Roman’s thumb (under the guise of family) and KO returning to rescue Sami after he forgives his best friend. And I think that is a lot better and intricate than Sami beating Roman.

[For Great Justice]

A lot of the future direction and when the right time is to move the title may depend on how many more years Roman has in him in this spot (doesn't look like its nearing that point any time soon), but to me Sami feels like the first person in this three year run where you go "yeah, I can see it ending this way". If they don't do it, I understand it, but it feels like a viable option.

Brock didn't feel like that as a challenger, and to me Cody doesn't feel like that either. "Guy coming back from injury and back to WWE to win it all for his dad" is good and all, but doesn't to me have the personal issue gravitas required to go through with all the Wrestlemania main event title change bells and whistles of a 3 year title run ending.

Edited January 29, 2023 by For Great Justice

[TheVileOne]

WWE has pretty much booked themselves into a corner now with this Cody Rhodes situation. 

The treason Batista worked is because they built up the endgame of Batista breaking off from Evolution and fighting Triple H.

They clearly aren't going to pull the trigger on Sami Zayn being that guy. So what is the point of this feud and storyline even? What are you going to ultimately do with Sami Zayn here if he's not going to face Roman Reigns at WrestleMania?

[TheVileOne]

17 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

The Bloodline stuff is some of the best storytelling in wrestling history. Everything is more compelling by the week. It ties in two years of storytelling and even to the early days of NXT considering Sami and KO’s friendship. 

It really is the best thing on television at the moment. It is one of those things where wrestling really shows itself as art and is doing so without wearing that on its sleeve.

The catharsis of the moment is not going to be Sami beating Roman. The moment is going to be Jey returning to his place under Roman’s thumb (under the guise of family) and KO returning to rescue Sami after he forgives his best friend. And I think that is a lot better and intricate than Sami beating Roman.

It's compelling but where are they going with it? The Bray Wyatt stuff was compelling too for a while. Now it's become utter nonsense.

[peterien]

The main problem for me (in a kinda kayfabeish way) with Cody being the one to dethrone Roman is that he doesn’t deserve it, he was away for x number of years, came back had about 5 matches and was gone again and now he’s the one to end Romans 2.5 year run? No. Sami is the one that makes most sense right at this moment. 

Business wise- absolutely Cody is the right choice now (merch sales, crowd reaction etc.) and there’s only so much more juice left in the Bloodline story but I just don’t think Cody is the long term top guy. 

[Greggulator]

30 minutes ago, TheVileOne said:

It's compelling but where are they going with it? The Bray Wyatt stuff was compelling too for a while. Now it's become utter nonsense.

That’s the point of being compelling. Would anyone have thought that when Sami first approached The Bloodline with his services it would end the Royal Rumble in this fashion? 

[Pete]

5 hours ago, peterien said:

Came here to post this, this is the way I see it happening. Some sort of street fight in Montreal and then the title matches at WM. Replace Jay with Cody for the 6 man maybe? 

Putting Cody in the same zip code as Sami at EC, much less the same ring, would be the worst booking choice since WCW decided to go all in on Master P. He will be embarrassed to a biblical degree.

[NoFistsJustFlips]

50 minutes ago, TheVileOne said:

They clearly aren't going to pull the trigger on Sami Zayn being that guy. So what is the point of this feud and storyline even? What are you going to ultimately do with Sami Zayn here if he's not going to face Roman Reigns at WrestleMania?

I tend to agree that they won't pull the trigger on Sami. But the bolded part, does every single storyline or feud have to end with the good guy winning? The point of the story & feud is compelling TV. Thy hv a billion hours of TV a week. Having something compelling that pretty much everyone agrees is a lot of fun to see unfolding is the point. There's a number of ways to go with it. But not every story has to have the same destination for it to be considered a successful journey.