2015 Pro Wrestling Thread

No, there isn't. It's been replaced by Fastlane.

 

Here's the thing I don't understand. Why dump Bryan so early if he's not going to win ... without properly setting something else up for him for Mania?
I have no problem with Bryan not winning Rumble but the way he was eliminated is what turned me (and the RR crowd) off so much. He's just thrown out because, well, he was thrown out.
I'm not sure who he'll be battling at Mania but whomever it is should have been there last night to cost him. And if that's not the case, then you leave him in until the end, let him and Reigns go at it for 10 minutes by themselves and then you get Reigns over by having him cheat to win.
I think a lot of the problem with the way Reigns is being booked is he's being groomed like Cena 2.0 without having the required charisma to draw half the crowd in.
I've got no problem with Reigns but he simply isn't capable of pulling this angle off in his current state.
The only way they save this is by embracing the completely predictable reaction the crowds will have and pitt Lesnar as the face and Reigns as the heel but, even then, I don't know if that helps.

 

Apparently, WWE's servers were crashed by a deluge of people wanting to cancel their Network subscriptions immediately following the Rumble:

WWE: #CancelWWENetwork Trends Globally After Royal Rumble

I don't mind Roman Reigns at all, but I do agree that if Daniel Bryan wasn't going to win the whole thing, it would've been best to keep him on the shelf entirely until after it was over.

Right now, you have the top four matches at Mania pretty much set (Reigns-Lesnar, Cena-Rusev, Sting-HHH, and the rumored Undertaker-Wyatt), and your top star is on the outside looking in.

 

Takers not capable of it, but it would've been so amazing if he returned and won the Rumble. After a year of Lesnar domination, they need a rematch or he needs to stay retired. I can't buy the idea of an Undertaker character saying to himself "Brock's way too tough for me, cmon Bray let's do this." Makes no sense.

 

Yeah, I don't really get it either, but it's been rumored for a while. Of course, I don't "get" Bray Wyatt, either. He's always fallen flat to me.

If it's not vs. Sting, Taker should just stay retired at this point, unless he wants to put Seth Rollins over.

 

Watching the news, they're considering driving bans for tonight in the Northeast. That could mean an empty arena for Raw. The wrestlers were told to drive to Hartford last night, so they had a late night of getting in around 4 or 5 a.m. Smackdown is scheduled for Boston for Tuesday, which' ll definitely get shoved back. Celtics don't play at home until Friday and the Bruins not until Saturday.

Well, if it's an empty arena, at least Reigns won't get booed.

 

Couple of interesting news items from WWE's web site:

1) Justin Gabriel has been given his release. Another Nexus member bites the dust. Damn shame, too. The guy had some talent and should've developed into an entertaining mid-carder/IC champion type. Not sure what happened to make him fall off the face of the Earth.

2) Arnold Schwarzenegger is the second member of this year's Hall of Fame class.

 

I see that ... now.
That kind of sucks. Elimination Chamber could be an awkward duck right between the Rumble and Mania, but it was also a useful booking tool and a fun match. Much better than generic PPV No. 3.

 

One other thing that bugs me. After Lesnar won, Cole yelled out that he will be defending the title at WM. I guess that means he's not defending it at the PPV, or Cole misspoke/fed the wrong line. Either way, I hate it that they don't keep up the illusion that he won't lose the title at a house show in Fargo.

 

The annoying thing about the booking of the Rumble match is the fact that there was little to no suspense about the winner. I know all of the dirt sheets have been reporting Reigns as the winner for months, but once Bryan got dumped, there were no other guys that legitimately made me suspend disbelief.

They booked the match to protect Reigns so hard it made him look really bad. They had all of the other fan favorites dumped in away to try to avoid ANY heat on Reigns. I mean, like I have seen other people say, a 2nd grader would have known Big Show and Kane were not going to main event 'Mania. I know Rusev was officially the last man eliminated, but he was an afterthought.

It's like they knew the crowd would shit on the match, pulled out the stops to prevent booing, but the fans are too smart to be told what to do these days. 20 years ago, this match would have worked. In kayfabe, it should have worked. Unless you're in mid-America, we're in a post kayfabe world.

That's why the fans revolted so hard, IMO.

 

WWE pulls a scheduling shuffle.
Raw tonight in Hartford is canceled, but Hartford will instead host a live Smackdown on Thursday.
Tuesday's Boston Smackdown is also canceled and seemingly won't be rescheduled. Fans are being given the option of refunds or exchanging their tickets for a live event in June.
Finally, tonight's Raw will be live from WWE headquarters in Stamford. So is it a live clip show? Do they have a ring and a studio there? A live recap of the Rumble? It's unclear. Maybe they can have three hours of Brock Lesnar suplexing unsuspecting office workers, picking them off Predator style in the hallways.

 

The way they booked the match, Reigns also looked like chump or an afterthought for most of it. In 2014, he had a tremendous run with the 12 eliminations and a robust 34 minutes in the ring. He looked great. Had he won last year, fans could have at least accepted it because 1) he wasn't Batista; and 2) he'd earned it by being the beast of that match.
This year he somehow had six eliminations and lasted almost 30 minutes, but made no impression whatsoever. On top of the heat he already had as the chosen one, he didn't really do anything in the match itself to make people get behind him. If you combine his 2014 performance with this year's result, I think the reaction is a lot different.
Of course, there's also the very real possibility that that crowd -- and fans in general -- would have shit on any winner not named Daniel Bryan. Stone Cold himself could teleported in from 1998, went from No. 1 to No. 30 and won, and fans would be pissed that they let the old-timer win.