2011 Pro Wrestling Thread

Worst Rumble ending ever? I noticed the Santino not eliminated thing to, but I kept thinking I must have missed his real elimination because they wouldn't waste the end of the Royal Rumble on a cheap Santino joke. Those have their place, but not that late in the match.

 

Nash and Booker T were great surprise Rumble entries. Nash had a bit of a beer gut.

I feel silly for not seeing something like that coming, but Morrison doing his parkour shit was my favorite moment.

I pretty confidently stated to my wife "Out of the final five, any of them might win except for Del Rio. He's just there as the 'up-and-comer who makes a name for himself by being in it late' guy this year."

 

Well that was unexpected, but at the same time, with as much facetime as Del Rio was getting on Raw and Smackdown, once Cena went out, I thought he was the best bet. Orton's about to throw down with Punk, Barrett is rumored to match up with Taker (if he's healthy), and Del Rio's win keeps a Miz/Cena match alive at Wrestlemania.

And agree on the ending. Unless Santino's going to win it. Why waste the finish like that?

 

Viva! Del Rio!

 

No.

See: 1993 Royal Rumble (easily the worst Royal Rumble match, IMO)

 

So much for HHH coming out.


Meanwhile....the Del Rio celebration has begun...

 

A few thoughts:

1) I enjoyed the Morrison Spider-Man spot. Easily the coolest moment in this Rumble, and maybe among the best ever. If he was booked to win the thing and it was in the final stages of the match, it would be an all-timer. I hope it isn't forgotten.
Other fun moments were the Santino finish (in spite of myself, I thought they might actually roll with it) and Matt Striker saying he was "marking out" for Booker T.

2) The finish was so-so. Not so much for Del Rio winning, but just the final elimination of Orton and Barrett. Nothing spectacular for an ending like there should be there.

3) Too much time was spent in the middle of the match having Nexus run wild, especially since they only eliminated one Corre member. And then Cena runs wild and we get the same thing for another 10 minutes. If they're going to expand it to 40 guys and do that, they're better off keeping it at 30. It got to be a bit much after a while.

3) It's looking more and more like Miz is going to be champion at Wrestlemania. They can protect the main event by pitting him against Cena.
At the same time, maybe we get Del Rio-Edge in the other title match? Those matches, along with Punk-Orton, HHH-Sheamus, and Undertaker-Barrett definitely feels like a new era is dawning. I like where this is going. They did a good job of shuffling up the feuds, even if there are some unresolved issues there (Nexus-Corre, Cena-Punk).

4) God help me, but that Divas match was the best one on the card. That was actually entertaining as hell, had some memorable spots (the double sharpshooter and the moonsault), and an interesting finish with the double pinfall.

5) I kind of like the concept of fewer, but longer and better matches instead of two or three 10-minute filler matches. I think this card, at least, definitely benefited from it.

 

The guy in the bottom center of the picture looks like Mexican Ric Flair.
"El whoooooooo!!!"

 

That certainly was underwhelming.

 

I'm not a big fan of having Del Rio win the thing, but I don't hate it either.

I know it was just a Divas match, but I still can't get over the WWE actually putting the strap on Eve clean. Eve certainly did her job tonight, landing an awesome moonsault and crying as she left the ring. But she got no pop whatsoever because she's been booked like she doesn't matter for months.

 

Oh, my god, what a night.

So, some of you may have noticed I didn't post in this thread tonight like I usually do for every WWE PPV. Well, that's because I somehow ended up sitting second-row ringside... for $100.

Let me explain. I'm going about my day as I always do on a Sunday. I hit the gym at 3:30 p.m., get out around 5:30 p.m., head to my local grocery store. Around 6:30 p.m., I get a phone call from my buddy. Apparently, he'd been haggling with some guy on craigslist just for the hell of it. Guy had two seats, two rows back in the top left corner of your TV Screen. He wants $300 per. My buddy says no thanks, offers him $100 per and calls me to ask if I want to go.

I say "Yeah, right, if you can get him at $100 per, sure, why not."

I get the call 10 minutes later that the seller is seriously considering it. I rush out of the grocery store, still stinky from the gym (I had planned to go right home) and book it to his house, figuring it's about an hour drive to Boston and I'd rather take the chance then miss out.

We got the seats. They were legit. I was, obviously, very happy.

Took us about 45 minutes to get from my buddy's house to TD Bank and we made it just in time to catch the back half of the Edge-Ziggler match.

Considering I had no plans on going to Rumble, considering I got a souvenir chair and $300 seats for 1/3rd the face value and considering that I was rooting hard for Albert Del Rio, I would say this was a terrific, terrific night.

 

Great story. I missed watching the show on this screen because I had other stuff to do w/ the family.

I'm fine with Del Rio winning, although the Santino end sounds pretty weird. Unless they were going to have him win it and be this "Underdog starts kicking ass with a taste of success" (IC and tag title wins not withstanding), sounds like it was a waste of a good spot.

Del Rio will now be able to boast for the next few months about his title shot, and will become even more established.

Responding to earlier posts, I'd forgotten that Ziggler lost the IC belt (shows how much I pay attention to it), and for those wondering who the big signing by the WWE is, one of the sites was reporting Mistico, one of Mexico's top stars.