Tommy's Royal Rumble Thoughts
Tommy's Royal Rumble Thoughts
I watched last night's Royal Rumble with my brother-in-law.
The good:
The six-man cruiserweight free-for-all was decent. A good way to start of the show. Nice pacing. Could have gone a little longer, but this is the WWE, where cruiserweight matches don't count for much in Vince's eyes. I really liked Paul London's standing dropkick into a moonsault. Paul London's being wasted in the WWE.
(BTW, the WWE was a bit wrong. A Texas Tornado match is a tag team affair. This was more of a free-for-all).
And I kinda liked the whole Ashley/Micki/Trish women's match. Trish has become one of the best in-ring story tellers in the business, and Micki/Alexis comes from on older school of training. It's good to have her in the ring with Ashley (who wasn't exactly a novice when she started, but is still green around the gills) to learn a few things from.
The bad:
The rest of the show.
Boogeyman? Puh. Leeze. We get 9 minutes of a six man cruiserweight match, but Boogeyman and JBL get 15? What the hell? I like storytelling, not theatrics. Somewhere along the line, the WWE has gotten the idea that easy storytelling = bad storytelling, and the two are indistinguishable from the other. The Boogeyman is cheap theatrics, and bad storytelling.
Speaking of bad storytelling. What's this crap with the Royal Rumble in the middle of the show? You call the show "Royal Rumble" but have the match in the middle of your show?
Lots of bad in the Rumble. It shows that you don't think much of the match if you don't have your pre-eminent announcers out there. Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler are second hat to Joey Styles and Tazz. Yet we get the second stringers. One of the things I was actually looking forward to was hearing Styles and Tazz call a match together. I haven't gotten to hear that since Tazz was just Taz and was injured in ECW, and called a couple matches with Joey before his re-debut.
They front loaded the Rumble with stars this year. If that doesn't telegraph the whole coast-to-coast thing that Rey Misterio ended up doing, I don't know what does. I mean, I didn't know that they'd let Rey win, but I figured Rey or Hunter would be there at the end of the show.
Didn't like Ric Flair getting thrown out like an afterthought. I'm not looking for a 20 minute performance, but a minute in the ring before elimination doesn't do Ric or the Intercontinental Championship any favors.
Chris Masters is going to hurt somebody. And having him in a throng of people doesn't help. He doesn't know where he is in the ring, 9 times out of 10. Mark my words, he will end somebody's career.
Tatanka? What a bunch of crap. I can't think that anybody was feeling nostalgiac at any point for Tatanka. At least he's in better shape now than when he first reappeared a couple months ago. But how does Tatanka get 12 minutes in the ring, but Ric Flair just gets 1?
Rey Misterio wins the Rumble, right? I was honestly surprised about it, given the short shrift that the cruiserweights get.
But here's my thing. I don't buy Rey Misterio. Never have. I mean, he's 5 feet tall and 110 pounds. Even against a lot of the cruiserweights, that's TINY. And against heavyweights? The first thing that pops into my mind when I think of Rey Misterio Jr is Kevin Nash and the rest of the N.W.O. flinging Rey against a transfer truck trailer like he's a lawn dart.
I don't buy Rey against Kurt Angle. Let alone Undertaker or Mark Henry, or any of the other wrestler much taller than 6'0".
Wrestling, for me, is much about suspension of disbelief. And I just can't buy a 110 pound guy out wrestling a 240 pound guy with a foot's reach advantage.
I just don't buy it. That's why I'm not looking forward to the Road to Wrestlemania with Rey running toward a title shot at the biggest show of the year.
Moving on:
I feel really sorry for Edge. Dude was being built toward main eventing, at some point between the last Wrestlemania and the next. It shows a real lack of forethought on the part of the WWE that they give Edge the "Money in the Bank" title shot at the last Wrestlemania, without having a means for him to take the title for any length of time, other than for the sake of saying "he won the title."
Losing it to John Cena last night, after having held it for 3 weeks, it doesn't elevate John Cena. It makes Edge look like an opportunisitic candy-ass. Which might be fun for a month, but it automatically weakens the entire storytelling universe you've created. Suddenly, you've got one less realistic sales and storytelling avenue, because Edge can't beat John Cena without him first having been beaten down by five other guys.
It makes Edge look like a chump.
What it does, too, is this: With Shawn Michaels locked into his story with Vince McMahon, and Kurt Angle on Smackdown now, it leaves Triple H pretty much the only viable World Title contender on Raw heading toward Wrestlemania.
Makes me wonder how much of a hand Triple H had in the booking.
I assume, of course, that Rey Misterio will use his Wrestlemania Title Shot to go after Angle, since Edge lost his World Title....
But I digress.
The worst? To close out the show with a turd like Kurt Angle vs. Mark Henry?
Kurt Angle's probably my favorite wrestler, right now. But unless he's got superpowers and a tranfer truck, there's no way to carry Mark Henry to a good match.
And Undertaker bullcrap at the end?
I gotta think Angle's winning that little feud at the next PPV.
I dunno.
Little tired of talking about that turd of a show last night.
It has to get better, right?
What a rambling post....
I watched last night's Royal Rumble with my brother-in-law.
The good:
The six-man cruiserweight free-for-all was decent. A good way to start of the show. Nice pacing. Could have gone a little longer, but this is the WWE, where cruiserweight matches don't count for much in Vince's eyes. I really liked Paul London's standing dropkick into a moonsault. Paul London's being wasted in the WWE.
(BTW, the WWE was a bit wrong. A Texas Tornado match is a tag team affair. This was more of a free-for-all).
And I kinda liked the whole Ashley/Micki/Trish women's match. Trish has become one of the best in-ring story tellers in the business, and Micki/Alexis comes from on older school of training. It's good to have her in the ring with Ashley (who wasn't exactly a novice when she started, but is still green around the gills) to learn a few things from.
The bad:
The rest of the show.
Boogeyman? Puh. Leeze. We get 9 minutes of a six man cruiserweight match, but Boogeyman and JBL get 15? What the hell? I like storytelling, not theatrics. Somewhere along the line, the WWE has gotten the idea that easy storytelling = bad storytelling, and the two are indistinguishable from the other. The Boogeyman is cheap theatrics, and bad storytelling.
Speaking of bad storytelling. What's this crap with the Royal Rumble in the middle of the show? You call the show "Royal Rumble" but have the match in the middle of your show?
Lots of bad in the Rumble. It shows that you don't think much of the match if you don't have your pre-eminent announcers out there. Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler are second hat to Joey Styles and Tazz. Yet we get the second stringers. One of the things I was actually looking forward to was hearing Styles and Tazz call a match together. I haven't gotten to hear that since Tazz was just Taz and was injured in ECW, and called a couple matches with Joey before his re-debut.
They front loaded the Rumble with stars this year. If that doesn't telegraph the whole coast-to-coast thing that Rey Misterio ended up doing, I don't know what does. I mean, I didn't know that they'd let Rey win, but I figured Rey or Hunter would be there at the end of the show.
Didn't like Ric Flair getting thrown out like an afterthought. I'm not looking for a 20 minute performance, but a minute in the ring before elimination doesn't do Ric or the Intercontinental Championship any favors.
Chris Masters is going to hurt somebody. And having him in a throng of people doesn't help. He doesn't know where he is in the ring, 9 times out of 10. Mark my words, he will end somebody's career.
Tatanka? What a bunch of crap. I can't think that anybody was feeling nostalgiac at any point for Tatanka. At least he's in better shape now than when he first reappeared a couple months ago. But how does Tatanka get 12 minutes in the ring, but Ric Flair just gets 1?
Rey Misterio wins the Rumble, right? I was honestly surprised about it, given the short shrift that the cruiserweights get.
But here's my thing. I don't buy Rey Misterio. Never have. I mean, he's 5 feet tall and 110 pounds. Even against a lot of the cruiserweights, that's TINY. And against heavyweights? The first thing that pops into my mind when I think of Rey Misterio Jr is Kevin Nash and the rest of the N.W.O. flinging Rey against a transfer truck trailer like he's a lawn dart.
I don't buy Rey against Kurt Angle. Let alone Undertaker or Mark Henry, or any of the other wrestler much taller than 6'0".
Wrestling, for me, is much about suspension of disbelief. And I just can't buy a 110 pound guy out wrestling a 240 pound guy with a foot's reach advantage.
I just don't buy it. That's why I'm not looking forward to the Road to Wrestlemania with Rey running toward a title shot at the biggest show of the year.
Moving on:
I feel really sorry for Edge. Dude was being built toward main eventing, at some point between the last Wrestlemania and the next. It shows a real lack of forethought on the part of the WWE that they give Edge the "Money in the Bank" title shot at the last Wrestlemania, without having a means for him to take the title for any length of time, other than for the sake of saying "he won the title."
Losing it to John Cena last night, after having held it for 3 weeks, it doesn't elevate John Cena. It makes Edge look like an opportunisitic candy-ass. Which might be fun for a month, but it automatically weakens the entire storytelling universe you've created. Suddenly, you've got one less realistic sales and storytelling avenue, because Edge can't beat John Cena without him first having been beaten down by five other guys.
It makes Edge look like a chump.
What it does, too, is this: With Shawn Michaels locked into his story with Vince McMahon, and Kurt Angle on Smackdown now, it leaves Triple H pretty much the only viable World Title contender on Raw heading toward Wrestlemania.
Makes me wonder how much of a hand Triple H had in the booking.
I assume, of course, that Rey Misterio will use his Wrestlemania Title Shot to go after Angle, since Edge lost his World Title....
But I digress.
The worst? To close out the show with a turd like Kurt Angle vs. Mark Henry?
Kurt Angle's probably my favorite wrestler, right now. But unless he's got superpowers and a tranfer truck, there's no way to carry Mark Henry to a good match.
And Undertaker bullcrap at the end?
I gotta think Angle's winning that little feud at the next PPV.
I dunno.
Little tired of talking about that turd of a show last night.
It has to get better, right?
What a rambling post....
posted by Tommy at
12:10
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