WWE Thread

[jncuse]

Despite the above, I think WWE product might become better as a private entity rather than being owned and managed by a public media company seeking content.

But as a private entity we likely still have Vince (and of course potentially Saudi), while Vince is gone if bought by a public media company. So its hard to make a call here who is the best acquiree.

 

[OrangeDW]

I can’t believe these shows are still 3 hours. It’s just too long. I was highly into it for an hour. Probably because they barely went to commercial, if at all, helped. This is dragging and nothing but commercials now.

You don’t need a PPV length show every week. Wrap it up at 2 hours.

 

[jncuse]

I can’t believe these shows are still 3 hours. It’s just too long. I was highly into it for an hour. Probably because they barely went to commercial, if at all, helped. This is dragging and nothing but commercials now.

You don’t need a PPV length show every week. Wrap it up at 2 hours.

That's why I can deal with Smackdown -- in 2 hours have 2 good matches and one good talking segment and the other things won't drag too bad.

3 hours is a lot too ask under the WWE model. But it comes down to ratings and what USA Network wants.

 

[OrangeDW]

Like just now - guy blasts Lashley with a fire extinguisher spray to the face and then throws him into the steps…..perfect time to go to commercial! Guess that isn’t going to finish things!

Lol.

 

[jncuse]

So with Rock out of the way, I'm predicting the WWE is going to start its path to de-unifying the WWE title at the Rumble... with a somewhat lame desision to have a "tie" to end the Royal Rumble, and the decision is to give both people a title shot. A bit of lazy booking in the words of Jim Cornette.

Cody Rhodes wins and fights for the RAW version of the title on Wrestlemania Sunday (and wins)
Either Sami Zayn or Sheamus wins for the Smackdown version of the title on Wrestlemania Saturday (and lose).

Or perhaps they even go with a simpler way to de-unify the titles and say Cody can only choose to go after one. Which after all this time would also seem lame, but it is an easy way out.

Sheamus is a bit out of the box, but he has had a very good last two years (better than anything he did between say 2015-2019) and you could probably built up a compelling story as he gets his shining moment for his work he has done recently. It will allow for the Reigns match not to be the main event on both nights.

I suspect they want to do Roman-Sami Zayn at Elimination Chamber in Montreal, and Sami gets screwed... they can then go back to Roman-Sami for a couple PPV's after Wrestlemania. Or I suppose with Rock out of the way they can now do Roman-Sami at Wrestlemania.

Just my guess.

 

[jncuse]

Hopefully with Brock Lesnar back they set up Lashley-Lesnar 3 at Mania.

The last thing we need is Lesnar-Reigns again for the 4th time I think at WM. Keep their last match as the one from SummerSlam as it ends the series on a high note.

 

[cusefan88]

What's the prediction for Sami Zayn? Is he turning face tonight?

 

[jncuse]

What's the prediction for Sami Zayn? Is he turning face tonight?

I still think it’s left a bit inconclusive after tonight.

At one point I thought the conclusion would be at the next PPV in February in Montreal.

But this has now gotten so big that the zenith of the storyline coupd headline one of the 2 nights of Wrestlemania.

I still have Cody winning the rumble tonight and winning a heavyweight title at WM39.

But I think the WWE will find a way to de-unify the titles before WM. So on one night you will have Roman-Sami and the other night you will have Cody against Roman or somebody else for the other title.

 

[jncuse]

Perhaps you use Eliminatin Chamber in Montreal to determine Reigns opponent for one of the titles at WM. Which of course would be Zayn.

 

[cusefan88]

I don't watch too frequently now (Attitude Era child) but the bloodline/Sami stuff has got me. Will try and catch a lot of the Rumble tonight

 

[OrangeDW]

I can’t believe they’re running back all this Wyatt stuff, even with Alexa Bliss. Ridiculous. This stuff is so dumb.

This show sucks. I only care about the Bloodline stuff. I couldn’t care less about anything else happening.

 

[jncuse]

Still 30 minutes behind -- Bray Wyatt was very divisive before, and I can't see how he is any less divisive now.

Put my on team I don't care for Wyatt, before he left and still now. I gave the character a chance when he came back but it was just the same old crap.

 

[jncuse]

I'm 30 minutes behind, but the only great moment so far tonight was the Paul-Riccochet collision.

The Men's Rumble match was OK, but certainly not above average Rumble by any means. There was nothing bad about it, but nothing great either. At least it was a fair bit better than last year which was a total disaster.

 

[jncuse]

Meltzer thought it was a really good rumble.

I was watching on an and off, but I didn't see it at that level -- its difficult to achieve with the level of characters right now and no major surprises.

 

[jordville]

I'm 30 minutes behind, but the only great moment so far tonight was the Paul-Riccochet collision.

The Men's Rumble match was OK, but certainly not above average Rumble by any means. There was nothing bad about it, but nothing great either. At least it was a fair bit better than last year which was a total disaster.

That spot was absolutely nuts. Never seen a midair collision like that one before.

There were some good rumors floating around about surprise entrants, but we only had like 3 surprises... Booker T, Logan Paul, and Edge.

I figured Cody would win it too. No Brainer. Gunther lasting from the #1 spot was impressive.

I was surprised they went with the men's RR first. I thought they might do the Roman/KO match earlier.. have KO win the strap... and then have Roman enter (taking Sami's spot) and win the Rumble.

Something big has to go down to close the night... we'll see.

 

[jncuse]

Still don't understand why they felt the need to announce Cody Rhodes in advance.

The only reason I could see justifying it was if there was another major surprise character in the match, and you didn't want two big surprises countering each other. And there was not.

 

[jncuse]

I'm now 27 minutes behind, but will they have both #1's go all the way to the end tonight (Gunther and Rhea).

 

[jncuse]

Wrestlers are too far away from the ring - to the point entrances and theme songs dominate much of the match and become a significant distraction especially when the wrestler entering you don't give a crap about. Or they should turn off the theme songs after 10-15 seconds depending on the who

 

[jordville]

I'm now 27 minutes behind, but will they have both #1's go all the way to the end tonight (Gunther and Rhea).

I picked Rhea to win the women's match. We'll see...

 

[jordville]

Wrestlers are too far away from the ring - to the point entrances and theme songs dominate much of the match and become a significant distraction especially when the wrestler entering you don't give a crap about. Or they should turn off the theme songs after 10-15 seconds depending on the who

Thought the same thing about the entrances tonight. They are like Mania ones when the stage is so far away.. and also not a straight shot... as it should be for the Rumble imo.

 

[OrangeDW]

The camera work drives me nuts. They just keep switching angles every few seconds and zooming in on 2 people and you can’t even see the rest of the ring.

 

[jncuse]

The camera work drives me nuts. They just keep switching angles every few seconds and zooming in on 2 people and you can’t even see the rest of the ring.

At times you need it, because there are a lot of times where everybody is just sitting around watching so they don't want to show that angle. But the switching is excessive when there is more action.

 

[OrangeDW]

Women’s rumble was great. Loved the finish. Ripley is like the ultimate terrifying villain. She’s so good.

 

[jncuse]

The Woman's Royal Rumble seemed fairly good with a great finish -- of course my opinion might be skewed by the fact that it didn't drag much because of my liberal use of the fast forward button since I wanted to catch the Bloodline match live.

Hopefully we don't see much more of Nia Jax.

 

[jncuse]

Satisfying ending / continuation of the Bloodline story. You could only go so long after the tensions rised so much this past weeks. You couldn't keep teasing it much longer.

- They made Sami Zayn stand up for his principles and quit the Bloodline / Roamn before getting attacked... preferred this over a scenario where he was beaten down for a mistake he made in a match for example.

- They brought in the some internal conflict with Jay Uso, which allows them to go even further with this in potentially entertaining ways.

Overall satisfying Royal Rumble - some good, some meh.

Could have done without the Wyatt stuff - men's match could have been better, but it was still OK.