(Writer’s Note: This won’t be my usual weekly Wednesday column. I just had a lot to say about the Royal Rumble and I didn’t want to wait the extra few days to talk about it. I’ll be back in my normal Wednesday spot… on Wednesday.)
I’ve been doing Running Diary columns pretty much from the time I started on this site way back in the day. There are a lot of positives about writing that style of column, but one of the major negatives is that, by its very nature, it doesn’t allow me to go in-depth on anything that is going on. I can type a sentence or two about something, but by that point, something else has usually happened and I need to go to the next entry. It’s a huge problem for AEW, as the pacing of their shows is as rapid-fire as you’ll ever see in wrestling, but it’s still an issue for WWE events, as well.
I’m sure you’ve seen the reactions to the Royal Rumble by now. WWE fans, AEW fans, positive fans, negative fans, troll fans… it seems like everyone is in agreement about how bad the entire show was. When I do the Running Diaries and post my star ratings for matches, it seems like I’m a more difficult grader than the average fan, more often than not. Nothing crazy, but if I say a match is 3 stars, I’ll look around and see a shit ton of tweets, posts, columns, etc. that say the match was 3.25, 3.5, or 3.75 stars. This time, it seems like my ratings are slightly higher than a lot of people listed.
I wondered how much of it was my initial watch for the Running Diary. Obviously, with all of the typing I need to do during the column, there are times when I don’t have 100% of my focus on the show. Nature of the beast. Because of that, I went back and watched the show again. No columns, no daughter running around… no distractions at all. After the second viewing, I think I overrated the mixed tag match, and I may have underrated the Raw Women’s Title match a bit. In the Running Diary, I gave the mixed tag match 3 stars, and the Women’s Title match 2.75 stars. If I had to do it again, I would give the tag match 2.5 stars, and bump the title match up to 3 stars. The tag match was just so slow and, ultimately, so pointless, with too much Beth Phoenix and Maryse, and not enough Edge and The Miz. On the other hand, I think I graded Becky Lynch vs Doudrop too harshly because of the lack of crowd reaction, but of course, a huge chunk of that lack of reaction had nothing to do with Becky or Doudrop. That wasn’t fair to them.
Watching everything else, though, either helped open my eyes to things or allowed me to fully formulate my thoughts. I’ve come up with a list of ten things I think I think about why the show has been viewed so negatively by so many different groups of wrestling fans. Normally, when I do the “10 Things I Think I Think” columns, I list them in no particular order. For this one, I think it makes more sense to list things in as close to chronological order as I can, so that’s what I’m going to do, starting with the Universal Title match and ending with the men’s Royal Rumble.
Here we go…
Stop Ending Pay-Per-View Title Matches By Disqualification: I don’t care if it happens every month, every year, or any combination in between. When you’re in these bigger situations, I hate it when these matches end by disqualification, count-out, no contest, and things like that. I would much rather see a situation like Roman Reigns cheating to win. If you’re going to set up a rematch, anyway, that can still happen with Reigns cheating. I’m not saying I wanted this particular scenario to happen, but an easy solution would be something I saw a ton of people calling for… the pre-match stipulation said that The Usos would be banned from ringside, but it didn’t say anything about Solo Sikoa being banned. That would’ve been an easy story to tell with Sikoa helping Reigns win, giving The Bloodline a new member, and giving Rollins more reason to seek revenge. The match was so good, and it just ended on a bit of a popcorn fart.
The Depth In The WWE Women’s Division Is Atrocious: Of the 30 women in the Rumble match, 13 of them were one-off appearances by names from the past. If you’re not good with math, that’s 43% of the field. Sonya Deville was involved, and she is maybe, probably, possibly, potentially not a real active in-ring performer and is only doing this to continue the ridiculous storyline with Naomi. The eventual winner of the match was someone who wasn’t even under WWE contract days earlier. It just shows how bad the depth in the women’s division is right now. A bunch of names have been released, sure, but there are also three women out of action either with injuries or on maternity leave. This wouldn’t be such a glaring problem if the women that were brought back for the Rumble ended up being a bigger part of the match. Melina was eliminated in less than a minute and didn’t eliminate anyone herself. Kelly Kelly didn’t eliminate anyone, and she barely lasted a minute in the match. Cameron? Zero eliminations and was in the match for under a minute. Ivory? Zero eliminations and was in the match for less than 30 seconds. Summer Rae? Zero eliminations and was in the match for less than one minute. Sarah Logan? Zero eliminations and was in the match for under a minute. Mighty Molly? Zero eliminations and lasted less than 30 seconds in the match. What was the point?
Sasha Banks Should’ve Been In The Rumble Longer: When she came out as the first entrant in the match, you figured her chances of winning went down a lot, but you also figured she would be one of the “iron women” when all was said and done. You know the deal… last 45-50 minutes, but eventually get thrown out towards the end of the match. Instead, she didn’t even last ten minutes, and was thrown out by Queen Zelina. Huh? It was clear that Sasha’s early elimination took the air out of the dome, and I’m sure the same can be said about the fans watching at home. Sasha’s return from a minor injury was seen as a big deal, as there was a question if she’d be able to make it back in time for the Rumble. Can you imagine the depth of this match if there was no Sasha Banks? It’s just weird that she came back, and as one of the clear cut biggest stars in the match, was only out there for a brief amount of time and got eliminated by someone like Zelina instead of another “top” star.
The Iron Women Didn’t Actually Do Much: The two women who lasted the longest in the match were Bianca Belair (47:30) and Liv Morgan (37:20). Combined, they eliminated a total of one person, and that was Bianca tossing Natalya out relatively late in the match. That’s a lot of time spent in the Royal Rumble without actually doing much of anything. Yes, this is a bit of a minor gripe, but it is a gripe nonetheless.
Bobby Lashley Didn’t Get Helped A Ton, Even In Winning The WWE Title: Finally getting the Brock Lesnar vs Bobby Lashley match we’ve wanted for years was a huge deal. Based on who was in the match, you knew it wasn’t going to be a 30-minute war, and it wasn’t. The story coming out of the match is that Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman screwed Brock Lesnar out of the WWE Title, and that makes sense, but what about the match itself? Lashley got his offense in, but it was still largely dominated by Brock, who hit Lashley with approximately 527 German Suplexeseseses. So, Lashley gets tossed around like a child for most of the match, but he gets to make a cover to win the match after Roman Reigns laid Lesnar out? How does that benefit Bobby Lashley? It would be one thing if the winner of this match was some chickenshit heel who usually sneaks by, but this is Bobby Fucking Lashley we’re talking about here. Even when he’s an absolute monster heel (more on that in a little bit), that’s not how he wins his matches, nor should it be.
Faces Being Heels, Heels Being Faces & The Difficulty Telling Them Apart: Bobby Lashley is a heel. He had a match against Brock Lesnar, who has been clearly positioned as a face. Lashley slapped hands with a bunch of fans on the way to the ring, and then again after the match. You know, the match that he lucked into winning after interference by a heel. The aforementioned Reigns is someone that a percentage of fans have almost felt was turning face in this current feud with Seth Rollins, based on Rollins being The Joker and trying to get into Roman’s head at every turn. Then, Reigns pulls a major heel move by purposely getting himself disqualified to keep his Universal Title, then mollywhops Rollins with a steel chair repeatedly, and then interferes in the WWE Title match to take the belt off of a face that he’s feuding with. Rollins, as I said, was viewed as a solid heel, only to be booked to get a ton of face pops with his throwback entrance and the way he wrestled in his match, followed by that post-match mollywhopping I talked about. More weirdness came from Ronda Rousey, who gets a huge pop for her return, then does the smiley bit for a while and goes on to win the Rumble, by eliminating Charlotte Flair, who is the most hated heel in the women’s division. Then, Rousey cuts a post-show backstage promo where she mentions the reaction she got for returning, and how she wouldn’t “fall for it this time.” That sure sounds like a heel. If you go up and down the WWE roster right now, it’s almost like there’s only two or three people that are clearly defined in their heel/face status. Hyperbole? Only slightly. The constant shifting around signals, at least to me, that WWE is almost making shit up as they go along. Am I supposed to cheer for this person? Do I boo that person? It’s hard to tell, especially when faces do heel things and face things in the same match or promo, and vice versa.
Feuding With The Miz Does Nothing For Anybody: WWE hasn’t done anything for The Miz to make him look like anything more than a goofy comedy character in a long, long time. That’s certainly not his fault, unless he’s the one pitching it backstage, but it is what it is. Whether you like him or not, he’s a two-time WWE Champion, and that’s supposed to mean a lot. Feuding with, and defeating, a former WWE Champion? Yeah, that should be a big deal. Miz has been feuding over water guns and literally dealing with zombies in recent history. You don’t gain much when you beat someone like that. WWE has done such a poor job of letting Miz stay relevant, and a lot of it has to do with how serious his character is. Remember when he was on Talking Smack and cut that promo on Daniel Bryan? That was as serious as he has ever been. It was some of the best work he’s ever done, and then… not much. When he feuded with Otis over the Money In The Bank briefcase, he wasn’t taken seriously. After beating Otis to win possession of the briefcase, he wasn’t taken seriously. When he cashed it in and became WWE Champion for a second time, he wasn’t taken seriously. Once Bobby Lashley made him look like a complete and utter bitch, he certainly wasn’t taken seriously. It isn’t a secret that I’m not exactly the biggest Miz fan in the world, but I’m being as unbiased as I can be here. I don’t think I’m wrong for saying what I’ve said here. What did Edge gain in this feud? He got to team with his wife and have a match with her. That’s cool and all, but would you say Edge is in a better place now than he was before working with The Miz? No. If anything, Edge lost a bit by moving down the card for a while.
Kofi Kingston’s Missed Spot Took The Wind Out Of People’s Sails: I’m not sure that there were a whole lot of people predicting a Royal Rumble victory for Kofi, but what I am sure of is that everyone was expecting another wild spot that would see Kofi avoid being eliminated in a miraculous way. What did we get? Kofi in the Rumble for a grand total of 21 seconds. He gets chucked out by Kevin Owens, and is supposed to make another miracle save by being like Spider-Man and sticking to the ringside barricade, but it doesn’t go well and he slips until his feet touch the floor. It looked like they might try to play it off like it was supposed to happen that way, but when watching it, you can see the Referee in the background make a face as if he was saying “oh shit” and then he was looking around and trying to figure out what to do. If Kofi was supposed to be eliminated there, you, as a Referee, would simply say he was eliminated, and that would be it. It was a bum deal for Kofi, who at least had a good sense of humor about it on Twitter after it happened.
More Of The Status Quo: Even if you’re a huge Brock Lesnar fan, and I freely admit to being in that category, can you honestly sit there and say he needed to win the Rumble? I can’t. Look, I get it… he needs revenge on Roman Reigns for what Reigns did to him earlier in the night. There are other ways of making it happen, though. He’s Brock Fucking Lesnar. Anarchy and chaos follow him everywhere he goes. An angry Brock Lesnar… who isn’t tied down to Raw or Smackdown, by the way… on the rampage as he does everything he can possibly think of to make the lives of any Samoan living on the planet miserable? That’s good television. It becomes even more intriguing television when you have an angry Seth Rollins locked and loaded to get revenge on Reigns, too. It’s more of the same old stuff that we’ve been seeing for years, with Brock winning everything, even when he doesn’t need to. As I said, though, this is Brock Fucking Lesnar. I’m not saying he should be out there losing matches to Angel Garza and Bobby Roode on random episodes of television. It’s just a sign that WWE has failed to create anything new and exciting, and they continuously have to rely on people like Brock to help them out. A lot of the same things can be said about Ronda Rousey here. When she’s around, she’s the biggest star in the division by a country mile, capable of getting all sorts of press that women like Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, Bianca Belair, Sasha Banks, Bayley, and so on can’t get. That’s the truth, whether you admit it or not. Ronda still doesn’t need something like this, though. Not when you have the opportunity to make something new and fresh. Depending on what source you’re looking at, Ronda is rumored to be facing either Becky or Charlotte at WrestleMania, which is pretty obvious considering what she just won and indicates that a lot of “experts” have no idea what the plans really are. I’ve even seen rumors that say Ronda faces Charlotte at WrestleMania this year, and is penciled in to face Becky at WrestleMania next year. That’s only somewhat fresh, as we’ve never seen Ronda and Becky have a one-on-one match before, and we’ve only seen Ronda and Charlotte go one-on-one once (Survivor Series 2018), but these women had their wild and memorable feud in 2019, leading up to their Triple Threat in the main event of WrestleMania 35. Lord knows we’ve seen Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar a lot. Five singles matches (one of which became a Triple Threat for a moment when Seth Rollins cashed in his Money In The Bank shot at WrestleMania 31), another Triple Threat, and a Fatal Four-Way, to be exact. It remains frustrating to see the constant need to keep going back to the well time and time again. That isn’t even counting bringing back names like Goldberg, The Undertaker, etc. during this time of year.
WWE Really Fucked Themselves At Day 1: When Roman Reigns tested positive for COVID before Day 1, WWE had a dilemma on their hands. Reigns was supposed to defend the Universal Title against Brock Lesnar in a heavily-hyped match, but what was the company supposed to do with Reigns out of action? Lesnar is a big box office attraction, so removing him from the card altogether wouldn’t be a great idea, especially at the last possible minute like that. When it was announced that Lesnar would instead be inserted into the WWE Title Fatal Four-Way, making it a Fatal Five-Way, it was generally accepted as a great alternative. He would add more star power to the match, and we would finally get to see him and Bobby Lashley sharing a ring. The Fatal Five-Way was the perfect solution to have Brock “lose” without having to lose. Hooray! Then… Lesnar went on to win the match and become the WWE Champion. What? Why? The only thing people could think of was that WWE was, for some strange reason, deciding to unify the WWE and Universal Titles, and we were going to get Reigns vs Lesnar at the Royal Rumble or WrestleMania in that unification bout. Not that a match between those two needed added stakes to it, but that’s what WWE does. Oh, Reigns is defending against Seth Rollins at the Rumble, while Lesnar defends against Bobby Lashley? WrestleMania unification it is then! No? That’s not what happened? Well, what the fuck was the point of doing the title change at Day 1 then?!? You completely derailed Big E’s momentum as the WWE Champion, just to do what? Pad Brock Lesnar’s stats? The story allowed for Reigns and Heyman to double-cross Lesnar and cause him to lose the WWE Title, but that was completely unnecessary. Their feud wasn’t ice cold and in need of some sort of heat to build things up. One bad decision set off a chain reaction of bad decisions, and it was all for nothing.
A lot of you are suffering from being prisoners of the moment with some of your opinions on this year’s Rumble. I’ve seen some people say that the 2022 men’s Rumble match was the worst one ever. While it wasn’t filled with a ton of intrigue, cool spots, and fun surprises, there’s no way I would say it was worse than some of the first few, or 2015, etc. It damn sure wasn’t one of the best Rumble matches, but far from the worst.
Where do we go from here? We have Elimination Chamber, coming to us from Saudi Arabia on February 19th. Mere minutes before I typed this sentence, it was announced that Bobby Lashley would be defending his newly-won WWE Title in a Chamber match. Will it be the only one on the card, or will there be another one? WWE loves to bend the knee to what the decision makers in Saudi Arabia want, so don’t be surprised if we end up seeing Roman Reigns defend the Universal Title inside the Chamber, too, with his opponents being Brock Lesnar, Hulk Hogan, The Rock, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, and Andre The Giant. Hell, let’s just borrow from TNA’s idea bin and make the Elimination Chamber event like Lockdown, where every match on the show takes place inside the Chamber. I’m excited to see Damian Priest defend the United States Title against Lex Luger, Ric Flair, Greg “The Hammer” Valentine, John Cena, and Blackjack Mulligan so we can see who the greatest United States Champion of all-time really is.
I get a lot of the frustrations coming out of this year’s Rumble. Trust me, I do. As you’ve read, I share a lot of those same frustrations. If you’re a WWE fan, you find yourself in a tough spot. WWE knows they don’t need to change anything they’re doing. The company is making money at a record-breaking pace right now. Do you think they give a shit if you or I didn’t enjoy the Royal Rumble? They don’t care about the outrage over wrestler releases, accusations of racism, and anything else sent their way these days. They’ve got us by the balls, as the saying goes. What do you do?
What… do you… do?