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OSW Review | Royal Rumble 2015 & RAW review
Hellllooooo
Noggers
January 30, 2015
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Wrestling stuff, Written Reviews
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by Jay Hunter
 / 
Comments

Royal Rumble 2015 & RAW review

Only 4 days later but here’s my thoughts on the Rumble & RAW! And thanks to the super-brah on the hard camera with our shart! It’s January 15th, 2015 from the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with 17,164 in attendance and about a million subscribers on the WWE Network, it’s the 2015 Royal Rumble!

Pre-Show MAAAAAIN event was The New Day vs Team CAT (Cesaro, Adam rose & Tyson kidd)

Team CAT

New Day depress me. They got “New! Day Sucks!” chants & boos by the end. However Team CAT need to be a thing. Tyson is wearing cat claw gloves, this gimmick has legs (4 of them!) They were also WAY more over in Philly (a renowned smark crowd) and Tyson picked up the win, making everyone very happy. Decent pre-show match, shame it wasn’t on the PPV.

Outlaws vs The Ascension

Whenever I see the Outlaws I think of how Triple H must love hiring his mates, even those that slammed him for years in TNA and shoot interviews. I bet Road Dogg just said we were trying to get heat and Aitch said ‘fair enough’. I don’t understand the backlash The Ascension got for cutting a kayfabe “we’re the best” promo (should they say they suck?) on their RAW debut but they’ve quickly turned into a jobber act in a matter of weeks, which is even faster than fellow NXT call-up Xavier Woods. To be honest, the Legion of Demolition would make great (intentional) comedy jobbers like Heath Slater. It was always a rib having two ‘decent’ sized newbs being booked like they’re the Road Warriors – they’ll have to learn their place, and they’re only large compared to some acts in NXT. In any case, the roster does need jobbers, these two can do those jobs, instead of making mid-carders lose to each other (like new IC champ Wade Barrett jobbing to NXT’s SIN CARA!)
Despite being trounced by old-timers on RAW, the Ascension controlled the majority of the match with coma-inducing headlocks that’d make Randy Orton proud. The Outlaws never really had a comeback and Conor & Viktor won with a kind of TOTAL ELIMINATION! Kronus aside, it was a bad match.

The Usos (c) vs. Miz and Mizdow

It’s come to my attention that Miz does not catch people who dive on the outside. What an asshole! That’s dangerous. Weirdly, Miz is actually the stunt-double of the team: Sandow fakes his bumps on the outside whilst Miz gets battered and actually takes bumps. Philly (and everyone else) loves Sandow so they held off his tags for a while but the Usos got the win, meaning Miz & Sandow should be out of the chase for hopefully more than a month. Fine but instantly forgettable, as PPV tag title matches generally are.

The Bellas vs. Paige and Natalya

LET ME HOLLA AT YA PLAYA! FOURTH TAG MATCH of the night. Nattie’s been on NXT as well tagging with Charlotte, and on RAW we have the similar ‘let’s team up out of respect’ angle with Paige. Also the two have been feeling the effects of LESBIAN POLLEN (mind games!) on Total Divas. The Bellas look nothing alike now, you can tell which one’s vegan, and which one eats meat (rarr!). Good job Cena. The Bellas do this rolling slam deeley to Nattie. V1 said The Hardyz used to do it, I said no, never. Is V1 or myself right? Similar to the Ascension match the heels were in control for the most part, couple of blown spots (although Nikki’s definitely improved), no hot tag, the heels just win after a nice Nigel forearm. Fart of a match.

WWE World Title Match: Brock Lesnar (c) vs. John Cena vs. Seth Rollins

It ended up being a fantastic idea to add Seth to the match. Himself and Brock work REALLY, REALLY WELL as sneaky heel Seth would bump like a madman and Brock would hulk-smash his way through with effortless rag-doll German Suplexes. I don’t think I’ve heard the “John Cena Suuuucks” singing to his theme song on TV before but we had it. No time for Cena doing his standard spots (there’s literally nothing fresh or inventive he can do for me) like double-AAing the stooges and his shit punches comeback. Seth looked incredible bumping and working his ass off, punctuating with two high spots, elbow-dropping Lesnar through the announce table and performing a beautiful Phoenix Splash to Cena. Captain Crossfit, what a boss! Brock looked like an indestructible beast and scored an F5 for the win to retain. Man, I’d love to see Lesnar/Rollins at Mania. Guaranteed to deliver. The match was excellent, highly recommend you watch it.

The Royal Rumble Match

• Who booked this shit? Not Pat Patterson, that’s who. #1 & #2 was The Awesome Truth, here you could see someone in an OSW t-shart!
• Bubba Ray Dudley was a surprise entrant (went down a treat in Philly). He looks to have put on a lot of the weight he lost in TNA. Without D-Von he did the Wazzup & 3D with Truth.
• Bray eliminated a good few (reports say they’re considering him as Undertaker’s Mania opponent) but his feud with Ambrose really hasn’t helped. We got to see The Boogeyman interact, such a strong gimmick I’m surprised WWE didn’t have a place for him. DDP made a surprise entrance as well, great to see him! Hit the Diamond cutter on a couple of mid-carders, awesome. Please bring wrestling gear next time!
• Daniel Bryan was #10 and got eliminated after #15. I watched this with the lads and that’s the point where we checked out of the match. Who cares now? December to Dismember booking; get the actual faces (RVD/Punk) out first so hopefully you’ll cheer for Vince’s babyface (Bobby Lashley), because that went down a treat. The crowd weren’t so angry/chanty as they were dismissive & apathetic I felt.
• Curtis Axel was attacked by the Vintner Erik Rowan and never entered the match. WHERE’S THE JUSTICE FOR CURTIS AXEL? (in kayfabe he never entered the match – you’d need to enter the match before it finishes, if that makes sense)
• Jaysus STATE OF YOUR ROSTER DEPTH MATE! The AMOUNT of jobbers in this match. It was like the 1997 Rumble where half of them were Mexicans. Expecting Latin Lover to come out.
• The crowd broke out of their funk for Mizdow, but of course WWE eliminate him in under 30 seconds and the crowd turn again.
• Kofi’s spot (he got a big cheer as we know he’ll do something amazing) was getting eliminated quickly and the rosebuds putting him back in. It was so weak we assumed there’d be another… but no, he just gets eliminated. Sigh!
• They didn’t book any big spots (just the aforementioned and Titus getting the Santino quick-elimination schtick which isn’t a thing) so it was a boring match, far inferior to even last year. Ok the crowd were far angrier last year, but that the match was decent enough until #30 Mysterio came out and told everyone Bryan’s not in the match.
• Further compounding things was that obvious winner Roman Reigns didn’t have a good match. Couple eliminations but nothing notable. I should mention the scenario in 2015 is NOWHERE similar to 2014, as in 2014, Shield member Roman was hidden & protected by Rollins & Ambrose, and was the last alternative to Boo-tista, whereas this year he’s the most-pushed babyface with awful comedy promos & delivery.
• Big Show and Kane were the slow, plodding dominant heels (to chants of Bullshit and We Want Refunds) who were the final four in 2000 as well. I’ve no interest in seeing them in 2015. It’s so demoralising seeing Show and Kane take out Ziggler, Ambrose & Bray. YOU DON’T LIKE WHAT YOU LIKE! Things got so bad the crowd chanted for Rusev, the foreign heel (he was knocked out but not eliminated, we’d forgotten about him but the crowd could see him at the apron). Reigns wins it eliminating those 3 (a quick, non-interesting finish, he just turfed them out without a proper fight).
• WWE knew Reigns would be booed and trotted out the Rock to endorse him, because surely you can’t boo Reigns if the Rock’s there? Wrong. Wow. (Rock has a “what the fuck?” reaction to it, giffed below, it’s magic). They do have a post-PPV interview on the Network where they both fumble over their words.
All in all, one of the worst rumbles in years, not just because of the winner, but a poorly-constructed, boring match with little star power and an unappealing finish – WWE did Reigns no favours. No real iron man/lots-of-eliminations push, no 2-big babyfaces squaring off etc, and Bryan should’ve been there until the very end. The crowd could’ve been much more vicious. Bit of a disaster. I get Vince thinks the handsome superstar Reigns valiantly fought off the dominant corporate giants and gets the endorsement of his cousin & massive babyface superstar, but if he thinks that would work, he’s alarmingly out of touch.

#CancelWWENetwork

Hilariously, #CancelWWENetwork was the #1 trend straight afterwards. I think it’s a great way to send your disapproval but I also think it’s hypocritical as maybe 1% of those tweeting it actually cancelled their subscription. Indirectly responding to it, WWE announced they cracked 1 million subscribers (which is legit as the free month, the Rumble hype and fallout did put them over the mark). They did lose subs but was far outweighed by what they gained. Probably worth noting that WWE will continue to do what WWE wants because it’s WWE’s company, despite doing what the fans want would make more business sense. It’s a really petty ego trip – a vain, selfish act, like continuing to make movies despite repeatedly losing millions on most films! That said the best thing to come out of wrestling are the snarky pictures that come out afterwards! Thanks for sending me your tweets, it’s awesome.

RAW AFTER THE RUMBLE

• With BLOODY JUNO (the snowstorm) cancelling RAW, they cobbled together a 3-hour show from WWE HQ, replaying the Rumble & title match from the prior night and doing sit-down interviews with their most prominent talents (Brock/Heyman, Seth, Bryan and also a skit with Dean). I didn’t mind them showing PPV matches on free TV because it’s a one-off and they were up against time getting an entirely new show together.
• It was a scrambling production, Michael Cole constantly tripping over his words (which is a rarity) and I’m assuming Vince, breathing heavily off-screen. Cole’s questions were really stupid (as all questions in WWE are, “when you hit the move, did you think you’d win?”)
• The crowd-less atmosphere gave promos the sense of gravitas. Reigns came off really well, quiet; absorbing the verbal jabs Heyman masterfully threw at him, admitting the crowd’s disapproval and wanting to fight Brock. This is probably Reigns at his best right now.
• Seth plays the loud-mouthed, cowardly dick heel to perfection. He decreed Brock will have to take his chair, and when confronted, swats it away and walks off. Amazing. I love how Brock was calm and polite (“excuse me, I believe you’re in my chair”), and thanked Cole for congratulating him on his title win. There’s no need to be angry, he is the best and it’s a fact.
• Bryan similarly addressed Reigns’ shortcomings (which was pretty much as shoot as you’ll get on WWE TV) but wasn’t incensed. It’s sad that he’ll be overlooked come Mania again, but he’s incredibly talented, so he’ll always be important. At Mania he’s pegged to wrestle either Ziggler (they were mentioning it on twitter) or V1’s favourite, vs Sheamus for a third time.
WWE lowered the boos in the Rumble repeat but I wouldn’t recommend re-watching it. But watch the title match again! The promos however were refreshingly candid and did wonders for the world title situation. A massive positive coming off a wave of online negativity over Reigns.

And now, your awesome tweets!

Thanks to wrestling-giffer for the gifs! If you missed it, OSW update on our next episodes & the STATE of YouTube etc here: OSWreview.com/updatejan29

2 Questions: Do you know anyone that cancelled the Network, and what did you think of the Rumble match overall, was it as bad as I thought?