Views From The Turnbuckle: Royal Rumble Review, WWE Repeats Its Mistakes

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Last year, WWE had two stars. One was a returning star who the fans were lukewarm towards and ultimately ended up despising, despite WWE's best efforts to get fans behind him. The other star was a sensational babyface who everyone loved and wanted to see victorious. Of course, WWE took Batista and pushed him ahead of Daniel Bryan in a move so dumb that they quickly had to amend it just weeks following the decision. This year, WWE made a similar move, bypassing Bryan in favor of another wrestler fans were lukewarm too, and if tonight was any indication, the fans are going to end up despising him as well. The decision this time might actually be worse, because while Batista was a versatile veteran who was no stranger in reacting to boos, Roman Reigns is still a project, someone with potential but someone who also needs to be protected by smart booking. Putting him in the main event at Wrestlemania is not protecting him, and unless this is all some extreme plan to turn Reigns into a heel, it isn't smart booking.

Royal Rumble Match: ***

A lot to get to in this one, so let's break it down into bullet points to cover all the action.

* Pretty much all signs pointed towards Roman Reigns not being ready for the main event of Wrestlemania, but WWE has decided to ignore those warnings and rush right ahead to pushing Reigns to the moon. This is a complicated issue, with many layers, but mainly what it comes down to is that in a night that is supposed to make people's careers, WWE might have just ruined one. Reigns had been teetering on tweener status for the last few weeks, but tonight he became a full-fledged villain. The crowd was extremely hostile towards him, and not even a "surprise" Rock appearance could salvage the reaction the Philly crowd had for his victory. The crowd cheered for The Rock and booed Reigns, not unlike The Miz and Mizdow. And even if The Rock puts him over, it will not do Reigns any good because The Rock is not going to be there on every show leading up Wrestlemania, cutting promos for him and wrestling in tag matches with Reigns.

* So why exactly did The Rock show up tonight, if he wasn't going to compete at Wrestlemania? An idea is that perhaps, WWE knew Reigns wasn't going to get a great reaction for winning the Rumble. Maybe they didn't anticipate it being THAT bad, but they figure The Rock could at least save the day by coming out and working with Reigns. Is it crazy to think that WWE knew the reaction was going to be subpar and they did it anyways? Perhaps, but with decision making like this, are we sure WWE management is playing with a full deck right now?

* Daniel Bryan, far and away the crowd favorite for the match, was eliminated rather early and unceremoniously. Seriously, Daniel Bryan did not have that much more of an impact on this match than Stardust or Big E. And because of that, WWE stupidly shot itself in the foot with Roman Reigns. Since most fans could figure out that Reigns or Bryan were the only two real contenders to win the Rumble, it made the result of the match fairly obvious. Eliminating Bryan before Reigns had even entered the match was a big mistake, and immediately took all the fans who were pulling for Bryan and turned them into antagonists for Roman Reigns. By eliminating Bryan with so much time left in the Rumble, it let the audience's contempt of the product fester, increasing the hostility as more and more underwhelming participants filled the ring. If Bryan had been eliminated in the Final Four, the fans might have still booed a lot, but they probably wouldn't have been chanting for refunds.

* Bray Wyatt is probably the one person who benefited from this Rumble, as he is finally hitting his stride as a singles competitor. Perhaps being a part of a stable held him back a bit, relegating him to feuds with other groups, but as a solo star he was dynamite tonight, and hopefully WWE can capitalize on his performance.

* There has never been a WWE performer as strange as The Boogeyman. In fact, I am comfortable in saying that I have never seen ANYTHING as strange as The Boogeyman.

* Can someone tell me a reason why Bubba teamed up with R-Truth other than that Truth just happened to be black? Good to see Bubba though, WWE needs more tag teams so hopefully Devon came come along for one last run.

Brock Lesnar vs Seth Rollins vs John Cena: ****1/2

A unique match that really lacked any traditional form of pace or storytelling, which made it pretty difficult to rate. Yes it didn't have many traditional holds, and it lacked a real buildup, it was pretty much one big climax, but the match rated extremely high in aspects like excitement and unpredictability, which is something WWE has sometimes lacked in its title matches. If wrestling really is all about entertaining fans, then this match has to rate as one of the top matches of the past 365 days.

Brock Lesnar dying for most of the match and then crawling off the stretcher for the finish of the match was an unanticipated touch (and maybe Brock himself didn't anticipate it) but it worked beautifully. Brock Lesnar's matches are different then everyone elses, if a standard match is the Indy 500, Brock's are Demolition Derbies. They might not be the longest, or the most artistic bouts, but they are entertaining both in their storytelling and their brutality.

Seth Rollins, again, had a terrific night, and WWE would not have made a mistake if he were to win this match. Him dusting off the Phoenix Splash was a legitmate markout moment, and his extensive offense, athleticism and selling ability make him one of the best workers in the world, and he got another exciting match out of John Cena. This match would have been good if it was just Rollins and Cena (and for some of the time, it was) and that is another feather in Rollins cap as a future champion in the company. If there is a complaint about this match it is that it once again Rollins took a pinfall in a big match, and while he certainly seems capable of carrying the world title into Wrestlemania, it appears he will still have to wait his turn.

The Usos vs The Miz and Mizdow: **3/4

An especially hardcore audience in Philadelphia lended itself extremely helpful to this match, as the crowd fell head-over-heels for Damien Mizdow, breathing life into an otherwise dull match. There is nothing really wrong with The Usos, they have decent charisma and they have had a pretty strong run of quality matches, but the fact that they have been the only serious babyface tag team in the WWE for the past year has really worn them down, and they are currently suffering from a serious case of overexposure. Keeping the tag titles on them isn't going to help that, so hopefully they can either find quality opponents that can get a different dimension out of them, or they drop the titles and take a backseat in the tag division for a little while.

Natayla and Paige vs The Bella Twins-**

Technically this match was fine, but it suffered from some other variables. The match might as well have been a handicap match, since Paige barely had any impact on the match for her team. For a match that didn't have the typical hot tag, it went on for several minutes too long. Even the best workers have trouble making a continued beatdown that exciting, so the talent is really to blame. Having Natayla lose to the forearm shot by Nikki is kind of a lame way to build up a potential contender for the Divas Championship, at least have her take the Rack Attack.

The Ascension vs The New Age Outlaws: *3/4

Sloppy match that didn't really do a whole lot for The Ascension despite giving them a win. It will be hard for them to get back over after their terrible start on the main roster, and although the New Age Outlaws are/were a popular and accomplished tag team, they were always more of a comedy/gimmick team. No disrespect to Road Dogg or Billy Gunn, they are both solid workers, but for The Ascension to get back over, they need to take down some real badasses. The Ascension were not insulting the NAO, they were insulting teams like Demolition and The Road Warriors.

Wrapping it up, this Royal Rumble should be remembered for the excellent triple threat match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Alas, it will likely go down as the event that marked the end of Roman Reigns. The resemblance of tonight's show to the mistakes last year with Batista is striking. Unless WWE is able to turn Reigns heel and pretend that that was the idea the entire time, WWE and Roman Reigns are looking down a very rocky path on the way to Wrestlemania.