Let Freedom Reigns!!! So Long as You are Not Daniel Bryan.
(The Rumble where it is 2015, and the biggest names are Big Show, Kane, and the Rock)
Storytelling: 2/5 Stars
Match Quality: 2/5 Stars
Finish: 1/5 Stars-and that's being generous
Winner-3/5 Stars-It wasn't his fault (no, not Snitsky) and he did a good job at Mania
Extracurriculars: 2/5 Stars
TOTAL: 10/25 Stars
Great Moment You May Have Forgotten: DDP Diamond Cutters for all!
Moment You Wish You Weren't Reminded Of: Titus O' Neill going out in 4 seconds, when his goal was to go out in 1 second. Fail.
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Oh, this recent disaster.
While leaving out the finer details for later (but not too much later), the 2014 Rumble was a disaster and a slap to the fans, as Bootista won over a game Roman Reigns with no Daniel Bryan in sight. Vince mistook the fans love of Roman in that match as a sign of desire, not what it truly was, a rebellion over not having their boy in the match.
Flash forward a year and we kinda knew that Reigns was going to be the victor of this match. While some will try to convince you that they thought D-Bry would win after announcing his return from injury, we still kinda had that feeling it was not meant to be. And I for one was ok with that, so long as they did it right in a way that made Roman look strong (Right Punk?) and set up some phenomenal Wrestlemania matches.
How wrong I was.
This match was basically split into two categories, pre-Bryan elimination and post-Bryan elimination. Before he was eliminated, we had a fun match going. Bubba Dudley, and to a lesser extent the Boogeyman returned, we had a Wyatt family reunion with Bray kicking ass, and DDP hit the Diamond Cutter Outta Nowhere on about 10 wrestlers. We also had the birth of Axelmania, until that whole Hulk racist thing went down. But the big story was Bryan coming in and doing work like he always did. He looked as fresh as ever and went toe to toe with Wyatt, Rusev, Fandango away, and the Dust Brothers. So naturally, as Bryan is playing possum on the ropes and showing acrobatic maneuvers, he was blandly pushed out by Wyatt to the shock and anger of all.
What happened after his elimination was every wrong booking decision you can make, from small to big. We had an incredibly lame Kofi Kingston save, where Adam Rose's crew saves him but not Adam Rose! There's Titus O'Neill, who had one job to fall out and be eliminated quicker than Santino, and couldn't do that. You had the Miz/Mizdow feud, which now became a bust through poor planning following the split.
But the worst disaster of all was the teaming of Big Show and Kane.
Together these two combined to nearly a century old, and were the ones dominating and match and throwing out younger guys. Dolph/Bray/Ambrose all just died like fish to these goofs, leaving us with a final 4 with, I kid you not, Big Show and Kane in it during 2015. Oh, but it gets better homies. After basically doing the same thing to Reigns, they decide instead of doing what they are supposed to do for the Authority, to fight each other. This stupidity led to Reigns unexcitingly throwing them out together, appearing to win.
But we're not done yet, as the now angry and stupid henchmen of the Authority decide they're gonna run back and kick Reigns's ass, although they are already eliminated. So what better way to get Reigns over than by having the Rock come out and do his dirty work, taking care of the Geriatrics. So we have a weakened champion against too old guys helped by a part-time wrestler taking the credit. You can imagine how pissed the crowd really was.
But wait there's more!!!! All this time, Rusev has been hiding in the shadows waiting for his time to strike. Rusev, a strong competitor and a freak, couldn't take advantage of a weak Reigns and took one spear and was done. By the time the Rumble was over, at least 4 careers were largely hurt, and the winner was largely despised.
We all know what happened at Mania, despite the piss poor buildup, so that is why Reigns has a higher ranking than 1991, which was just useless. But WWE needs to either stop doing Rumbles in Pennsylvania, or stop treating the fan base to a dirt poor product of the Rumble. Well, at least Ryback or Sheamus didn't win (they weren't there, and I fear they might've won if they were).
Well that was as rough to write as it is to watch, and you can see for yourself (I couldn't find it, and that's probably for the best). Tomorrow we go to part two of the Rumbles I dub "Hogan being Hogan". Enjoy.
