Rumble thoughts:
Bryan/Bray was amazing, of course. Lesnar/Show was uninspiring - would have been better if Lesnar was more regular, but when I get sold a Lesnar match these days, I'd like a Lesnar match to actually occur. Cena/Orton was a parody of itself and just pretty much altogether ridiculous.
The Rumble as a match was fine and had good storylines, but sweet titty-fucking Christ, how did they not anticipate what they were going to get with not even putting Bryan in the match? The crowd snapped in an instant and immediately turned on the entire match, as they had to have known they would. Reigns's epic performance almost brought it back and if he had won it would have been tolerable, but Batista winning under these circumstances is just embarrassing.
I have always operated on the principle that the WWE is rarely half so stupid as we think they are, so I have to believe that this reaction is, for whatever reason, what they were going for. Given that the only possible result was Batista getting shat all over, this had to have been a blatant attempt to turn him heel, and if they roll with it, they'll have accomplished that goal just fine. He's about to get boo'd out of wherever Raw is tomorrow without a doubt. Moreover they can push Reigns as a face. In other words, if they were trying to orchestrate a double turn, they sure did it.
But if they try to push Batista as a face and sell an Orton vs Batista main event and really plan on consigning Bryan to a midcard match with Sheamus...then I just don't know. The fans just want Bryan and they won't give it to us. I'm sure it's based on argument that making Bryan the underdog is better for his popularity, and that's probably true, considering his rise to the top really properly began when he got jobbed out at Mania to Sheamus, but underdogs have to win sometime, or else they just become losers. And they're walking a fine line with this.
