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Report: Officials Unprepared For The Backlash Last Night

The idiotic fans are stubborn. I am sure nobody gave a shit about Daniel Bryan in 2011 where he was a mid card, and dont say any bullshit that people did care because I have looked at a couple of matches with him recently in 2011. He then starts to get pushed and his yes chants get him over once again like in 2010. Then in 2013 it was WWE's decision to give him a shot for the title, and apart of a huge storyline. Then when he's not put in the rumble they fucking complain like the fucking kids they are, and they go on to ruin the Wrestlemania main event because they want more WWE. WWE owns Daniel Bryan and they could do whatever the fuck they could do with him.

Bryan was over in 2011 but the fans knew he wasn't ready for a main event spot around that time. In 2014 Bryan was ready.
 
Just listen alright. Yeah people cared about Daniel Bryan. They were pissed when he got fired 2010. Then he came back. WWE fans are fake. Just like with Zack Ryder, they've been begging for him to get a chance, then when he finally does, they stopped caring, and that's exactly what happened to Daniel Bryan. Yeah some people may cared for Daniel Bryan in 2011, but people were mainly talking about Punk or Cena of HHH, or Nash, Orton, Christian , etc. Ever since he started getting a push in 2012, he was getting his pops again. As I said in 2013 WWE gave him a shot in a major storyline, but that wasn't enough for the fans. WWE fucks up their plans at wm30, and makes Daniel Bryan beat HHH, Orton, and Batista in one night to win the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, and that wasn't enough for the WWE universe. The wwe fans are stubborn pieces of shits. Daniel Bryan is a good wrestler, but unless they turn him heel, he doesn't belong with WWE, since WWE is not wrestling like you said, but entertainment. WWE limits Daniel Bryan's moveset, so he clearly isn't entertaining. When he gets on the mic I usually just turn the whole thing off cuz I know its gonna be something stupid ending with questions that start off with this stupid yes chants. I would say that I respect what you have said, but with the jabroni comment and sarcasm at the end of your statement, I'm not, and I still know for a damn fucking fact that nobody cared for Daniel Boring in 2011.
Except Daniel Bryan is arguably the most over person on the entire roster. Your opinion aside, the people want to see Bryan. Every venue explodes when his music hits. People are really rallying behind the guy.

Fans are upset because they want to see Bryan but it feels like Vince is saying "I don't care, I'll make them want Reigns." It backfires every fucking time they've ever rushed someone to top like that. Vince apparently hasn't learned that wrestlers get more over and have more staying power when they get over organically.

There have been countless examples in the past of Vince skyrocketing a guy to the top and it barely ever works. It's worse in this case where Reigns is still rough in the ring and still can't work the mic to save his ass. Now the fans still do like Reigns. But there are multiple other competitors, namely Bryan and Ambrose, who the fans have been rallying behind and are basically being shit on in favor of others. It's a smack in the face to the fans to be told by Vince what we're supposed to like. All it does is put people off the performer. The end of the Rumble could have 100% killed Reigns's face push for example due to how it was handled. Reigns winning wasn't necessarily terrible, but the booking leading up to the win was fucking atrocious and soured the mood.
 
Let me just make a couple of points.

1) I wouldn't call what is going on with Reigns a rush job. Now, I realize that he has not been in WWE very long. This is only his third WM. But he is not the first guy in the WWE to do this and others have been very successful.

2) Here is the thing with Reigns as a singles star. He's only really been in two feuds, three if you count the one with Rollins. One with with Orton, who at that point seemed pretty stale. This is not me bashing on Orton by the way. He's a great worker. However, in the whole Shield vs. Evolution storyline, Orton was definitely the guy who got lost. Even after the feud, Rollins was the guy who really got the heat at the end. Combine that and prior experience with Reigns led to a very lackluster feud that nobody really wanted. Rollins was actually done pretty darn well. It was just cut short due to injury. I thought Reigns did that very well and he did a lot of the same things that he did last night. Last was Big Show and when was the last time that guy was interesting?

3) Every WWE Superstar goes through periods where WWE kind of loses what to do with a person. This really hurts the Superstar. It leads to some really blah feuds. I expect that this is going on a bit with Reigns too.

4 and last) WWE has been building this match for a long time. They have been building Reigns for this match ever since he broke the record last year. Same with Lesnar. Every single match done involving these two guys has been done with this match in mind. They couldn't afford to cut it or change it. Now let's see how the match and build up are.
 
Let me just make a couple of points.
4 (and last): WWE has been building this match for a long time. They have been building Reigns for this match ever since he broke the record last year. Same with Lesnar. Every single match done involving these two guys has been done with this match in mind. They couldn't afford to cut it or change it. Now let's see how the match and build up are.

In the first place, to be honest they COULD cut it or change it. I'm a little hard-pressed to call going with Reigns 'Best for Business' when the past few months have been an exercise in repeatedly stumbling on the character in terms of scripting and booking, to the point where they essentially drain the Rumble itself of all color to make the man stand out better. That's kind of a rotten sign.

In the second, is there genuinely any reason to care for Roman's story at all? I'm an admitted ****e when it comes to story(since I'm not enough of a diehard to take the show as it is warts and all) and I found other potential storylines more succulent than Roman's, and that was even before WWE proved over and over again that their ability to book has grown impotent over time. So now I'm being asked to believe in the story of Roman Reigns. Okay... so what am I supposed to find appealing and interesting about it? I mean, what was there even before the injury? He didn't lay waste to the Authority- had a relatively average at best feud with Randy Orton, switched over to Seth Rollins only because Dean Ambrose was making a movie at the time, and then comes back from his injury and quasi-feuds with Big Show but can't smack the Giant through the canvas?

....seriously, what am I missing?
 
The problem is that these days, fans want to make stars, they don't want the WWE to do it for them. Admittedly this might've always been a factor, but it just so happened that back then, Vince had a better mindset of what the crowds would respond to. Furthermore, he'd notice peoples responses and change his plans around that.

Fans have always made stars. Imagine if the AWA just gave Hogan the belt, I'm sure AWA would have lasted a lot longer than it did.

I said it before the most successful main event guys in the WWE are the ones that were organically embraced by the fans. Austin, Rock, Punk, Bret Hart, etc. when the WWE tries to force a guy down you get Diesel or Lex Luger.

Also I doubt WWE was unprepared by the reaction Reigns got, they used The Rock to help Reigns as a last ditch attempt to get Reigns over. And it still didn't work. At this point I think the only way fans will get behind Reigns is if Brock Lesnar murders a baby with a chainsaw and drinks it's blood. And Reigns tries to avenge the baby, and that's a big "IF".
 
Don't play with fire if you can't handle the heat.

I'm pretty sure WWE had some sort of idea of what to expect when bringing back Bryan for the Rumble. I've already written this in another thread, but I'd have preferred they had kept him "on the shelf" until after the Rumble. No one was expecting him to be back by now, and chances were he might not have been back at all as we didn't know how serious his injuries and medical condition were. Bryan should've been brought back the RAW after the Rumble, claiming he never los his title and was stripped unceremoniously, and now demands a rematch - against Brock Lesnar. That way DB would've been right back in the main event where the crowd wants him right now, and he could've battle Brock at Fast Lane - and lost, effectively putting even more heat on Lesnar and increasing the potential gain Reigns would've had from it.

That way, WWE could've brought back Roman Reigns as a surprise entrant in the Rumble to "clean house" versus a dominating Authority (Kane & Big Show, hell why not add Jamie Noble as a surprise entrant to that as well) and the crowd would've popped huge for his return and the subsequent victory - because it would've been the best they could've possibly gotten out of that, with perhaps the exception of the outside chance of a Dolph Ziggler win (who btw is still more over than anyone else on the roster save Daniel Bryan right now).

But by bringing back Bryan even before the Rumble, and dangling him in front of the audiences faces like the proverbial carrot, WWE made the crowd want Bryan (again) more than anything else, and turned their hottest asset in Roman Reigns into Batista '14 in the blink of an eye. Terrible booking decisions.

The way WWE is treating crowd favorites like DB, Ziggler and Ambrose right now in terms of booking and limelight spots is effectively turning these guys into martyrs. They don't fit the mold of what Vince is looking for, but still get over with the crowds for other reasons. WWE doesn't want to acknowledge that, and keep on pushing their chosen ones like John Cena and Roman Reigns because they WANT them to be THAT guy, when in truth, it's the "underdogs" that today's crowd seems to be more into than the larger-than-life superhero types like Hulk Hogan back in the 80ies.

Sure, on the one hand, it's somehow playing to those characters, if the brass decides to keep them down and below the "glass ceiling", and one could argue that WWE is doing that deliberately to increase the crowd's support for them. But with the way WWE is booking these guys, the way they are making them look weak (DB and Ziggler getting eliminated way too fast and way too easy at the Rumble, for example) or foolish (Dean Ambrose's most recent antics, plus inability to win actual matches) is not making them look sympathetic in the context of storylines, but is more akin to actual bullying and mobbing them at their workplace, and creating sympathy for them on that meta-level.

If WWE then suddenly is surprised when the crowd lashes back at them whenever they can (and especially if they give them such plentiful reasons as in this year's Rumble), then I really don't feel sorry for them; they've got only themselves to blame. If WWE spent more time building crowd favorites like Ziggler, DB, Ambrose and yes, Mizdow, up in credible ways instead of focusing way too much energy in trying to get someone else over whom the crowd isn't yet willing to accept (i.e. Reigns over Bryan), then they could already have a handful of more than capable main event guys at hand. Hell, even Seth Rollins got a better reaction last night than two thirds of the faces on the roster, including Cena - because the crowd likes what he's doing, even if he's technically a heel. They still love to boo him, but they also love to see him succeed because they can appreciate the work he's putting in. Until WWE starts realizing that fans work differently now than they did fifteen, twenty years ago, they'll just keep running themselves into more walls, and keep making martyrs out of men.
 
For a company that expected some heat over the match they sure didn't act like it. The booking was abysmal for the entire match and they really left Roman out there to dry. If I were him I'd be massively annoyed with how the whole match went down but obviously the WWE want to focus attention on a smark crowd that turned on them to be smarky.

Lets be clear, lots of things could have been done to protect Roman from that reaction but in most cases the exact opposite of what should have happened happened.

A few things:

- Don't start the match off with R Truth and the Miz, threw the whole start of the match off
- Allow Bully Ray to hang in there for about 10 minutes more
- Don't stack a third of the match with lower card guys who only last less than five minutes
- Don't eliminate Daniel Bryan so early and give him over half an hour in the match with some decent spots
- Don't give Ziggler less than two minutes ring time
- Don't have Big Show & Kane toss out Ziggler and Bray Wyatt with ease
- Don't have Big Show & Kane in the final four
- Do put more emphasise on Rusev being a dominant monster and don't have him hiding outside for the last portion of the match
- Don't book Reigns to hide under the turnbuckle and not do anything for half the time he was in there

I mean how hard would it have been to go with a final five of Bryan, Ziggler, Rusev, Reigns and Wyatt and to have Reigns eliminate Wyatt at the same time as Rusev dumps both Ziggler & Bryan out? You might rally some fans to Reigns' side to beat Rusev in that scenario as it's a proper showdown between two dominant up and coming superstars and Rusev has just dumped two of the fan favourites out.

They genuinely couldn't have booked a worse Rumble match than they did on Sunday. Vince should fire himself for signing off on that rubbish
 
Let me just make a couple of points.

1) I wouldn't call what is going on with Reigns a rush job. Now, I realize that he has not been in WWE very long. This is only his third WM. But he is not the first guy in the WWE to do this and others have been very successful.

2) Here is the thing with Reigns as a singles star. He's only really been in two feuds, three if you count the one with Rollins. One with with Orton, who at that point seemed pretty stale. This is not me bashing on Orton by the way. He's a great worker. However, in the whole Shield vs. Evolution storyline, Orton was definitely the guy who got lost. Even after the feud, Rollins was the guy who really got the heat at the end. Combine that and prior experience with Reigns led to a very lackluster feud that nobody really wanted. Rollins was actually done pretty darn well. It was just cut short due to injury. I thought Reigns did that very well and he did a lot of the same things that he did last night. Last was Big Show and when was the last time that guy was interesting?

3) Every WWE Superstar goes through periods where WWE kind of loses what to do with a person. This really hurts the Superstar. It leads to some really blah feuds. I expect that this is going on a bit with Reigns too.

4 and last) WWE has been building this match for a long time. They have been building Reigns for this match ever since he broke the record last year. Same with Lesnar. Every single match done involving these two guys has been done with this match in mind. They couldn't afford to cut it or change it. Now let's see how the match and build up are.

1) who has this worked with in recent years? See Swagger, Miz, Sheamus and Del Rio, all pushed to the top when they either wern't ready or the fans wanted someone else. Look where they are now...

2) You just kinda of proved exactly why Reigns IS a rush job, no reason to care about him because he has done nothing of note since the shield broke up. He is just not ready yet. Not saying he won't be but he just isn't yet. He can't cut a decent promo his ring skills, although improving, aren't anywhere near good enough for the main event.

3) Again more proof Reigns is a rush job. If he is in line to beat the most dominat champ in recent history shouldn't we actually believe that he could beat him.

4) What? Really? Thats contradictory to your last 2 points. Reigns hasn't been put over as a unstoppable monster. He's had a lackluster feud with the Big Show. He should have been tearing it up with Rollins.

WWe's booking has been absolutley head scratching. They have built Brock up to be an unstoppable monster. Beyond Cena levels. how can WWE expect anyone to beat Brock when he has defeated everyone in his path so convinsingly. HHH, Cena, Rollins, Punk and defeating the streak. No-one on the roster should be beating him clean. If rumours are correct and he is leaving after Mania Brock needs to beat Reigns then appear on raw and retire and have a tournament for the title. Reigns does not need to win this. Have him have a good showing but let hium develop naturally. Give him feuds for a midcard title. It's not a hard thing to do.
 
- Allow Bully Ray to hang in there for about 10 minutes more

TBH, I agree, it was a shame to have Bully come down for only a few mins, but the pop worked for the ECW Philly crowd.

- Don't stack a third of the match with lower card guys who only last less than five minutes

Again, I agree.

Wasting too many spots, on what could have been better used, I had my notepad ready with the entrants & about 50 names would could have appeared & no RVD.

- Don't eliminate Daniel Bryan so early and give him over half an hour in the match with some decent spots
- Don't give Ziggler less than two minutes ring time

Dont get me wrong, it would have been nice to see both DB & DZ last a helluva lot longer, but it wasnt to be.

- Don't have Big Show & Kane toss out Ziggler and Bray Wyatt with ease
- Don't have Big Show & Kane in the final four

As the lower cards were all eliminated & the ring started to fill, I was thinking "great, nice to see lots of em in the ring battling", but then all of a sudden the ring was empty again, and did you notice how easy & quickly the eliminations came with Show & Kane, talk about the "Finger Poke of Doom" Rumble Style.

- Do put more emphasise on Rusev being a dominant monster and don't have him hiding outside for the last portion of the match
- Don't book Reigns to hide under the turnbuckle and not do anything for half the time he was in there

Yes, but dont forget DB was doing that for a few mins & there was a few other aswell & then you have Rusev (who id actually forgotten about) & also Curtis Axel wasnt elminated either & he's had a couple of rants about it on twitter.

I mean how hard would it have been to go with a final five of Bryan, Ziggler, Rusev, Reigns and Wyatt and to have Reigns eliminate Wyatt at the same time as Rusev dumps both Ziggler & Bryan out? You might rally some fans to Reigns' side to beat Rusev in that scenario as it's a proper showdown between two dominant up and coming superstars and Rusev has just dumped two of the fan favourites out.

That would have been nice too, I was thinking how are they gonna fill the last 10-15 mins of the show with the final four, Ambrose went out like nothing then Kane & Big Show started, then Rusev miraculously comes back & Reigns took them all out & was posing for that 10 mins, then send The Rock out to try & quell the boos.

They genuinely couldn't have booked a worse Rumble match than they did on Sunday. Vince should fire himself for signing off on that rubbish

IMO it wasnt the best rumble ppv ever, especially with the triple threat being way better than I expected.

But dont forget last year when Reigns was robbed by Batista, the crowd did the same thing & booed Batista, Reigns is just this years Batista & DB is this years robbed Reigns.

But hey, once the snowstorms have finished, it'll be interesting to see how they book this on Raw & SD next week, but personally I hope they dont take Reign's WM shot & hang it in the air for everyone to try to take.
 
At this point the Bryan going to the main event of Wrestlemania ship has sailed, if there was any hope in that happening I really don't think Bryan would have been in the match at all. . I honestly think the only reason they put Bryan in the match to begin was to basically tell fans he's not apart of this year's Mania plans and probably hoped people wouldn't care so much since he hasn't wrestled much in a long time, it wasn't meant to be a "screw you" to the fans or even to Daniel Bryan, it's their way of saying "we are going in a different direction this year". Unfortunately for WWE though, them getting rid of the fan favorite that early ended up becoming a screw you to the fans and WWE has to be smarter than that. The stupidest thing about this is it was such an easy issue to avoid since Bryan was injured for a long time, they essentially turned a layup into a full court shot.

I often hear that fan's don't know what they're talking about and although that's often true I don't think there are too many of them that would be stupid enough to eliminate Bryan within 5-10 minutes of him showing up, even if it was decided that Reigns was winning. It was a incompetent move, plain and simple, I was more dumbfounded than anything. Bryan not winning isn't even the most upsetting part of the Rumble really, it's what WWE is doing with Reigns that has me most worried.

At this point though I think it would be dumb to put Bryan in the main event at Wrestlemania. Last year it would have been stupid if Bryan wasn't in the main event but this year it would be stupid to mess with their current direction. As much as I don't think Reigns should be main eventing a show like Mania yet at this point they've went a little too far down that road so the best thing to do is for WWE to do anything and everything to get Reigns where he needs to be. Unlike last year it's not too late to get the fans on board with their current direction, sometimes all it takes is a few good moves to change the fans perception of someone.

Even though WWE creative is backed into a corner, it's not one so deep they can't fight their way out of it, it's just unfortunate they put themselves in that corner to begin with.
 
I dont know how you salvage it,maybe turn Roman heel if it continues i dont know!

That's what I think they might have to do.....and it might be as effective a tactic as if they turned John Cena heel......for both men, it would be WWE giving the fans the impression the fans were the ones to determine the course of events....and essentially, it would be true, although perhaps not for the reasons the crowd believed.

I've been advocating a heel turn for Cena for the effect of having him tell the fans: "You've been hating me? Fine, now I'll give you a reason to hate me!" In my opinion, the turn would be an absolute blockbuster.

Because of recent events, the same might apply to Roman Reigns. Honestly, I believe his best destiny might be as a heel (or at least a 'tweener) anyhow, so if they turn him bad, it might have the dual effect of giving the fans what they want even as they roll with what probably was the logical approach from the beginning.

As for WWE being surprised with the backlash to the events at the Rumble, I'd point out that a huge number of fans that attend live wrestling events are hardly attuned to what's going on in pro wrestling. They go to the shows to be doing the same thing as everyone else and wouldn't know "a wristlock from a wristwatch." (in the immortal words of Gorilla Monsoon)

Many of them want Daniel Bryan because they like doing his chant ("Yes!"). Personally, I don't think Roman Reigns is ready for the mega-push he's getting, but if I had a choice as to whom I'd want to see in the ring with Brock Lesnar, it would be Reigns in a heartbeat.
 

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