That's an obtuse statement. Shittiest fan city? Sure... Philly fans get overzealous and downright criminally violent about the Eagles, Flyers, Phillies and their major sports teams in general... but they're a PERFECT wrasslin' crowd because of that. They're honest, and if that means they shit all over a poor ending, so be it. That's called instant feedback. They would've had the same reaction in New York, Atlanta, Miami, Orlando, Dallas and any other city where the fans actually react to the product.
Now as for the point of the thread... the Rumble match was so poorly booked across the board I don't think five things could have saved it. The worst thing about it is that they obviously KNEW the crowd was going to shit all over it or else they wouldn't have had Dwayne come out to try and save face. Daniel Bryan winning would have been the best case scenario, no matter what anyone says. That's where the fanbase is and therefore, the money. Even if Bryan was still to lose, what would the problem have been with keeping him in the ring and including him in the final four? At the very least, it would have kept the train from going completely off the rails until the finish.
Getting off the D-Bry subject, there were a lot of other storyline elements that seemed to be completely ignored or at least treated as afterthoughts. Miz and Mizdow should have been in the ring at the same time to create more tension between them and lay the foundation for their split and a match that would make sense on the Mania undercard. Cesaro should have been featured better in the match as well, bringing him back to his Andre The Giant Memorial form and eliminating Big Show. Those were just a few ideas that came to mind while I was watching.
The final four should have been based around the guys who are actually getting good reactions and fan support. Bryan, Ziggler and Ambrose would have kept the crowd invested. Insert Bray Wyatt into any of those spots along with Reigns. Again, even if Reigns won in that scenario, the finish would have seemed more like a minor cut than the bloody, hemmoraging wound that it became. That ending was chaotic and bad... not unpredictable as it could have been... just poorly, poorly executed. I've always thought the point of the final four should be that nobody's quite sure who is going to win. Once you have Kane and Big Show... and Rusev (what the hell was the point of that?)... it's painfully obvious and predictable what's going to happen. If they had made the final four a little more along the lines of what I mentioned above, then at least the crowd still has a dog in the fight. Reigns just isn't winning anyone over outside of Cena kids and their moms.
And what if Daniel Bryan did win it? It's what the fans would have wanted the most and is therefore good for business. Some say it's too unbelievable... well, news break... but it's pretty unbelievable for anyone on the roster to go over on Lesnar at this point. He's the fucking Terminator. But this is "fake" wrestling and there are always options to explore, why not go with the option that guarantees a positive fan reaction and possibly more Network buys, ticket sales and increased revenues in general? Like it or not, there was serious money to be made with a Lesnar vs. Bryan main event. After all, we're talking about the guy who beat Triple H, Randy Orton and Batista in the same night at last year's event.
I feel bad for Reigns because this wasn't his decision, and I fear that this is going to seriously hinder his career and he's going to end up like his cousin (Manu, NOT The Rock). I'm not his biggest fan, but if they had kept him on ice for just one more year and let him work out the kinks in his performance, he could have had the right kind of momentum to win next year's Rumble and main event next year's Mania.
