#wrestlemans

As I’m watching the Royal Rumble this year I was having a really good time. I introduced three people that had never watched wrestling to it with this event. We had just finished watching the triple threat and everyone was excited for the main event. One of the people I introduced to wrestling for the after years of pestering him said, “Alright you got me, this is pretty awesome.” That was one of the most reassuring things to happen to me. It’s always awesome when one of my friends finally gets into wrestling because it is one of my biggest passions in life. I am fascinated by every aspect of it from booking, to match psychology, to character development, to storytelling. I think Max Landis said it best when he said, “when good things happen on wrestling they are as good as something on AMC or Showtime.” The triple threat match between Brock Lesnar, John Cena, and Seth Rollins, was exactly that. It told a great story and everyone pulled their own weight; everyone also looked really strong by the end of that match. It didn’t make a singular guy look miles better than the others. Any one of them could have one the match by the end and I would still have been completely fine with it because the story telling was there.  That’s when it happens, the Royal Rumble.

               The Royal Rumble was the match I was hyped about all week leading up to this, and it couldn’t have been more disappointing. I knew either Roman Reigns or Daniel Bryan was going to win. They set up the Daniel Bryan victory so well that by the time the match started I was convinced they were actually going to give him the win. We watched and waited for the numbers we had been randomly assigned earlier in the night to appear at the top of the ramp. We all laughed when people got someone they hated and had to begrudgingly cheer for them. Namely my roommate who got Bray Wyatt, whom he despises because of the song they had Wyatt sing all last year. Wyatt then singing the song again made it all the better. When finally number ten came out, and it was Daniel Bryan. “Congratulation number ten, you’ve won!” I said with complete confidence. A little over ten minutes later Bryan got eliminated. They didn’t even make a big deal about it. There was no set up for a bigger story; he just kind of got thrown out of the ring like any other mid-level guy. A bunch of guys came out after this, but everyone in the room kind of died after Bryan was eliminated. We got a cool Stardust versus Goldust tease which was pretty cool, but other than that not much happened in the way of story. Big Show and Kane just kind of set everyone outside the ring really lightly. The fact that there was very little story telling was my biggest issue. I actually really like Roman and am pretty happy that he won, but I’m not happy with how it happened. It’s like everyone else wasn’t even thought about. It also didn’t really feel like Roman did anything in the match. Last year people were cheering for him when he went up against Batista because he showed throughout the match that he deserved it.  He was eliminating people left and right, he was exciting and hitting big moves quite often. This year he eliminated two old wrestlers that haven’t succeeded in a single evil plan since in quite a while. They eliminated every other crowd favorite one after the other with little care, effort, or fight from the guys they were eliminating. Then The Rock came out in the grossest move to try and get Reigns cheered in a long time. Then they set up this Rusev being under the ring angle up, and did absolutely nothing at all with it. It’s just baffling that they seemed to have learned nothing from last year, and actually seems like they just forgot that last year happened at all. Batista returned from an absence, did nothing, and won the Rumble. Roman did the same exact thing this year. I don’t understand why they thought it would be any different. Bryan’s entire story was that he was worried that he wouldn’t get his rematch for the title he didn’t lose, and took that into his own hands. Wrestling’s stories are really important, and to get people to care you have to tell one that doesn’t insult them.

               A quick side note, I don’t understand why they brought Bryan back at all. He should have come down and said he wasn't able to compete at the Rumble, but he’s getting better and would be back sooner rather than later. You have just as much time to set up whatever match you want, but people won’t get pissed when he is eliminated. You then have the setup for a fun feud between Roman and Bryan post Mania. It seems pretty simple to me, but I’m not paid to write stories so whatever. I’m still going to wait and see where the story goes from here, but one of my favorite matches of the year typically was really disappointing this year. The rest of the card was really fun, and I can’t wait to watch more stuff with my friends. I hope next year’s Rumble match is better.

I am so glad that Persona 5 stars a younger Shinsuke Nakamura as Tuxedo Mask