Board 8 > Lopen watches and talks about all the Royal Rumbles. And ranks them. TURBO.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Royal Rumble 2012:

Miz draws #1, cuts a promo about how he's gonna be awesome or somethin, former disciple turned enemy Alex Riley draws #2. Miz eliminates him, gives a bow... former friend turned enemy R-Truth is #3. Cool, it's a Rumble about Miz, I'd forgotten this! Well, not so much. Cody Rhodes eventually comes in and starts making most of the important eliminations. And so I guess it's about him.

Ricardo Rodriguez
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http://i.imgur.com/sR4DFCX.gif
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All 3 announcers
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Kharma
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Kofi handstand
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Road Dogg, Jim Duggan
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It's the end of the world as we know it, says Y2J

We eventually reach 30, Big Show, who decides to eliminate Cody Rhodes and Miz (and Ziggler) immediately to no fanfare whatsoever. Well sure why not. Everyone left has been there for less than 10 numbers (22, 28, 29, 30) now. We get down to Sheamus and Jericho. It's super drawn out for some reason. Sheamus wins.

There was just something... missing from this Rumble. Nothing felt like it mattered. It was just a string of sideshows that Miz and Cody Rhodes refused to laugh at, followed by them being unceremoniously dumped just before the final stretch, and Sheamus eventually winning. I mean when you've got ~1/3 of your field dedicated to gimmick entries, and another ~1/3 dedicated jobbers, there just isn't much drama to be had. I think they could've made it a bit better by spacing out the comedy a bit more early, as seeing Mick Foley (who isn't taking himself remotely seriously), Ricardo Rodriguez, and Santino Marella in order was just kinda overload.

Royal Rumble Ranking
1992 > 2004 > 2002 > 1997 > 2007 > 1990 > 2011 > 2001 > 1994 > 2009 > 2003 > 2010 > 1996 > 1989 > 1988 > 1993 > 2005 > 2008 > 1991 > 1995 > 1998 > 2012 > 2000 > 1999 > 2006

This may seem kinda low relative to the amount of complaints I had... but, nothing at all feeling like it matters is a pretty big negative. Other generic complaints like "too much laying around" and "ring is too filled" also apply, but yeah, the true reason this Rumble was bad is you can get what you need to out of this with like a 2 minute hype package, and really that gif I posted probably was half the entertainment I got out of this (other half being a combination of Khali lasting a while for once and Kharma HURLING Hunico from the ring). It really was that spotty. Only the truly offensive Rumbles deserve to be lower.

The Undercard was also completely boring-- I think I had the most fun playing "see how reliably I can determine which Bella is Nikki" in a Bella Twins match. You also had the wretched Kane vs John Cena/Ryder feud (remember Kane's stupid "grab their face to suffocate them" finisher? And people said the Heart Punch was bad.), and Dolph Ziggler facing CM Punk in a best of 19 match where CM Punk won 10-0. Why wasn't this is in Miz's hype package of Ziggler failures? (CM Punk! CM Punk!)
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Ugh, that Rumble was the epitome of "why is this person in the Rumble" stuff and made me forever have zero tolerance for announcers being in. Or managers. I'd rather the lowest jobber then a non-wrestler.
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Screw you guys 2012 was the best time to be a sheamus fan
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I don't strictly hate stupid gimmick entries but this one just overkilled it by a ton. Like I didn't have a problem with Coach in the first Rumble he was in. Doing it two years in a row was pushing it but I've also never had a problem with Hornswoggle. But yeah 1/3 the field being gimmick entries is not even an exaggeration so yeah just bad times. I think them getting super drawn out entrances also hurt. Like Coach came out and he just walks out and the announcers are like "why is he in!?!" and that's the extent of it. Ricardo you've got the dude driving in some beat up car, the announcers they get up and strip their announcing clothes off to reveal wrestling gear with the camera on them the whole time.

It was a good(ish) winner though, I guess. But Y2J would've been better. Or Miz or Cody. But really even if Miz had won I would've had a hard time caring. Given that I liked 1995 better I think I'd take the lowest jobber over a non-wrestler too.
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yeah but sheamus worked out with hhh, he deserved a victory
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There was just so many joke entrants that it made me hate them even though I never had an issue with a joke entry or two before that.

For instance, if Bryce Remsburg or a returning Gavin Loudspeaker had been a participant in the Infinite Gauntlet I would have marked out and thought it a great moment. Because CHIKARA haven't burnt me out on it like WWE did in 2012.
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On the bright side, at least the announcers thing had a satisfying payoff, which is more than I can say for the Lawler vs Cole match at Mania 27.

And it's not like they took a spot from anyone who needed it. This Rumble included Jinder Mahal coming out to absolute silence. You could have made a CD quality recording of his entrance music.
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Well personally I'd rather a bunch of dead silence Jinders be in there than a bunch of bad jokes. The problem with oversaturating with bad jokes is it makes the Rumble lose credibility as something people want to win and hurts all the jokes cause there are just too many-- at least dead silence jobbers serve as a rest period to build to the next moment.

That being said I don't think the roster was actually that thin. At bare minimum you could double book (or single book-- some of these matches didn't need to be on the Rumble) Mark Henry, John Cena, Kane, Brodus Clay, Drew McIntyre, Heath Slater, Yoshi Tatsu, Also maybe don't run the stupid wheelchair Ryder angle and just have him be in the Rumble and get some redemption vs Kane *shrug Feel like there were others that weren't on the PPV at all too but I don't know. That and booking Booker T and Mankind somewhat credibly could've helped a lot-- they're no longer active but given the right presentation people could buy them as winners.
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voltch posted...

Ya know, I do find it funny, that for all the eddisploitation going on, Rey won the belt at mania in just 12mins.

Meanwhile Triple H gets a match twice as long, in the main event, with an over the top s***ty as f*** entrance.

what!!! that entrance ruled, especially the water bottle
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neonreaper posted...

voltch posted...

Ya know, I do find it funny, that for all the eddisploitation going on, Rey won the belt at mania in just 12mins.

Meanwhile Triple H gets a match twice as long, in the main event, with an over the top s***ty as f*** entrance.

what!!! that entrance ruled, especially the water bottle

If they are going to get a throne, why not a chalice?
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Lopen posted...

Rey Mysterio's 62 minute run had about that much lying in the corner. You can do anything in the Rumble.

Also yes Orton and Cena leaving the audience totally dead was great. To be fair the audience was probably a bit exhausted by the Rumble by that point, but then again Santino got a huge reaction so maybe not.

we were just devastated because we didn't get a jacknife and the ADR inevitability was kinda sucking the life from us.
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Just finished the 2009 Rumble myself. I enjoyed it, wouldn't say it's a favorite, but definitely a solid mid level Rumble. I too liked the fact that Legacy never turned on each other like what happens so often with teams, but the problem is I really don't like Randy Orton and never have, so I wasn't thrilled with the winner obviously. Still a good Rumble all in all, but not one of the best.
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Man ADR was a great winner in 2011 you guys didn't know what you were talking about. It's only the later stuff like... 2013 face ADR!

And yeah I was unsure you would like 2009 much cause you seem much more anti-Orton than I was but seems your thoughts about matched up with mine. Anyway.

Royal Rumble 2013

This Rumble has a good balance of everything.

The number of people in the ring hovers around a good number of 7-9. The action is pretty spread out-- we've got a nice distribution of people doing their big spots in the ring and others doing. There's a good amount of comedy/gimmicky stuff without overdoing it. Mystery entrants are a nice combination of competent (Jericho, Goldust) and gimmicky (Godfather, who doesn't overstay his welcome). There aren't really any huge flaws (bar the finish, which I'll get into) either. Like I could say "well they kept the camera on Kofi a bit too closely while he was doing his chair pogostick thing" or "Cody Rhodes was a master troll and then eliminated a bit too early for all his troll cred" but I don't feel any of this really detracted from the match.

The end is the one flaw. You have Sheamus, Cena, and Ryback as the final 3. This final 3 lasts a rather long time. It's not actually that bad to watch-- doesn't drag, but I feel like all three of these guys play to similar appeals, so really if you weren't a subscriber to that type of wrestler you weren't getting much out of this. Replace Sheamus with say, Ziggler or Jericho, and I think you've got a more interesting group.

And of course Cena wins, which is well, predictable to the point where it hurts my vibe from this Rumble, but not overly so. I kinda feel like pulling the trigger on Ryback here would've been best for business even though Ryback wasn't very good it felt like the right time, but I tend to place most of the blame on CM Punk vs The Rock, as 500 day reign Punk vs Cena would've been an excellent Mania match and the backdrop the culmination of that feud deserved, predictable or not.

I think this is pretty much the dead neutral Rumble for me. I was never bored, but I never really got hyped for anything in the ring either. Top 3 moments were: 1. Goldust's entrance. 2. Jericho's entrance. 3. Tensai's entrance. Because Tensai was awesome.

Oh also I felt bad for Khali this Rumble. First Rumble where I really felt like he looked pained to move. I assume this is his last Rumble cause yeah he did not look happy out there :(

Royal Rumble Ranking
1992 > 2004 > 2002 > 1997 > 2007 > 1990 > 2011 > 2001 > 1994 > 2009 > 2003 > 2010 > 1996 > 1989 > 1988 > 2013 > 1993 > 2005 > 2008 > 1991 > 1995 > 1998 > 2012 > 2000 > 1999 > 2006

Now... if you really want something I disliked, look no further than the undercard. I have enough hatred for CM Punk vs The Rock to sour me on the whole show. Just... god. Listen, I'm not Punk's biggest fan. Frankly I think he was kinda overrated and the only reason he was considered as good on the mic as he was is because he was given so much freedom to just say things they won't let other guys say, and his ring work is good but kinda sloppyat times, but man, you wonder why WWE can't build stars. Rock didn't even look good here. He was totally blown up like 5 minutes in-- I've seen Billy Gunn last longer than this.

Punk beating Rock here would've cemented him as a legit star, and you would've had a guy other than Cena who people cared about. And you say "well Punk left!!" frankly I don't think he leaves the WWE if they put him over Rock here and let him ME Mania against Cena. Like frustration was a big part of Punk leaving-- let him actually be the star that he thinks he is and frankly I'd say he earned despite my cries of overrated, and he's here for another few years for sure.

Alternatively, Ryback vs Rock. Think about it.
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Honestly, the Rumble needed the Cena win, because the title shot itself was becoming a huge joke, with the Rumble winners going for the WHC and ending up in the opener of Mania, and they were losing a lot as well.

Putting Cena over here ensured that the Rumble winner main evented and won the title.
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Yeah like I said Cena wasn't really the problem here it was Rock. But I think Punk or Rock vs anyone would main event so Cena wasn't all that necessary.

Or Ryback vs Rock. Think about it!
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Oh boy, Rock ended up with a hernia, torn adductor and torn abdominal muscle from working the most basic, low effort match with John Cena.

Would he even survived a match with Ryback? He would have crumbled to dust with the very first slam from The Big Guy.
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Finished 2010 and then read your writeup for it and it seems like we're almost completely opposites about this one. While I still think it was only a mid level Rumble overall, the things I liked and disliked about it seem to completely differ from you. For starters, I can't stand CM Punk's shtick. I also don't like when the Rumble consistently has less than 4 people in it unless it's nearing the end. I mean, I don't want 15 or anything, but a nice 4-7 is good for me. This Rumble constantly had too few people in it.

On the positive side, I loved that Triple H stopped the flow of CM Punk, but then I like Triple H so...yea. Also, I know I said in my 2009 review that I generally hate it when teammates turn on each other because it makes no sense, in this case it's just Shawn being Shawn so that doesn't bother me at all. I also liked the fact that it it was not a heel that eliminated him because I feel like it added to his moment of disbelief and shock. Like, you feel sorry for him but at the same time it was a fair elimination and he just has to accept it.

Also, unlike 2009, I liked the winner this time. All in all, if it wasn't for the fact that so often there's 3 or less people I'd have put this above 2009, but that just bothers me for Rumbles.
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Yeah HBK superkicking Triple H out of that Rumble I liked not just because it screwed over Triple H but because it made sense for me. Shawn was just that desperate to win, and it's not like he doesn't backstab his friends all the time anyway.

Also Batista was a heel at this time he just wasn't a midcarder-- like I said I think a midcarder would've been good because that feud works as a brief transitional feud no matter who eliminates him so why "waste" Batista with it. I mean Shawn having to accept it is fine no matter his alignment as long as he's eliminated clean which he was-- then you just have the heel act like an ass setting up a brief filler feud on the way to Wrestlemania, which IIRC happened in some limited capacity with Batista anyway.

I do actually agree that the ring was a bit underfilled in general with that one though. Give me an underfilled ring over an overfilled one every time but yeah.
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Nah, the HBK vs Batista feud was 2 years earlier after HBK retired Flair.

Batista spent the next four months feuding with Cena over the WWE Title and then left until Rumble 2014
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Lopen posted...

frankly I don't think he leaves the WWE if they put him over Rock here and let him ME Mania against Cena.

You're pretty much correct with this statement. Punk stated in his interview on Colt's podcast that his one regret was never main-eventing WrestleMania, citing 2013 as the year he should have.
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Eh, it led to the f***ing great Undertaker/Punk match at Wrestlemania (I was there! What really made it incredible was the crowd being solidly 50/50 between them the entire match...until Taker gets put in the Anaconda Vice, starts to fade, then breaks out with a giant "f*** you" expression. The crowd BOOMED for Taker and never let up till he won)
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While that's true, Taker/Punk still took the backseat to both "Twice in a Lifetime" AND HHH/Brock Lesnar.

I got mixed feelings on Punk's departure. While it sucks that Punk played second fiddle to Cena during most of his 15 month reign as champion, Punk would also respond by hardly putting anyone over on ppv in his final six months. Between SummerSlam 2013 and Royal Rumble 2014, the only people who pinned Punk on ppv were Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman; the former didn't need to beat Punk to elevate his status, and the latter is not even a wrestler.

And then appropriately enough, Punk's wife retires a year after he did without putting anyone over either. No wonder Nikki Bella held the Divas title for as long as she did.
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It was actually hilarious since the crowd had nothing left after Punk/Taker, so the last two matches were entirely dead (they may have been anyway since they kind of sucked, but yeah). People were getting up to beat the traffic as soon as it became apparent Cena was rapidooing Rock
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Lopen posted...

Yeah like I said Cena wasn't really the problem here it was Rock. But I think Punk or Rock vs anyone would main event so Cena wasn't all that necessary.

Or Ryback vs Rock. Think about it!

I want the reality where this happens!
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Lopen posted...

Yeah HBK superkicking Triple H out of that Rumble I liked not just because it screwed over Triple H but because it made sense for me. Shawn was just that desperate to win, and it's not like he doesn't backstab his friends all the time anyway.

I mean HHH and HBK are a pairing where one might eliminate or sneak attack the other at any moment if the right opportunity/mood hits. You just know that HHH would have backstabbed him at some point if there was a perfect elimination chance. Its just how those two are.
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Network subscription ends in a week so I should be finishing this up this coming week-- shame I dawdled a bit in the middle we could've got this done in one topic. As is probably one more Rumble at the most in here.

Random thoughts about Rumble 2014 Undercard cause why not (I watched all of the undercard last night but felt too tired after to actually watch the Rumble). I think I can go 3/4 on most of you disagreeing with me here so let's try!

Despite Orton vs Cena being overdone to hell at this point, this may be my favorite match the two had (or at least, ages the best). The crowd crapping all over it and Orton playing into it is pretty funny. They chant boring and he's like *CHINLOCK* and is like, so intense and smiling at the audience about it. It's great.

Bray/Bryan is still super overrated. Imo this match is so highly regarded entirely because of the name branding. Like a Daniel Bryan match on a big stage against someone people don't hate is probably 3* minimum for most people regardless of what the match is. Whatever! Not being able to get into the storyline whatsoever probably didn't help here.

Also weird to think Lesnar's dominant run began off of a match where the build was basically Big Show was too big for Brock and so Brock used a chair to savagely beat him (excessively-- good lord this went forEVER) because he didn't like that.

NaO winning the tag titles was the best thing for the Tag Titles in a long time. Weird to think that the Tag Titles are in a better situation on this show than they've been on Smackdown Live for a while now despite SDL's tag division starting real strong. No foresight in the booking!
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This was the rumble i was there live for and that Orton Cena match is one i treasure because i never got to see them live ba k when they were feuding.
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That crowd was insufferable though... and I was in it! I hated the people around us.
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I liked the crowd for that match because Orton/Cena part 438 is the match that actually deserved that reaction. Also cause excessive crowd interaction wasn't so standard as it is nowadays with NXT mentality coming in. But I know this is the Rumble where for example Rey gets utterly buried because of the jerk audience which is not cool but you know, at least they enhanced something.

Also helps because Orton and Cena unlike other people who get hammered by stupid chants are actually good at playing into it.
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I remember that chair beatdown going on way to long.
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Oh yeah, that was hard to sit through. I think I may have actually went to the bathroom lol
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Just watched 2011 Rumble and again I feel like we are complete opposites here. I would definitely have this as a low tier rumble. The only good things about this at all I can recall are Morrison surviving elimination, and Cena destroying The New Nexus, and I'm not even a Cena fan.

Plenty of times where so few people were in the ring.
Plenty of wasted potential (especially Diesel).
It's 40 men but there was a lot of fodder just for the sake of The New Nexus dominating and then Cena/Hornswoggle dominating.
A winner where I was like "Who the hell is that, I don't even remember him".
Way way way too much Hornswoggle, which I didn't find funny at all.
And such an anti climactic finish.

Wow, I might legit put this in my bottom 5 rumbles. Once again, I am glad to see a team like The New Nexus actually work together and not turn on each other, but it really takes away from it when I don't like any of them.
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Yeah I'm not too surprised you weren't a fan of that one. At this point if you quit back in 2006, there isn't going to be all that much for you as far as talent-- and you've got a group of such people dominating a lot of it.

Royal Rumble 2014

Most people would remember this Rumble as being particularly bad because of the infamously terrible finish that the audience crapped all over at the time. And really, that's most all there really is to talk about it, as aside from that the in ring action in this Rumble was basically 2013 part 2, a Rumble that didn't have a ton going for it one way or the other-- but it veered to the overcrowded side unlike 2013 that had it right. There were some fun spots like Cesaro swinging Rollins over 20 times (and then Rollins basically no selling it-- this should be an elimination for sure if you get launched over how can you land on the apron that dizzy!), and probably the best Kofi spot of him having to run the rails and do a long jump to the ring. Your surprise entrants are underwhelming in Kevin Nash, El Torito, and JBL-- three things we've seen before. Still no Jackknife from Nash!

So then the question is how badly can being completely tone deaf to the audience tank a Rumble? Well the answer is pretty damn badly. I'm not saying we had to make Daniel Bryan win this, but not even including him was a terrible move, as it should've been known he was the audience favorite to win. So the audience craps on the last 10 minutes of this, from Rey Mysterio's entry at #30 till almost the end. That isn't to say this was all Daniel Bryan-- in fact the final stretch of this was sort of a series of trollings.

- Corporate Kane eliminates Punk who'd iron manned through the thing from #1, and a guy the audience probably would've been fine with winning, to remove him from the final 4
- Roman Reigns starts to get cheers as people realize how dominant he's been this thing I guess-- or maybe they just want anyone but Batista to win, but whatever, he's eliminated shortly thereafter.
- Batista who is clearly blown up and not really fit to wrestle right now (although neither was Rock last year and they still cheered him) wins

Funny to think that if they'd just pulled the trigger on Roman one year earlier it might've just worked! Call an audible, for crissakes! I dare say literally any other entry except maybe like El Torito would've been a better winner than Batista this Rumble, which is pretty impressive all things considered. He didn't need it, and no one wanted it, and what makes it worse is you had a lot of guys who it could've absolutely been the right time for. Dolph Ziggler had people going nuts for him here-- when's the last time that happened?

Oh, and an underhated facet of this that really hurt this for me, the announcing was absolutely wretched for this one. I felt like I was watching a Royal Rumble by the numbers promo for the whole thing. They kept saying "this number had winners on this year and this year" EVERY TIME a winning number came out-- hell we even got a list of numbers that HADN'T won because Lawler asked if every number had won (hey Jerry we haven't had 30 Rumbles yet!). Roman Reigns got the most eliminations and well it didn't feel like a big deal as much as some sorta statistic-- "Roman Reigns has beaten Kane's record of 11 eliminations with 12 eliminations" f*** off could we just watch the match. Just react like humans to what's going on the ring, get excited about something, instead of regurgitating endless amounts of factoids I'm beggin ya.

Royal Rumble Ranking
1992 > 2004 > 2002 > 1997 > 2007 > 1990 > 2011 > 2001 > 1994 > 2009 > 2003 > 2010 > 1996 > 1989 > 1988 > 2013 > 1993 > 2005 > 2008 > 1991 > 1995 > 1998 > 2014 > 2012 > 2000 > 1999 > 2006
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Yeah their INSTANT IN-DEPTH STATS thing they were (are?) doing really kills immersion.

JBL rattled off Sting's entire resume the instant he appeared as ostensibly a surprise.

"It's him!! The 6-time WCW Champion, 2-time NWA Champion, etc."

Like yeah, *I* could rattle off stats like that at a moment's notice but it's so irrelevant
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Lopen posted...

Funny to think that if they'd just pulled the trigger on Roman one year earlier it might've just worked!

That's an interesting statement. On one hand, Roman was even worse of a wrestler and talker than he would be a year later. On the other hand, they hadn't exposed that fact yet because he hadn't worked many singles matches yet, so him pulling an upset might have at least prevented any Bryan backlash from harming him too much given how out of left field it would have been.

Of course, then you have to deal with actually putting Roman in a main event way before he's ready, but that didn't stop them a year later!
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One reason why Batista landed with such a splat was they basically told us on Raw that he was the favorite and then he wins.

That's not good storytelling.
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I think a guy getting the chance a bit before they're ready is fine and generally better than the alternative. Of course you could've had him get screwed out of it somehow or whatever, making him a sympathetic figure and maybe people would actually have supported him winning the 2015 Rumble in that case. I dunno. Build is pretty important, too.

Anyway

https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/75099376

New topic.
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I wanna keep this alive a bit longer.
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To 500 (maybe)
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*stops and watches the entrance to see what the next post is*
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http://imgur.com/biCRFPJ
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New topic purged before this one lol.
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Well if the other one purged, all the more reason this must reach 500.
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