Royal Rumble moments that need to stop

[A Platypus Rave is Correct]

Jan 31, 2021 12:57:52 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

Jan 31, 2021 11:46:20 GMT -5 msc said:

Ironically 2015 is the one rumble it'd have made sense for him to be #1, as the whole build up was "Ziggler has stamina and conditioning and can out last everyone" - then they made him 30 and last 90 seconds. Killed him stone dead.

Being fair I'm pretty sure 2015 was specifically crafted with the aim of being the shittiest match imaginable. Absolutely nothing about its structure makes sense for any reason except to say, "We do not give a f*** what you want, you get Roman Reigns."

Really it's basically the exact same match as the Extreme Elimination Chamber. Doing everything possible to shit all over all the people the crowd actually likes to try to get them to cheer for the guy they don't when it was never, ever, EVER going to work.

Honestly if Roman HAD to win, what they really should have done was get him in there early, have him go on a tear just wrecking people all throughout like he did the year prior, have it come down to him and Bryan, and have them have an epic 10 minute climactic showdown where Bryan made him look like an absolute star the whole time until eventually losing. He would've gotten booed in the moment but it wouldn't have ruined the whole match because the crowd would still be invested in it and it would've at least made Roman look good instead of like some asshole who benefited from Kane and Big Show doing all the work for him.

Yeah, 2015's entire story was f***ing atrocious... there was literally one story Here's Big Show and Kane dumping all the people you actually care about one by one like sacks of garbage.

Roman who the crowd did not want to win... kinda even flukes into eliminating them... and Rusev (who they had pull the he wasn't really eliminated!) card for no real reason... afterwards.


and that was it... NO OTHER stories continued or started at the Royal Rumble that year... nothing that happened in the Rumble affected Wrestlemania.

[Jake, The Jake, Jake]

Jan 31, 2021 0:12:06 GMT -5 Jonathan Michaels said:

If we get rid of all the things you guys are suggesting, what the hell would be left?

Strict enforcement of the rules and about an hour of guys chopping meat.

[Pooh Carlson]

The "numbers" and highlights videos, such as is currently happening in the kick off show needs to go away. We don't need to be reminded of this stuff every year. It kinda takes away from the match that's about to happen in my opinion.

[Sam Punk]

Tag teams fighting each other. If they were smart they would work together to eliminate the other 28 guys, thus guaranteeing one of them would win. Still angry the Hardys didn't to this in 2001.

The whole two feet hitting the floor thing. If you're thrown over the top to the floor, you're eliminated. No more wild saves.

[doinkmark]

Stop pointing at the f***ing sign.

[doinkmark]

The "final 4 staredown" spot. Makes the whole thing feel hokey as hell. They should be so caught up in winning the match that they don't have time for staredowns or keeping track of who the final 4 are.

[Chiral]

[HMARK Center]

I've been saying for awhile that the "main event spot at Mania" stipulation should go; kayfabe-wise it's a silly way to determine your top contender at the biggest show of the year (and makes the jokey entrants really confusing), while in real life it just needlessly whittles down who even has a remote chance of winning. Not sure what the perfect alternative is, but some different kind of prize, or maybe different prizes available depending on the level of who wins, something else would just seem better to me.

Otherwise, I'd say stop the recent booking style where every entrant is "new person runs in, hits all their signature spots while everyone else naps in a corner, quickly fades into the background". Way too repetitive, takes a lot out of the wrestlers, tires them out, and leads to the whole "spend 20 minutes lying in the corner/waiting outside the ring" thing that really kills the aura of wrestlers lasting long in the Rumble. Have people enter and get to work trying to eliminate others (or attacking a rival who's already in the ring, fists flying), save signature spots for situations where they make sense.

That said, like all things in wrestling I'll say that any booking idea CAN be done for the Rumble, but ideas shouldn't be driven into the ground. E.g., you can have someone illegally eliminate another competitor, but make a point the next year of saying the rules have been fine-tuned to deal with such situations...or hell, integrate having refs around the ring to keep track of eliminations, which can allow some people to cheat by working around the refs, whatever works. There's always times you can get away with doing things you normally shouldn't, but where they go sour is when they do them again and again and again until they become tropes.

[Deleted]

After a single time of it, wacky 24/7 run-in hijinks.

[Lt. Palumbo]

I need at least one year without a "haha, technically you didn't eliminate me!".

Naomi was f***ing eliminated. Just because her literal feet didn't touch the floor shouldn't make a difference when her entire body is down

[Shark]

Jan 31, 2021 2:59:44 GMT -5 Mid-Carder said:

It's not really what you asked but there are way too many multiple-Rumble winners.

It's only 5 people. That's not that bad. 5 over 34 years isn't that much.

Jan 31, 2021 10:35:09 GMT -5 The Kevstaaa said:

Forced staredowns in an attempt to be epic. Rock/Austin in 01 and Hogan/Warrior in 90 are the iconic ones. Stuff like Edge/Orton or Edge/AJ worked.

But nobody cares that Nia Jax & Tamina are face to face.

This is very much mine. I don't mind when they are earned, but they do them way too often. Charlotte did it like 5 separate times last year and she even did it this year with Mickie James of all people, as if that's some epic kind of dream match or something.

[Dang!]

Jan 30, 2021 23:21:45 GMT -5 Can you afford to pay me, Gah said:

At less Kane is not in them, since Kane always get brought up what he did in 2001 10 years later.

Oh yeah?

[Beets by Schrute]

Jan 31, 2021 20:26:02 GMT -5 Chiral said:

And saved

[Sparvid]

One spot I would like to see is after someone eliminates their tag partner only to be thrown out themselves soon after, the partner asks them what exactly their plan was, and they have to do a Ryback-esque "Oh yeah, I guess I am a big stupid idiot for not waiting until we were the final two..."

[Von Wagner's Brownies]

Jan 30, 2021 21:05:56 GMT -5 Von Wagner's Brownies said:

This isn't so much in Rumbles as it is in battle royals but the whole "He/she wasn't thrown over the top rope, therefore he/she wasn't eliminated".

And tonight was the night they decided "Hey, let's do that SO MANY TIMES!"

[TheMediocreWarrior]

I agree with the "went through the ropes, not eliminated" thing. Going forward the floor should be lava, period.

[Lt. Palumbo]

Also, enough with the "he's been out of the ring so long you forgot about him" thing. Whether it's brought to the back or just hanging around ringside, it's cheap bullshit

[Alice Syndrome]

Jan 30, 2021 21:40:23 GMT -5 A Platypus Rave is Correct said:

Jan 30, 2021 21:05:56 GMT -5 Von Wagner's Brownies said:

This isn't so much in Rumbles as it is in battle royals but the whole "He/she wasn't thrown over the top rope, therefore he/she wasn't eliminated".

This seriously needs to stop in Rumble and Battle Royales as a whole.

the I didn't actually go over the top rope but I'm gonna hang around outside the ring for the entire thing is tedious as hell...

They do it... EVERY time.

People rolling to the outside that aren't eliminated in general is annoying... I remember the first women's royal rumble was super guilty of it and there were large portions of time where the ring was just empty...

I can forgive it when it's got a purpose eg Rock and Austin brawling outside for a minute or 2 in 99 when the ring was just full of whoever and they kinda needed space for it.

[Mid-Carder]

People deliberately hanging around outside the ring. In kayfabe the ref should have authority to say if you're not in the ring in ten seconds you're eliminated.

[HMARK Center]

Just saw each Rumble match, and will say that there was some good and bad:

-A good thing was they cut back a bit on the thing I mentioned before, "Run in, get your shit in, take a bump and then nap in the corner". I'd say the first third of the women's match did a very good job of avoiding this and feeling like a legitimate fight and struggle (points to Bayley, she seemed to be directing a lot of that), and the men's Rumble also mostly seemed to avoid the worst of that trope. It still happened too often, more in the women's match than in the men's, but any reduction from what they've typically been doing is welcomed.

-Other good thing: by avoiding that style, I think they managed to avoid too many "(so and so) is sleeping" spots. They still happened, but there were less moments of just a couple people hitting spots in the middle of the ring while everyone else acted like they were dead. Again, not perfect, but definitely an improvement, and one they should keep in mind going forward. If anyone was guilty of seeming to just disappear for awhile despite still being in the ring it was probably Edge, but he's not exactly a spring chicken anymore so I won't hold it against him.

-Bad thing: the overuse of "technically not eliminated" spots and "eliminated by someone not legally in the match" spots. At this stage, it appears there are no rules in a Rumble...so why doesn't everyone just wait to get into the ring until the #30 entrant appears? Why don't all managers/bodyguards/valets just get in and get directly involved all the time? Billie Kay avoiding entering the ring for multiple minutes and wasn't penalized at all, AJ had a guy literally pulling people out of the ring for him...there are multiple refs outside the ring and they're literally not doing anything.

I get that the Rumble is meant to be a wild brawl, but you need some kind of set of rules and structure, otherwise people bending rules or otherwise manipulating the system doesn't actually mean anything, because instead of it being devious or conniving it just comes off as smart: like, yeah, why shouldn't Billie just sit at the announce table and wait the whole match to enter? Why shouldn't AJ just have his bodyguard get in the ring and toss people over left and right? Why shouldn't Orton make it look like his knee is dead early in the match, take a rest, then run back out at the very end?

Just reference your history and build on it: "Due to the nature of Giant Gonzalez's involvement in the 1993 Royal Rumble match, WWE rulemakers changed the Rumble rules to state that people not legally competing in the Rumble match cannot eliminate legal participants", "After Jerry Lawler's hiding beneath the ring for an extended period in (I forget the year), the rules committee decided that all participants must remain in the ring, and are only granted a standing 20 count on the floor if they have no been thrown over the top rope", something like that. Then if it does happen, you can have the refs, I dunno, DO SOMETHING about it. Lame, lame, lame.

-Worst things: the announcing and the camerawork. Holy shit.

All in all, not bad as Rumbles go, particularly modern Rumbles, which I'm not usually a big fan of. Thought they could've done more to tell a story with Bianca so her win would mean more, and the complaints I just wrote still stand, but not bad, either.