Douglas Nunnally: Welcome, wrestling fans, to the first edition of The Wrestling Roundtable in over ten months! I personally apologize for the long absence and promise we will be back here either weekly or bi-monthly for all you fans and truly better than ever. For those new fans, TWR is a roundtable discussion between columnists of recent issues in wrestling today. On the panel today, we have myself as the moderator, Matt Green (author of Get The ‘E’ Out), Mike Johns (author of The Trademark Rants), Joe Pritchett (author of Joe Pritchett’s Real Talk), and Tim Wronka (author of From The Eye Of The Dragon). Pretty impressive, huh? Well, anyway, today for our return edition, we will be talking about the 19th annual Royal Rumble PPV that happened about two weeks ago, but still has the IWC abuzz. What did you guys think?
Mike Johns: Personally, I found it disappointing and pathetic and really, this all due to one match: Edge versus Cena. After the reaction Edge was getting as champ, as well as the turn-around John Cena made after nearly committing babyface-suicide about a month earlier, it makes no sense to me whatsoever that Edge would lose the title so soon.
Matt Green: I think the Rumble had a lot more issues than the fact the Edge-Cena match was poorly booked. The decimation of JBL by a comedy character made little sense now that JBL is an established top line heel; the cruiserweight open, while brimming with potential, was a horrible mismatch of styles where no one meshed with each other and ended up capitulating into a TNA PPV opener with contrived blown spots; and finally, the Rumble being in the middle of the show really said to me that it didn’t mean that much to the company so whoever won it was winning it because they had to be safe for No Way Out, which they now are since the Rey-Orton storyline will keep fans tuned in because of the controversy and that it’s so flash in the pan fans won’t get bored of it. Add to those points the needlessness of the women’s match, Cena’s entrance, the title change, and the Undertaker return you have the worst WWF/E PPV in my opinion since Wrestlemania IX.
Joe Pritchett: I was certainly upset that the Royal Rumble match was in the middle of the PPV. With that being said, I was excited to see Rey Mysterio get the win though that did cause plenty of controversy. As far as the Cena/Edge match goes, I found the entire angle to be an act of desperation by the WWE. I don’t think they had any plans of taking the title off of Cena when they did, but they needed to do something in hopes of turning his character around with the fans, but I’m not sure it worked. I was more than upset to see the likes of JBL fall to the Boogeyman as well. This was mentioned before but it seems absurd to me that he was basically destroyed when a year ago he was one of the longest reigning WWE champions.
Tim Wronka: To be honest, I didn’t think that the PPV was that bad, especially considering how bad we’ve seen some PPV’s. Like most of the others here, I agree that the Rumble match should have been the main event. Rey winning was an awesome surprise that I won’t soon forget, and the overall match was better than the two main events. As for those matches, they were ok. I think the Edge-Cena feud has been very entertaining (minus live sex) and a definite change of pace. The SmackDown! main event was passable, but it was really saved by the Taker appearance at the end to end the night on a good night, even though Rey winning would have been better. The women’s match was decent, JBL-Boogeyman didn’t last long enough to be bad, and the Cruiserweight open, while a bit spotty, was an exciting match. So overall the PPV, was ok, but could have been worse.
Mike Johns: First off, I just want to address the whole JBL thing. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t see him as a top tier anything. The man literally ran SmackDown! into the ground during his title reign, devaluing every single contender he faced including Eddie Guerrero and Undertaker. As for why anyone would be upset with him losing to the Boogeyman, I don’t get it. JBL puts over a guy who’s worse than he is, and yeah, that sucks, but not nearly as much as JBL killing SmackDown! was a year ago. As for Cena-Edge, it seems more obvious now than ever that Edge winning the belt was simply a political play to salvage Cena’s heat so he could wrestle Triple H at WM.
Douglas Nunnally: Mike, don’t you think that Boogeyman squashing someone who was on top for so long devalues that title reign or makes him a legit contender for the title now?
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