I think he would have still made it...a PG version of Stone Cold would have still gotten over with the crowd. He went from practically buried as the Ringmaster to the most over guy of all time. I think he would still find a way in this era. If DBry can get as over as he is with his limited mic skills, amazing wrestling, and terrible booking he's dealt with, Stone Cold would be able to as well.
Well, one big difference is that Stone Cold is 6'2. Vince needs his guys big, and Stone Cold was big. But in 1997 him and the Rock were being pushed in the mid-card. Stone Cold was the one that got over and in 1997 Vince had to worry about WCW, so he couldn't just tell his fans to go f**k themselves like he does now. If the same situation presented itself, I think they would have continued to push the Rock no matter how over Stone Cold got. I think Ambrose/Reigns are in a similar situation. Ambrose was never Stone Cold over, but before his recent string of bad bookings he was getting big pops. Him and Reigns are basically the same size. Ambrose is a better worker, better talker, and is getting better reactions, yet they force the Reigns train.
Honestly this is the only thing that's interesting about the main event Mania match to me is how they will work in Rollins in the match. He has to finally cash in that thing since he wasn't able to go to Plan B at the Rumble. I could see him using the MitB case to get in the match, but that would just seem odd that he wouldn't try to use it in an underhanded way instead but its possible. I would personally like to see Rollins start feuding with Ambrose again before Mania. They can have a match, Rollins wins and looks strong, then when Reigns/Lesnar wins Rollins comes and cashes in and wins the belt in Heel fashion. This would hopefully set up Rollins, Ambrose, and Reigns feuding with each other over the next couple months and having a triple threat match for the belt at Summerslam. Reigns won't have to talk as much with Rollins and Ambrose involved and give him time to work on his character and promos over those months so he's not booed out of the arena like he was last night.
I think it's clear that Rollins is cashing in the MITB at Mania for the biggest impact with the briefcase ever. At least that's the smartest way to go about it. Piss all over the Roman Reigns victory over Brock with the cash-in. The thing is it'd turn Rollins face essentially.
^^^Damn. Another reason that Vince and his hierarchy of old school buddies need to step aside and let young blood take over. Notice how every big-wig job is a revolving door (New Director of Media, New Head of Creative, New Head of this and that etc.) but never the position Vince has. He has to not be so involved in the product to the point where he has final say and review of the direction of the program. You have 25+ young writers from Hollywood and etc on his creative team, but Vince stifles the hell out of them. I've heard all the former WWE Writer interviews. Heck, I went to school to get a Communications Degree and a Creative Writing minor with the hopes that one day I'd achieve the dream of being on the WWE creative team but hearing all the horror stories of the toxic work environment killed the dream. It's Vince, It's Kevin Dunn, and its all the kiss asses that fall in line and don't progress and change with the times. Now it's going to effect their bottom line so they are going to make some moves and do serious damage control to fix it because they invested so much in the Network. But it all starts with the decision making at the top.
I thought it was a great Royal Rumble and I think Reigns winning (when he was the biggest face on the show for most of the year, is the correct choice) I really think with Rollins cashing in..Atleast one of Bryan, Ambrose, Ziggler, Wyatt gets added
Do you really think Reigns is ready to main event Mania? I like the guy but the WWE is putting him in a terrible position. They should have given the Rumble win to DB and build Reigns to win it next year, but Vince is so out of touch with the audience.
WWE's twitter says there's still gonna be a show, just from their HQ instead, so I guess that means highlights or something. Maybe if the Rumble was in a less menacing crowd, Reigns winning would not have been crapped on so hard. Chicago, MSG and especially Philly can host some really hostile crowds.
I think the main difference though is that they then didn't have him just win the rumble or any other huge event. They were cautious, they understood that it wasn't working and stepped back several times. Nowadays they see a guy they like and just go full steam ahead. I thought about this and it's just hard to say. Bryan is HUGE right now, with how they are ignoring that almost completely? Makes me think they would have just ignored Austin, sometimes it feels like they do it on purpose. I heard another guy say "They had Show and Kane just troll the entire match." certainly what it felt like. All the guys the fans have been into in 2014 were just thrown out unceremoniously by Kane and Show. That's not even the biggest thing wrong with WWE, the biggest thing wrong with it is the amount of matches that seem thrown out there to just fill time. Little purpose to advance characters or anything, just in there to waste a handful of minutes.
There is a guy on reddit who was physically at the Rumble and he watched the replay on WWE Network, he said they muted a good percentage of the boos out of the broadcast
The whole Kane and Big Show thing, to me, was to help Reigns out. By eliminating Ambrose, Ziggler and Bray, the Big Show and Kane looked larger than life, and Reigns dumping(i say that loosely, cuz Reigns was struggling) both of them was supposed to make him look like a hero. Then eliminating the WWE's biggest heal(Rusev), was supposed to elevate him even higher. Fans were supposed to be thankful that Reigns eliminated the guys that eliminated the fan favorites. I mean, maybe an 8 year old dig that. Ive seen Big Show and Kane turn from heel to face and vice versa so many times that it makes my brain numb. They coulda had someone screw Bryan in the match and set up a fued on that, instead it was just a meaningless elimination. And it wasnt just Reigns and Bryan. They had a chance to start a good fued with The Miz and Sandow. Also with Stardust and Golddust. And then they threw all members of the Ex-Wyatt family together, when there was NEVER a back story into why they broke apart. All of this aside i only started watching again about 3 years ago. Growing up as a kid in the 90s, i guess i am just spoiled by the greatness of that time and the attitude era.
Are the fans angry because they just don't want Reigns to main event WM? Or is Reigns the victim of the fans' displeasure of how Bryan was treated at the Rumble? I think if Reigns won the Rumble but Bryan was eliminated more ceremoniously (final two, with a controversial elimination a la Stone Cold/Bret Hart), there could be some heat leading into WM with both the people's choice- Bryan, and the WWE's choice - Reigns, being involved in the main event.
A philly crowd wasn't gonna be happy with Reigns winning regardless. There has been a noticable simmering dislike of Super Reigns, and that was with typically more forgiving crowds. Combine that with the Bryan nonsense was a recipe for disaster. Despite all that happened, I think they still had a chance for it to come off decent with Wyatt, Ziggler, Ambrose and Rusev all in there at the the end, but the WWE decided to have them all sent out like meaningless punks by 2 fossils. It was a complete booking disaster.
Seriously though...what happened with that? It shows how dysfunctional creative must be that they just broke up that stable out of nowhere.
To me its not about Bryan, its just about how the entire thing went down, from the creative/booking/storyline angle. I feel like a final group of Reigns, Wyatt, Bryan, Ambrose and Ziggler would have been highly entertaining. Instead two old trolls were just dumping all of them over the ropes like dead bodies. They could have at least put those guys over more than they did.
If Reigns doesnt have a singles PPV match at Fast Lane then Wrestlemania will be only his second ever PPV singles match.
