Does Anyone Watch Wrestling? (WWE, AEW, TNA, NWA, etc)

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The Bloodline appreciation thing has been removed from Raw XXX, its been replaced by the trial of Sami Zayn which ties into what happened at the end of Smackdown, they did have plans for the original segment with Afa, Sika and Rikishi due to make appearances.

Quite a tag team heavy Smackdown with all first round tournament matches taking place the best of which being Sheamus/McIntyre v Viking Raiders.
 
Its Royal Rumble week and it starts with a big Monday Night Raw tonight, 30th anniversary show.
 
US title match between Theory and Lashley is now No DQ, plus first hour of the show will be commercial free.
 
Raw was a lot of fun last night, opening Bloodline segment was brilliant.

But lets be honest, the women got screwed over, not just the cage match that didn't happen but the lack of women's legends amongst the men and no video package for them either, The Bellas were supposed to be there but they got axed and voiced their displeasure afterwards, they made some good points too, hopefully WWE will make up for it at the Rumble.
 
Raw XXX pulled in some big numbers in the rating, it did average 2.3 million which is the highest since February 2020, plus that brilliant first hour pulled 2.6 million which is a whole million more that the first hour of last weeks show!
 
Nice to see WBD came to their senses and allowed AEW to run a Briscoe tribute and allow Mark on the show.
 
So who are your picks to win the rumble matches?

I think its hard to look past Cody Rhodes and Rhea. Sami maybe for the men's and Becky for the women's.
 
Men's:
  • Def Cody's match to lose, also have him penned in as likely Ironman of the match, probably one of the first five entries
  • Rumors of The Rock winning seem to have calmed after he claimed he couldn't fit it into his schedule
  • always present "lolbrockwins"
  • yearly Gangrel and Tatanka cameo appearance wish
  • likely gonna be much less of an aimless trainwreck as last year's
Women's:
  • Liv Morgan preferred, but not objecting to Rhea Ripley either. Bayley and Lynch is a distant third and fourth
  • lolcharlottewins is also never really ruled out
 
I just want them both to better than last years, they were both forgettable.
 
Okay then the Royal Rumble PLE is tonight, here is the card.

Pitch Black Match.
Bray Wyatt v LA Knight

Raw Women's Championship.
Bianca Belair (c) v Alexa Bliss

Undisputed WWE Universal Championship.
Roman Reigns (c) v Kevin Owens

Women's Royal Rumble Match.
Liv Morgan, Candice LaRae, Rhea Ripley, Raquel Rodriquez, Shayna Baszler, Zelina Vega, Emma, Bayley, Dakota Sky, Io Sky, Lacey Evans, Xia Li + 18 more.

Men's Royal Rumble Match.
Kofi Kingston, Santos Escobar, Ricochet, Baron Corbin, Austin Theory, Seth Rollins, Bobby Lashley, Rey Mysterio, Gunther, Cody Rhodes, Omos, Drew McIntyre, Sheamus, Braun Strowman, Karrion Kross, Dominik Mysterio, Xavier Woods, The Miz, Brock Lesnar + 11 more.

Sami Zayn got involved in the Owens-Sikoa match last night when he wasn't supposed too, he meant to cause distraction for Owens but it backfired so he will be in trouble with Roman now.

Lesnar declared himself for the Rumble match last night after hitting Lashley with an F5, Viking Raiders attacked McIntyre and Sheamus before their tag title semi final match with Hit Row, Strowman and Ricochet took their place and they advanced to face Imperium in the final next week.
 
The ending to last night's show was probably the best ending to a WWE show I have ever seen.

Everything about it was perfect, the emotion, the storytelling, the facial expressions. Everyone involved had a part to play and they all played it perfectly, I'll never forget that pop when Sami hit Roman with the chair, the story has been building for months and last night it hit an amazing conclusion, what happens next?!

As for the rest of the show, Both rumble matches were great. Cody winning was predictable but didn't dampen anything, he entered at number 30 but his win meant a lot as Gunther was portrayed as some sort of an immovable object, Gunther himself was incredible entering at number 1 and lasting 1 hour 11 mins, smashing the previous record. There were other great moments too such that Logan Paul/Ricochet spot, The Edge/Judgment Day stuff and a few other bits I've already forgotten about! :lol:

The women's rumble also had the right winner and Rhea also lasted from the very started, she entered at number one and went on to win the whole thing, there were some nice NXT call ups for the match throughout and Michelle McCool entered whilst she was at ringside watching with her family, Asuka returning as Kana was great and got a huge pop.

The other tw matches were just average sadly, the 'Pitch Black' match was just lighting effects with some glow in the dark neon stuff and Mountain Dew logos plastered everywhere, Bray looked badass and won with a Sister Abigail, later we saw Uncle Howdy try a dive onto LA Knight into a table in the arena but Howdy actually missed, the women's title match was just a standard women's match with Belair winning cleanly with a KOD in seven minutes, there was a little spooky Alexa stuff after.
 
Its been reported that the main event for Elimination Chamber on February 18th will be Roman Reigns v Sami Zayn for the Universal WWE title. Now it is of course highly unlikely that Roman will drop the belts, especially this close to Wrestlemania but I do think it makes sense for them to face off, when Sami loses he could then team up with Owens to take down the Usos for the tag titles at Mania.

Speaking of the Usos, Jey posted on his Insta last night a pic of him looking distraught during that big segment at the rumble with the caption 'I'm Out'....
 
There will be two Elimination Chamber matches, one for the US title where Austin Theory will defend it and they had qualifying matches for it on Raw last night, Rollins beat Gable, Gargano beat Corbin and Bronson Reed beat Ziggler all to qualify, the other match is to determine Bianca Belair's opponent for Mania after Rhea Ripley chose to face Charlotte Flair, in that Chamber match will be Raquel Gonzalez, Asuka, Liv Morgan and Nikki Cross, next week will see a fatal four way for the fifth competitor in that match which will include the returning Carmella and Piper Niven.
 
Piper Niven, the artist formerly known as Doudrop. Great to see this Scottish wrestler return, I always thought she was a cool wrestler. It was cool seeing Rick Boogs return after usually hyping up Shinsuke Nakamura. RAW was pretty cool last night.
 
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