| Jumpin said: A few notes: • The idea of having the main event as a women’s Royal Rumble was spectacular. I really like how there’s a far greater amount of female wrestlers now, and that they aren’t treated like a sideshow - I’ve been watching the Attitude era and as good as some of the women are; women’s matches still (in 99/2000) still come off as side shows with the presentation that being a woman is a gimmick. 2018, the women seem WAY more integrated into the show. • Both matches were full of fun stuff, and had satisfying endings that actually had a lot of suspense. Not sure if this is a term still, but I totally marked out in both matches (in case it’s not a term, as a viewer, you get so sucked into something that your imagination tricks you into thinking it’s real, and you get super tense/excited). • Both winners coming from Japan is interesting. • Sasha Banks barely broke a sweat in her almost 1 hour in there. I don’t recall ever seeing someone that active for that long in a match before. She impressed me the most all night. • Braun Strowman, I don’t know a lot about him, but he reminded me a TON of the first year of De-masked Kane. Also, him and Lesnar were smashing each other. That was a stiff looking match. Even though Strowman fucked up one of the table shots and Cole called him out on it. • LOVED seeing Molly (my old favourite of the women’s division), Trish, Jacqueline, Lita, and Micky James back in the mix. I would have loved to see Ivory too. Vicki Guerrero was funny. • AJ Styles vs Shinsuke Nakamura at Wrestlemania makes me want to watch RAW again. The last time I watched a live RAW, Chris Benoit was still alive. • I would have loved to see Rob Van Dam and Sabu in the match. • I’m not sure why everyone hates Roman and Cena. Cena was really big when I used to watch, and from all reports and extremely stand-up guy. I know less about Roman, so I don’t want to comment. All I know is that he was a top guy for a while. They should play up the Rocky Maivia/Kurt Angle strategy (or are they?) - people really hated those two (Angle, for all his over-the top American heroism, was ironically FAR more liked outside the US than he was in the US in the Attitude era). |
1 - Shinsuke Nakamura and AJ Styles are on Smackdown, so watching RAW won't help.
2 - People hate Cena because - for a good four or six years, he never lost without being cheated out of something. I personally think he's one of the best ring generals in the biz today, and has been in some of the best WWE matches of the last decade (him vs CM Punk Money in the Bank 2011 and him vs AJ Styles Royal Rumble 2017 as well as him vs Daniel Bryan Summerslam 2013; Sure, his opponents were all outstanding, but it takes two to tango and he held his own.)
3 - People don't hate Roman Reigns, they hate the idea that he was CHOSEN to be the next big star. Vince likes him because he's like "what if the Rock and HHH Had a baby" in looks and skills. He's a big guy, he's mysterious, and he has simple to follow moves. Because of this, he was shot to the top of the card long before the crowds were ready for him and the fans resented that. Like Cena, he's a genuinely great wrestler (not on the same level of AJ or Nakamura or CM Punk or Daniel Bryan or Rollins or....you get my point, there are many wrestlers better than him even if he's pretty good), but the fact that he was pushed on the crowd makes the crowd resent him.
