Second guessing is a sport among wrestling fans.
I don’t watch many pay-per-views but in the few I’ve watched lately the main event seems to be WWE vs The Fans. That’s what happened at the Royal Rumble last night. That was followed by the infamous twitter hashtag: #CancelWWENetwork which even TIME magazine picked up on. This publicity is bad for WWE and wrestling in general.
I’ve been writing wrestling stories and angles for years in the fictional universe of Champions of the Galaxy. It’s a lot easier that way, no real people, no egos. My characters do what I tell them.
Given my background I couldn’t help watching the Royal Rumble and having my own thoughts. Here’s how I believe Roman Reigns could have been booked to win and gotten over with fans.
Going in you have to face the fact that Daniel Bryan is your most popular guy. He’s your Hulk Hogan, Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin. Why mess with that? He’s got to look good.
You’ve got to use Bryan to help get Reigns over instead of getting rid of Bryan early in the Rumble because you don’t want him in the ring at the same time as Reigns.
There’s a lot of sub-plots in a 30-man Royal Rumble and I’m going to ignore them and outline the main points.
First it’s time to establish the top heel of the night. It should have something to do with the Authority because Triple H is perhaps the biggest heel because he represents the WWE establishment. Better yet have Triple H in the Royal Rumble. What a shock that would have been!
Early first 15 entries are sub-plots. Then some heel is winning big to the point of being annoying. BAM, that’s when Daniel Bryan comes in and starts a winning streak. The fans love seeing Daniel Bryan show his stuff.
This continues a while and then out comes Triple H. Here comes the stare down, the hate between these two men. Triple H tries to take a leadership role with the other wrestlers in the ring to eliminate the hated Bryan.
And it’s working. Bryan is on the verge of being defeated by the cheating Triple H and goons.
Then Roman Reigns comes out! Fans go wild. Here’s someone to help Daniel Bryan.
And he does. Bryan and Reigns work together against Triple H and goon squad. This lasts a while.
Then finally Triple H is successful in some underhanded way. He cheats and with the help of Kane and others he gets Bryan eliminated. The fans are ticked.
Now Triple H tries the same trick with Reigns that worked with Bryan but it backfires. Reigns fights back and eliminates everyone except Triple H. He points his finger at Triple H indicating he’s gonna go. Reigns dismantles Triple H and throws him over the top rope. He’s the winner of the Royal Rumble and he looks good doing it!
Triple H is frustrated. He promises revenge. There’s more story to build on.
It’s hard for me to see the fans booing Reigns at this point. Maybe some, after all it’s Philadelphia, but not like it went down last night.
In this approach Daniel Bryan starts off as the star and main focus of attention, then it’s mixed, and finally Roman Reigns gets his star moment. Both wrestlers shine, one feeding the other. Put them together, let Bryan mania rub off on Reigns.
Use the Authority’s heel heat more effectively.
This scenario is predicated on the idea that you want Reigns to win and be in the main event at WrestleMania. I’m not arguing whether this is a good idea or not. Perhaps Daniel Bryan should have been the winner all along.
But if not I think the above scenario would’ve been more likely to put Reigns over.
The loser in all this unfortunately is Roman Reigns, who didn’t deserve such anger directed at him and now he’s already at a career crossroads.
What’s good for WWE is good for wrestling, so I hope they’ll find a way to rebound.
