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I cannot "believe that" I'm writing another one of these Dear WWE articles.
Last year, I had beef with Batista getting handed a main-event spot at WrestleMania, and Daniel Bryan not even making an appearance in the Royal Rumble match. Luckily, when it was all said and done, with CM Punk fleeing from the company and the fans literally demanding Bryan win the title, he ended up getting his big moment in the sun.
This year, the end result of the Rumble was different but still left me with a familiar feeling: frustration.
Roman Reigns winning was not unexpected; he was the favorite, he is the golden child, he is John Cena 2.0. The problem this year was the complete lack of respect given to Bryan. He's out there for 10 minutes, eliminated one person, and was unceremoniously dumped out of the ring by Bray Wyatt, like he's just some floundering mid-carder that no one will miss.
"Are you kidding me?" was my PG reaction.
The air was literally sucked out of the building when that monstrosity occurred. No one cared who came out after that; Bryan was already gone. I feel like The New Day got more air time than Bryan did.
Seriously stop playing that damn theme.
The event was in Philadelphia, so WWE had to expect Reigns winning would not be well received. So you might as well put him up against the most popular guys right until the end, right?
Bryan out.
Damien Mizdow instantly out.
Dolph Ziggler, Wyatt, and Dean Ambrose sent out, thanks to, of all people, Big Show and Kane.
That ending was so bad, that The Rock -- The. Rock. -- couldn't get the crowd to cheer. In the end, after Rusev was tossed out, like some chump, it was really strange seeing Rock and Roman in the ring together. Remember when Rocky Maivia was so hated by the fans? Something similar is happening to Reigns, and Rock is there trying to help sell the guy. The problem was every time he raised Reigns' arm, the boos got louder and louder. There's an argument that if this happened in another city the reaction would have been more positive but given the location, WWE completely missed the mark with this booking.
Maybe next year WWE will get this right. I'm glad a young gun who's working full time gets the Rumble win but please, don't shit on guys who are clearly crowd favorites. Don't force feed us Roman Cena -- or John Reigns, if you will. I'm not buying it, and you can believe that.
No wait, I can't end on "believe that", how about...
Minus the triple-threat match, that Rumble straight-up sucked.
Deal with it.