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d2kvirus · 11 months ago

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26/1/24 Fact or Fiction

Statement #1: Bayley will win the 2024 women’s Royal Rumble. FACT - It makes perfect sense from a storyline standpoint to have Bayley vs Iyo at WM, and given the Rumble and MITB are effectively treated as ersatz titles these days it also fits to have Bayley get a clean sweep of all women's titles, Rumble and MITB

Statement #2: You spell battle royale with an “e”. FICTION - Only when talking about that Japanese film given that's, you know, the title and everything

Statement #3: There should be a Tag Team Royal Rumble match. FICTION - Mainly as it will be a logistical nightmare to a match where the only finish would be one babyface Ricky Mortoning their way through one or two heel tag teams in the final four

Statement #4: For Cody Rhodes to “finish the story” he must defeat Roman Reigns for the WWE Title in a WrestleMania main event. FACT - If he wins the title from Not Reigns that would be a consolation prize at best, and if he's not even in a title match at WM then he's a punchline for the remainder of his time there

Statement #5: You will consume alcohol while watching this year’s Royal Rumble match. FICTION - One time a few years back my local pub showed the Rumble live. Give the show started at 1am, and that was the 2013 Rumble where the booking went into full "Sod you, you're getting Rock vs Cena II" mode, it was not fun walking home at 4am with a few beers in me while being PO'd that the last two matches of the show were effectively Vince sticking his middle finger up at his audience. But he's stuck worse things in worse places, from what I hear...

Statement #6: Draymond Green has a WWE career waiting for him after he retires from the NBA. FICTION - Given he's a dead ringer for Ledley King, Tottenham will surely ask him if he can play centre back as that couldn't be worse than Eric Dier

Statement #7: You recognize The Big Show as the real winner of the 2000 Royal Rumble match. FACT - Because he did. At least Cena & Batista's botch managed to work out in such a way it was obvious the booking was telling the fans to ignore the evidence of their eyes and their ears

Statement #8: An “Even Greater” Royal Rumble with 60 entrants would be fun. FICTION - The 40-man Rumble was pretty bad, so adding 50% more entrants to that would be as terrible as me beginning this response and forgetting that one time they did a 50-man Rumble...

Statement #9: Jinder Mahal’s WWE championship run was underrated. FICTION - It wasn't even rated due to it being the booking equivalent of The Great Molasses Flood of 1919: slow, painful, and horrible to witness

Statement #10: Tony Khan’s tweets are fun. FICTION - While the whole "I can't support AEW as the owner is a bit cringe on Twitter" discourse is almost entirely performative garbage from garbage performers on forums and social media alike, Tony really needs somebody hovering over him to keep him from making the story about him instead of AEW

Statement #11: Santino Marella’s “I wasn’t ready!” elimination from 2009 Rumble match is the funniest moment in Royal Rumble history. FICTION - The ending of the 2005 Rumble is best for its unintended hilarity, not least due to Vince's comedic tumble as he realises he blew out both quads and having to sit there like a toddler giving instructions

Statement #12: You are more interested in what Nic Nemeth does post-WWE than Matt Riddle. FICTION - If Nemeth bet on himself when his contract was up in the mid-2010s I certainly would have been interested in what he had to offer, but after a decade of forgetting he was still employed at various points I'm far less interested, so Riddle wins by default

Statement #13: Here’s a good idea, a TLC Royal Rumble: entrants can be eliminated by going over the top OR by being put through a table, chairs are ladders are legal, and after all 30 entrants have entered then the remaining wrestlers are able to go after a WrestleMania main event contract hanging above the ring. FICTION - I'm sure that a table battle royal exists somewhere, but there's two obvious problems with using tables for eliminations: the table not breaking, or the table breaking when it's not supposed to. Either way, any stip involving something which can't follow booking instructions like tables, glass or Koji Kitao is destined to have a botched finish sooner or later

Statement #14: In pro-wrestling, a good punch is better than a good chop. FICTION - Not that I'm against a good worked punch, but what puts a chop over the top for me is the sound when somebody who can really lay them in, be it Gunther or Go Shiozaki or Pentagon Jr

Statement #15: In the next 20 years, someone will break Stone Cold Steve Austin’s record of 3 Royal Rumble match wins. FICTION - Most of the men on two wins have already retired so if they have (for the sake of argument) Cody winning four in a row it will be forced as hell just to create a record for the sake of creating a record - which is why I can't see them trying that with the women's Rumble, given that match is so young that it would look especially obvious if they have Bianca Belair or Rhea Ripley win it every other year to get her numbers up

Statement #16: Kazuchika Okada should go to the WWE. FICTION - Okada should go wherever he feels would be the best place for his career. That might be WWE, that might be AEW, that might be a company which isn't even in the conversation at the moment, but saying he "should" join one company or another is just like the worst part of football discourse for decades before social media became a thing and made it even more irritating

Statement #17: WCW’s three-ring World War 3 battle royale concept should be brought back. FICTION - The main issue with both WarGames and Blood & Guts is there's always the chance the camera misses something in the second ring as it's focusing on something in the first ring (or, in B&G's case, outside the ring or on top of the cage) so a third ring increases the chances of the production truck missing something

Statement #18: If The Rock wrestles at WrestleMania 40 it will NOT be his last match. FACT - Mainly because of the genuine concern that, if he does win at WM, it will be the second time in recent(ish) memory he's come back to end a lengthy title reign, meaning he has to stick around to drop the belt...right?

Statement #19: You prefer to watch actual wrestling over movies about wrestling, like The Iron Claw. FICTION - At no point when watching The Wrestler did the film cut to commercial mid-match, nor did I question Darren Aronofsky's booking decisions...until Noah, anyway, but the point I'm making...

Statement #20: Playing the Royal Rumble mode on the early ’90s WWF WrestleFest arcade game is history’s greatest wrestling video game experience. FICTION - As fun as the Wrestlefest Rumble was, the greatest wrestling game experience for me was borrowing someone's GameShark so I could actually use Jake Roberts in SDvsR 2006, as that was locked behind needing PS2 & PSP crossplay otherwise and I didn't know a single person with a PSP

Statement #21: If the top rope breaks during a battle royale, wrestlers should still be legally eliminated by being throw over the 2nd rope. FACT - Makes sense, as if the top rope breaks the middle rope becomes the top rope. Just don't ask if the top rope breaks on one side but not the other three, that's a headache waiting to happen

Statement #22: 2x Royal Rumble winner John Cena is the greatest wrestler of all time. FICTION - Mitsuharu Misawa is spinning in his urn

Statement #23: Here’s another good idea – a Reverse Royal Rumble: the match starts with all 30 entrants in the ring and every 2 minutes someone is randomly eliminated, but you can can be safe from the random countdown eliminations if you eliminate someone else first. FICTION - New rule for 411mania: anybody suggesting reverse battle royals must post photo ID to prove they aren't Vince Russo - and if they aren't, that makes it even worse

Statement #24: No one ever retires – the Undertaker will wrestle again. FICTION - Plenty of wrestlers retire for real, be it due to injuries which can't be rehabbed or because nobody noticed that they retired. More than anything else, though, since retiring Undertaker has removed the mystique he had for decades with his podcast appearances and so forth, and that genie isn't getting put back in the bottle

Statement #25: IMPACT Wrestling changing their name back to TNA will make you watch again. FICTION - It's not airing in the depths of Freeview in the UK anymore, which is why TNA had a surprisingly large following in the UK 15+ years ago, so unless there's some really good word of mouth that will send me to WatchWrestling I will likely not be actively looking to watch it

Statement #26: WWE should bring back the ECW brand again. FICTION - If there's any brand which WWE bought and then euthanised they should consider bringing back it's Evolve. No, wait, hear me out: the thing with Evolve is there's little to no emotional attachment or cultural cache attached to the brand as there is with ECW or ROH, so if they rebranded NXT LVL UP to Evolve it wouldn't hamstring the show before a second had aired, given the name is mainly associated with Gabe Sapolsky booking shows for DGUSA talent when the Dragon Gate wrestlers weren't available

Statement #27: You would be excited to see Shane McMahon as a surprise entrant in the Royal Rumble match this year. FICTION - I'd rather he was a surprise entrant in MITB or the Elimination Chamber, as that means we'd guarantee somebody taking an utterly ludicrous bump in matches which sort of require it

Statement #28: WWE already has too many international PLEs scheduled for this year. FICTION - Actually having PPVs for overseas crowds, and not the UK-only PPVs that WWE used to fob off their UK audience with which HHH always seemed to be "injured" for yet healthy to appear on Raw a couple of nights later, is something WWE needed to consider for the longest time. Remember, that's actual crowds, not Bonesaw McGraw's mates...

Statement #29: It’s sad that one year ago Sami Zayn was the hottest wrestler in the world, but now no one talks about him, he has no chance of winning the Royal Rumble or ever main event-ing a WrestleMania again. FACT - Especially considering that Sami did the impossible and made the Bloodline actually interesting and not JBL's Cabinet with Polynesian tattoos, and he deserved to be rewarded for that with the booking Jey Uso is currently getting

Statement #30: CM Punk will win the 2024 men’s Royal Rumble. FACT - Seems like the wisest call to make: if Rollins is healthy come WM, Punk vs Rollins will go ahead while Cody/Reigns is for all the marbles, but if Rollins isn't healthy there's a story for Punk/Reigns or potential for a Punk/Cody/Reigns three-way - so all Punk has to do is not break his foot doing a spot that makes no sense to wreck those booking plans, or lose his rag on a habitual basis to wreck literally everything around him

#fact or fiction #factorfiction #royal rumble #cm punk

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