The Rebooking Series - Part III (The 2015 Royal Rumble Match)

Well, you know we just had to this one.

Welcome to the third part of our rebooking series. This was something Jonathon and I obviously didn’t have planned, but we watched the Pay-Per View live last Sunday, and we were so furious at how WWE booked the Rumble match that we decided almost immediately to rebook it. The wrestling community in general is disgusted by the decisions WWE made last Sunday, so much so that people actively started cancelling their subscription to the WWE Network (although the million subscriber’s news kind of contradicts that narrative). Either way we would not blame anyone who did because the Rumble was that badly booked.

So, could we have done any better? Well, let’s see shall we. I’d like to say that this also isn’t Monday morning quarterbacking, this is something that Jonathon and I discussed well before the PPV.

First off I think it’s important to place a couple of rules for this booking:

1) No bringing in people that weren’t there on the night.

2) Roman Reigns will be booked to win the Rumble. 

If we had it our way we’d probably have gone with Daniel Bryan, but this is the direction that they’re going in. We’re just going to attempt to do it in a way that won’t have the crowd turning on the entire roster. We realise this isn’t going to be easy because I’m not sure that Philadelphia crowd would ever have accepted a Reigns Rumble win but with that said if you’re going in that direction you have to give the guy the best chance possible. Booking an awful Rumble and then shoving The Rock out there as a token heat source is not the way to do that.

This won’t be a particularly long post as we are only rebooking one match (and giving an overview of what we would build towards for WrestleMania) so without any further ado here we go:

The Rumble by the numbers package plays and we are ready to go with the 2015 Royal Rumble.

The first entrant is Daniel Bryan. He is followed out by the second entrant, Kane. This obviously leads to a fierce fight between the two but Bryan gets the upper hand and eliminates Kane before the buzzer for entrant three. Tyson Kidd comes down to the ring and he and Bryan do some chain wrestling before the music for entrant four, Curtis Axel, hits. Nobody comes out though and a camera is shown backstage where Erick Rowan has laid out Curtis Axel and, as a result, stolen his spot in the Royal Rumble (this is the one liberty we took entrant wise with Rowan actively stealing Axel’s spot).

Next in is Luke Harper who stares down Rowan. After a brief exchange of stares they go at it until the sixth entrant – The Miz – enters the ring. Next in is the surprise entrant of Bubba Ray Dudley. He attacks everyone and lays them all out hitting signature moves and generally pleasing the crowd. Zack Ryder is the next entrant but despite some early offence he is quickly eliminated by Bubba Ray. Not long after Harper eliminates Tyson Kidd by Big Booting him over the top rope. The ninth entrant is Rusev, accompanied by Lana and her Russian flag. Following him is Damien Mizdow to, given what we saw at the actual Rumble event, a huge reaction. He teams up with Miz against Rusev but this only serves to annoy the Bulgarian (or Russian, not sure where he is billed from now) who goes to eliminate Miz but Miz pulls Mizdow in the way and it is Mizdow who is eliminated.

Following that in comes Bray Wyatt who, similar to what happened at the actual Rumble, gets into a stare down with Bubba Ray. The two come to blows and eventually Wyatt eliminates Bubba. Entrant number twelve is The Big Show. As in every battle royal or Royal Rumble (at least that’s how it seems anyway) that Big Show is in, everyone rushes forward in a combined effort to eliminate him – only this time they actually succeed and Show is eliminated very quickly. Next up is Titus O’Neill who hits a few power moves before being dominated by Rusev who picks up his second elimination when he throws Titus out. After this Adam Rose makes his entrance. Once he is in the ring he joins the brawl.

All the wrestlers are standing and fighting in the ring when “BANG!” hits and DDP makes his entrance. He comes in the ring and seemingly wants to take on everybody – hitting Diamond Cutters galore. DDP then eliminates Rose after a Diamond Cutter. While DDP is stood near the ropes Miz charges at him but DDP sidesteps him and uses Miz’s own momentum to eliminate him. Bryan attempts a suicide dive on Wyatt but he misses and is left prone on the outside as Wyatt rejoins the action, neither man is eliminated. Kofi Kingston is entrant number sixteen and he is soon joined by his New Day partner Big E. Once in the ring the New Day gang up on Rusev, seemingly learning nothing from Miz and Mizdow earlier. This time Rusev eliminates both members of the New Day at the same time.

In at number eighteen is Roman Reigns. As a side note it would have been interesting to see how Reigns would have been received in a match where the crowd hadn’t already turned. Would the boos have been quieter? Probably. Would Philadelphia have maybe even cheered him? That I’m not so sure of but I am quite sure the response to his music hitting wouldn’t have been quite so vitriolic. Anyway, upon entering the ring Reigns spears everyone in there bar Bryan who is still recovering on the outside. R-Truth is next in and he is then followed by entrant number twenty in Jack Swagger. Bryan has now recovered and he eliminates Truth via a kick to the head after throwing Truth on to the apron. Bray Wyatt eliminates DDP.

Ryback is entrant number twenty-one and he comes down to immediately hit a succession of meathook clotheslines. Rusev recovers and then eliminates Swagger. Bryan is immediately on the attack and beating down Rusev in one corner whilst Bray destroys Reigns in another. All of a sudden it is just the three former members of the Wyatt Family and Daniel Bryan left standing in the ring. Rowan and Harper look each other and do their gun pose (same as at the actual Rumble) towards Wyatt before turning and pointing them at the back of Bryan. All three men then viciously beat Bryan down. Reigns recovers and tries to help but eventually the numbers game catches up with him. This brief interlude has allowed Bryan to recover and he quickly manages to eliminate Rowan but once again Harper and Wyatt prove to much for him. They try to lift Bryan over the ropes but he hangs on and manages to kick Harper away only for a huge Wyatt clothesline to knock him over the ropes and to the floor.

Not long after Bryan is eliminated Dean Ambrose’s music hits. He runs down the ring with eyes only for Wyatt. He manages to take out Harper and then he and Wyatt collide as both men hit a huge lariat on one another. Bad News Barrett is the next entrant and he hits the ring with a few big moves. As this is happening Ambrose manages to eliminate Ryback as Rusev hits a huge kick on Reigns. Rusev then sets about systematically destroying everyone else still left in the Rumble. As Rusev stands tall Lana hands him the Russian flag and he waves it in celebration in the centre of the ring. However, when he turns to wave it at the other side of the ring he is greeted with a Superman Punch which causes him to drop the flag and fall towards the ropes. He rebounds off but is met with another Superman Punch but this one still can’t get the job done and Reigns eventually hits a huge clothesline to eliminate Rusev. The Rumble then once again descends into a brawl.

Entrant number twenty-four is The Boogeyman which momentarily distracts everyone in the ring but they all soon return to fighting. All except Bray Wyatt. The two men stare down before Wyatt manages to eliminate Boogeyman fairly quickly. The twenty-fifth entrant is Stardust. He is then followed by tag team partner Goldust then Sin Cara and Fandango. Goldust and Stardust are working well together and starting to take control until Stardust eliminates Goldust. He spends too long celebrating though and is then eliminated by Bad News Barrett. The twenty-ninth entrant is Cesaro. Cesaro comes in and cleans house. Sin Cara goes for a springboard move but is caught with a European Uppercut in mid air and then eliminated. Cesaro then swings Fandango and eliminates him too.

The final entrant is Dolph Ziggler who comes in like a house of fire. He quickly sets about attacking Barrett and manages to eliminate him. Cesaro goes for a pop up European Uppercut but Ziggler manages to flip out and hits a Zig Zag before eliminating Cesaro. Luke Harper throws Dean Ambrose to the outside but he hangs on. Harper runs at him but is caught with a huge right hand but before Ambrose can return to the ring Wyatt attacks him and knocks him to the floor. The final four are Harper, Ziggler, Wyatt and Reigns. They fight for a little while until both Harper and Ziggler are fighting each other on the apron. All of a sudden Triple H comes out and attempts to distract Ziggler. Ziggler is momentarily distracted but still manages to block an incoming lariat from Harper and hit three successive Superkick’s to eliminate him. He then turns to get back in the ring but Wyatt leans through the second and third ropes, grabs Ziggler and hits Sister Abigail so that Ziggler’s throat is smashed into the top ring rope which is enough to eliminate Ziggler. Wyatt doesn’t have much time to celebrate though as he is almost immediately clotheslined out of the ring by the 2015 Royal Rumble winner Roman Reigns. Reigns celebrates without The Rock as the show goes off the air.

Now whether or not the crowd would reject this I cannot say. I personally, although I cannot speak for Jonathon, think that the crowd would still have rejected a Reigns Rumble win regardless but I do think that booking the Rumble in this way gives them a far better chance of limiting the damage than the anti-climactic eliminations of Ambrose, Bryan and Ziggler did. At least this way there is specific spots built in designed to get Reigns both sympathy and some babyface reactions. As well as the eliminations of the three main guys that the Philadelphia crowd was in to being much more dramatic and much more likely to get heat on the heels that eliminated them rather than the actual show and match itself.

Before we wrap this up me and Jonathon did devise a very rough idea of what we would do at WrestleMania if we had booked the Rumble in such a way while we were doing this and it looks something like this:

Cody Rhodes vs. Goldust in a Career vs. Career match

Damien Sandow vs. The Miz

John Cena vs. Rusev

Bray Wyatt vs. Daniel Bryan in a Last Man Standing Match

Dolph Ziggler vs. Triple H – If Triple H wins Dolph never works for WWE again, if Dolph wins Triple H relinquishes control of WWE

Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins in a 3 Stages of Hell Match (Singles, Falls Count Anywhere and ending inside Hell in a Cell if required)

The Undertaker vs. Sting in a Dream Match

Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns in a WWE World Heavyweight Championship match

We’d love to know what you all think of this booking idea. It was drawn up very quickly at the pub a couple of days after the Rumble (the first chance we’d had to meet up) but we do think it does a better job at limiting the damage that a Roman Reigns Rumble victory in Philadelphia was always going to do. Did we do better or worse than WWE did with the Rumble when you bear in mind the restrictions that we had placed on ourselves? Either way let us know, we’re always eager to hear what people think. As I am writing this conclusion we’re only a few hours away from Triple H’s supposedly blockbuster announcement tonight on RAW so who knows? Maybe WWE’s booking of the Rumble will make more sense after tonight and turn into a great story rendering this whole article pointless. However, if not this is how we would have pushed Reigns at the Rumble. Thanks for reading and you’re quite welcome to follow both me (@watadam20) and Jonathon (@JLAspey) on twitter. We look forward to writing up out next part of the rebooking series which we’re aiming to have ready in time for the February WWE PPV. We hope you’ll all come back and read that article too, thanks again!