Rumblings of the Heart

The Royal Rumble is 5 days away, and unless they announce something on Twitter in that time, all of the Rumble Entrants have been announced.  They are (in order of their listing on wwe.com) the Undertaker, Goldberg, Brock Lesnar, Big Show, Dean Ambose, The Miz, Sami Zayn, Dolph Ziggler, Big E, Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston, Bray Wyatt, Randy Orton, Luke Harper, Mojo Rawley, Braun Strowman, Chris Jericho, Baron Corbin, Cesaro, Sheamus, Big Cass, and Rusev.  That's 22 fellas, leaving 8 spots open.

Every year I get really excited for the Rumble match, and every year there are cool moments, but I feel really disappointed with the winner, and the direction of things heading into Wrestlemania.  I think that part of my problem is that I spend so much time thinking about all the super-great things that could happen, my expectations get too high, and there's just no way they could live up to the hype I've built in my head.  Well, this year's going to be different.  This year I'm keeping my expectations low, and to help you guys out I'm going to share those expectations here in blog form.

Surprise Entrant #1: A skinny little chap comes out in an "I [heart] NY" shirt, a Yankees cap, blue jeans, and a camera hanging from a strap around his neck.  It's Danny "Shucks" McCallister, a new tourist character played by the former Finn Balor!  Instead of that tired old gimmick of being an ab god/sex bomb with a leather jacket, and mysterious once-a-month hump monster, now his thing will be that he comes out smiling in bewonderment, taking pictures of the ceiling, and then his opponent (usually a good guy) breaks his camera.  At this point, Danny will get real sad and cry and try to pick the pieces up, but when he has them mostly picked up, the opponent will do a move on him, and the camera pieces will go flying everywhere.  The strangest thing though, is that he speaks with a southern American accent, like a hayseed yokel.

Surprise Entrants #2 and #3: Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows (or, as they're now known in the WWE: Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson) limp to the ring, having gotten their asses kicked in the preshow against the announced Rumble entrants Cesaro and Sheamus.  They are thrown out immediately, Bushwacker style, faster than you can say "hot Asian wife".  They don't even get a reunion moment with Danny "Shucks" McCallister because the only ones to greet them in the ring are the past and present tag champs.

Surprise Entrant #4: Daniel Bryan's music hits and he comes out Yessing, and is wearing that cool DB jacket he wore that one time when he was wrestling Punk.  He walks with great purpose to the edge of the stage, runs his eyeballs over the crowd, and turns and walks over to the commentary table.  He goes to take his seat, but then David Otunga's music hits and he comes out all oiled up and slides into Bryan's chair and puts the headset on so it's all covered with his body muscle oil and stuff, so Bryan's just like, "whatever dude, so gross", waves at the crowd apologetically, and goes toward the back around the side of the stage but gets hit by Paige drunk-driving her fiance Alberto Del Rio's Cadillac because she's so fucked up she thinks its 2012.  And Daniel Bryan dies.

Surprise Entrant #5: Because to be Samoan in the WWE you have to be related to Yokozuna and Rikishi and Afa and Sika and the Rock and Roman Reigns, etc, Samoa Joe will be renamed.  The plan is for his character to be the same, but he will make his main roster debut as Pacific Island Joe.  This has been planned out for months.  There is tons of backstage talk about the arrival of Pacific Island Joe.  Eventually, everyone just starts saying P.I. Joe because it's way easier.  P.I. Joe is so over with Vince that he is talking about him all the time, so much so that the character takes on a life of his own in Vince's head.  In Vince's head, P.I. Joe is a tall white guy with short blond hair and combat fatigues and aviator shades, and the gun he carries is legit.  Jack Swagger re-debuts as P.I. Joe, even coming out to Samoa Joe's NXT music, and the crowd boos but Vince thinks its pure magic, and all of Vince's yesmen say what a great idea this was, then turn around and call Samoa Joe on the phone and tell him to go away.

Surprise Entrant #6: Mojo Rawley.  Oh wait, he's already announced?

Surprise Entrant #7: The reanimated bones of Nancy Argentino ambulate grimly and haltingly toward the ring, but the skeleton missteps, falls, and hits its head on the barricade, collapsing in a heap.  The remains are rapidly swept under the ramp by WWE's lawyers, and a few cops.

Surprise Entrant #8: Kenny Omega comes out with the same name, same gear, and cool new music that fits his character.  He has a decent showing in the Rumble and everyone is psyched on him.  He has a good undercard match at Mania, losing against someone more established, but he continues to impress all the right people backstage, and he starts getting into the main event picture.  Challenging for Roman Reigns' world title, he leads some of the best PPV main events that WWE has seen in a long time, though he's still not getting the big wins.  However his contributions do not go unnoticed, and WWE brass decide to make Kenny the marquee player for their new catchphrase-named show, WWE What? Live.  It's like Raw and Smackdown, with its own unique roster, its own unique championships, and since red and blue are claimed by those other shows, everything is yellow.  Kenny spends the next year feuding with everyone Braun Strowman beats on Raw, except Sami Zayn.  Then he will have the honor of losing the WWE What? Live world title to John Cena on the anniversary of his WWE debut.

Preview: End Of The Line

Hello guys. I remembered that there is a ppv today! I think I'm supposed to help my friend move, so I might not be sitting down at 4 to watch. That would be the first time in a year that I wouldn't be watching a WWE PPV live. Woe is me?

Maybe I'll do the big year end post this year. I guess I usually do a response to the Marshall's, but I could type one out when I'm down in Ashland in a few days. In the meantime....

 Big Cass vs. Rusev
So this is the preshow match. If you aren't paying attention....Enzo got nekkid backstage and ended up seeing Lana. Rusev, of course, was offended by the nekkid man around "his" lady. The next week, Lana and Rusev pretended to have a fight to trick Enzo into coming to Lana's hotel room, only to have "The Only Man That Can Have Me" CRUSH! So yeah, Enzo is a complete creep. His big buddy is defending him. So Rusev is kind of the babyface (again) except for the collusion the couple attempted. Anyways, this is a big multi layered story and it continues on the preshow. Can't complain.

The New Day (Big E and/or Kofi Kingston and/or Xavier Woods) (c) vs. Cesaro and Sheamus
Now that they are the longest reigning WWE Tag Team Champions..I'm sure they will lose immediately. Something you might not know, the pretape in the bar with Cesaro and Sheamus a few weeks ago was actually a beat by beat remake of a scene from "The Wrestler."  I guess it was Dick Murdoch and maybe Dusty Rhodes in the bar bonding over a bar fight. That being said....I still don't enjoy the reluctant tag team and wish Cesaro was in the main event scene of that other WWE show.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrestler_(1974_film)

Sami Zayn vs. Braun Strowman So every week Sami and Mick yell at each other. Braun can't tell the difference between various weaklings. Can "The Underdog From The Underground" do it? BTW...the internet/podcasts have been saying they aren't into this storyline because Mick has been doing passionate yelly promos. Why is Mick Foley and Sami Zayn so closely connected? Maybe I'm reading too much into this. We'll see..... Rich Swann (c) vs. T.J. Perkins vs. The Brian Kendrick These guys all have wins over each other. Perkins beat Swann, Swann beat Kendrick, and Kendrick beat Perkins (I think that's how it goes....I hardly pay attention to these matches). This might be good? I'm not that into it.   Sasha Banks (c) vs. Charlotte Flair 30 Minute Iron Man Match. I hope this is good. I think I enjoyed the falls count anywhere match on RAW. For such a long feud, they haven't had that really good memorable match that they might have had on an NXT show. It's like the Balor vs Joe feud. Good luck ladies. Chris Jericho vs. Seth Rollins We don't know if the best friends are best friends anymore. Intrigue. I have a bad feeling that Jericho vs Owens will be a Wrestlemania match. That will be the internet mark match on the card (you know...the old CM Punk spot). The other big news about this match is that this is the first ppv in the last 17 appearances that Rollins won't be in a title match. I could totally see this being a match where Jericho wrestles as the babyface and Rollins wrestles heel, despite their characters. Chris Jericho: Ace Of WWE? Kevin Owens (c) vs. Roman Reigns Reigns will probably win. He doesn't even seem built up. Probably cause they know if they build him up, he'll get booed. I miss having babyfaces that I actually want to cheer for. I especially miss having a babyface in the top spot that I want to cheer for. Miss you DBD. Well, well, well. Have fun guys. Rock Kick! Goodbye.

MMS: The Sixteen of Twenties (I Knew You'd Come)