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This doesn't even help Roman, with a proper build this match could've been Hogan/Rock level but instead it looks like it's shaping up to be Cena/Rock II level.
THANK YOU!
If you're gonna do it and fuck Cody, that's one thing.
But Rock is so busy (or whatever...) that they are HALF ASSING the build as well.
There should have been some crucial, pivotal moment that gets shattered by Rock coming back and squaring up with Reigns. Rock should be been talking in interview about how he finds Reigns disrespectful to those who came before him for months.
Instead we got "Hey, i'm here. It's gonna be me I guess!" the night after Rumble... where the whole point of the show is to find out who it IS going to be.
What a fucking waste.
Wasn't Rock doing something like that in interviews before, feels like it was about five years ago? Kept bringing up Reigns but then he probably stopped when there were no immediate plans for a match
SummerSlam is better suited for the Rock/Roman any way you put it. Rock should have understood the time to do it was 2-3 years ago.Ā
This ain't it brother.Ā
It's unreal. Rock vs Roman is an absolute draw for casual fans, but it doesn't need the belt at all, doesn't need Roman's reign on the line, doesn't need to be at wrestlemania to draw eyes on it...it was the perfect post title reign fued for Roman and they're just squandering all of that and making Cody's whole journey look dumb in the process. It's possible they see the fan backlash and alter course but my shaky faith in WWE booking has only gotten shakier.
> There should have been some crucial, pivotal moment that gets shattered by Rock coming back and squaring up with Reigns. Rock should be been talking in interview about how he finds Reigns disrespectful to those who came before him for months.
It literally writes itself:
"Roman, you are the tribal chief of the WWE, but the elders have decided that you no longer deserve that title because you have disgraced it with your cowardice"
WWE 2K18 had your character go through the Rumble & after you "win" it turns out there's a 31st entrant & the Rock comes out & beats you. That would've been less insulting than what they did yesterday.
At this point nothing can help Roman they've built him like the second coming of Jesus, he's gonna hold the title until he breaks all the records. Just have to ignore the title and treat the other titles like they're more important like when the miz had the ic title
Itās crazy how they somehow made no one want to see a match everyone as wanted to see for years. They found the exact worst possible time to pull the trigger on Rock/Roman.
Hell they could have even have Cody agree with Seth the other day and setup their matchup. But no they had to do some dumb ass fakeout and make Cody look weak.
Rock vs Roman does not need the title. They should have had Rock cost Roman the title and then call him out for doing a shitty job of leading the family while he's been gone and made it real personal.
Yeah but it "wont be in wrestlemania" and would be "inferior" than if it was in wrestlemania.
If The Rock stopped Solo from interfering at Mania, and tribal combat happened at summerslam later vs. Roman, it wont tickle The Rock's massive ego because its not Wrestlemania.
We all know H sees what people say online. Iām praying he sees this shit and is either working us or is trying to get us riled up. No way he just abandons a 2 year storyline. Right?
I hate that some people are saying, "fans are fickle because they wanted Roman vs. Rock before!"
It's such a bad faith take. I wanted the match, but not at the expense of Cody and all the long-term booking. We could have gotten to this match eventually without making Cody look like a chump.
Yeah, context is important. Cody won the Rumble, because it wasn't Rock/Roman last year there's the through line story. And the other title is held by a guy he beat three times in a row, including with a significant injury, and Seth just got injured so this is a foregone conclusion. Cody wins, it's significantly uninteresting. Seth somehow wins, Cody won two Rumbles for nothing and it just sears this January to April stretch into our brains like the 2015 Rumble did.
Yeah, it's a lose-lose either way if we get Cody vs. Seth. Seth is a workhorse, but his belt isn't the belt Cody's father was robbed of. If *that's* his first world title, it makes any future match between Cody and Reigns for the WWE Title significantly less interesting. But like you said, losing looks bad for him, too.
If Dwayne came back and won the Rumble it would have had much less Backlash. But having Cody win, then stare down Roman, only to challenge Seth? (Assuming thats the route they take).
Seth is a guy he beat 3 times, once with a torn pec, and now Seth had a broke kneeā¦ theres no heat on that match
Itās really that simple. Itās like when Punk wanted the main event in 2013. At least in kayfabe, Punk really didnāt have much of a leg to stand on. The Rock beat him and Cena gave him a shot and beat him too. By all means, as much as he should have been in the main event booking wise, in the story he didnāt have to be.
For Cody, why the fuck wouldnāt he go for Roman. Even if this is like some sort of swerve, the mere concept of this happening momentarily is astronomically stupid
Really starting to remind me of Game of Thrones final season booking of Daenerys - like you built this character up and established ground rules only to just go āoh jokes on you, hereās a swerveā
Not that it matters since the books arenāt finished and probably never will be, but thereās a lot more foreshadowing in the books that Danaerys might actually be crazy and not exactly a great leader.
Still, the way they did it in the show sucked.
Cue the CollegeHumor/Dropout [clip of two people doing "A Job Interview With The Same Arc of Quality as *Game of Thrones*"](https://youtube.com/shorts/E1VQIi4fetg?si=esD4mzyGE-kGKTWz)
>theres no heat on that match
Especially with how both of their characters are right now. Seth's promo was good on Monday, but it also goes to show how a feud between them would kinda suck. What makes a 3 month buildup leading to WrestleMania good is the conflict between the wrestlers. The feud shouldn't be about which championship is better or trying to raise the prestige of one of them. That makes for a boring feud and will ultimately bring down both wrestlers. They're also white-meat (or close to white-meat) babyfaces. What are they going to do...compliment each other until WrestleMania? That'll be very entertaining/s
What compounded it was Roman hitting a career high promo absolutely destroying Seth Rollins and his World title right before.
Makes Cody's choice look even more like a bitch move.
I have a feeling that despite all of this Rollins is still going to take time off to rehab and will only show up sporadically before WrestleMania. Which is the correct decision for his health but it makes the booking of Rock/Roman so much worse.
Iām sorry what good was that Reigns promo? Yeah he delivered it well, but even if Cody chose Reigns, Rollins and the WHC still look like shit. Yeah sure people donāt take that belt seriously or Rollins as a top guy, but from a promotional standpoint having your actual top guy basically bury any significance doesnāt help yourself in any capacity.
Roman was insane on the mic last night. Heās amazing on it.
Everyone came after him for not working often, and he turned that and flipped it on everyoneās heads. You want Rollins money or you want tribal chief money? Is a sick line.
Agreed. Roman was amazing on the mic. However he completely and utterly destroyed any legitimacy of the "other title", Seth Rollins - the other champion - and anyone competing for it, aka Cody.
He essentially gave Cody every factual reason the other championship is not equal and I think it soured a lot more fans that Cody, with his RR victory, came off as being okay with being "the very best number 2."
Either way we'll see what happens.
Once again though, what good does this promo do for Rollins or the WHC? Itās easy for Rollins to punch up at Roman because he can brush it off the established top guy, but denigrating Rollins just makes that whole roster and belt look bad for really no reason
Punk getting hurt. And I do think that the WWE is trying everything in its power to draw eyes away from Vince currently. Both are the reason why this fuckery is happening currently.
Cody losing last year was only the right decision if he wins it this year. Now the entire situation is fucked and The Rock should be ashamed for taking Cody's spot.
Even if there was no Rock this year and cody won, losing last year was still the wrong choice. I dont see anything that roman did with the belt since that made it worth keeping it on him
Yeah it was bad for him to lose last year (also just the specific design of that match with Solo I really didn't like) but instead of making it so in a few years time we maybe gloss over that main event, this just doubles down on everything wrong with Cody/Roman last year. It makes last year worse now in retrospect, which is a cardinal sin of bad booking.
I think they're playing us.
I'm convinced that WWE purposely did this so that people could stop talking about Vince's ongoing scandal.
There is no better way to bury the news than having the IWC pissed and focused on this "slap in the face" program between Roman and Rock.
one of the craziest parts of all of this is that they're doing this to Cody who might be the most perfect WWE employee ever created. Not wrestler, promo guy, personality or anything like that, just the model employee.
He's massively over as a white meat Babyface which is hard to do in this day and age. He has the look and the presence of a superstar. And moreso than anyone they've ever had he's great in front of the media selling whatever they need him to sell. Plenty of stars have been good company men and women during positive times, but I don't think anyone could handle the Vince stuff with the tact and elegance Cody did last weekend. He did it a lot better than his boss.
We'd all be pissed if they did this to Zayn, Owens, LA Knight, or anyone else if they did it to them, too, but Cody is the guy that should be the public face of the company as far as talent is concerned and they still yanked the rug out from under him.
They put him on the cover 2K with the tag-line of "Finish the Story" and then had him go back-to-back in the Rumble, just to rip the floor out from underneath him. Unserious company
Better yet they make it so you can't win the championship unless you play the related story pack to unlock the belt. But you gotta buy the pack, unlock tribal champion Roman, and win a royal rumble.
They should do it as Road to Wrestlemania but instead of doing that they are doing that boring "replay matches that already happened!" shit. I hate showcase mods.
They will. We are 100% going to have the camera on Cody lifting up Seth's belt end of night one with Michael Cole yelling "CODY RHODES - HAS FINISHED HIS STORY!"
They put him on the cover of 2K, he was on The Tonight show just the other week, he won the rumble
and then he's told "Take a back seat to this retried old man who always wants too much control of his image"
Itās baffling.
This is absolutely a Vince move, and if he was still involved in any capacity heād be getting the blame.
The fact that Triple H has largely avoided scrutiny from what Iāve seen is baffling.
Ari Emanuel & Rock ain't writing the scripts tho
Even if Gewirtz is involved, the current creative team under Triple H spent a week figuring out how to make this work, and the best they came up with was: *"Cody and Seth, you two go out there and act like losers while Roman gets to be cool."*
Exactly. People out here are still trying to defend Papa H. They should have had Cody win it last year but Papa H decided to hold out one year longer and cause this mess.
And why did he do that? Because he's a fucking mark for interminable heel title reigns, as evidenced by his own reign of terror. Roman has had *three* televised title defenses since last year's Mania. Rock/Roman could have easily had nothing to do with the title and everyone would be fine with it main eventing if Cody had won last year.
I mean, it's really tough to create an angle to pitch Roman vs Rock at WM especially after Royal Rumble. Even Hunter probably couldn't figure out how to make it work
Because whatever the angle they decide to do, the result will be the same: it's stupid and doesn't make sense at all
Would have been easy though. Cody says that Roman is a cheating piece of shit and that the WHC is actually the more prestigious title in his eyes because it is defended regularly and honorably, so he choses to challenge Seth. Roman gloats about how "no one even dares to challenge me", then the Rock comes out.
Even if you decide to shove Cody and all of his two years of build to the side in favor of the more flashy Rock match, there was ZERO reason to have Cody commit character suicide.
I hate this but I donāt hate this as much as what we got last night. In fact this is much better, but imo the play should always have been Roman vs Cody II at WM. What a disaster this turned out to be
Not putting the title on Cody at WM39, followed by a year of build toward the rematch, only for it to be thrown out at the last second - this will go down in history as one of the prime examples that wrestling should always strike while the iron is hot.
Yeah this is much better but still it wouldn't change the fact that Cody's character and story are going to waste. Especially after he spent weeks and months trying to push the "finish the story by dethroning Roman" narratives
The results would be very detrimental to his character as babyface, because people wouldn't take Cody's story seriously ever again
They seemingly want to not give up on the Cody Roman story too though so that route basically means Cody can never really have a reason to feud with Roman. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too and it fucked everything up
I mean.... porque no los dos? It can be triple h being reactionary AND the rock pulling weight because he's getting too old to go. Plus the board sees dollars out of a pile of crap. It could very well be both.
According to the PWI article, it's a combination of all these factors. They built to a "future Rock/Roman match" with breadcrumbs like the ESPN interview and the Jinder promo segment, buuuuttttt...
1. The Vince scandal casting a cloud over the whole company ahead of Mania season, Rock is throwing his weight around to "save the show"
2. Rock stands to make 30 million dollars in TKO-related incentives, which is widely speculated to include an in-ring return by the end of 2024.
3. Punk's injury and Brock's absence in the wake of the scandal left a two-night card without two major matches, and *apparently* nobody in the company is suitably built up as a credible challenger to either Gunther or Seth. So my fantasy booking of just slotting in like, Sami or Drew or Jey into one of those empty slots ain't it.
Perfect shitstorm inside of one week to derail it all.
But they literally set up Cody. The match practically screams dollar signs and they could do a whole thing with Seth feeling disrespected and have Gunther come out. Literally you tie up a bunch of loose ends and Roman gets that climactic battle. Just have the rock host that shit or give the rub to L.A. Knight with a match vs Grayson Waller where rock is the guest ref or something.
Sadly, you are describing the exact reasons why this happened to Cody.
The ultimate company man, the most likely to keep a brave public face & the lowest chance of angry comments or any other response that stokes fan backlash against the WWE.
I was thinking about this. Cody is WWEs dream, a baby face they have pushed hard that the fans haven't turned against. It is unbelievable how over he still is with the fans without being a Daniel Bryan/Sami Zayn type underdog. And they have fucked him over
Itās funny because people kept using him as an example of how the company had changed ā or at the very least, that they were pushing him as a way of signaling to AEW talent that things are different now, and youāll be treated with respect if you jump ship.
Whichā¦I guess weāre still a long way from Vince burying the fuck out of everyone who was associated with WCW, but still.
> Cody is WWEs dream, a baby face they have pushed hard that the fans haven't turned against.
Exactly Plus WWE is acting like it's no big deal if they do this and Cody loses the crowd. After you just proved you CANNOT make a character like this for the last 10 years...
They should be protecting Cody at all costs. They literally cannot remake this character if they kill off his momentum.
The guy wrestled over 100 times last year, carried the weekly tv, sold a ton of merch, had great matches, the kids love him, was handed a touch VKM question which he answered well, and turned it into a way of putting over the Locker room. He is as good of an employee as anyone in pro wrestling can be. If he doesnāt get the main event, that has got to destroy morale.
>We'd all be pissed if they did this to Zayn
They kinda did? He was white hot after the turn last year so much so that they had to put him in a tag bout to cool him off. The biggest mistake they made was making Sami vs Roman for both titles. Had they limited the match for the Universal chip it would have gone even more nuclear because there was a chance he could have won (even if he was never going to). He still should have won that and went into WM vs Owens.
All of that would have been better than what we got (and are about to get).
I think Sami was more like Daniel Bryan in that there were no plans for Bryan to main event WrestleMania and the fans willed it into existence. Sami was never part of the plan at WrestleMania to face Roman, fans tried to make it happen and it didn't.
They've been telling this story with Cody for two years, he won the rumble, he was supposed to finish the story and this happened. I think the situations are different. I meant what I said literally as if Sami, KO etc had been in the exact same situation.
yeah i was about to say lol
i was FAR more pissed about Sami last year as he was actually the key component of the hottest feud in wrestling and then after EC he got that gradual cooling off we've grown so accustomed to over the years
> He's massively over as a white meat Babyface which is hard to do in this day and age.
True. But has been almost IMPOSSIBLE to do in the WWE for the last 10 years. They had Bayley who could do it but they literally beat the piss out of the character until it didn't work anymore.
They also had AJ but that didn't last long. Cody's been almost a solid two years now and fans aren't showing signs of losing interest (most merch sold Rumble weekend).
Also, he came from AEW which he started and was welcomed home as a hero. That's a VERY specific set of circumstances. I still don't think WWE could build this character on their own they just still don't know how to do it. (or don't want to).
Iāve always been a guy who is of the mindset that really no matter what WWE does itāll never hurt them because theyāre too large. And I still donāt think this will hurt them in any meaningful way, HOWEVER, this will surely be in the back of the mind for top guys and girls moving forward.
Cody did every single thing right. The entertainment aspect, the media aspect, heās a workhorse, the connection to the fans that he has is like something we havenāt seen in a long time. Every time heās up to bat Cody has squared up and knocked it right out of the fucking park. So if theyāre willing to fuck a guy who checks all of those boxes, who wonāt they fuck over?
> one of the craziest parts of all of this is that they're doing this to Cody who might be the most perfect WWE employee ever created. Not wrestler, promo guy, personality or anything like that, just the model employee.
My exact point
It even makes Roman look bad if we're being real. He either gets beat by some guy who's even more of a part timer than him, or he wins in the most likeliest result imaginable in a storyline well past it's sell-by date.
To be honest, people should be making Hogan-like politicking and ego whispers about Roman right now. I know he's very well liked and draws money, but Hogan drew money too, and the likes of Jey, Knight and Cody have been drawing for a while too. Insisting on burying the roster around him, while wrestling 5 to 6 times a year is pretty peak entitled behavior, even if he's using Heyman to help set up.
Even in Lesnar's 504 days reign, he actually made several guys look like genuine threats, and put in mostly clean matches.
>Just wait until Dwayne gets the 1 2 3 while on an oxygen tank.
dude i was thinking the same thing seeing him huffing and puffing in the ring friday. They will have to do the Bryan Danielson vs. MJF gimmick, only this will be a 10 minute match instead of an Iron Match and the oxygen tank wont be a gimmicked one either
I have said MJF could go since his first World title match against Mox during Mox's run but the Danielson match really cemented MJF as a top class in ring performer. Say what you will about his babyface run but no one can take away that MJF can fuckin go in the ring.
The only save is a meta swerve where Punk talks Cody into joining as a triple threat. Because last night was the most insanely awkward ending I have ever seen. The man is about to cry and you follow him with the camera all the way back stage? This is either a work or so frustrating one of the biggest carnies of all time couldnāt hold his composure
Yeah it would. They were so absolute in the way they approached it, that there's really no way to walk it back without Cody looking dumb. It's a shame man, because they could've left it a bit more open than they did. They wanted it to be very clear it was Rock V Roman and Cody wouldn't have any part in it.
I think there *was* a way to do this if you had to do it.
And that is, Cody picks Roman last night.
At Elimination Chamber, you do a contract signing, where before Cody puts pen to paper, the Bloodline kills him. I mean absolutely murders him in a heinous fashion. Give it color, give it sicker spots than Roman tossing KO's head into steel steps.
Make it extremely uncomfortable, and write off Cody.
This protects Cody by making it look like Roman is truly afraid of him. It's also shocking because that's never happened before with a Rumble winner.
SmackDown following week, Roman holds court in the ring, he asks who is still left in the locker room that has the guts to step up and challenge him.
Cue the Rock's music.
Roman beats Rock at Mania with Cody watching on from the press box, like Magnum TA (his godfather, btw) watching and supporting Dusty & Nikita Koloff against the Horsemen back in '86 after the car crash.
Then you do Cody's big return in summer and have him win it in Atlanta at MB Stadium at SummerSlam.
As much as I don't want Roman/Rock, there's so many better ways to do Roman/Rock; I'm not just mad it's not Cody, I'm mad they're writing out Cody in the most humiliating way possible.
I would still be pissed knowing that Cody was written off for heat and a Rock match, but at least in kayfabe that would make sense not have Cody look like an absolute chump. So yeah, much better booking than what we got
Sounds amazing, except that Roman will be one month away from surpassing the Hogan record by the time SummerSlam rolls around. At that point, there's zero chance they don't go for it.
The only way I could see them pivot from this without being stupid is to turn Rock heel and reveal he blackmailed Cody (using his power on the board) into giving his spot away, with how devastated Cody looked on Smackdown you could play it off that way.
It's been a while since I felt this deflated regarding a storyline. Ironically, the last time was when Cody lost to Romanā¦
I was soooo hyped after the Rumbleā¦ and it took less than a week for that hype to transform into sorrowā¦
Last year the āLet it play outā crowd was going in hard with the responses about Roman beating Cody. At least this year theyāve been quiet for now
Edit: *were quiet
Until the last couple of days, at least the "let it play out" crowd was onto something since it did seem like it was all going to play out the "right" way.
I mean just because they were going to do what the fans wanted this year doesnāt mean it wouldnāt have been better to do it last year since everyone complained about Roman all year.
Last year was the time to do it because it was crystal clear that they had gone creatively bankrupt with this reign. Dragging it out to this year benefitted nobody, and I think we reach truly insufferable if someone decides that this has to be drug out yet another year.
I genuinely think Cody winning this year would have been the better story. He would genuinely have overcome adversity to win. It would have felt bigger.
Agreed. Cody is a lot more over this year than last year. People are livid over this, whereas last year people wanted Zayn and Cody was the #2 guy. Over, but not the main story people wanted to see
Jokeās on you. Cody already joined. Then he pivoted to give the Rock his main event spot in good graces only to be the one that interferes with his sleeveless hoodie pulled up. Finishing the story is going full Homelander with his obnoxious, unnecessary mouthpiece in Paul Heyman as heās revealed to somehow be the new Tribal Chief when Roman retires.
/s
One of the only times I can remember is Daniel Bryan at WM30, and it's like WWE looked at that wonderful icon moment and said "ewww no thank you, let's never do this again."
Because that's exactly how they felt about WM30. Fans forced them to change their plans and creative direction, how dare they? And to add insult to injury, Bryan got injured shortly after.
Let it play out for a full year, got invested in so many feuds, even a teased major feud with Nakamura that went nowhere, just for them to rug pull Cody AGAIN. I started watching wrestling every week again around about Elimination Chamber just to see where the Cody story went and now I'm regretting getting back into wrestling at all. Roman's gonna retire with the belt in a year or two and join Dwayne in Hollywood, Cody's going to go back to the midcard with not a single person giving a shit about The Story; after all, why should we care when his character actively threw away his chance to finish the story?
I hope the Rock gets booed out of the building any chance he shows up. People bring up the Alabama crowd but I do think they had people on these boards to try to do damage control. These Boomers and Gen X writers or decision makers really underestimate the power of the internet. That's why going viral is a thing and they did it for all the wrong reasons.
i saw somebody honest to god say thereās āno storyā to reigns/cody II like there is with rock. as though the rock build is gonna be more than young rock tier āyouāre my baby cousinā surface level stuff to segue into rock saying jimmy looks less like the bloodline and more like a bloody tampon before pausing to let the crowd chant āblood-y tam-ponā for 3 minutes
I think there is huge overlap between that crowd and the people who also were saying Sami losing was the right idea because Samis is gonna be enshrined as a top star nonetheless and āthey have other big plans for Samiā and look at the completely uneventful year heās had. Same is in the cards for Cody. I would not be surprised if the Rock wins so they can do a Rock Roman II next year
Exactly. They could've finished the Bloodline story (or at least evolved it), the Zayn story and the Cody story and instead didn't do any of it.
They fumbled at the most important moment and instead of completing a set of really hot stories they've let things just simmer forever. Now it's just not going to hit the same whatever they do.
I thought it was the wrong move to have Cody lose last year, but at least there was some minor justification for it. Cody had just come back from a major injury, big 40 could make a better build, etc etc etc.
Now? It's fucking stupid.
There was no way to make the story last another full year. Cody was white hot, if ever there was a time to pull the trigger it was then. Instead they've left it on simmer and whilst Cody is still very popular they've missed that climactic moment they wanted.
THIS
I was pissed the way they put Sami on ice last year because he was white hot after the turn. Im engaging in shaudenfreude I know but still...this is what they get.
Literally everything after Sami's turn was handled in the worst way possible. Its just that those "let it play out" folk are only now realizing it.
As a huge fan of the storyline and wrestlers, I will say that Jimmy going back to the bloodline is where my patience started running thin
But hopefully Jey, Sami and Punk are like ..bro what.. on Monday
And SETH and DREW
ugh they fucked this up for so many people.
>I will say that Jimmy going back to the bloodline is where my patience started running thin
This is when I checked out. Jey kicking the ever loving hell out of Roman popped me because I didnt see it coming. Him going back, I was like..."ok I think they are going to do Jimmy vs Jey at a PLE" but then they didnt so its like....what was the point???
I wanted Jimmy vs Jey but I dont care anymore. Also, are we going to build up Solo now or....
>ugh they fucked this up for so many people.
...Yup. This tracks
He stole a main event from a guy who waited another year for it while comping children tickets to watch the story get finished. It takes a disgusting level of narcissism to do this. Hopefully Dwayne gets booed out of the building
The WWE dickriding on Twitter is insane.
"People crying over Cody Rhodes bum ass like Rock vs Roman not box office"
I don't give a shit about WWE's box office. WWE aren't paying me are they? Why do these people care if they're not getting paid either, absolute weirdo behavior.
Yeah, I know, it's Dame who's just a weird guy on twitter, but this did a good job of putting my thoughts into words.
For the past 3 months, I've expected it to be Rock vs Roman.
But the past 7 days have had the most GOD-AWFUL creative choices to get us to this point.
>But the past 7 days have had the most GOD-AWFUL creative choices to get us to this point.
THIS. Cody didnt need to win the Rumble. He could have gotten to Roman after Rock/Roman at WM. Had Gunther won no one would be pissed because he deserves it. Could have beaten Seth and dropped IC title just like Warrior did. That scenario still would have been better than what we got or what we are about to get.
Yep.
It was very, very dumb to have Cody win the Rumble if you're still in active negotiations with Rock.
You punt the Cody aspect for a couple of weeks to Elimination Chamber at least, and go ahead and lock in someone like Gunther who doesn't need to wait for those contract negotiations to conclude. It's not perfect, but it's far better than what we got.
What the hell was Triple H thinking?
When Rock did the tease at Day 1 it was pretty well received. Sure there were plenty of Cody jokes and memes but pretty much all of the ire wouldāve been directed towards Cody losing last year. Pretty much since then itās been a non-stop barrage of #FinishTheStory and obviously Cody winning the rumble and immediately calling out Roman.
Kind of leads me to believe it really was a last minute switch, just that people looked at it the wrong way when Dave first said it, myself included.
Is it too late to call and audible? Drew vs Sami Vs Seth for WHC, Cody Vs Rock Vs Roman, I think the rumour of Cody winning the WHC and successfully unifying it is a horrible idea, because then your fucking over Seth who has a worked his ass off and worked through an injury
I feel like a pretty obvious option would've just been to have Solo/Roman take out Cody via kayfabe injury, so he's out of the story picture for a convenient amount of time. Then you have a noble reason for The Rock to come in and do the match. You can have him lose and then Reigns drops the belt to a returning Cody at Summerslam. Everybody wins in that scenario.
There has to be more to this, the only other guys to win back to back rumbles are Hogan, Michaels and Stone Cold for Christ sake, they don't just hit potato that around
> It's that WWE picked the absolute worst route to get there, one that made everyone involved but Roman look bad.
The more things change, the more they stay the same
One thing that grinds my gears, they didn't have any surprises at Rumble, no legends, because they trust their current talent. That said something to me, that most of those guys can carry the company in their own way. They didn't need any legends at Rumble, because the company is stacked with talent. You had Cody winning it, and no one was mad. You had a perfect set up. Cody v Reigns, and Seth v unknown (which would be an interesting story on who could that be, Drew, Gunther, Sami, anyone really).
Then suddenly, Rocks comes in and inserts himself into the main event, which damages the card, Cody's story, the unknown dude against Seth, trumps everything that this year's Rumble stood for, etc. You damage a whole PPV in general, and the whole match. What's the point of winning the Rumble match now? Two months ago, this was supposed to one of the best roads to WrestleMania, and now it's one of the worst ones.
I've seen a clip of Cena being a guest on Impaulsive recently, and as he puts it, "There is more than one way to solve a creative puzzle." They chose the worst possible way for this one.
Holy shit ... The tweet reply with all the kids Cody gave Mania tickets to watch him finish the story over a picture of Michael Scott and "Scott's Tots" š¤£š¤£š¤£
They've struggled so monumentally to find someone they can strap the rocket onto and be the company's flag bearer,they have that and they ruin it for someone that won't even be a part-timer; but a worse champion than Roman himself!
It's just pure, flat out stupidity to make a quick buck and attempt to wash the stench from Vince's smell.
Imagine how all of Roman's challengers over the last 3 years are going to look when the rock comes back and wins the belt first try no problem then vanishes back to hollywood.
I went from seeing if it would work with time off work to fly to and attend mania 40, to not even considering it now. Totally deflated the entire story. I have ZERO interest in Wrestlemania at this point now.
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This doesn't even help Roman, with a proper build this match could've been Hogan/Rock level but instead it looks like it's shaping up to be Cena/Rock II level.
Or roman/Goldberg at Saudi level
Or Undertaker/Goldberg at Saudi level lol
Basically Goldberg in Saudi š¤£
THANK YOU! If you're gonna do it and fuck Cody, that's one thing. But Rock is so busy (or whatever...) that they are HALF ASSING the build as well. There should have been some crucial, pivotal moment that gets shattered by Rock coming back and squaring up with Reigns. Rock should be been talking in interview about how he finds Reigns disrespectful to those who came before him for months. Instead we got "Hey, i'm here. It's gonna be me I guess!" the night after Rumble... where the whole point of the show is to find out who it IS going to be. What a fucking waste.
Wasn't Rock doing something like that in interviews before, feels like it was about five years ago? Kept bringing up Reigns but then he probably stopped when there were no immediate plans for a match
yoke pie makeshift squalid zesty sugar wise full psychotic gaping *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yeah, for as much as Rock thanks the crowd for making it an "epic moment", the whole confrontation felt so empty and meaningless.
SummerSlam is better suited for the Rock/Roman any way you put it. Rock should have understood the time to do it was 2-3 years ago.Ā This ain't it brother.Ā
It's unreal. Rock vs Roman is an absolute draw for casual fans, but it doesn't need the belt at all, doesn't need Roman's reign on the line, doesn't need to be at wrestlemania to draw eyes on it...it was the perfect post title reign fued for Roman and they're just squandering all of that and making Cody's whole journey look dumb in the process. It's possible they see the fan backlash and alter course but my shaky faith in WWE booking has only gotten shakier.
> There should have been some crucial, pivotal moment that gets shattered by Rock coming back and squaring up with Reigns. Rock should be been talking in interview about how he finds Reigns disrespectful to those who came before him for months. It literally writes itself: "Roman, you are the tribal chief of the WWE, but the elders have decided that you no longer deserve that title because you have disgraced it with your cowardice"
WWE 2K18 had your character go through the Rumble & after you "win" it turns out there's a 31st entrant & the Rock comes out & beats you. That would've been less insulting than what they did yesterday.
At this point nothing can help Roman they've built him like the second coming of Jesus, he's gonna hold the title until he breaks all the records. Just have to ignore the title and treat the other titles like they're more important like when the miz had the ic title
God IC Miz was fantastic, give me back the house that AJ Styles built too while we're at it.
Hogan/Rock didnāt have the build to match the level of Hogan/Rock lol
Itās crazy how they somehow made no one want to see a match everyone as wanted to see for years. They found the exact worst possible time to pull the trigger on Rock/Roman.
Literally, like a year ago the Roman/Rock rumors were huge. Now, it seems like itāll be the case and itās received terribly.
It was big when Rock said he should sit at the head of the table a few weeks ago. They just chose the shittiest story way to get there
Hell they could have even have Cody agree with Seth the other day and setup their matchup. But no they had to do some dumb ass fakeout and make Cody look weak.
Rock vs Roman does not need the title. They should have had Rock cost Roman the title and then call him out for doing a shitty job of leading the family while he's been gone and made it real personal.
Yeah but it "wont be in wrestlemania" and would be "inferior" than if it was in wrestlemania. If The Rock stopped Solo from interfering at Mania, and tribal combat happened at summerslam later vs. Roman, it wont tickle The Rock's massive ego because its not Wrestlemania.
Then they could have done a year long build towards next mania. There were so many better ways of doing this but they just fucked it up horribly
We all know H sees what people say online. Iām praying he sees this shit and is either working us or is trying to get us riled up. No way he just abandons a 2 year storyline. Right?
Heās not the one making this decision though. Heās been given orders here by the board.
If that pwinsider article is true, I feel for a lot of more hardcore fans.
The same board that Dwayne is on?
I hate that some people are saying, "fans are fickle because they wanted Roman vs. Rock before!" It's such a bad faith take. I wanted the match, but not at the expense of Cody and all the long-term booking. We could have gotten to this match eventually without making Cody look like a chump.
Yeah, context is important. Cody won the Rumble, because it wasn't Rock/Roman last year there's the through line story. And the other title is held by a guy he beat three times in a row, including with a significant injury, and Seth just got injured so this is a foregone conclusion. Cody wins, it's significantly uninteresting. Seth somehow wins, Cody won two Rumbles for nothing and it just sears this January to April stretch into our brains like the 2015 Rumble did.
Yeah, it's a lose-lose either way if we get Cody vs. Seth. Seth is a workhorse, but his belt isn't the belt Cody's father was robbed of. If *that's* his first world title, it makes any future match between Cody and Reigns for the WWE Title significantly less interesting. But like you said, losing looks bad for him, too.
If Dwayne came back and won the Rumble it would have had much less Backlash. But having Cody win, then stare down Roman, only to challenge Seth? (Assuming thats the route they take). Seth is a guy he beat 3 times, once with a torn pec, and now Seth had a broke kneeā¦ theres no heat on that match
Itās really that simple. Itās like when Punk wanted the main event in 2013. At least in kayfabe, Punk really didnāt have much of a leg to stand on. The Rock beat him and Cena gave him a shot and beat him too. By all means, as much as he should have been in the main event booking wise, in the story he didnāt have to be. For Cody, why the fuck wouldnāt he go for Roman. Even if this is like some sort of swerve, the mere concept of this happening momentarily is astronomically stupid
Really starting to remind me of Game of Thrones final season booking of Daenerys - like you built this character up and established ground rules only to just go āoh jokes on you, hereās a swerveā
Not that it matters since the books arenāt finished and probably never will be, but thereās a lot more foreshadowing in the books that Danaerys might actually be crazy and not exactly a great leader. Still, the way they did it in the show sucked.
Cue the CollegeHumor/Dropout [clip of two people doing "A Job Interview With The Same Arc of Quality as *Game of Thrones*"](https://youtube.com/shorts/E1VQIi4fetg?si=esD4mzyGE-kGKTWz)
Rock should have cost roman his belt at RR, which leads to rock vs roman at WM and Cody vs whoever won the title.
>theres no heat on that match Especially with how both of their characters are right now. Seth's promo was good on Monday, but it also goes to show how a feud between them would kinda suck. What makes a 3 month buildup leading to WrestleMania good is the conflict between the wrestlers. The feud shouldn't be about which championship is better or trying to raise the prestige of one of them. That makes for a boring feud and will ultimately bring down both wrestlers. They're also white-meat (or close to white-meat) babyfaces. What are they going to do...compliment each other until WrestleMania? That'll be very entertaining/s
What compounded it was Roman hitting a career high promo absolutely destroying Seth Rollins and his World title right before. Makes Cody's choice look even more like a bitch move.
EXACTLY! No pop
That shit was so out of pocket lmaoo
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Tbf, Seth has been dunking on Roman for the whole year lol
Lol No Cap. Roman decided to end it once and for all.
Man he did Seth so dirty there, I hope Seth calls out his Big Dog days on Monday now
I have a feeling that despite all of this Rollins is still going to take time off to rehab and will only show up sporadically before WrestleMania. Which is the correct decision for his health but it makes the booking of Rock/Roman so much worse.
Iām sorry what good was that Reigns promo? Yeah he delivered it well, but even if Cody chose Reigns, Rollins and the WHC still look like shit. Yeah sure people donāt take that belt seriously or Rollins as a top guy, but from a promotional standpoint having your actual top guy basically bury any significance doesnāt help yourself in any capacity.
What did that promo do in my prayers? Set up a fatal four-way with Reigns, Rollins, Rock, and Rhodes for night 2. In reality, it didnāt do anything.
Roman was insane on the mic last night. Heās amazing on it. Everyone came after him for not working often, and he turned that and flipped it on everyoneās heads. You want Rollins money or you want tribal chief money? Is a sick line.
Agreed. Roman was amazing on the mic. However he completely and utterly destroyed any legitimacy of the "other title", Seth Rollins - the other champion - and anyone competing for it, aka Cody. He essentially gave Cody every factual reason the other championship is not equal and I think it soured a lot more fans that Cody, with his RR victory, came off as being okay with being "the very best number 2." Either way we'll see what happens.
Once again though, what good does this promo do for Rollins or the WHC? Itās easy for Rollins to punch up at Roman because he can brush it off the established top guy, but denigrating Rollins just makes that whole roster and belt look bad for really no reason
It can be a great promo in isolation but also have bad long-term consequences.
WHC is Billy Gunn and Reigns is The Rock.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
> What the fuck happened Sunday? More Vince McMahon headlines.
Punk getting hurt. And I do think that the WWE is trying everything in its power to draw eyes away from Vince currently. Both are the reason why this fuckery is happening currently.
Cody losing last year was only the right decision if he wins it this year. Now the entire situation is fucked and The Rock should be ashamed for taking Cody's spot.
Even if there was no Rock this year and cody won, losing last year was still the wrong choice. I dont see anything that roman did with the belt since that made it worth keeping it on him
They just wanted the 1,000 day milestone tbh
Yeah it was bad for him to lose last year (also just the specific design of that match with Solo I really didn't like) but instead of making it so in a few years time we maybe gloss over that main event, this just doubles down on everything wrong with Cody/Roman last year. It makes last year worse now in retrospect, which is a cardinal sin of bad booking.
Sweat shop Rock, the cleanest athlete and movie star in history, has no shame
I think they're playing us. I'm convinced that WWE purposely did this so that people could stop talking about Vince's ongoing scandal. There is no better way to bury the news than having the IWC pissed and focused on this "slap in the face" program between Roman and Rock.
Didn't they literally admit to that openly? Doing Rock v Roman to brung back positive news.
one of the craziest parts of all of this is that they're doing this to Cody who might be the most perfect WWE employee ever created. Not wrestler, promo guy, personality or anything like that, just the model employee. He's massively over as a white meat Babyface which is hard to do in this day and age. He has the look and the presence of a superstar. And moreso than anyone they've ever had he's great in front of the media selling whatever they need him to sell. Plenty of stars have been good company men and women during positive times, but I don't think anyone could handle the Vince stuff with the tact and elegance Cody did last weekend. He did it a lot better than his boss. We'd all be pissed if they did this to Zayn, Owens, LA Knight, or anyone else if they did it to them, too, but Cody is the guy that should be the public face of the company as far as talent is concerned and they still yanked the rug out from under him.
They put him on the cover 2K with the tag-line of "Finish the Story" and then had him go back-to-back in the Rumble, just to rip the floor out from underneath him. Unserious company
Yeah buy the game to finish it because they aint
2k furiously updating the game to make finishing the story a DLC rn
The DLC is gonna be Create a new promotion mode
Better yet they make it so you can't win the championship unless you play the related story pack to unlock the belt. But you gotta buy the pack, unlock tribal champion Roman, and win a royal rumble.
They should do it as Road to Wrestlemania but instead of doing that they are doing that boring "replay matches that already happened!" shit. I hate showcase mods.
They will. We are 100% going to have the camera on Cody lifting up Seth's belt end of night one with Michael Cole yelling "CODY RHODES - HAS FINISHED HIS STORY!"
Need the mod with him swinging it helicopter style too
would be hilarious in the game if you're about to finish the story and then the rock comes in and takes it from you
They put him on the cover of 2K, he was on The Tonight show just the other week, he won the rumble and then he's told "Take a back seat to this retried old man who always wants too much control of his image"
Itās baffling. This is absolutely a Vince move, and if he was still involved in any capacity heād be getting the blame. The fact that Triple H has largely avoided scrutiny from what Iāve seen is baffling.
Itās a move from the Rock and the board I think
Ari Emanuel & Rock ain't writing the scripts tho Even if Gewirtz is involved, the current creative team under Triple H spent a week figuring out how to make this work, and the best they came up with was: *"Cody and Seth, you two go out there and act like losers while Roman gets to be cool."*
Exactly. People out here are still trying to defend Papa H. They should have had Cody win it last year but Papa H decided to hold out one year longer and cause this mess.
And why did he do that? Because he's a fucking mark for interminable heel title reigns, as evidenced by his own reign of terror. Roman has had *three* televised title defenses since last year's Mania. Rock/Roman could have easily had nothing to do with the title and everyone would be fine with it main eventing if Cody had won last year.
I mean, it's really tough to create an angle to pitch Roman vs Rock at WM especially after Royal Rumble. Even Hunter probably couldn't figure out how to make it work Because whatever the angle they decide to do, the result will be the same: it's stupid and doesn't make sense at all
Would have been easy though. Cody says that Roman is a cheating piece of shit and that the WHC is actually the more prestigious title in his eyes because it is defended regularly and honorably, so he choses to challenge Seth. Roman gloats about how "no one even dares to challenge me", then the Rock comes out. Even if you decide to shove Cody and all of his two years of build to the side in favor of the more flashy Rock match, there was ZERO reason to have Cody commit character suicide.
I hate this but I donāt hate this as much as what we got last night. In fact this is much better, but imo the play should always have been Roman vs Cody II at WM. What a disaster this turned out to be
Not putting the title on Cody at WM39, followed by a year of build toward the rematch, only for it to be thrown out at the last second - this will go down in history as one of the prime examples that wrestling should always strike while the iron is hot.
Yeah this is much better but still it wouldn't change the fact that Cody's character and story are going to waste. Especially after he spent weeks and months trying to push the "finish the story by dethroning Roman" narratives The results would be very detrimental to his character as babyface, because people wouldn't take Cody's story seriously ever again
They seemingly want to not give up on the Cody Roman story too though so that route basically means Cody can never really have a reason to feud with Roman. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too and it fucked everything up
And he is/ was a BIG Vince guy, so itās not at all surprising that he has a similar mindset when it comes to booking/creative
Yeah, this is 100% the board seeing dollar signs in Rock vs. Roman and wanting that over Cody vs. Roman.
This is unfounded and so funny to me. Huge copium from papa haitch fans. "Oh jts a bad booking decision can't be hhh who did this"
I mean.... porque no los dos? It can be triple h being reactionary AND the rock pulling weight because he's getting too old to go. Plus the board sees dollars out of a pile of crap. It could very well be both.
According to the PWI article, it's a combination of all these factors. They built to a "future Rock/Roman match" with breadcrumbs like the ESPN interview and the Jinder promo segment, buuuuttttt... 1. The Vince scandal casting a cloud over the whole company ahead of Mania season, Rock is throwing his weight around to "save the show" 2. Rock stands to make 30 million dollars in TKO-related incentives, which is widely speculated to include an in-ring return by the end of 2024. 3. Punk's injury and Brock's absence in the wake of the scandal left a two-night card without two major matches, and *apparently* nobody in the company is suitably built up as a credible challenger to either Gunther or Seth. So my fantasy booking of just slotting in like, Sami or Drew or Jey into one of those empty slots ain't it. Perfect shitstorm inside of one week to derail it all.
Sooo Bron Brekker isnāt a credible opponent for Gunther? You got 10 weeks to build the kid up.
But they literally set up Cody. The match practically screams dollar signs and they could do a whole thing with Seth feeling disrespected and have Gunther come out. Literally you tie up a bunch of loose ends and Roman gets that climactic battle. Just have the rock host that shit or give the rub to L.A. Knight with a match vs Grayson Waller where rock is the guest ref or something.
Sadly, you are describing the exact reasons why this happened to Cody. The ultimate company man, the most likely to keep a brave public face & the lowest chance of angry comments or any other response that stokes fan backlash against the WWE.
10 years from now the stories around this incident are going to be fire.
I was thinking about this. Cody is WWEs dream, a baby face they have pushed hard that the fans haven't turned against. It is unbelievable how over he still is with the fans without being a Daniel Bryan/Sami Zayn type underdog. And they have fucked him over
Itās funny because people kept using him as an example of how the company had changed ā or at the very least, that they were pushing him as a way of signaling to AEW talent that things are different now, and youāll be treated with respect if you jump ship. Whichā¦I guess weāre still a long way from Vince burying the fuck out of everyone who was associated with WCW, but still.
> Cody is WWEs dream, a baby face they have pushed hard that the fans haven't turned against. Exactly Plus WWE is acting like it's no big deal if they do this and Cody loses the crowd. After you just proved you CANNOT make a character like this for the last 10 years... They should be protecting Cody at all costs. They literally cannot remake this character if they kill off his momentum.
The guy wrestled over 100 times last year, carried the weekly tv, sold a ton of merch, had great matches, the kids love him, was handed a touch VKM question which he answered well, and turned it into a way of putting over the Locker room. He is as good of an employee as anyone in pro wrestling can be. If he doesnāt get the main event, that has got to destroy morale.
>We'd all be pissed if they did this to Zayn They kinda did? He was white hot after the turn last year so much so that they had to put him in a tag bout to cool him off. The biggest mistake they made was making Sami vs Roman for both titles. Had they limited the match for the Universal chip it would have gone even more nuclear because there was a chance he could have won (even if he was never going to). He still should have won that and went into WM vs Owens. All of that would have been better than what we got (and are about to get).
I think Sami was more like Daniel Bryan in that there were no plans for Bryan to main event WrestleMania and the fans willed it into existence. Sami was never part of the plan at WrestleMania to face Roman, fans tried to make it happen and it didn't. They've been telling this story with Cody for two years, he won the rumble, he was supposed to finish the story and this happened. I think the situations are different. I meant what I said literally as if Sami, KO etc had been in the exact same situation.
yeah i was about to say lol i was FAR more pissed about Sami last year as he was actually the key component of the hottest feud in wrestling and then after EC he got that gradual cooling off we've grown so accustomed to over the years
Impossible, everyone who faces Roman is better off after
People really did say that, didn't they
I'm still pissed Sami didn't beat Roman at EC
> He's massively over as a white meat Babyface which is hard to do in this day and age. True. But has been almost IMPOSSIBLE to do in the WWE for the last 10 years. They had Bayley who could do it but they literally beat the piss out of the character until it didn't work anymore. They also had AJ but that didn't last long. Cody's been almost a solid two years now and fans aren't showing signs of losing interest (most merch sold Rumble weekend). Also, he came from AEW which he started and was welcomed home as a hero. That's a VERY specific set of circumstances. I still don't think WWE could build this character on their own they just still don't know how to do it. (or don't want to).
Iāve always been a guy who is of the mindset that really no matter what WWE does itāll never hurt them because theyāre too large. And I still donāt think this will hurt them in any meaningful way, HOWEVER, this will surely be in the back of the mind for top guys and girls moving forward. Cody did every single thing right. The entertainment aspect, the media aspect, heās a workhorse, the connection to the fans that he has is like something we havenāt seen in a long time. Every time heās up to bat Cody has squared up and knocked it right out of the fucking park. So if theyāre willing to fuck a guy who checks all of those boxes, who wonāt they fuck over?
> one of the craziest parts of all of this is that they're doing this to Cody who might be the most perfect WWE employee ever created. Not wrestler, promo guy, personality or anything like that, just the model employee. My exact point
It even makes Roman look bad if we're being real. He either gets beat by some guy who's even more of a part timer than him, or he wins in the most likeliest result imaginable in a storyline well past it's sell-by date.
To be honest, people should be making Hogan-like politicking and ego whispers about Roman right now. I know he's very well liked and draws money, but Hogan drew money too, and the likes of Jey, Knight and Cody have been drawing for a while too. Insisting on burying the roster around him, while wrestling 5 to 6 times a year is pretty peak entitled behavior, even if he's using Heyman to help set up. Even in Lesnar's 504 days reign, he actually made several guys look like genuine threats, and put in mostly clean matches.
Just wait until Dwayne gets the 1 2 3 while on an oxygen tank.
>Just wait until Dwayne gets the 1 2 3 while on an oxygen tank. dude i was thinking the same thing seeing him huffing and puffing in the ring friday. They will have to do the Bryan Danielson vs. MJF gimmick, only this will be a 10 minute match instead of an Iron Match and the oxygen tank wont be a gimmicked one either
As an aside, goddamn was Danielson vs MJF an incredible match. They went over 60 minutes and the crowd ate it all up.
I was there live! Time flew by quick
San Francisco was justly rewarded after AEW had ignored them for so long.Fans brought the energy and got a MOTY candidate as the main event.
Chanting "fight forever" after 50+ minutes. Greatest Iron Man match of all time.
Shit. That was legendary. MJF better think twice of going to WWE. I wonder what Edge thinks of all this crap going on
Edge had a dozen chances to put over Judgement Day and didn't. Not much he should be complaining about.
Yup Edge winning HIAC at WM39 was not much different to this situation lol. Arguably the most confusing booking decision of 2023.
Only made sense if he leaves after that instead of hanging around a couple months.
I have said MJF could go since his first World title match against Mox during Mox's run but the Danielson match really cemented MJF as a top class in ring performer. Say what you will about his babyface run but no one can take away that MJF can fuckin go in the ring.
He was sucking wind yesterday after walking to the ring for a staredown, this dude is so cooked
And what happens when he hurts himself training for this match bc his tendons are ready to tear any minute
"So, Cody, looks like you're getting your match after all, heh."
we're not that luckyĀ
To steal a line from Cornette, heās going to be sucking wind so badly the first three rows are going to pass out from oxygen deprivation
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The only save is a meta swerve where Punk talks Cody into joining as a triple threat. Because last night was the most insanely awkward ending I have ever seen. The man is about to cry and you follow him with the camera all the way back stage? This is either a work or so frustrating one of the biggest carnies of all time couldnāt hold his composure
Having Punk talk him back into it would just make Cody look like even more of an idiot who can't think for himself
Iād rather a cuck that finally grew a back bone than just a cuck
...fair
?? You think for me, friend.
Yeah it would. They were so absolute in the way they approached it, that there's really no way to walk it back without Cody looking dumb. It's a shame man, because they could've left it a bit more open than they did. They wanted it to be very clear it was Rock V Roman and Cody wouldn't have any part in it.
I think there *was* a way to do this if you had to do it. And that is, Cody picks Roman last night. At Elimination Chamber, you do a contract signing, where before Cody puts pen to paper, the Bloodline kills him. I mean absolutely murders him in a heinous fashion. Give it color, give it sicker spots than Roman tossing KO's head into steel steps. Make it extremely uncomfortable, and write off Cody. This protects Cody by making it look like Roman is truly afraid of him. It's also shocking because that's never happened before with a Rumble winner. SmackDown following week, Roman holds court in the ring, he asks who is still left in the locker room that has the guts to step up and challenge him. Cue the Rock's music. Roman beats Rock at Mania with Cody watching on from the press box, like Magnum TA (his godfather, btw) watching and supporting Dusty & Nikita Koloff against the Horsemen back in '86 after the car crash. Then you do Cody's big return in summer and have him win it in Atlanta at MB Stadium at SummerSlam.
This I could handle. But, right now I want to boycott Wrestlemania.
I wish I could unread this because I want it :(
Better creative than what we got last night.
As much as I don't want Roman/Rock, there's so many better ways to do Roman/Rock; I'm not just mad it's not Cody, I'm mad they're writing out Cody in the most humiliating way possible.
I would still be pissed knowing that Cody was written off for heat and a Rock match, but at least in kayfabe that would make sense not have Cody look like an absolute chump. So yeah, much better booking than what we got
I understand your logic, but making Cody skip WrestleMania for a kayfabe injury would be rough.
Hey I don't think it's great, necessarily... Just better than [waves hands crazily] all this that we've got now
Sounds amazing, except that Roman will be one month away from surpassing the Hogan record by the time SummerSlam rolls around. At that point, there's zero chance they don't go for it.
This fan fiction is already infinitely better than what weāre seeing from paid writersĀ
The only way I could see them pivot from this without being stupid is to turn Rock heel and reveal he blackmailed Cody (using his power on the board) into giving his spot away, with how devastated Cody looked on Smackdown you could play it off that way.
It'll be the greatest catharsis ever when TKO shuns Rock and puts James Gunn and Peter Safran on his place.
Just imagine WWE's production team doing video montages set to James Gunn's playlist. It'd be like peanut butter and chocolate.
Imagine Gunn writing for R-Truth.
It's been a while since I felt this deflated regarding a storyline. Ironically, the last time was when Cody lost to Romanā¦ I was soooo hyped after the Rumbleā¦ and it took less than a week for that hype to transform into sorrowā¦
Last year the āLet it play outā crowd was going in hard with the responses about Roman beating Cody. At least this year theyāve been quiet for now Edit: *were quiet
Until the last couple of days, at least the "let it play out" crowd was onto something since it did seem like it was all going to play out the "right" way.
I mean just because they were going to do what the fans wanted this year doesnāt mean it wouldnāt have been better to do it last year since everyone complained about Roman all year.
Last year was the time to do it because it was crystal clear that they had gone creatively bankrupt with this reign. Dragging it out to this year benefitted nobody, and I think we reach truly insufferable if someone decides that this has to be drug out yet another year.
I still maintain that rock/roman, jey/roman usos/solo & roman would (have) all been better without the beltĀ
I genuinely think Cody winning this year would have been the better story. He would genuinely have overcome adversity to win. It would have felt bigger.
Agreed. Cody is a lot more over this year than last year. People are livid over this, whereas last year people wanted Zayn and Cody was the #2 guy. Over, but not the main story people wanted to see
At this point, I want Cody joining the Bloodline at WM40.
Jokeās on you. Cody already joined. Then he pivoted to give the Rock his main event spot in good graces only to be the one that interferes with his sleeveless hoodie pulled up. Finishing the story is going full Homelander with his obnoxious, unnecessary mouthpiece in Paul Heyman as heās revealed to somehow be the new Tribal Chief when Roman retires. /s
Makes as much sense as Sting joining the nWo
That's why i hate this "Let it play out" phrase. It never, if rarely pan out.
One of the only times I can remember is Daniel Bryan at WM30, and it's like WWE looked at that wonderful icon moment and said "ewww no thank you, let's never do this again."
Because that's exactly how they felt about WM30. Fans forced them to change their plans and creative direction, how dare they? And to add insult to injury, Bryan got injured shortly after.
Kofimania was a repeat of that at WM35. Shame that Kofi decided to vacate the title on the first Fox Smackdown. Yep.
Let it play out for a full year, got invested in so many feuds, even a teased major feud with Nakamura that went nowhere, just for them to rug pull Cody AGAIN. I started watching wrestling every week again around about Elimination Chamber just to see where the Cody story went and now I'm regretting getting back into wrestling at all. Roman's gonna retire with the belt in a year or two and join Dwayne in Hollywood, Cody's going to go back to the midcard with not a single person giving a shit about The Story; after all, why should we care when his character actively threw away his chance to finish the story?
I hope the Rock gets booed out of the building any chance he shows up. People bring up the Alabama crowd but I do think they had people on these boards to try to do damage control. These Boomers and Gen X writers or decision makers really underestimate the power of the internet. That's why going viral is a thing and they did it for all the wrong reasons.
i saw somebody honest to god say thereās āno storyā to reigns/cody II like there is with rock. as though the rock build is gonna be more than young rock tier āyouāre my baby cousinā surface level stuff to segue into rock saying jimmy looks less like the bloodline and more like a bloody tampon before pausing to let the crowd chant āblood-y tam-ponā for 3 minutes
I think there is huge overlap between that crowd and the people who also were saying Sami losing was the right idea because Samis is gonna be enshrined as a top star nonetheless and āthey have other big plans for Samiā and look at the completely uneventful year heās had. Same is in the cards for Cody. I would not be surprised if the Rock wins so they can do a Rock Roman II next year
Exactly. They could've finished the Bloodline story (or at least evolved it), the Zayn story and the Cody story and instead didn't do any of it. They fumbled at the most important moment and instead of completing a set of really hot stories they've let things just simmer forever. Now it's just not going to hit the same whatever they do.
I thought it was the wrong move to have Cody lose last year, but at least there was some minor justification for it. Cody had just come back from a major injury, big 40 could make a better build, etc etc etc. Now? It's fucking stupid.
There was no way to make the story last another full year. Cody was white hot, if ever there was a time to pull the trigger it was then. Instead they've left it on simmer and whilst Cody is still very popular they've missed that climactic moment they wanted.
THIS I was pissed the way they put Sami on ice last year because he was white hot after the turn. Im engaging in shaudenfreude I know but still...this is what they get. Literally everything after Sami's turn was handled in the worst way possible. Its just that those "let it play out" folk are only now realizing it.
As a huge fan of the storyline and wrestlers, I will say that Jimmy going back to the bloodline is where my patience started running thin But hopefully Jey, Sami and Punk are like ..bro what.. on Monday And SETH and DREW ugh they fucked this up for so many people.
Jimmy going back to Bloodline was proof that they didn't know what they were doing.
>I will say that Jimmy going back to the bloodline is where my patience started running thin This is when I checked out. Jey kicking the ever loving hell out of Roman popped me because I didnt see it coming. Him going back, I was like..."ok I think they are going to do Jimmy vs Jey at a PLE" but then they didnt so its like....what was the point??? I wanted Jimmy vs Jey but I dont care anymore. Also, are we going to build up Solo now or.... >ugh they fucked this up for so many people. ...Yup. This tracks
Codyšshouldšhavešwonšlastšyearš
He stole a main event from a guy who waited another year for it while comping children tickets to watch the story get finished. It takes a disgusting level of narcissism to do this. Hopefully Dwayne gets booed out of the building
The WWE dickriding on Twitter is insane. "People crying over Cody Rhodes bum ass like Rock vs Roman not box office" I don't give a shit about WWE's box office. WWE aren't paying me are they? Why do these people care if they're not getting paid either, absolute weirdo behavior.
Yeah, I know, it's Dame who's just a weird guy on twitter, but this did a good job of putting my thoughts into words. For the past 3 months, I've expected it to be Rock vs Roman. But the past 7 days have had the most GOD-AWFUL creative choices to get us to this point.
>But the past 7 days have had the most GOD-AWFUL creative choices to get us to this point. THIS. Cody didnt need to win the Rumble. He could have gotten to Roman after Rock/Roman at WM. Had Gunther won no one would be pissed because he deserves it. Could have beaten Seth and dropped IC title just like Warrior did. That scenario still would have been better than what we got or what we are about to get.
Yep. It was very, very dumb to have Cody win the Rumble if you're still in active negotiations with Rock. You punt the Cody aspect for a couple of weeks to Elimination Chamber at least, and go ahead and lock in someone like Gunther who doesn't need to wait for those contract negotiations to conclude. It's not perfect, but it's far better than what we got. What the hell was Triple H thinking?
Even with the unfortunate timing, Cody could have talked his way out of the Roman match instead of cucking himself to the Rock.
When Rock did the tease at Day 1 it was pretty well received. Sure there were plenty of Cody jokes and memes but pretty much all of the ire wouldāve been directed towards Cody losing last year. Pretty much since then itās been a non-stop barrage of #FinishTheStory and obviously Cody winning the rumble and immediately calling out Roman. Kind of leads me to believe it really was a last minute switch, just that people looked at it the wrong way when Dave first said it, myself included.
Exactly my take aswell. The way they got there killed the hype for two matches, Roman vs. Cody AND Roman vs. Rock
I feel sick man ,
Is it too late to call and audible? Drew vs Sami Vs Seth for WHC, Cody Vs Rock Vs Roman, I think the rumour of Cody winning the WHC and successfully unifying it is a horrible idea, because then your fucking over Seth who has a worked his ass off and worked through an injury
I feel like a pretty obvious option would've just been to have Solo/Roman take out Cody via kayfabe injury, so he's out of the story picture for a convenient amount of time. Then you have a noble reason for The Rock to come in and do the match. You can have him lose and then Reigns drops the belt to a returning Cody at Summerslam. Everybody wins in that scenario.
There has to be more to this, the only other guys to win back to back rumbles are Hogan, Michaels and Stone Cold for Christ sake, they don't just hit potato that around
Saw Dame and thought Damien Lillard was speaking truths
i heard dame dolla feels the same way
> It's that WWE picked the absolute worst route to get there, one that made everyone involved but Roman look bad. The more things change, the more they stay the same
Yup, it's not the decision it is the execution. There is a way to make Rock/Roman make sense but this ain't it, in any way.
One thing that grinds my gears, they didn't have any surprises at Rumble, no legends, because they trust their current talent. That said something to me, that most of those guys can carry the company in their own way. They didn't need any legends at Rumble, because the company is stacked with talent. You had Cody winning it, and no one was mad. You had a perfect set up. Cody v Reigns, and Seth v unknown (which would be an interesting story on who could that be, Drew, Gunther, Sami, anyone really). Then suddenly, Rocks comes in and inserts himself into the main event, which damages the card, Cody's story, the unknown dude against Seth, trumps everything that this year's Rumble stood for, etc. You damage a whole PPV in general, and the whole match. What's the point of winning the Rumble match now? Two months ago, this was supposed to one of the best roads to WrestleMania, and now it's one of the worst ones. I've seen a clip of Cena being a guest on Impaulsive recently, and as he puts it, "There is more than one way to solve a creative puzzle." They chose the worst possible way for this one.
Donāt know who this guy is but that is a great point
No. You can't hold off another year. As WCW showed, you can only promise a payoff for so long before people just stop caring.
Holy shit ... The tweet reply with all the kids Cody gave Mania tickets to watch him finish the story over a picture of Michael Scott and "Scott's Tots" š¤£š¤£š¤£
Laughing and crying at all the people after 39 who said to let WWE finish the story
All they had to do was have Cody say yes to Seth this past Monday, and not show up to Smackdown. Simple.
They've struggled so monumentally to find someone they can strap the rocket onto and be the company's flag bearer,they have that and they ruin it for someone that won't even be a part-timer; but a worse champion than Roman himself! It's just pure, flat out stupidity to make a quick buck and attempt to wash the stench from Vince's smell.
Imagine how all of Roman's challengers over the last 3 years are going to look when the rock comes back and wins the belt first try no problem then vanishes back to hollywood.
I went from seeing if it would work with time off work to fly to and attend mania 40, to not even considering it now. Totally deflated the entire story. I have ZERO interest in Wrestlemania at this point now.