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WWE Royal Rumble PPV Live Report
January 24, 2016
Orlando, Fla.
PWTorch Livecast correspondent Neal, PWTorch VIP member James out of Dallas, and PWTorch TV specialist Ben Tucker contributed to this report. Read Tucker’s in-person tweets from the Rumble @BTuckerTorch.
– Former WWE CEO Linda McMahon was ringside on the front row opposite the hard camera throughout the PPV. Linda watched her son-in-law, Triple H, win the WWE Title from Roman Reigns and watched Hunter celebrate in the ring with Vince and Stephanie to close the Rumble PPV.
Crowd hates Roman. Not too hot for this confrontation.
— Benjamin Tucker (@BTuckerTorch) January 25, 2016
– The crowd was firmly against Roman Reigns going into the Rumble. Even before the PPV started, fans were talking amongst themselves about being against Reigns, who is still perceived as corporate-backed and attached to John Cena with the booking of “overcoming the stacked deck and ridiculous odds.”
The crowd was completely against Reigns to the point where the crowd popped when he was thrown out of the Rumble.
– This was a heavy international and out-of-town crowd for the Rumble based on the Rumble becoming a destination travel event and the high re-sale ticket prices.
Because of the ticket prices, families were likely priced out of the Rumble, leaving vocal male fans as the majority of the audience in an otherwise casual-fan market like Orlando.
There were very few children or women in the audience. The audience was mostly males and a lot of people were from out-of-state or international. James noted that out of the group of 20/30 sitting camera-side, only one person in the group lived in Florida.
Because of the audience make-up, Reigns was mainly booed, there was a big reaction for A.J. Styles’s surprise debut, and big reactions for Sasha Banks after the Divas Title match and for Damien Sandow on the pre-show.
When Kevin Owens eliminated Styles from the Rumble, they did not want to boo Owens, so they chanted A.J.’s name instead.
WWE'S NEWEST SIGNEE IS HERE pic.twitter.com/3S3I4SSgb8
— Benjamin Tucker (@BTuckerTorch) January 25, 2016
Biggest Pops:
(1) A.J. Styles
(2) Sasha Banks
(3) Damien Sandow
(4) Dean Ambrose
Most Heat:
(1) Roman Reigns
(2) Roman Reigns
(3) Roman Reigns
So Reigns is getting the Cena treatment?? Pathetic!!! These idiotic fans don’t know what they want. They sit there and boo the faces and cheer the heels and generally make fools of themselves. They did it to Cena and now Reigns, and both are laughing all the way to the bank.
Seems to me they know exactly what they want. And more importantly what they don’t want. These fans cheered for Zayn and Ambrose over Owens, liked Becky over Charlotte and Ric Flair and were very much on board with babyface AJ Styles.
Modern wrestling is fast paced and innovative and fans for like 5 years have been begging for that. Roman just isn’t the posterchild for modern wrestling.
Totally agree Vince. I tend to feel a bit sorry for Reigns because unlike when Cena first started, I don’t think Reigns is incompetent, or that he can’t be a star, I think he totally could, but they built him up all wrong and his push was forced and came at the expense of other guys that are (or were at a time) more over.
The problem with Roman Reigns is that he isn’t an underdog. You can’t sell him as an underdog and you shouldn’t try to. He should be booked rather like Lesnar or Goldberg. He shouldn’t talk a whole lot but when he does you know it means business. If you want people to believe he’s a badass, then book him like a goddamn badass. I mean honestly, you don’t even need the comparisons to Lesnar and Goldberg because Reigns was plenty over when he was with the Shield because he was booked exactly the way I’m describing.