Triple H's Announcement

Tonight was the supposed earth-shaking announcement from Triple H, about the "controversy" over the Royal Rumble, specifically Roman Reigns winning.

Monday Night Raw started off the night as Triple H and Stephanie McMahon came out, but really no announcement was made. They eluded to Roman not being the one the fans wanted in the main event at WrestleMania, to which Reigns answered by coming down to the ring and a stare down with Triple H.

After some words, then Daniel Bryan came out to cheers and the yes chant. Bryan said he never lost the heavyweight championship and should get a match.

Seth Rollins then came out and said he deserved one.

After this segment Reigns fought Big Show, and then Curtis Axel came out and said he wanted a shot at Brock Lesnar, which led me to think everyone on the show tonight was going to be saying that.

Anyways, back to the announcement, it was announced that Seth Rollins would face Daniel Bryan on Raw and the winner would face Reigns at Fastlane. The winner of THAT match would then go on to face Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania. And who won that match? Daniel Bryan.

This just spells all kinds of trouble for Roman.

First off all, there's no choice he can make but to accept the match. Because if he declines and says he earned the right to main event WrestleMania at Royal Rumble, he comes off as weak and scared to face either Bryan or Rollins. So he has to accept.

Now, by accepting, it's really a lose-lose situation, regardless of whether he faces Daniel Bryan or Seth Rollins.

By losing, it's obvious: He won the Royal Rumble, but that means nothing now. He's out of the main event at Mania. But even if he wins, do they really think he's going to get over at Fastlane?

No matter how well Daniel Bryan wrestles and puts Reigns over, no matter how good Bryan makes him look, the fans will want nothing less then Daniel Bryan in the main event at WrestleMania.

We'll just have to wait and see how Fastlane plays out, but I have a sneaking suspicion that no matter what the WWE tries to to pull the strings, operating behind the curtains, the fans still wont get behind Reigns, at least this year, leading to WrestleMania.

There is a silver-lining here, that I think played out at the end of Raw. Reigns was booked strong at the end of Raw when he came out and speared Big Show. Good crowd reaction to that. Then a Superman punch to Rollins, which in turn, allowed Daniel Bryan to hit the running knee and get the win. He subtlely aligned himself as a good guy, helping Bryan out to get the match that everyone wants to see. If nothing else, at least subconsciously, it could stick in the fans mind, and actually help Roman Reigns going into Fastlane. We'll see.

Weekend Update: Mick Foley Cheats, Bam Bam Trends

Over the weekend, a couple interesting tidbits hit the wrestling world.

Saturday

First off was Mick Foley competing in the annual Philadelphia Wing Bowl and was caught red handing dipping his hands into the cookie jar, er... fanny pack. Foley was at the event and strolled out to the contestant area via a mini ring, like the Wing Bowl was happening during Wrestle Mania 3.


But things took a turn for the worse, when Foley was caught red handed, stuffing some of his chicken wings down his fanny pack in an effort to take the lead.

This was obviously done tongue-in-cheek, as you can see Foley looking around and appears to see himself on camera, before stuffing the wings in his fanny pack. Plus, there was a referee standing right in front of him, and when Foley was DQ'd, he threw a fit, waving his hands in the air. Because of the mischief, the Wing Bowl actually got some pretty good social media coverage. If I was the organizer of the event, I'd bring Foley back every year, and have him try a new way each year to cheat his way to the top, making a show of it. Good stuff.


Sunday

Sunday was Super Bowl 49, and everyone was ready for the halftime performance of Katy Perry. What they weren't ready for was the flame-engulfed attire Perry wore for the performance, drawing similarities to the late Bam Bam Bigelow. Below are a couple tweets from The Iron Sheik and JBL.

THE KATY PERRY SHOW THE RESPECT TO MY BROTHER BAM BAM BIGELOW TONIGHT #SuperBowl pic.twitter.com/h5j3JSY3Az
— The Iron Sheik (@the_ironsheik) February 2, 2015

Bam Bam never looked that good, but his dancing land sharks were much tougher! @katyperry pic.twitter.com/QCyJAlQocx
— John Layfield (@JCLayfield) February 2, 2015

WWE's Next Competitor

The title of this post may be a tad misleading. World Wrestling Entertainment is on the stock market. It's a multi-million dollar company. What company out there could possibly rival the machine that is WWE. Well none of them individually. But all together? That could be a different story.

WWE hasn't been rivaled in ratings or any other way since the Monday Night Wars with WCW. But since that company has shut down, no other single company has been able to put on a product with the budget and spectacle of WWE.

For a moment, TNA looked like it might start to come close, especially when a number of WWE stars went over there, including Booker T, Jeff Hardy, Hulk Hogan, The Dudley's, Sting, just to name a few. But for whatever reason, and there are numerous websites out there that talk about such, they've never been able to break the barrier in fan growth.

But in 2014 the landscape started to change. Towards the end of January, the day after the 2014 Royal Rumble, CM Punk, arguably the most popular wrestler in WWE, left the WWE. The whole ordeal was talking about in Colt Cabana's Art of Wrestling Podcast, but right when it happened, people didn't know what was going on.

Was it a work? Was Punk really gone? And if he was really gone, where was he going? He'd already mentioned ROH on WWE t.v. before, was he going there? Would he actually go over to TNA and wrestle there? New Japan Pro Wrestling? No one knew and everyone was speculating.

As more time passed in 2014, it would seem to everyone that CM Punk was done with wrestling, at least for the immediate future. But then another shake up.

In August of 2014, Alberto Del Rio was involved in an incident with a WWE employee and was subsequently fired from the company. Though it was reported that WWE had a non-compete clause in their contracts, lawyers for Del Rio contested that clause and he won. He was free to wrestle. At first he appeared on the Mexican promotion AAA, and then in December it was reported that Del Rio, now going by Alberto el Patron, would be wrestling for ROH in January of 2015.

So in 2014 we had two rather large shake-ups, with CM Punk and Alberto Del Rio. But that's not all. Both TNA and WWE decided to release or not renew contracts with a number of wrestlers. Coming from a large group of released WWE wrestlers was Curt Hawkins, Drew McIntrye, Brodus Clay, and Evan Bourne, as well as others.

In TNA, A.J. Styles, Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian, Chris Sabin, and others did not have their contracts renewed with the company.

So now, throughout 2014 we have all these great wrestling talents out on the market. They've all continued to wrestler on the independent scene, and also Clay has now signed with TNA going by the name Tyrus. But that's not it.

Along with an abundant of free agent talents on the market, not only do we have WWE, TNA and ROH, but New Japan Pro Wrestling was beginning to be highly promoted through Jeff Jarrett's new promotion GFW (Global Force Wrestling). AND, a new player came to the t.v. screen in the form of Lucha Underground. Though debuting on a small network, El Rey, in October, fans and wrestlers alike have been giving the promotion high praise. There's also Tommy Dreamer's House of Hardcore, which isn't really a weekly or monthly promotion, but putting on great wrestling shows every few months.

Finally, there is the plethora of "indy" talents already making names for themselves with small independent wrestling promotions like Adam Cole, The Youngbucks, Chris Hero, Ricochet (who wrestlers as Prince Puma in Lucha Underground), reDRagon (the tag team of Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish) and others.

So what does this all mean? An abundance of talent not only in TNA and WWE, but performing on independent shows, as well as wrestling promotions like NJPW, ROH, and Lucha Underground reaching a wider audience. Professional wrestlers out there, can perform in front of crowds today, some larger than others, and if they didn't make to to WWE or just don't want to go to WWE, they don't have to, and can still make a living. That's why some of the talents like TNA, the schedule isn't as grueling.

The title of this post is "WWE's Next Competitor" and the next big competitor is the market itself. Because if a fan doesn't like what's going on in WWE, they can check out TNA. Or ROH. Or NJPW. Or Lucha Underground. There are so many options out there now, including some great independent promotions not on t.v. So WWE, at least in my opinion, needs to put out a great product. Because over time, if they just put out middle of the road entertainment, fans can tune in to other products. Will the fall-off be like that of the nineties, and make a company rival WWE? Probably not, but the fall-off wouldn't be good for business, no pun intended.

But it's not just the fans with options. The wrestlers have options now too. I don"t know the pay scale for wrestlers, but if you're a top talent in WWE, there probably isn't another company out there that can rival their pay. I'm talking main event wrestlers, at every pay per view. But not everyone can be that, for one reason or another. But you can go out and be a free agent, wrestling for other promotions, and make a living. And if you're good, you can make a good living.

So WWE's next competitor isn't just one promotion, but all the great promotions putting on good shows right now as a whole. There are lots of other options out there for professional wrestlers, and they don't HAVE to stay in WWE. Sure, WWE is the desired destination for many wrestlers, because it's the show. If you play football, you're goal isn't to play in the Canadian Football League or the Arena Football Leaugue, but the NFL. That's just the way it is. WWE is the big show. But the other shows out there are an actual option for wrestlers now, to not only perform and entertain the fans, but make a living as well.

It's a good time to be a wrestling fan.