WWE Royal Rumble 2018 Predictions

(Originally Posted Jan 2018)

The Royal Rumble is by far my favourite wrestling event of the year, sure Wrestlemania is much bigger, but nothing in wrestling is more fun than the Royal Rumble, even in the years when it’s been bad I’ve still enjoyed watching it and look back on it fondly every year. So let’s carry out the annual tradition of trying to predict the Royal Rumble and getting it wildly wrong (last year I picked Samoa Joe to win…what the hell was I thinking?)

However, I am not going to be doing this alone, I have asked a friend of mine, Jacob to give his predictions aswell. (He has his own wrestling blog too!)

1. Seth Rollins & Jason Jordan vs The Bar (Raw Tag Team Championships)

My Prediction – This one is surprisingly difficult to call, on one hand it seems like there’d be so much more potential for Mania if The Bar were to go into Mania carrying the belts, but WWE seem to be loving this Jason Jordan story they’ve got going right now. I think what makes the most sense to happen here is Jordan makes some sort of mistake to cost him and Rollins the match, leading to some sort of feud, which hopefully ends before Mania. I know Jordan vs Rollins will probably be a great match, but doesn’t it just sound so underwhelming for a Wrestlemania card? So in the end, I’ve gotta go with The Bar on this one.

Jacob’s Prediction – This is an easy one to predict for me. Firstly, it’s a huge shame that Dean Ambrose has got injured as it ruined the Shield reunion. Instead, we have to settle for Jason Jordan, who is struggling as a babyface, as a replacement partner for Rollins. I think it’s pretty obvious that Jordan will turn heel soon; this is because he is not working as a face and he has lots of potential to deliver with the heel turn. The seeds have been planted  for this leading up to the Royal Rumble, like the Peep Show segment with Christian on Raw 25 this week where Rollins accidentally hit him with a flying knee after rebounding from the top rope. He won’t be happy about this, so I feel Jordan will attack Rollins and turn heel after the match, following the result of The Bar regaining the tag team titles. The feud has gone very long and it’s hard to identify what they are still feuding over, so I feel the rivalry will end here. This will all lead up to Jordan’s major storyline for Wrestlemania 34, where he finally turns heel, leading up to a match between Rollins and Jordan at Wrestlemania 34.

2. Shelton Benjamin & Chad Gable vs The Usos (2 out 3 falls, Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

My Prediction – Again, this one’s kinda tricky to call. The Usos were one of the best things about WWE in 2017, and I really want them to have a big Mania match, instead of getting shafted to the pre-show/Smackdown for a 5th year in a row. But with all the faf that’s happened over the past weeks with Benjamin & Gable getting the titles but then not, it just feels like it’s got to be their time, even if I don’t really know what they’re going to do with the belts after they’ve won them. Either way, I think this is going to be one hell of a match, as long as they give it enough time.

Jacob’s Prediction – This is a match I’m quietly excited for. Both teams are exceptional workers and the feud between them has largely delivered due to their match quality and dramatic storyline. As for my prediction, I think The Usos will retain. They are significantly more over, due to their amazing feud with The New Day, as well as good feuds with Breezango and Rusev day. They now connect with the audience, who recognise their skills and talent, as a result of their outstanding character work and match quality last year. As talented as Gable and Benjamin are, they simply aren’t as popular as The Usos because they haven’t been built up enough for the titles. As WWE is heading into Wrestlemania season, it makes perfect sense for them to leave the titles with their most popular tag team act for their value. So, I’m going to predict The Usos will retain.

3. AJ Styles vs Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn (2-on-1 handicap match, wwe Championship)

My Prediction – Good God… Do I have to talk about this?

This story has been making Smackdown an absolute bore to watch for the past few months, and I have a feeling that it’s still got a couple months left before it ends. It’s just so messy and none of it makes any sense and I just want it to end. As for who’s going to win? Well, if this was any other time of year, I’d say they’d be stupid enough to roll with Owens & Zayn as “Co-champions” but given we’re about to start building to Wrestlemania, I’ve gotta say Styles retains.

Jacob’s Prediction – I’m not actually too sure about this one. I will start by saying Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn have been thoroughly enjoyable in their role together since reuniting at the end of October. The two have been gold on the mic and during their matches; also, their commitment to kayfabe in the modern era is very impressive. However, It depends what the WWE planning for the WWE Title at Wrestlemania. As Owens and Zayn have been so incredible lately, I could see them holding the titles as a transition, however, if AJ Styles is going to have a great role at Wrestlemania, then he will certainly retain. He is my favourite guy on the roster, one of the most popular workers in the business today and one of the most sensational workers of all-time, so, he is a very safe option for the WWE title. So, I’m going to take a gamble here and predict AJ Styles to retain and win the match on that basis.

4. Brock lesnar vs Braun Strowman vs kane (Triple Threat, Universal Championship)

My Prediction – While the winner of this match is obvious, I really don’t know how good this match is going to be, Braun is a fantastic wrestler; Brock can pull out a good match when he’s in the mood; and Kane also exists. Triple Threats are traditionally very fast paced, and to a certain extent need to be in order to work, but none of these men really work very fast, so this could end up being quite boring, but I’ll stay optimistic, if for no other reason than my own sanity. As for the result? Lesnar pins Kane after one F-5, obviously.

Jacob’s Prediction – This match is easy to predict. It’s going to be Lesnar.  I would expect a short 9-10 minute brawl between the three men as they have all been built as monsters vying to prove how they are the most dominant monster on the WWE roster. Also, there will likely be time constraints in the PPV, so it’s easy for WWE to cut time on this as it just seems like that kind of match. Also, Kane may not be able to go for long due to his age and health, as well as Lesnar due to his part-time status. It will be reminiscent of the Goldberg vs. Lesnar match at Wrestlemania last year. I hope Strowman gets a big push heading into WWE’s biggest PPV of the year because he has totally earned it. His character work has been absolutely exceptional and he remains to be over with the crowd. As for Kane, I feel he is very much the dummy in this match, as I think he is only there to protect the strength of Lesnar and Strowman by eating the pin in the match. Strowman vs. Kane was a decent feud, but it should have just ended. Anyways, I would expect some crazy spots and table breaks. But, when all things settle, I have very little doubt in my mind that Lesnar is going to retain the title.

5. 30 woman royal rumble match

My Prediction – Asuka, duh.

I suppose you want more than that don’t you?….*sigh* fine…

There are really only two viable candidates in this Rumble, one is Asuka and the other is Ronda Rousey, we all know she’s been very buddy-buddy with WWE in recent times, and with Dana White saying she’s not coming back to UFC, a WWE run seems almost inevitable at this stage. But I just don’t see it happening, Asuka has an undefeated streak to protect, and while you can argue that being out of the Rumble technically doesn’t count as a loss, it would take the shine off of her just a little. So I’m going to stick with Asuka, because that’s just what my gut is telling me.

Jacob’s Prediction – I absolutely can’t wait to see this match. The women of WWE have definitely deserved their own Royal Rumble match for a long time. As this is a very big deal, I would expect a lot of surprise entrants during the match. In terms of my prediction, it’s a pretty short analysis, as I think it’s going to be Asuka. Her whole thing is the long undefeated streak which sets her character apart from other women. It’s her act as much as the IC title is with The Miz. It’s the reason why she exists in the WWE universe. So it only makes sense for her to win this. In terms of dark horses for the match, Ronda Rousey has been in negotiations to sign with WWE for ages now and she is being rumoured to appear in this match. I am not expecting this to happen, but it’s a possibility. If this happens, it only makes sense for her to face off against Charlotte at Wrestlemania. I also think Nia Jax could win the match because WWE hasn’t ever given her an extended shot in the main event scene, and her whole thing is she’s dominant, so it would make sense for her to win the match. This is only a small possibility though.

6. 30 man royal rumble match

My Prediction – This is…a weird one, it’s kinda hard to predict, but not for the same reasons as last year. See last year, it was hard to predict because there were so many people who could believably win, but this year it’s kinda the opposite there’s no-one who really seems like a perfect fit to win the match this year. But I’m gonna go through and analyse the main candidates everyone is talking about, bare in mind I haven’t read the betting odds because they spoiled it for me last year, so they won’t factor in to my predictions here.

First up Roman Reigns, he’s shot up in people guesses to win the match since he lost the Intercontinental Championship, but I think it’s just people assuming the worst; don’t get me wrong, Lesnar vs Reigns is totally going to be the Wrestlemania match, but I think Reigns is going to go through the Elimination Chamber to get there, not the Rumble.

Finn Balor is the most interesting pick to win this to me, putting Balor back with The Club was a brilliant idea that should’ve been done forever ago, and I love the idea of him winning this match and then going over to Smackdown to face Styles. However as much as I want that to happen, it’s not going to.

John Cena is one of the best candidates to win, he does need world title number 17 after all. But as good as Styles vs Cena was, it’s been done to death and I don’t really want to see it again, plus The Undertaker’s still lurking about and I really don’t see anyone he could fight other than Cena.

Finally, Shinsuke Nakamura now a few months ago, it seemed like he was the lock to win this match, but now it’s up in the air a bit. Thanks to the whole Owens & Zayn vs Shane thing, he’s been a complete non-factor on Smackdown since Survivor Series. But honestly I still think he’s the most viable candidate to win this match, fans will still go crazy for Styles vs Nakamura, and it’s not like WWE haven’t randomly taken a guy they’ve neglected for months and pushed him to the moon before, or have you forgotten who the WWE Champions was for most of 2017?

But what do I know? It’ll probably be Randy Orton again at this rate…

Jacob’s Prediction – Firstly, I’m going to tell you my realistic prediction for who I think is going to win the match. Then, I’m going to tell you who I want to win the match and what I would like to see in the match.

To start with, I definitely feel John Cena is going to win, because WWE usually pick a very popular and established wrestler to win the match, as shown with Randy Orton last year and Batista in 2014. Despite the rumours of an Undertaker vs. Cena match at Wrestlemania, I doubt it’s going to happen due to Taker’s condition and the ending of last year’s show, where he effectively retired in my eyes. Also, WWE still have the Ric Flair World Title record storyline for Cena, so I think WWE are willing to trigger the angle. Although Cena vs. Styles has been done several times in the last year, every match was amazing, so I don’t think fans will reject the idea of one last match between them.

As for who I want to see win, it’s definitely Nakamura. Although he’s been creatively destroyed since joining the main roster last year, I would still like to see the NJPW rematch of Styles vs. Nakamura on WWE’s grandest stage of them all. I think this might not happen because officials and fans might have soured on the idea now considering the awful use of Nakamura throughout the last year.

If I’m being honest, I would also like Elias to win. He’s been getting very over as he always gets a pop. He is a performer who knows the spot he holds on the roster and he caters specifically towards it. This is one of the most unpredictable Rumble matches in years, but I think WWE are going all in with Cena this year.

And that’s it! That’s our predictions for all of the matches on the card, let us know what you think either in the comments or on Twitter @10ryawoo, and don’t forget to check out Jacob’s blog, The Turnbuckle Corner .

Don’t forget to come back on Monday for my Royal Rumble review/recap, see you soon!

 

Why am I a Pro-Wrestling Fan?

(Originally Posted Jan 2018)

So this story is going to be quite shorter compared to yesterday’s post about becoming a gamer, mostly because I’m somewhat new to the world of Pro-Wrestling, so there’s less of a story to tell.

My first exposure to pro-wrestling came in April 2013, I was a big fan (and still am) of Youtuber Nerd³, and for a video on his channel he played WWE’13, which was the most recent game at the time, and I thought it was fun, but didn’t really feel compelled to see anymore. But that would change come the end of the year, when he would play the newly released WWE2K14 game on his channel; and once again I enjoyed the video and didn’t feel the need to see more, until he played the “Defeat the Streak” mode that was in that game featuring  a character that I instantly wanted to know more about…The Undertaker.

Until now, I thought it was all just generic tough guys pretending to fight, I hadn’t really had a whole lot of exposure to it yet, but at the same time I didn’t really see the appeal. But The Undertaker was something different, The Undertaker showed me the story and character side to the industry, the fundamentals of what pro-wrestling is really all about – spectacle. Yes, the whole idea of the character was ridiculous, but so is wrestling, and I learnt to embrace that allow myself to see deeper into the industry, to see what it could truly be.

So obviously after seeing this character I looked him up to see more, and I found one of his recent matches, The Undertaker vs CM Punk at Wrestlemania 29. I assume most wrestling fans reading this will have already seen it, but if somehow you haven’t then it’s absolutely fantastic and remains one of my favourites to this day. Following that, I would watch the rest of Wrestlemania 29 and again, there were characters that I wanted to know more about as soon as I saw them. The Shield, Kane, Triple H, just to name a few.

Of course, it’s actually December 2013 while I’m watching the show, so I looked to see what was going on currently in the product, and it was a week away from TLC 2013, the main event of which was John Cena vs Randy Orton, which given what I now know about how much they’ve fought, I find hilarious. But of course, I was brand new to the product at that point so I didn’t know that yet, and I just had Wrestlemania 29 to form my opinions of them.


First up there’s John Cena who, I didn’t really get at the time, I understood from his packaging that he was meant to appeal more to the kids, but I just found him to be really generic and boring. Randy Orton on the other hand was fantastic, his look, his packaging, his in-ring work; I loved all of it, and of course RKO will always be one of my favourite moves in all of wrestling. I find all this pretty funny thinking back on it, considering how my opinions on these two men in 2018 is basically the opposite to what it was then.

Anyway, I would watch the show and once again be exposed to all these new characters that I became invested in. There are 3 main ones I want to talk about, the first being CM Punk, now I have an entire think piece that I want to write at some point, talking about how he was both the best and worst thing to ever happen to WWE, and he would walk out of the company about a month after this show, but I was still impressed by what I saw. Secondly was Goldust, now I didn’t actually like Goldust at all, the character really weireded me out, but I sure as hell wanted to know more about how that character came to be, but let’s not discuss that here. Then the final one, was Daniel Bryan.

Now, you don’t need me to tell you Daniel Bryan’s story, but what I will tell you about, is how my view changed on him over these first few months of watching WWE. When I first saw him in his Wrestlemania 29 match, I didn’t really think much of him, I was more interested by Kane, and how on Earth that character came to be, and to be honest, his 3 on 1 handicap match vs The Wyatt Family at this show didn’t really boost my opinion of him in any way. Because I didn’t know about his story yet, I didn’t know about what happened at Summerslam 2013, or anything that came after it, all I saw was him get his arse handed to him in this match, mad even worse when you consider that I’d already seen CM Punk beat 3 guys on his own earlier in the show.

Following this, my opinions didn’t improve as he just got beaten up more and more every week, until he finally cracked and was indoctrinated into the Wyatt Family. “Well I’m glad that’s over” I thought to myself, but that would all change on Jan 13 2014, when Daniel Bryan turned on Bray Wyatt and freed himself from the Wyatt Family. It was at that point where everything suddenly clicked, where it all suddenly made sense in my head as to what kind of character Daniel Bryan really was and what he believed in. I cheered when he joined the Wyatts, but I cheered all the louder when he broke free, and from that moment on, I was all-in on Daniel Bryan and the Yes! Movement.

I would then watch both the Royal Rumble and Elimination Chamber and I would enjoy both of them a lot, and then I watched Wrestlemania 30, which holds the last main talking point for this post; The ending of The Streak. Now, I mentioned at the start of this post how much I love The Undertaker, and one of the main things that drew me to him was, The Streak, even in a pre-determined sport winning 20+ years in a row is impressive, hell, even being around for 20+ years is impressive, especially in an industry as tough on the body as wrestling.

But when The Undertaker lost and his undefeated streak ended, something changed in my attitude towards wrestling. Up until this point it had just been something I’d casually enjoyed, I’d check the highlights of Raw and Smackdown each weak, and I’d watch all the WWE Pay-Per-Views, but it wasn’t something I deeply connected with or identified myself by; sure I was a fan, but if someone asked me what I enjoyed most in life, wrestling wouldn’t be in that list like it is today.

When people talk about the ending of The Streak, wha they’ll often use the phrase “For a split second, wrestling felt real again”, or something to that effect, and it’s completely true. It was over 20 years of build up to one single moment, that one split-second in time when that referee’s hand hit that 3 count. For one second, the wrestling community, one of the most divisive communities in the world, all felt the exact same way. We were as impressed as we were shocked, we were as upset as we were excited; and it turned wrestling from my interest, into my passion.

Thank you so much for reading this, I had a lot of fun writing this one, and I can’t wait to get into more content like this. Tomorrow, hopefully around a similar time I’ll be uploading my recap/review of Raw’s 25th Anniversary episode, so please come back for that!

But for now, please share this to everywhere you can, and any comments or feedback you’d like to give would be very much appreciated, you can contact me @10ryawoo on Twitter. See you in the next one!

 

Why am I a Gamer?

(Originally Posted Jan 2018)

First thing’s first an apology; because if you were born before the year 1995 then the start of this story will probably make you feel old, and I am very sorry for that, now on with the story.

So I was born in 1999 (told you), so I didn’t grow up with any of the ‘classic’ consoles, like the SNES or Sega Mega-Drive(Genesis), we did have a Playstation 1 in my house, but I very rarely played it and don’t have any memories other than “it exists”, so I don’t really count it.

My first proper gaming experience came when I was around 4 or 5 years old, when my mum gave me her old Game Boy, along with a handful of games. It was at this point where I had my first encounter with that one character ever person on the planet knows, Mario. I played Super Mario Land, which was released exclusively for the Game Boy, and unfortunately…I didn’t really like it. I remember struggling with it a lot and never really getting very far, so I gave up on it after a while, however I did enjoy my time with Mario’s yellow-clad counterpart, Wario.

There were two games centered around Wario that I loved playing, and they were: Wario Land; and Wario Blast. I was drawn to Wario Land because of how creative it looked, obviously with being 5 years older than Super Mario Land, it graphically looked more impressive, and I loved the designs of all the enemies and I was always excited when I got to a boss to see what weird thing I’d be facing next, (even if the final boss was rather disappointing). Wario Blast I loved even more, it’s basically just a regular Bomberman game, except it had Wario in it. I think I liked it because despite being a game about blowing each other up the tone was very light and bouncy, so of course when you’re a child that’s exactly the kind of thing to keep you hooked; and I played this game a lot, there’s a reason I can still hum the music to every level in the game.

Around this time I would also watch my dad while he played games on our PC, and there are two games I remember watching him play. The first one I’m not going to talk about right now, because I will be talking about it at length in a post next week. But the other one, was this cool new game, that you may have heard of called: Assassin’s Creed. Now I didn’t get to play it at the time, because I was only 7 or 8 and there’s no way my mum was letting me touch it, so we’ll come back to it that, but I was given a Nintendo DS for my birthday that year.

Now, the Nintendo DS, may be my favourite console I’ve ever played (keep in mind, I’m yet to own a Switch). Partly because I’ve spent countless hours on it in my life, but mostly because it introduced me to two of my favourite gaming franchises I’ve ever played. Sonic the Hedgehog and Pokemon.

So you may have noticed from the header image on this site, I like Pokemon…..I REALLY like Pokemon guys, I have enough Pokemon stories to last a whole year, so here today I’m just going to talk about how I first found the franchise. Now, I was a very fickle child, if any of my friends tried to tell me I should watch or play something, I would just decide I hated it and refuse to even try it; I honestly think this is why I’ve never become a fan of superhero films. Now Pokemon fell into one of those categories, until one day, when I was round a friend’s house, and they got their DS out, put in a copy of Pokemon Platinum and I watched him play it; and I fell in love. As soon as I got home, I begged my mum to buy it for me, and I got my wish, I got my own copy of Pokemon Platinum, and I’ve never looked back since.

As for Sonic, there were two Sonic games I own on the DS, one is Sonic Rush Adventure which is a more traditional 2D Sonic game, mixed with some of the more modern mechanics and I had loads of fun with it. But my favourite Sonic game of the DS, was actually a completely different genre, and it was called Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood which, yes, is perhaps one of the most generic names I’ve ever heard ever, but I was a child I didn’t care. The game was essentially an RPG focused around a fairly simple turn-based combat system, but the main appeal I found was exploring all of the different areas. It’s not exactly The Witcher, and you would probably be right in saying that I’ve been blinded by nostalgia but every now and then, when I’m bored I’ll go back to it and have some fun.

Things would then stay that way until the end of 2010, when the Xbox Kinect was released. Earlier that year, my mum had been invited to an event where we got to experiment with the 3 motion control based consoles, the Nintendo Wii; Playstation Move; and Xbox Kinect, and my mum decided that she wanted and Xbox Kinect, which of course also meant we got an Xbox 360. We would turn the Kinect on from time to time when we had family round and it was a lot of fun. But in terms of day-to-day, my dad bought a whole bunch of games to play on the Xbox 360 and I was a few years older now, so I would play some of these games aswell. During that time it was mostly just Assassin’s Creed, but at the end of 2011, I found a game which began to turn me into the gamer I am today….Skyrim.

Yes, it’s the game that’s been coming out seemingly twice a year for the past 6 years, but this is when it was brand new, and while I have plenty of experiences in that game, which I’m sure I will talk about at some point; but the biggest role it played, was how it opened my eyes to the world of PC Gaming.

It was around this time that I found Youtube, and the site itself had started to become the giant it is today, and the things I would watch more than anything else, were shows that featured the best Skyrim mods. As an 12/13-year-old, seeing all of these weird and wacky things being inserted into what, at the time, what my favourite game was awesome, and I wanted to do it for myself, but how? That’s when I found out, you had to be on the PC. So, for my birthday that year I asked for the PC version of Skyrim, I got it and installed it, and this would be my first encounter with the reason Valve don’t make video games anymore, Steam.

Over the next couple of years I would slowly break fully into the online gaming community, I found Youtube channels such as Nerd³ and TotalBiscuit and through recommendations from people such as them my Steam Library would slowly grow from the few games I had back in 2012, to the hundreds I have now. With all of these games, I can’t talk about all of them, but intend to talk about some of them in a post next week.

And there you have it, that’s the story of how I became the gamer I am today, and only one question remains to be answered: Why do I prefer video games to other type of media? And while I could go extremely deep with that question, I think the real answer is just that I’m a very hands-on sort of person, I’ve always been a kinetic learner, and I don’t have that long of an attention span; hence why most movies bore me to tears, I just can’t focus for that long. But video games (or the good ones at least) keep me doing things, and so I stay focused much longer. I find exploring a virtual world so much for fun than just watching someone else explore in a film, or just having it my head while reading a book. So that’s the main reason why I think video games are the best type of media.

Well that’s it! This ended up being a lot longer than I had planned, so if you bothered to read the whole thing, thank you very much! And if you just skipped to the end, then thank you for coming! I’m going to have a similar post going up at the same time tomorrow about why I’m a pro-wrestling fan so make sure you come back for that!

Until then, make sure you share this around on your social media’s, you can follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo if you want to stay up to date and read nonsense about my life and I hope to see you again!