Might not want to remind people of the Network right now, WWE.
Royal Rumble was a pretty great show, or at least it was up until the Royal Rumble itself. I guess I’m burying the lede a bit, because it turns out WWE had an actual chimpanzee lay out the Rumble this year – that or somebody who just really, really doesn’t like Roman Reigns. This year’s Rumble spared no effort to make every organic, genuine fan-favorite in the company look like soggy trash, while making Roman Reigns look like the most undeserving, needs help from his cousin, winner ever. Unsurprisingly it hasn’t gone over well.
The hashtag #CancelWWENetwork was the top trend on Twitter for much of last night (it’s still trending as of this writing) – even Time freakin’ magazine has reported on it. Apparently fans weren’t all talk either, as the WWE Network cancellation page was down much of last night due to high traffic (or because somebody in WWE intentionally shut it down, if you’re the conspiracy-minded type).
In other amusing “lots of people hated the Rumble” news, WWE made the mistake of putting a poll asking fans if they enjoyed the Royal Rumble on their Facebook page, and as of this writing 27,000 people have given the show a thumbs down, while around 7,000 gave it a thumbs up. WWE’s Facebook page is mostly frequented by very mainstream fans, and even so-so shows usually fare well in polls – you don’t have to be a wrestling nerd to have been pissed off by this show apparently.
I don’t hate Roman Reigns, in fact I wanted him to win the Rumble, but the way WWE went about it was shockingly inept. Hopefully next year we get a real Road to Wrestlemania, because I’m getting tired of February and March being the “Oh God, how do we fix what we did in the Rumble?” season.
via Wrestling Inc.
