Rumble was solid.

Women's was better than the men's, IMO. They didn't rely on legends for "surprises" this time, instead allowing for a few real surprises and allowing many on the roster to be involved. Any of the final 3 could have won which kept it fun in the end.

Men's was fine, just very predictable. Only Cody or Punk were going to win, and it really dragged when it got down to the final 6. And there was only one surprise, which was very early and expected.

Owens and Paul delivered. Clever ending.

The bathroom break match was the Universal title match though. Reigns was obviously going to win, and since it went on second on the card, it just further cemented no real shock outcome. The match was also a little meh for m. Not bad, just nothing to really exciting.

So now we have Reigns vs Cody II at Mania unless Rock inserts himself into it (doubtful). And... Cody's winning. He has to this time because if not... What do you do with him next? So this makes the match a pretty boring Mania min event for me. I suppose there's a small chance Reigns wins again so he can best Hogan's record in September, but WWE better have some big things planned for Reigns in 2024 if that's the case.

Aaaaaand rumors/reports are saying Punk suffered a "significant" injury in the Rumble... Sigh. If true, I mean, it's really not surprising given how accident prone he's been since returning to pro wrestling, but still. He's 45, and if he's this accident prone already, it's hard to imagine he can still do this on a consistent, reliable basis in the future.

Would be very unfortunate if he misses the Elimination Chamber, but especially if this injury is bad enough to also miss Mania 40 (which I assume he gets in by winning the Chamber...).

A sex scandal that pushes McMahon out, a mostly dull rumble ppv, Cody finishing the story, Punk getting hurt ... I feel like I've seen all this before.

The Women's rumble was the highlight of the card for me. WWE has an incredible roster of women wrestlers and it is showing big time right now. No obligatory legend participants to pad out the 30 women limit.

-Liv Morgan looked great out there. Looked like a star.

-Jade Cargill made a big impact in her in-ring debut. Another star.

-Great showing from Naomi. Glad to see her back.

-Excellent surprise having Jordynne Grace in there. It's great to see crossovers like this that benefit both WWE and TNA.

-Lots of great showings from Bianca, Becky, even Chelsea who has played her role so well since her return at the last Rumble.

-So happy for Bayley. She has been an MVP for years without being a top star. I really hope this win and her storyline with Damage CTRL gives her a big Wrestlemania moment.

It's obvious that Cody should face Roman at Mania. But... they did an excellent job last night making me think Seth is the right choice. Of course if they do go that route and we get Roman vs. Rock instead, I'll be disappointed.

This past week really threw off their Mania plans. I don't know if it's guaranteed Seth will be ready for Mania either. But Punk and Lesnar both presumably missing the card lowers the star power.

Going to be interesting to see what they do over the next month to set up Mania.

Elimination Chamber is looking a bit weak in terms of star power too. No Roman, no Seth, no Punk, no Lesnar, and there are apparently issues with Gunther traveling and he's not expected to be there. And Cody wouldn't be in the Chamber match, right?

Guess the men's chamber would be... Orton, Drew, AJ, LA Knight, Sami, and Jey?

That would be a fantastic chamber match honestly. It's just that they're missing the star power for their first big PLE in Australia.

Same for Mania 40/XL. If Vince were still there, we'd be getting matches with Hogan, Rock, Austin, Goldberg, Cena, Lesnar, HBK, Undertaker. Anyone who could walk. The biggest thing for me with Triple H is seeing new names get pushes. It's going to be make or break for him if Mania 40 can rely on today's stars, especially with so much of the field injured.

I desperately want AEW to succeed so we have a viable second company to WWE. But man... I'm losing hope every week while watching. Something has to change. And the re-introduction of the ranking system is showing why it was abandoned in the first place. Very loose definition of rankings.

Some stuff is still fun. They've done a nice job with the Bang Bang Scissor Gang or whatever they're called. Wonder if they'll drag out the eventual heel turn from White and the Gunns, or will they pull the trigger for Revolution. Always love Timeless Toni Storm.

But then we get Hangman Page choosing RVD to face Swerve? And Chris Jericho just being Chris Jericho. You either die a hero, or... that's Jericho to me now. He's going to ride off into the sunset having the younger generation put him over. Crazy.

AEW does need a pretty major shakeup.

Appears WWE is doing Reigns vs Rock at Mania. Some think whenever the next Crown Jewel is but I doubt that. Cody wouldn't have said the "not at Mania" line about challenging Reigns again in that case. Unless this is a swerve of some kind.

Probably makes the most sense in order to give both nights of Mania a big main event since Punk is out and Seth needs an opponent (Cody). And if you're going to do Reigns vs Rock, it probably needs to happen sooner rather than later for various reasons.

And a lot of fans are pissed.

I get it. But I also get the company, if they're still wanting to do a 2 night mania, needs a big main event for both nights. And unfortunately Punk getting injured prevents a big match for night 1 unless they go this route (Seth vs Cody night 1, Roman vs Rock night 2). Besides Cody, there's not really anyone to elevate night 1, IMO. Maybe Drew, but there has also been much speculation he might be leaving "soon" for many months, so if any of that is true (WWE unsure if Drew is going to resign), they're not going to go with him, at least for a singles title match to main event night 1.

And as said, Roman vs Rock probably needs to happen as soon as they can do it, and Punk's injury creating a problem on the two-night Mania card probably pushed them to do it now. Rock is getting an age on him plus has a busy Hollywood career. Roman is at the top of his game and can only go down now (you could say he's on that decline now), so having him and Rock face each other at Mania 40 makes a lot of sense in terms of convenience.

But this does suck for Cody, yes. I have little doubt the original plan was for him to challenge (and likely beat) Roman at Mania 40, otherwise I don't think he'd have pointed at the Mania sign and then turn and point up at Roman right after. They had him basically choose his pick right then, but they didn't know Punk's situation yet and thus played that angle with Seth and Cody on Monday to not make anything official yet so they could decide how to do this.

Not many are wanting another Seth vs Cody match. Cody has won all their matches (right?), so winning again, even for a title, doesn't have much weight behind it. And despite it being the world title, a lot of fans dismiss it as a "real" title... Seth winning would be bigger for him, beating Cody at last, but having Cody take that L is a big hit to his momentum and popularity.

I see both sides here and don't think either decision is ideal, both a lose-lose in some way. And WWE decided on giving both nights at Mania the biggest main event they can and the dream match that might not be possible again vs what makes more sense in terms of the story. The second would be more fan-friendly, of course. But I don't see this as screwing over Cody either. It should be fully expected Cody IS going to beat Roman, and they're delaying that once again. So it'll be up to WWE to craft a very compelling story to keep fans interested for another 6 months-1 year.

So... I don't know if criticizing WWE (a lot targeting Hunter and/or Rock) is a clear-cut thing to do. At least at the moment.

It’s funny that The Rock was not seen as a politicker back in the day, but since then, 1j he’s probably the one responsible for Reigns’ over push and then long title reign to setup Reigns-Rock, 2) forced the return of Nia Jax, 3) now wants his guy to head creative instead of HHH.

I don’t think Rhodes is entirely screwed, by being gracious to The Rock now, they are still positioning Cody to be the Guy through the Netflix era Rhodes will still be the next big Hollywood star with big starring roles in Netflix movies or shows. Rhodes will likely take over The Rock’s WWE power role when The Rock moves on to US politics,

Yeah... I can be as pissed as everyone else, but at the end of the day, Rock vs. Roman is still a money match. It should have happened last year but what can you do?

What I am more pissed about is that we're going to go through another year of Roman to go past Hogan's record. Like... are we not just coming for Bruno's record at that point?

People can be pissed all they want at Triple H but the WWE product is 1000 times better now without Vince at the helm. I'll take the "what's best for business" Mania match over more Vince bullshit.

The justifiable outrage is something to see. Maybe I'm just so used to terrible WWE decisions. I've lived through WWE injecting Charlotte into the clear money match of Ronda vs. Becky. I've lived through WWE ignoring Daniel Bryan until they had to give him the most convoluted Wrestlemania ever. I've lived through KofiMania being one of the greatest moments in Mania's history, only for it to be undone in seconds by Brock squashing Kofi six months later on Smackdown. I've lived through Goldberg squashing The Fiend in Saudi Arabia. And, more topically, I've lived through CM Punk's 434 day reign as WWE Champion undone by The Rock one month before Wrestlemania.

And these are all in the last eleven years. It happened before, it'll happen again. And yes it always sucks for the people left in the path of terrible decisions.

This feels more like a bad decision under poor circumstances. I'm seeing people trying to paint this as the Rock being the new Hogan and forcing himself into Cody's spot at Mania, but I personally don't think it's that really at all. Did Rock want this match? Surely so, who can blame him? But so much to ignore the Rumble result and force himself in in under a week? Seems like a reach.

This all came together very fast. It was pretty clear Cody was going to challenge and face Roman at Mania given how the Rumble went off. Would they have done that ending if they had already decided Rock was going to face Roman instead? I don't think so. Either they would have just had Cody point at the Mania sign and not Roman too, or Punk would have been booked to win it. Now, maybe you can say Punk was suppose to win but called an audible once he realized he was seriously injured, which promoted the change for Cody to win, but I didn't see it that way. If I was told by the ref Punk is saying he's injured, we need to have a different winner, I'd still let Punk win and have him come out Monday and give a promo about his injury and having to step away but he'll be back stronger than ever and Seth (or Roman) better be ready, etc.

WWE didn't know the seriousness of Punk's injury yet when Cody won the Rumble either way.

All this does suck. Cody facing and beating Roman at Mania 40 is a great story. But, while it being delayed again is crap, you can also see why WWE decided to go with Roman vs Rock instead given the circumstances and how that match has a limited window to happen whereas Cody vs Roman 2 (presumably Roman's defeat) can be scheduled at a later date. Sucks, yes... but I don't see anything nefarious here.

Wrestling fans once again proving themselves to be the most delusional group of people. Last year, they were convinced that the fans were gonna turn on Cody for taking Sami Zayn's spot. Now they are upset The Rock Finally coming Back to Wrestlamania? Ridiculous. I think people are just nostalgic for the yes movement.

So... the response to the Cody/Rock situation feels bigger than any I can remember. I wasn't watching much WWE back in 2013/2014 when the Daniel Bryan stuff was going on, so maybe it's not as big as that, but Cody/Rock has really taken over this weekend.

Whatever happens, I hope this doesn't somehow backfire on the fans by WWE putting Cody back into the main event with Roman (either as a singles match or triple-threat with Rock), only to have Cody lose again because WWE has already decided Roman is going to break Hogan's record either way. Not having Cody take another L by having Rock take his spot instead could be a thing they're doing to, thus saving Cody dethroning Reigns for further down the road (of course, the Rumble win and clear indication of him pointing to Reigns could contradict this).

WWE has made it clear they're breaking all the old title-reigns with the current generation of wrestlers. I even think all of them have now been broken over the past year or two except for the WWE title, right? The WWE title is the most difficult/complex since Bruno's record still feels impossible to go after, but having Reigns take the "modern" record from Hogan is probably enough to renew the record.

This is WWE's attempt and erssing the Vince news out of the news cycle. And it did wonders.

No way in hell WWE doesn't have Rock/Reigns at WM 40. The fans may force a triple threat but Dwayne made WB his bitch with everything he wabted in Black Adam so. Dwayne gets what he wants lmfao

"Crybabies Welcome"

The Rock is already on fire today.

And The Rock joins the Bloodline. Wow! What a story this has become. I admit to getting worked last weekend. Everyone did.

The double turn-ish Page thing was great.

Yup I thought the press conference was fun from the snippets I've seen. Opens up a brand new dynamic to The Bloodline that we've been missing. Why wouldn't The Rock join them for a while to be the leader? Which I assume will set up Rock vs. Roman but I'm hoping not at Wrestlemania.

Also WWE is getting shit for shifting the news away from the Vince stuff, but like... what else should WWE do as a company? It's not impeding what's going on. And they aren't going to address it on TV. This is the way to go.

I am curious how this all plays out. Feels like they were pushing towards Cody and Seth vs. Rock and Roman at some point, which would make sense for Elimination Chamber, especially considering they need a big draw for Australia. But will Seth be medically cleared?

Yup that whole match was excellent. That was why I love AEW.

I do wish they didn't re-do the "time limit running out just before the count of 3" again so soon. Feel like they're overdoing it.

I haven't watched Rampage or Collision since before Christmas. Canada doesn't show it on TV unless it's in Canada, and I'm not getting TSN+ to watch them. I believe you have to watch them live? Not committing to $8 a month for that. And my only other alternative, I just find it tedious to do. Too bad because I do want to watch it but TSN isn't making it easy.

It's really disappointing seeing what's coming out more and more lately, especially with Ashley Massaro. I know Stephanie McMahon likely was controlled by Vince on how to deal with her situation, but that's no excuse. It just shows how a business shouldn't be run by a family.

Crazy to see one of the most exciting buildups to a Wrestlemania be juxtaposed against the slow crumbling of the McMahon's legacy.

Chamber thoughts:

Cody v Roman night 1 and then Cody v Rock night 2 is the way

Rhea looks like a star and if they don't do Double Cody, she should get night 1 main event with Becky over Seth and Drew

Tiffany Stratton looked like a future star. The swanton off the pod was the best high spot of the whole night.

Logan Paul is hilarious.

Judgement Day is kinda boring now and Rhea should ditch them

Drew deserved the win since he's become the top heel on raw, but I hope they do something to spice up that match since we've seen Drew v Seth a few times recently

Randy looked like he was in legit pain after every RKO. He's not that good of a seller :-/

Nia Jax being in a wwe ppv main event is a trip but she delivered

Overall good, though still kinda dull ppv since every outcome was so expected.