Really was the Piper's Pits...

Hello all, just a quick side note before we start. You probably are wondering where the re-booking of Retribution (the promised part two of #100) is. Well, I did do it and was quite proud of it, however one of the central figures was a certain former chairman who, frankly, I don't think it is right to be in any space as a figure of authority and/or ridicule, fictional or otherwise at the moment. So I'm leaving it aside at the moment and seeing if I will re-book it later. Disclaimer done, on with the show...

Sometimes, you see somebody in their first match and you don't see how they can't succeed. The fans are behind them, the company is behind them and you don't see how it can't work. But wrestling is an unpredictable beast and sometimes the ones we feel are the most obvious to succeed are the ones who fall the furthest.

To understand Ronda Rousey circa 2022, it is important to know the context of where she was before she took her first sabbatical and what, arguably, turned her sour against the wrestling caper. She arguable stole the show at WrestleMania 34 along with Kurt Angle, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon (admittedly in a show where the World title matches ranged for underwhelming to downright boring). Everyone was amazed at how easily she took to the sport (admittedly, in a match where her lack of experience could be compensated). She was scalding hot but WWE were very careful not to overexpose her in the ring. In fact, in the first four months, from 'Mania to SummerSlam, Rousey wrestled four matches.

Soon, however, someone was to get hotter...

Becky had turned heel and moved from the Lass Kicker gimmick that had got her near the top of the women's division to The Man, which allowed her to begin to surf a wave of discontent the fans had because Charlotte Flair was given opportunity after opportunity while she was forced to graft underneath. And even though she tried to berate the crowd to boo her...they loved her.

Unfortunately this in part torpedoed Rousey because Vince McMahon didn't know how to friggin' pivot!!!

Y'see if it was a Rousey/Flair feud, you could position Ronda as the babyface who wants to set the spoiled brat straight. And if it was a Rousey/Lynch feud, you could position Ronda as the jealous heel who resents the rise of Becky, thinking that adoration should be for her. But when it was a three-way-feud? With two workers that had been in an on-off blood feud for six months? Rousey's character felt a little...lost. And what made it worse was that creative couldn't just decide that the triple threat was the direction they were going in and instead kept shuffling the cards - so that not only did poor Asuka lose her title, but Rousey began to feel more peripheral in the feud where all she could really add to it was "I'm such a badass I'll make it deliberately harder for myself by making sure they both face me". If Gunther did that, it wouldn't make him look clever or strong, just idiotic and it's the same for Rousey.

All of this also meant that Rousey had to come up with a stronger character, which required better promo skills...And oh dear.

When Lynch talked on the road to Mania, she held the crowd in her hand because you could see her fire, her frustration, her need to get to the top and be validated. And although Charlotte is a fairly ordinary face promo, her condescending style works for a heel who believes everyone is beneath her. Rousey had to go from silent bad-ass to suddenly have to justify her grievances to an audience who was ready to see her as not being ready.

And spare a thought for poor Ronda in all of this. After all, less than half a year before 'Mania, people said that she had taken to this wrestling thing like a duck to water, now has to use other tools she doesn't have, through the rise of another wrestler that was totally out of her control. Despite the fact that she was pushed to be a winner in a predetermined sport, she was now (to quote someone who went the other way), just a spoke in the wheel.

And so, post-'Mania 35, Rousey went on hiatus. Ready to be booked for a massive return for when the time was right. Sure her first run was uneven, but there was no doubt that she would be a big star, so booking her would be a slam dunk, right?

Right?!

Part of the issue is that when Rousey came back the women's division had changed. Not only were the Horsewomen there, but now there was the emerging Bianca Belair and Rhea Ripley - signaling the coming of NXT talent that would continue. Secondly COVID had put creative for all wrestlers - but particularly a lot of fantastic female workers (see Niven, Piper and Baszler, Shayna) through a bit of a creative thresher. As a result, while the WWE had a glut of talent, many of them weren't really in a position to win the Royal Rumble (save for Belair two years in a row).

And all of this wasn't helped by arguably one of the most tepid pair of Rumbles in WWE history.

It seems supremely odd to me that while WWE got that Money in the Bank 2021 was the time to make a good news story out of Big E when the crowds came back... strangely were nonplussed with the idea for having a good news story for the first Royal Rumble with crowds. Put that together with the fact we were in the middle of the bad old days of the Bloodline reign and Big E had just lost the WWE title to *check notes* f*&$ing Brock Lesnar, And on the face of it, the Women's Rumble wasn't as bad save for the fact that this would have been the perfect time to try someone new! Still, the WWE went with Ronda and the crowd were...ok with it.

Don't get me wrong - she didn't suddenly become 'Daniel Bryan circa 2014' levels of popular, but fans were open to her return in a way that felt like you could do something to make her into a babyface. And to be fair they needed to, because the two champs at the time were (heel) Becky Lynch and (forever heel) Charlotte Flair.

So why didn't it work?

Firstly this.

Look, before we decide to dig into this, the content here, if delivered in a different tone, could be a good way to get Ronda over. If she came out and said "this was great but getting to go back to my bus and hold my kid is the best gift of all" (perhaps not as saccharine) then you have a jumping off point for a good Ronda character quirk. As it is though, this feels like a person has come in, said they don't really care much about what happens next, just they always wanted to win the Royal Rumble while saying they were burned last time. Which doesn't scream babyface.

And the next night on Raw, she cut an odd promo about how the title reign of Becky Lynch wasn't her problem - essentially rendering it...redundant in her eyes? And again, Lynch was a heel so this too-cool-for-school attitude didn't do a total disservice but...Becky's character even as a heel didn't really sync with Ronda's. Becky was an ostentatious character full of pomp and circumstance whose fashion choices and moniker of 'Big Time Becks'...masked a sort of insecurity - that while she was away, there was new stars taking the spotlight and she wasn't prepared to let it go yet. Also, she was so damn fun that it was hard not to look at the difference of (let's just say it) promo effort between her and Ronda and not want to cheer for the person who seemed to be wanting to do something to make the fans interested. What you needed for this Ronda character was a real patrician through and through who reeked of privilege and always held her nose at 45 degrees upward.

Cue the Wagner remix...

I mean, when you think about it of course this was going to be the plan. It was the planned 'Mania 35 match until that pesky Becky Lynch got over - they even had Ronda eliminate Charlotte last despite the fact Charlotte was the SmackDown Women's Champion!!!. The thing is...you still had (looks at watch) 3 months to try and keep this story somewhat hot with a challenger whose heart was not totally in it and a champion who frankly had a twelve months where questions began to be asked about how giving she was to other workers compared to the other Horsewomen. What could WWE do?

There is a strange thing that this era of creative WWE would often do, which I can only describe as 'glomping'. You have a top-card act that isn't clicking? Glomp them on to a wrestler/story which is capturing the fans imagination with all the elegance and subtlety of a face-hugger onto a Wayland-Yutani employee. John Cena used to glomp onto storylines all the time that were going perfectly well without him, and Dean Ambrose sometimes couldn't breathe without Roman Reigns suddenly appearing to draw some of those sweet, sweet crowd reactions...

So Rousey and Charlotte got put into a program with the vindictive General Manager Sonya Deville and Naomi, where Naomi's wish to be put in matches so she can show what she can do coming up against Deville's sort of 'girlboss' character who was not secure enough in her own role to help lift up other women - particularly women from a different background. It was an interesting, if not always totally perfectly told, story which rhymed with real-life concerns about Naomi not getting the love she deserved in a company whose creative for African-American workers was...patchy at best. And all of this was spiced up by the fact that Naomi apparently couldn't lay hands on Deville for the most part, because the latter was a non-wrestler. This had led to a big pop in the Royal Rumble, where Naomi eliminated (fellow competitor) Deville, only for Deville to come back and eliminate Naomi.

So naturally, rather let these two have their feud develop naturally, they had to get others involved. And I get having Charlotte involved - cause Naomi would want the title, But as soon as Ronda Rousey got involved and started tearing Sonya Deville apart with seemingly no consequences, or regard for Deville as a GM...you've taken a story based on the real life overlooking of Naomi, and given her an (apparent) friend that exemplifies it from Day One that they're involved! And we're supposed to cheer for Rousey!! Imagine if Batman had a crisis of confidence that he was no longer as young or as fit as he used to be and to help him get over it, Superman decided to fight all of his fights without raising a sweat. That's what WWE did with this!

And it culminated in a...fine match at Elimination Chamber where Naomi and Ronda beat Sonya and Charlotte while Ronda had one arm tied behind her back, which made Ronda look like a star as she tapped out Deville, and Charlotte looking like a selfish cunning heel as she walked off with the title held high...and Naomi left without her big cathartic moment which felt...sad.

And this led to an appallingly told story where Charlotte came across as the most delusional heel. She would say that Rousey was a one-trick pony the minute after Rousey had cut a promo about adding an ankle lock submission to her arsenal. In order to make the match about both women trying to tap out the other, she would say that she had never been tapped out, which would be news to Sasha Banks, Asuka, Becky Lynch, and more of the women's roster who had tapped her out!!! And at the same time Ronda no longer had an authority person to really kick against and because the SmackDown roster was fairly thin and Vince was adamant of keeping these two from getting injured, they would never wrestle, just cut endless promos.

When you look back on this, I find it mystifying that anyone could look at the feuds leading up to Mania and say with a straight friggin' face that this interminable sack of broken bricks which derailed another feud was a better main event candidate than the carefully crafted story between Becky Lynch and Bianca Belair.

But surely when the bell rang, the match would save it?

Well...

Firstly, the match was upstaged by two other matches: The return of The American Nightmare Cody Rhodes, who proceeded to have a great match with Seth Rollins; and (you'll never guess) Becky and Bianca, who tore the house down in a fantastic Women's Championship Match for the Raw brand.

Hats off to WWE, they went the extra mile to try and make the fans think Flair vs. Rousey was a big deal. There was enough pyro in the entrances to spark a minor international incident.

And it starts off fairly hot, with both women trying to cinch a submission on the other, but the commentary team talks about it like it's a blood feud, when it feels more like a stiff chess match. This soon transitions to a more traditional wrestling match with the heel Flair taking control with headlocks and saying "Nope" when Rousey tries to get out like she's about to tell Ronda to stop hitting herself as well.

All of this isn't helped by the... questionable chemistry the two of them have, with some odd sequences. At one point Charlotte tries to hook Ronda's led on the ropes to jump up and stomp on it only for Ronda jump up, Mario-style and wait til Charlotte bobbed around like a jack in the box so Ronda could hit a...Tornado DDT? I think? Soon after Charlotte hits a spear for a two-count and it seems like the match is going to shift into top gear. So Charlotte kips up, goes to the top rope and hits... a missed double moonsault (honestly, it's worth watching how she tries to grab a perplexed Ronda into a pinning position after completely whiffing the move - to the point that Cole has to say Rousey 'slightly moved').

All of this, without any sort of story going in feels so much more exposed. If Rousey had missed a kick during the match that Charlotte could target with her figure eight and grit through, then there would be something for the crowd to latch onto. As it is it feels like a sequence, followed by selling on the ground, then another sequence, selling without much connective tissue to tell a damn story!

To both women's credit they do get it into another gear through the back half of the match with both women taking some gnarly bumps (including one awful exploder suplex bump that poor Ronda takes on the back of her head). And yet...it still doesn't feel like there's much joining these spots together, with both women even selling a body part when submissions have been locked in against them (more on this in a second).

Both women crawl into the ring, and Rousey hits the Piper's Pit for the pin fall, for Referee Charles Robertson to see Charlotte put her foot on the ropes after the 2 count...and still count 3, before immediately waving it off.

Ok, a brief aside to talk about this. Firstly, you don't need him to count 3. He could count two and then stop. Rousey is not facing him, so when she doesn't hear the 3, she could immediately turn around dumbfounded to have Charles explain that she got her foot on the ropes. If you do it right, then this would give enough time for Rousey to look at the ref, and for Charlotte to hit a Natural Selection on the distraction. As it is, this makes the ref stupid for literally seeing the foot on the ropes, hitting the 3 and then suddenly having some sort of epiphany. It also makes no sense to the crowd there, who can clearly see that, and are waiting for the ref to call the rope break, don't and then are immediately confused, so the pop is not a "Boo!" or a "Ooooh!", it's a "wha?"

Aside over.

Anyway Flair hits the Natural Selection off the distraction to get a nice close two-count before trying to slap on the Figure Eight. Ronda counters and the ref takes a bump and now shenanigans are afoot. Ronda slaps on the armbar, which Charlotte (cleverly) taps to immediately, only for Rousey to not hear a bell (which leads to the obvious question, if she knows that there's not referee why not keep it in for longer rather than release Flair from it and try and wake up the ref?!). Charlotte then manage to hit *check notes* a boot to pin Rousey for the 3.

A boot.

I cannot say how much that the last two or three minutes of absurd choices took the wind out of this match, but the idea that Charlotte wins with a boot irks me no end. And Ronda no-selling it at the end made it look worse!

So to sum up Ronda won the Rumble, proceeded to say she didn't care, then derailed a compelling feud of another wrestler, before having an interminable promo battle with another fairly drab character before having a patchy Mania match with a stupid ending that was overshadowed by the other women's championship match that had two performers who seemed to care about the weeks before hand and therefore got the match over.

Let's see where they go next in Part Two!

#1 Owen Hart vs Stone Cold @ SummerSlam '97
#2 December to Dismember 2006
#3 The Fingerpoke of Doom
#4 The Scott Steiner vs HHH Feud
#5 Ryback vs Mark Henry @ WrestleMania XXIX
#6 Bret Hart vs Vince McMahon @ WrestleMania XXVI
#7 The Jerry Lawler/Michael Cole Feud
#8 The Curtain Call
#9 Bash at the Beach 2000
#10 Royal Rumble 2014
#11 Warrior/Hogan II @ Halloween Havoc
#12 The Cena/Laurinatis Feud
#13 The Firing of Ric Flair From WCW
#14 The Brogue Kick of Doom
#15 Lesnar vs Goldberg @ WrestleMania XX
#16 Immortal Revealed @ Bound for Glory 2010
#17 Sting vs Hogan @ Starrcade 1997
#18 Triple H vs Booker T @ WrestleMania 19
#19 The Corre
#20 The Undertaker vs Big Boss Man @ WrestleMania 15
#21 Jeff Hardy vs Sting @ Victory Road 2011
#22 Road Wild 1999
#23 The John Cena/Kane Feud of 2012
#24 Hulk Hogan's Mancow Interview of 1999
#25 CM Punk vs the Rock @ Elimination Chamber 2013
#26 The Reign of Bill Watts in WCW
#27 The Claire Lynch Affair Part One And Two
#28 Triple H vs Kevin Nash @ TLC 2011
#29 The Cactus Jack Amnesia Angle
#30 Hulk Hogan Leaving TNA
#31 HBK vs Hulk Hogan @ SummerSlam 2005
#32 David Arquette: WCW Champion
#33 Katie Vick
#34 nWo Souled Out 1997
#35 The Vampiro/Sting Feud of 2000
#36 Once in a Lifetime, Episode II
#37 The Angle/Jarrett Feud of 2010/11
#38 The McMahon/Lashley Feud
#39 The Shockmaster
#40 CM Punk vs Ryback @ Hell in a Cell 2012
#41 Hulk Hogan vs Roddy Piper @ Starrcade 1996
#42 The WWE Championship Reign of Diesel
#43 Cena vs the Wyatts
#44 The Main Roster Run of Emma
#45 The WCW Run of Bret Hart
#46 John Cena vs the Miz @ WrestleMania 27
#47 The Lone Wolf AJ Styles
#48 Alberto Del Rio vs Jack Swagger @ WrestleMania 29
#49 The Transition of Mike Awesome from ECW to WCW
#50 The Dolph Ziggler Conundrum Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five
#51 The Rise and Fall of Damien Sandow/Mizdow Part One and Part Two
#52 DDP & Jay Leno vs Hollywood Hogan & Eric Bischoff @ Road Wild 1998
#53 Triple H vs Randy Orton @ WrestleMania 25
#54 Lord Tensai
#55 LOD 2000
#56 Sid Vicious vs Scott Steiner @ Starrcade 2000
#57 Bret Hart vs Yokuzuna (feat. Hulk Hogan) @ WrestleMania 9
#58 Royal Rumble 2015
#59 The Crucifixion of the Sandman
#60 Brock Lesnar's First Year Back in WWE
#61 Bo Dallas' Main Roster Run
#62 Vince Russo vs Booker T for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship
#63 Randy Orton vs the Big Show @ Survivor Series 2013
#64 AJ Styles vs Abyss @ Destination X 2010
#65 EV 2.0
#66 The Summer of Punk Part 1; Part 2; Part 3
#67 The Lex Express
#68 Goldberg's first WWE Run
#69 Paige's Main Roster Run 2014-2016
#70 Seth Rollins' First World Title Run
#71 Hulk Hogan vs Sgt Slaughter @ WrestleMania VII
#72 Sting vs Abyss in a Last Rites Match
#73 The Undertaker vs Big Show in the Punjabi Prison
#74 Ric Flair vs Hollywood Hogan @ Uncensored 1999
#75 Roman Reigns' Road to WrestleMania 32 Part One, Part Two. Part Three
#76 Hulk Hogan vs Sid Justice @ WrestleMania VIII
#77 Muhammad Hassan
#78 Sheamus' World Heavyweight Title Reign
#79 The Ghastly Match
#80 Bray Wyatt vs Randy Orton @ WrestleMania 33
#81 Goldberg vs Steiner vs Nash @ New Blood Rising'
#82 The Lesnar/Angle/Big Show feud of 2002
#83 Aces and Eights
#84 Dean Ambrose vs Brock Lesnar @ WrestleMania 32
#85 Jinder Mahal: WWE Champion Part One, Part Two, Part Three.
#86 DDP & Karl Malone vs Hollywood Hogan & Dennis Rodman.
#87 Triple H vs Sting
#88 The 1992 Run of the Ultimate Warrior
#89 Jenna Morasca vs Sharmell
#90 The Lesnar/Reigns Feud of 2018 Part One, Part Two, Part Three
#91 The Higher Power Revealed
#92 The Brawl for All
#93 The 2019 Title Reigns of Seth Rollins Part One, Part Two
#94 The Main Roster Run of Karrion Kross Part One, Part Two
#95 Fiend vs Goldberg @ Super Showdown Part One, Part Two, Part Three
#96 Hulk Hogan Poached from AWA by WWE
#97 Cody Rhodes vs Anthony Ogogo Part One and Part Two
#98 The Rollins/Ambrose Feud of 2018/19 Part One and Part Two
#99 The TNT Title Reigns of Sammy Guevara Part One and Part Two
#100 Retribution

The InVasion Saga