Lol no

How are you not a Batista fan?

I went to Backlash ten years ago. Fuck.

Yeah he also mentioned a couple of times of his last run being miserable for him behind the scenes and being made into the scapegoat for WWE's general incompetence with Bryan's rise around the same time.

Bluetista would be welcome back.

If he's willing to do full-time, fuck it, I'd be fine with him winning the Rumble and going against Brock at Mania. Let The Shield do a six-man. But it's more likely that they would put him against AJ Styles.

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If he does return, hopefully he looks better than he did then, the thin hair and slightly gaunt look in his face did him no favours.

The crowd shit all over it the first time, I don't doubt they'd shit all over it again. And I don't think he'd be responsible for bringing in anymore viewers unlike Dwayne would.

I know it's not a credible match but I'd like to see Cesaro vs Brock at the Rumble.

Hey, is Braun turning face or something?

He's been face for months

Whaaaa? Seriously?

That's odd.

Cant remember the last time I heard an audience boo him

He was getting cheers for months but was still officially booked as a heel through TLC, as part of the Alliance to End Shieldamania.

Then his whole team turned on him and I'd guess that was the "official" face turn.

"officially booked as heel"


LOL

The office doesnt decide who's face and who is heel. Use your ears.

Think they do. Roman Reigns is supposed to be a face.

booked as a heel - attacking good guys.

How the crowd reacts is a different story.

Every time a script has leaked, on the very first page they have a diagram clearly listing faces on the left side and heels on the right. I can guarantee you that prior to TLC and during their entire feud, Roman was on the left and Strowman was on the right.

They even put him on a clearly heel team against the Shield and a returning Kurt Angle.

WWE viewed him as a heel in spite of the crowd reactions.

Roman, like Cena before is pretty unique since he is techinially both. HOWEVER if you tihkn reigns is nt booked like a heel there are dozens of example as to how he is.


For instance look at the rumble from January. Using reigns to play spoiler so Orton would get a pop when he went over.


There is this great myth among the IWC that the fed isnt aware of whats happening but thats idiotic. They're playing it from a different angle.

"nah"

To be fair, Orton was likely to get a pop for going over anyway. Yes the Big 4 shows draw smark-heavy crowds but Orton had gotten himself popular with the smarks with his run in the Wyatts. It was different from what he'd been doing for years and was a breath of fresh air.

None of that is relevent to how they used Reigns elimination to get the pop. It was eliberate and obvious how they constructed the final 4 around Reigns gettign heat.

Honestly Destor, I think you are wrong.

Of course they are aware of what is going on, but WWE is a one man operation and that one man is very particular about what he wants. He wants Roman Reigns as the top face of WWE and he doesn't care that it isn't working, because that's what he wants.

There were times in the past where he had to be flexible, out of desperation and he let organic faces like Austin rise to the top. But in a world of no competition, he is confident enough to push on with what he wants to see.

"The kids will buy it anyway" is a different stance from "clever face/heel divide. The way he is booked right now, hardcore fans are not paying to see Reigns win or lose. He banks on the fact that they will tune in anyway...and they (we) do.

Meh.

WWE has their own opinion on who is a face and who is a heel. Fans tend to disagree and WWE often (not always) change things accordingly. But still, they book them their way.

the greatest work of all

I do think WWE are aware Roman's heat can be used in certain situations. I'm hoping they'll be smart enough to not have him win the Rumble in Philly, who booed the fuck out of him last time. The match with Lesnar can be set up by other means.

But when push comes to shove I'm certain they'll try to sell Reigns' inevitable win and being the first man to beat Brock and kick out of the F5 in over a year as being this grand conquering hero moment no matter how the crowd reacts.

I can already imagine Rollins and Ambrose parading Roman around on their shoulders as confetti falls from the ceiling, the first pyro display in months goes off, and Cole has an orgasm on commentary. All while the crowd boos angrily. It'll be bizarre.

and then Seth and Dean drop his ass and stomp him out for thinking he is bigger than The Shield.

I'm predicting a twist, but it's not beyond Vince to have Roman Reigns win the Rumble again in Philly as a troll.

Id do it just for the heat

Yeah, this is always bothers me. Like when someone tries to make the case that Austin was actually a heel because he was an asshole. Um, no, have you heard his pops? He's the biggest babyface of all-time.

I'm not a big WWE apologist, but they know Roman gets booed and they play into it a lot. They know he's a heel. People are coming along to the shows to boo him with hopes that he'll fail. That's exactly what a heel is. Don't let him kissing babies and being positioned against guys that are snarling all the time fool you -- anyone who goes against Roman is a babyface.

Where it gets confusing for people is that they book Roman as the protagonist, and people confuse babyface with protagonist. That being said, Roman is still miscast at this type of heel. He'd be better as a babyface that takes no nonsense, and to do that you'd have to "turn him heel" (to the people who still think he's a face).

The WWE just sucks at telling stories.

that I fully agree with

When you think about WrestleMania and how that card is probably going to look, I think it is a better outcome than, say, John Cena winning his third. People are going to boo that too, because it's still the automatic response. Unless you're going with someone not Cena as the AJ Styles opponent, in which case them eliminating Reigns at the end is going to get such a big pop.

Right now though, I'm kind of hoping that they go with Reigns winning, doing the whole "destiny being fulfilled thing" and then they have Brock beat the piss out of him at Mania. Play with the "chosen one" expectations. Everybody and their dog will think they know the coronation is coming at Mania, so if Brock wins then people are going to lose their shit. Give Reigns a period between WrestleMania and maybe SummerSlam where he has a "bad year" to subvert these expectations people have that "lol Roman wins."

The experiment has not worked the way they'd like. They know this. They can jam it down people's throats and just present that reality, or they can shift everything slightly and give people a story that they're going to be completely lost in.

Yeah, we can discuss the semantics of alignments of all day. The end result is the same... a bad product.

At least for the short term, he'd be able to pop the ratings for a while although Rock-like levels would be tough even though he's been building up his movie stardom well in recent years.

Only problem is just like The Rock, those viewers are going to leave once Batista is gone or through WWE's attrition of poorly run shows.

When Batista returned last time, he wasn't perceived as a success in Hollywood. I don't necessarily believe that he will switch a lot of people back onto the product, but the fans that are watching are going to see him slightly differently.

Yeah, I fucking love Batista as an actor, have a feeling a lot of people will dig him because of his stellar on-screen work.

For some weird reason, I imagined Cena beating Styles at the Rumble for a second year in a row, breaking Flair's record in the process. I've long assumed Cena getting the record would be a Mania moment, but since his schedule post-Mania might be up in the air as he's getting new movie offers all the time, they may want to give him the title run during Mania season when they know for sure he'll be around.

In this scenario I'd also imagine Styles entering the Rumble and being the first man since Brock in 2003 to win a Rumble after competing earlier in the show.

I love Batista, but if WWE goes into Mania with HHH, Angle, Batista, Shane, and possibly Big Show, Jericho, Undertaker and Kane on the card, in 2018. That is insane to me.

If that's the match they go for, honestly Batista is the weakest link here.


Batista was in right place at right time and went much further than someone of his skill level should have made it. Batista isn't a terrible wrestler but he is in my view a midcarder who was lucky to get into the business at a time when talent was lacking.