Does the guarantee of a title shot devalue the Rumble match itself

[Leo C]

Nothing is too hard to do in wrestling. The wounded champ shit is ridiculous and stale at this point, so 2015 MITB and 2016 MITB winners should be faces. They won't have to resort to those tactics and come 2017 nobody will be bitching about wounded champ cash ins by the time we see a heel doing it again.

Sure. Nothing in wrestling is hard, but WWE sure does make it look different. :dawg:
If they did a good job it would be better.

 

[Red Rain]

What was lame about Shawn Michaels' climb to the top in 1996? His victory over Bret Hart at Wrestlemania 12 would have meant slightly less if he had already cashed in and won the title for a short period the year before. Same for Austin's rise in 1998. Or Batista and Cena's rise in 2005. Daniel Bryan may have already won the title before, but his road to victory at Wrestlemania 30 still proved WWE can book someone's journey to winning the strap right when they want to (putting aside the fact that they were sort of forced into it by the fans in Bryan's case.)

I don't mind MITB matches, but always relying on them to crown someone a world champion for the first time is lazy booking to me. That's why I don't mind it when an already established star (Cena, Kane, Orton, etc.) wins the briefcase, or when an uncrowned world champion fails in their attempts at cashing in (Sandow, etc.) It shakes things up and makes them less predictable and avoids always having a superstar's inaugural world title win begin the same old way.

Long builds take too long.

 

[The GOAT]

Long builds take too long.

So you must ALWAYS go with the quickest and easiest way to push a new guy to super-stardom each and every time? I hope to never see you criticize WWE for lazy writing again anytime soon.

 

[Danielson]

The R.R. Is built around the title shot but so much more goes into it to launch a career. Austin, hbk, cena, edge, etc all get their signature r.r. Moment


The returns add to the allure, my favorite part when the rumble gets predictable. With that said, returns are now devalued with social medua/leaks on top of everything. Prime example is the sting leak. Back in the late 90's you really wouldn't get wind of returns making for outrageous mark out moments. Sting lost his value with the leak he'll be there. Maybe it was strategic to get people to watch, I dunno.

 

[Red Rain]

So you must ALWAYS go with the quickest and easiest way to push a new guy to super-stardom each and every time? I hope to never see you criticize WWE for lazy writing again anytime soon.

When was the last time I did?
I may disagree with who they push, but I've never had a problem with how they're being written.
I've always been a fan of the quick fix provided it was somebody I respected and knew could do the job.
Long pushes may be necessary but I've never been a fan of them.

 

[Jacob Fox]

Just the opposite, I think getting a title shot at Wrestlemania was one of the best ideas ever.

In both 1990 and 1991, Hulk Hogan won the rumble. In 1991, he was the rumble winner while he was WWF Champion. That was always weird to me. I like that the guarantee is the champ won't be in the rumble.

Is the winner usually predictable? Yeah but that's wrestling for you.

 

[Red Rain]

Quick fixes certainly gets heads turning.
Look at what steroids did for Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero!
If it wasn't for steroids they'd be working a 9 to 5 just like the rest of us.
Brock Lesnar was a quick fix and look at what that did for WWE.
If it wasn't for a quick fix, Bret Hart wouldn't have left WWE and met Bill Goldberg.

I might not 'love' quick fixes but look at what they did for the lives of those people!

 

[Green Jesus]

NothiTng is too hard to do in wrestling. The wounded champ shit is ridiculous and stale at this point, so 2015 MITB and 2016 MITB winners should be faces. They won't have to resort to those tactics and come 2017 nobody will be bitching about wounded champ cash ins by the time we see a heel doing it again.

I couldn't agree more. Enough with the injured champion stuff. But I don't think it needs to be a babyface to make this work. Before his de-push, Cesaro was a heel, but still was a fighting heel. It would be believable to see him cash-in on a fresh champion just out of pride. This would also mantain the surprise of the cash-in, without having to resort to some noble vanilla face previous warning bullshit.

ps: Cesaro was just an example, this could be any heel who does not have a chicken-shit gimmick