To be perfectly honest, I’ve been too busy to pay much close attention to the build up for this show.  But it’s worth saying something about since, with the launch of the so-called “WWE Network” (actually an online streaming service on the Netflix model), we’re nearing the end of the current PPV model in pro wrestling.

The WWE Network has been in the pipeline for ages – they actually announced it a couple of years back only for it to drift off the radar.  Despite this, it still seems to have come as a surprise announcement to many people not following the industry.  Essentially, the big idea is to have a streaming service where, for around the price of a single PPV on the current model, you can subscribe for six months and get all the PPVs in that period, plus a ton of archive material, and, well, some blatant filler like a reality show that’s been languishing at the back of a drawer for two years.

You won’t get Raw or Smackdown – those shows will still be on TV for the rights fees – but you will get everything else.  This launches in February, the day after Elimination Chamber, so even this year’s Wrestlemania will be thrown in at the knockdown price.

Needless to say, the PPV companies are not thrilled at being undercut in this manner, and while the shows will still be available on that platform (probably – one provider has threatened to stop carrying them), it’s perfectly clear that the company doesn’t want you to order them that way.  They’re cutting out the middleman, slashing prices, and attempting to build their own distribution channel.

Why are they doing this?  It’s certainly a bold move.  They’ll need a lot of subscribers to cancel out the revenue they were getting from PPVs, even after the cable companies’ cut.  But they believe that they’re going to do well in this year’s negotiations for the Raw and Smackdown TV deals, which would give them more security on that side (the theory is that sports rights fees are on the rise because they’re DVR-resistant and thus more appealing to advertisers; whether this truly applies to the WWE is debatable).  And at the same time they were slightly scared by the limited interest they got in the last round of TV negotiations.  To some extent the Network is an insurance policy against the worst case scenario of losing TV distribution; in the long term, they want to be strong enough to do without it if they really have to.

At any rate, this changes the game for PPV, but in what direction remains to be seen.  One theory is that the shows will become mere schedule-filler on a streaming service; another is that they ought to become more important than ever due to the imperative to drive people to that service.  In a few months time, we’ll know which way the company is jumping.  Given that subscriptions will be for six month periods, my guess will be that if they’re happy with the initial subscription levels they’ll get complacent, and if they’re not they’ll panic.  That’s generally how it works.

For those of you reading this from the comics-readers perspective, the point to note here is that this is a company of reasonable size committing to digital, slashing prices, and telling its conventional distribution channel to go throw itself down a well.

1.  The 2014 Royal Rumble: Batista v Alberto Del Rio v CM Punk v Rey Mysterio v Cody Rhodes v Goldust v Big E Langston v Kofi Kingston v Miz v R-Truth v Xavier Woods v Fandango v Dean Ambrose v Seth Rollins v Roman Reigns v Luke Harper v Erick Rowan v Damien Sandow v Jimmy Uso v Jey Uso v ten others to be announced.

For anyone who doesn’t know, this is one of the major matches of the WWE calendar, a battle royal with the winner going on to challenge for the world title at Wrestlemania. With the recent unification of the two world titles, we now have a single champion (Randy Orton) and so there’s no possibility of palming off the Rumble win on a mid carder to challenge for the B-title, as has happened a few times in recent years.  Whoever wins this has to go on to a major match.

The format is a 30-man battle royal with two wrestlers starting and everyone else entering at “regular” intervals (usually around a minute).  Elimination occurs by being thrown over the top rope and having both feet hit the ground.  The advantage of this format compared to a regular battle royal is that you don’t start off with a cluttered ring in which basically nothing happens until the field thins out.

There’s a lack of obvious title matches that could headline Wrestlemania.  Randy Orton hasn’t exactly set the world alight as champion, but given that most of the potential challengers are babyfaces, you can see why they want the belt on a heel.  Of the names announced so far, only two are established main eventers – Batista, making his return the company after a lengthy absence, and CM Punk.  I can’t honestly say that either of those guys against Orton strikes me as a great match, but then they could always switch the title before then.  If they’re going with Orton then Punk would seem the better choice, since Batista/Orton has the whiff of nostalgia about it.

But Punk’s entering at number one as part of a storyline where management hates him; that usually means a respectably long run before being eliminated.  It’s not unprecedented to last the whole match and win, and they could do it, but I don’t honestly expect it.  So it’s probably going to be Batista, which… meh.  Mind you, ratings were good for his return on Monday, so I may be in the minority there.

Or they could surprise us.  There’s still ten slots to be officially announced, after all.

2.  WWE World Heavyweight Title: Randy Orton © v John Cena.  A rematch from last month, where Orton defeated Cena in a ladder match to unite the WWE Title and the World Heavyweight Title into (obviously) the WWE World Heavyweight Title.  He’s still carting around both title belts, incidentally, but I suspect they’ll want to run with that for a little while before quietly withdrawing the World Heavyweight Title.  The current version of the WWE Title belt was only recently unveiled, is designed to be customisable for each champion (more merchandising!), and is unlikely to be jettisoned lightly.

I would be very surprised if Cena won here.  Even if they do want him to be in the title match at Wrestlemania, it’s probably simpler to have Orton retain here on a screwjob, and have Cena win at Elimination Chamber where the title will be defended in a multi-way match.  More likely, though, a babyface is winning the Rumble, so they need Orton to stick around as a heel champion.  The match should be perfectly fine.

3.  The Big Show v Brock Lesnar.  Lesnar isn’t a regular roster member so much as a special attraction.  Despite that, he tends to lose more than you’d expect.  The conventional wisdom is that this is a case of rebuilding him with an impressive but expendable opponent, so that he’s as strong as possible for whoever he’s facing at Wrestlemania (possibly Undertaker).  I’d certainly be amazed if Big Show won here; that doesn’t lead anywhere and just further devalues a very expensive guest star.  But then I’ve been surprised by a lot of Lesnar’s results.  Sounds like a bit of a lumbering brawl to me.

4.  Daniel Bryan v Bray Wyatt.  A failed plot being hastily aborted.  Live crowds have been very vocal in their love for Daniel Bryan, which is unfortunate, since having him in the main event doesn’t fit into the company’s plans.  How widely this is shared is an interesting question.  Live crowds are not representative of the wider TV audience and their reactions are sometimes out of line with the broader viewership.  One of Hulk Hogan’s comeback title reigns was the result of strong live reaction, but it did nothing for ratings.  Bryan’s series of title matches with Randy Orton last autumn didn’t do brilliantly on PPV, but then neither did Orton’s match with Big Show the following month.  And you can blame the appalling writing too – though it’s not as if John Cena’s storylines are exactly blessed by the hand of Shakespeare.

At any rate, the WWE set about finding Daniel Bryan something else to do in the midcard – cynics would say this was an effort to undercut him, a more charitable view would be that they just wanted a storyline that would keep him occupied away from the title scene.  So they had the Wyatt Family – a southern gothic cult – attempt to recruit him as a member.  Bryan resisted for ages and then eventually gave in.  This was supposed to be a medium-term storyline, albeit leading to his eventually breaking their mind control and escaping.

Only a couple of weeks later, the WWE decided that the popularity of Bryan’s signature “Yes” chants in other sports arenas meant that it was madness to keep him in a storyline that prevented him from playing to the crowd, and skipped right to the end of the story by having him beat up Family patriarch Bray Wyatt.  Supposedly he was faking all along in order to get close to Wyatt and have the opportunity for revenge.  It’s desperately strained but nobody was really sold on the storyline so everyone’s basically happy enough to see the back of it.

This match is the obligatory capstone.  Since the whole point is to abort the feud, Bryan surely has to win.  Bryan’s matches are invariably good; this is excellent news for Bray Wyatt, whose PPV matches to date have been singularly disappointing, especially to anyone who’s seen him have perfectly good matches in NXT.  This should be a decided improvement.

Since the Rumble itself lasts an hour, that’s your lot for the main show.  On the pre-show, we have…

5.  WWE Tag Team Titles: The Rhodes Brothers © v The New Age Outlaws.  Yes, the New Age Outlaws – from the nineties!  For some reason, the Outlaws are making an in-ring comeback – and, despite being fondly remembered veterans, they’re working as heels.  The logic is that they were historically associated with Triple H, who is now the evil management figure, and so they’re working as his flunkies.  They’re still perfectly acceptable in the ring, and they did actually earn this title shot the conventional way by beating the champions in a non-title match.  Still, I don’t see a title change happening on the pre-show.

Worth getting?  It’s a solid card with no blow away matches, but the Rumble is almost always good.  This is one of the shows that sells on the strength of the signature match; the rest of the card is a bonus, and it’s perfectly okay.