The Back to Back Royal Rumble Disasters (2014-2015)

let me take you back to the ending of two straight Royal Rumbles in 2014 your winner was Batista the show ending with a chorus of booze and unhappy fans in 2015 your winner was Roman Reigns the show ending with a chorus of booze and unhappy fans for back-to-back years the Royal Rumble blew up in WWE's face and became an absolute PR nightmare the reason for the fan backlash was the fever pitch popularity of Daniel Bryan in 2014 fans wanted him to win the match so he could overthrow the authority and complete an Underdog Story that many felt like he deserved to in 2015 those same fans wanted him to get back the championship Reign that was initially cut short what we got is a ripple down of his popularity are two of the worst Royal Rumbles that the company has ever produced look it up for yourself watch top 10s or just do the eye test and you'll see just how poor these rumbles went and how much of a mess they ended up being the 2014 Royal Rumble really was the end of it ERA this was the second to last pay-per-view that was available as a pure pay-per-view as the network was set to launch following the elimination chamber this was also the year where the company was presenting WrestleMania 30 a landmark WrestleMania and the first show that was going to be available on their new streaming service so you'd think to drive up subscriptions to get the buzz going a little bit more that the WWE would lean into the fan service well you'd be wrong this was a time where fans wanted their voices heard more than ever they wanted to see a new wave of talent take over and WWE sto going to the well with the remnants of the ruthless aggression era they wanted to put their voice behind stars who they thought should be the Marquee in WWE they wanted to change and they were tired of the disjointed product that they kept on receiving the leading man in that Crusade and movement against the authority both on and off screen was Daniel Bryan Brian had an organic Underdog Story come together out of nowhere Daniel Brian through his goofiness his wrestling his entertainment and his yes chant endeared himself to the W we fan base the yes chant in particular was the subject of mainstream attention the chant became a symbol of WWE programming fans using this to display their excitement of what was happening or doing a no chant to show the opposite and defy what they were presented Brian at every turn was screwed out of the WWE Championship the company was running the authority storyline with Triple H and Stephanie McMahon ruling the company as tyrannical bosses and it was almost poetic that they were going to be overthrown by the underdog fighting for the fans and the one that everyone lived by cariously threw it felt like he was the perfect guy to top of the regime but the WWE they didn't want it like that they wanted to suppress Brian's popularity with the original plan suggesting that he was going to wrestle Sheamus again at WrestleMania to end 2013 Brian was in a rivalry with Bray Wyatt where he joined the Wyatt family before eventually leaving the group the Rivalry led us to Royal Rumble 2014 from Pittsburgh and this show ended up being hijacked because the fans didn't want what WWE was putting out wi and Brian opened up the show with an outstanding match an in ring showcase to blow off their rivalry and it was in this opener where Bray Wyatt ended up getting the win so the fan logic was all right Brian opens the night counting the lights but he's going to end it on top because there was no way that the WWE was this shortsighted there's no way they don't let him win the Royal Rumble it became almost a guarantee to some fans that it was going to happen that this was the only way that the show could end but the question was who was going to be the champion possibly headed into WrestleMania that's where this match between John Cena and Randy Orton came in this was the ninth time these two met on pay-per-view broadcast and like I said earlier fans were sick and tired of the repeats to the point where they hijacked this match and they chanted for Daniel Bryan they were chanting this is awful the crowd booed every kickout they were booing every move and they were not afraid to tell Randy and Cena that they both sucked it's often forgotten because how much of a mess the Royal Rumble was but this started way before the first entry even came out this felt like it was just a hurdle that the crowd had to overcome to get to the moment they were all waiting for and that was Daniel Bryan coming out and winning the rumble but the crowd was just not having it but okay now it's officially the last match of the night the Royal Rumble is here the match gets started and out at number one is CM Punk the man whose 434 day Championship run was sacrificed the previous year as a means to get to rock and Cena 2 the second entrance in that match is Seth Rollins you genuinely can't write this stuff so the Rumble Match gets underway and the field continues to grow it's nothing too crazy genuinely the biggest return in this entire match was Kevin Nash this Rumble by any stretch of the imagination is not something to seek out if you want entertainment because the booking the star power and the moments just were not there and they put this together in a very very lazy way it was a rumble filled with tag teams and Fringe midc Carters plus acts like Adam Rose and El Torito so I think that tells you how much star power was really in this match regardless of how bad this Royal Rumble was it was nothing compared to the 2015 version of this match we'll stick with the number 15 cuz at the halfway mark out came Sierra Hotel India Eko Lima Dwayne's cousin Roman Reigns and this guy became the darling of the match Roman takes out Kofi who at this point was still in the prime of his Rumble highlight re saves he Spears and I mean Spears Dolph Ziggler in half he's eliminated Kevin Nash eliminated in the most old guy way possible Reigns is just cleaning house and everyone's like wow look at Roman he's so cool he's silent he doesn't say much he just delivers these big moves and he's going to be a star at number 28 out came a returning Batista he had made his way back to the WWE on the previous Monday Night Raw and he had a largely uninspiring face off with Randy Orton who was the WWE champion at this point personally I remember Batista coming back and how excited me and my buddies were because growing up we were all just big Batista guys he was a huge part of our childhoods I'd say he was really what Roman Reigns should have been in his big dog era we all just wanted to emulate Batista growing up because he was just naturally cool anyone who grew up in the 2000s knows exactly what I'm talking about but here they wanted to display him as a baby face and we all know Batista was at his best when he was just a cold sadistic SOB when he was living up to the animal nickname and just tearing people limb for Limb and the WWE had idea to run Batista and Randy Orton for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship it wasn't 2005 it was 2014 I'll get back to that in a bit the next entrance in the match was Big E and now there was one final spot left now the anticipation began the crowd started to chant yes yes yes as a timer came up and time started to wind down everyone thought it was going to be Daniel Bryan everyone was counting down in anticipation 5 4 3 3 2 and this is what you [Music] heard out came Rey Mysterio and this crowd put the boo in Booyaka they booed Ray so hard and for no real reason he hadn't done anything wrong but it was the simple fact that it wasn't Daniel Bryan it dawned on the fans the hopes and dreams they had were crushed the realization set in that it wasn't happening that this was was the final entrance in the rumble and once they realized that Brian in the rumble wasn't happening they booed and they booed and they booed the only person they wanted was Daniel Bryan the booze took over the fans took over this thing was a wrap anything could have happened they were not stopping on this night and as a result anyone that came in their way was done for they viciously booed the only thing that was going to make them stop was Daniel Bryan and he was wasn't there we were now at the final four of this match the field was actually pretty strong as well Sheamus Roman Reigns Batista and CM Punk the same CM Punk who had been in this match for nearly 50 minutes until out came Kane to pull him over the top rope and eliminate him from the Royal Rumble this would prove to be CM Punk's last match with the WWE for a long long time behind the scenes he was completely fed up with the company in a way he was the Pittsburgh fan base that night represented through a wrestler the plan hdden to Mania was for Punk to take on Triple H and punk wasn't so much of a fan of that the next day he quit the WWE he felt like he wasn't being treated properly and it voiced his displeasure towards part- timr coming in and taking spots from people who were putting in the work one of the guys who was putting in the work was CM Punk he felt like he deserved to Main Event WrestleMania the year previous and had that taken away because of the rock kind of ironic how the same thing was happening to Daniel Bryan when there was a guy who was hot they didn't Elevate him Punk later went on col cabana's art of wrestling podcast and cited a bunch of issues as to why he left one of them being medical negligence to a staff infection that the company wouldn't properly treat he expressed that he felt like he was constantly overlooked not given the opportunities that someone working their ass off should get and Royal Rumble 2014 proved to be the final straw for Punk before his departure the next night he later received his termination papers on his wedding day in 2014 that was his wedding day but this was a divorce a very ugly divorce between Punk and the WWE so this was his last match for a long long time the craziest part now is that Punk's going to enter the 2024 Royal Rumble the date of the rumble is January 27th the same day he quit WWE a decade beforehand and the first two in that Rumble were him and Seth Rollins the man he seems to be chasing it's crazy how this stuff is interconnected Ed in a weird way so after this Rumble WWE Lost CM Punk for Wrestlemania and for the foreseeable future fans didn't know it at the time but what the audience in Pittsburgh did know was that they didn't want Batista to win the final two came down to Roman Reigns and the animal Roman had broken the single Rumble elimination record held by Kane and this year Roman became a symbol of defiance fans turned in his favor because they wanted anyone but Batista to win it's crazy considering what happened a year later when the show came to an end Batista dumped out Roman and he won The Rumble and again the fans booed and they booed and they booed the only thing missing was fans throwing tomatoes in the ring that's how much they booed the Final Act what sucks is from here Batista was always the bad guy no matter what and all he wanted was another WWE run there was no memorable sequence in this Rumble there was no big big return there was no substance there was no point where Batista even dominated the match he was just kind of hanging around from 28 and then he went on to win the crowd hijacking continued and this show went off the air with booze upon booze as poor Batista couldn't do anything but wonder what the hell he came back to long story short following This Disaster the company was able to make amends and they did have Daniel Bryan Run The Gauntlet at WrestleMania and give us an amazing Underdog Story straight out of a movie but the road to get there is this stain of a rumble when it could have just been avoided altogether for Batista I mean it's such a shame because yeah he came back in 2019 for one last match but this was going to be his actual last run who knows what could have came out of this for so many of us who grew up in the 2000s this was always one of the best and most consistent guys on the roster he was always holding it down at or near the top and he made our childhoods awesome it sucks seeing what happened to him imagine if Batista never came back on that one raw and actually just popped up as a genuine surprise maybe it would have been a different story a run that would have had a WWE title run for him instead ended up being most remembered for the disaster that was this Royal Rumble like the most memorable thing that came out of this run was blue T stup the show got a critical reception and it was very very bad after the show went off the air Batista who was supposed to be a Babyface mind you mocked the yes chant and proceeded to show the crowd the middle finger many describe this as a PR nightmare with the most liked comment on WWE Facebook reading quote worst pay-per-view ever even former WWE star Mick Foley went on to criticize the WWE by asking them if the company hated their own audience and it seemed like they did also adding that he'd never been so disgusted by a pay-per-view wrestlers were hating on it so you can just imagine the backlash that came from the fans so yeah you make a mistake clearly you're going to learn from it and not repeat it again well I got some news for you WWE repeated it again again and the next year it got worse it was more of a tire fire it was a bigger mess so I mentioned the WWE Network launched in 2014 and fans were going out and subscribing well one year later they wanted this thing canceled all together and it was one man's fault the man dressed like a prison guard the man whose promos were on flashcards the man with the wetest hair the man with the biggest pecs the man who has a lot of uh kids lot of kids Roman Reigns Daniel Bryan after injury returned to the WWE and the YES Movement was still running wild fans wanted to see Daniel Bryan in a prominent position again but the timing was really really bad cuz the company had hopes of pushing who they believe to be the next guy in line and that was Roman Reigns so what we got was another unmitigated disaster of a Royal Rumble much like the previous year before the actual Rumble we got an awesome awesome match a match that has crazy good replay value and is one of my personal favorites one of the best Triple Threat matches in company history between Seth Rollins Brock Lesnar and John Cena this was such a fun match from the onset because of the pacing because of the spots because they had the money in the bank winner in there so you just didn't know it was electric and it still had a bit of unpredictability to it but this night showed the duality of WWE how at this point they produced something so good and so adored but when the night came to an end they delivered an absolute mess at number one it was The Miz and at number two R Truth awesome truth started the rumble but there was nothing awesome about this Rumble this Rumble lacked star power it lacked anything really memorable in the first place just like the year previous it lacked a punch to it but at number 10 fans got that punch Daniel Bryan entered the Royal Rumble and the crowd lost it in excitement out he came and in typical Daniel Bryan fashion ran completely wild but that punch into instead ended up being a gut punch after just 10 minutes and 36 seconds Daniel Bryan was eliminated from the Royal Rumble and from here the atmosphere of the match changed for the worse Daniel Brown was eliminated and as they showed a shot of him sitting on the floor dejected Gold Dust entered and behind him it said Shattered Dreams Daniel Bryan came back from injury and the fans wanted to see him reach the Mountaintop one more time or at the very least make it to the final few in the rumble a scenario iio that might have helped avoid what came next that wasn't on WWE's mind though they didn't want it like that you could imagine this is where it all changed but what made things worse was now it was basically a dead giveaway cuz out at number 19 came poor Roman Reigns and this dude got booed into Oblivion this one night lives on forever in infamy in the career of Roman Reigns a night where the fans rejected him so bad last year the people who Beed the brunt of the frustration were Rey Mysterio and Batista now it was Roman if you remember before this the WWE had gave Roman Reigns some pretty awful promo material first they had him talk about magic beans then they gave him the infamous sniveling little suck up sellout full of suffering suckatash son he's right that's not easy to do they fed the man that they wanted to call the big dog dog and he also made comments in the media basically saying that the fans shouldn't be allowed to critique him that he listens to people that actually mattered from here the there was no saving the match but then we got into a bigger problem see the WWE booked Roman Reigns as this all-conquering hero a guy who was going to overcome the odds and eventually win something we'd seen for over a decade with John Cena but the thing with stories like this is you need some what do they say with Cody rhods adversity with Roman he's a Powerhouse he's not the guy who should be fighting from behind you can't manufacture too many underdogs plus your biggest Underdog was already out there's no formidable threat in the ring it's just guys like Jack Swagger and Ryback what made matters even worse was the people he had to overcome the biggest threats in the match I kid you not were Big Show and Kane this went about as well as you could imagine the fans were pouring it on with the booze they rejected this thing so bad because they knew who was winning and there was no doubt about it but Vince McMahon had a plan in his back pocket he knew that with Daniel Bryan no longer in the match at this point there was a possibility that this would be a repeat of the previous year and it was he had a full-on contingency plan ready because he knew this was going to happen and his contingency plan was to bring out Roman Reigns's cousin The Rock he sends out the rock to help even things up when Roman is getting demolished in the final stages of the match I don't know if it's the greatest idea to send the rock out in 2015 because it does further enforce the points of nepotism and the guys already getting booed but regardless Rock comes in he cleans house and the crowd they don't lose sight of what's going on they know exactly what's happening and why it's happening it's all a distraction and as soon as the Rock left the ring they continued to boo Roman like nothing even happened it's crazy because the year previous they wanted Roman to win so it wouldn't be the other guy this year Roman became the other guy and they were chanting for Rusev to Win It Roman chucked Rusev over the top rope and the match was over Roman Reigns was your winner and the fans continue to annihilate him with booze Rock comes back in to celebrate with Roman and the fans Boo the rock even the rock couldn't save his cousin from the tsunami of hate Rock's facial expression says it all he's in awe that even he wasn't able to make things work and get Roman the reaction that they wanted the crowd chanted we want refunds they booed they chanted they chanted for CM Punk the company wasn't going to let fans dictate The Narrative of their product but this was just the beginning after the show the # cancel WWE Network started to Trend fans were going to the WWE Network and cancelling their subscriptions and droves because of this tire fire so much so that the cancellation page ended up crashing people who were calling and manually doing this were told to call the next day because the volume of cancellations was just too high and too much to handle the backlash was coming towards the WWE at a very very high Lev level so much so that to appease the fans they announced that they could watch the network for free the following month but you know with PR you got to play a little damage control the WWE in a comical move ran a poll on wwe.com asking fans who they thought deserve to Main Event WrestleMania Roman or Brian and 86% of that vote went to Daniel Bryan and yeah WWE ran Brian versus Roman at fast lane and it was a great match but they went on with the Roman push and the road to WrestleMania was not the greatest Roman versus Brock part one was literally Reigns getting allergic to the word can't and starting to become an all-conquering hero a hero that would show everyone that he would do what he was told he couldn't they were essentially trying to manufacture a baby face that they already had Roman almost became a product of fans wanting Daniel Bryan and the hate that went towards him was because of what happened with Daniel Bryan for the next several years this event in this happening stuck with him it's forever seen as an Infamous moment in his career this night in Philadelphia forever changed the reaction towards Roman Reigns where if the company might have waited and done things in a different way maybe the Divide on Roman Reigns wouldn't have been this bad I understand that the WWE did need to have a balance between how much they let the fans run their show and how much fan service they actually gave but this would have made sense if the year previous the same thing happened hadn't happened for a second straight year the WWE ignored what fans wanted and it blew up in their face big time the WWE produced two Royal Rumbles that are memorable for all the wrong reasons the audience reception to both of these contests were just awful and they live on as two matches that are remembered for nothing aside from the company making their own messy bed and then having to lay in it genuinely there's nothing good that happened in either of these Rumble matches no big return no insane moment to remember instead they're relics that are remembered for hostility and hatred towards the WWE these rumbles had consequences that were felt for a very very long time from Punk leaving to Batista's run gone bad Roman Reigns's critical reception that went on forever these two rumbles in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia showed the worst of the WWE both of these contests were just lazy battle Royals which garnered awful critical responses and served as AER reminder that sometimes the simple route is the way to go and if fans don't like something they'll let it be known in the buring age of social media WWE messed up big time twice and both these Rumble matches live on forever as misses misses that the company will never be able to erase see you guys

Channel: SuperkickStudios

Views: 164,621

Keywords: Royal Rumble, WWE Royal Rumble, Royal Rumble 2024, Royal Rumble 2014, Royal Rumble 2015, WWE Royal Rumble Disasters

Id: q7YIU8twj9o

Length: 22min 26sec (1346 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 09 2024