2015 Royal Rumble Was An Emotional Roller Coaster

WWE.com

The 2015 Royal Rumble was the definition of a roller coaster pay-per view. There was momentum towards a solid finish after the WWE World Heavyweight Championship triple threat match between Brock Lesnar, Seth Rollins, and John Cena. That momentum was quickly halted when Daniel Bryan was eliminated from the Royal Rumble main event match earlier than anyone would have thought. 

The 2015 Royal Rumble, if nothing else, provided a wide array of emotions.

After the triple threat match between Brock Lesnar, Seth Rollins, and John Cena for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, the pay-per view was well on the way to being one of the best pay-per view bookings that WWE has had over the course of the past month.

The Royal Rumble main event started on a strong note as well.

The return of Bubba Ray Dudley was a hit with the Philadelphia crowd. Then Bray Wyatt entered the match and Wyatt would wind up being the ruler of the ring for most of the match. At one point, the match set up a Wyatt Family reunion with Wyatt, Luke Harper and Erick Rowan.

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Everything was going well.

That was until everything changed with Daniel Bryan.

Bryan was the No. 10 entry in the Royal Rumble match.

No. 10 made sense for Bryan as that would seemingly have allowed Bryan the opportunity to go on an extended run during the match and reach the final stages of the match.

Now, I am not a fan of Bryan, but even I figured that Bryan would get a lengthy run in the match.

That is why, along with just about everyone watching the match, I was shocked when Bryan was the 11th superstar eliminated from the match.

After Bryan’s elimination, the crowd turned against the match very quickly. The crowd was against the match so much that the likes of Damien Mizdow (who had been a fan favorite earlier in the night), Dean Ambrose, and Ryback couldn’t settle the crowd down.

Boos reigned down during the entire second half of the Royal Rumble match.

The boos turned to cheers once Dolph Ziggler entered as the No. 30 entrant. Ziggler was the only chance that WWE had in order to save the show. The chance fell on deaf ears as Ziggler was eliminated by Kane. Kane, along with the Big Show, was responsible for the eliminations of Ziggler, Wyatt, Jack Swagger, Dean Ambrose, and Ryback.

In a sense, Kane and Big Show eliminated any hope that WWE had of saving their show.

The reason for Kane and Big Show eliminating all the face characters was to make it more meaningful when the duo was eliminated by Roman Reigns. The problem was that Reigns, the one that WWE booked as the one to save the day, was far from over with the Philadelphia crowd. In fact, the crowd reaction to Reigns was a similar reaction to that of Batista’s last year at the Royal Rumble.

Not even The Rock could save the show.

After being eliminated by Reigns, Big Show and Kane returned to the ring to attack the former Shield member. At that point, The Rock came to make the save and give his endorsement of Reigns. The crowd was not having it as Reigns continued to be booed even with his hand being raised by The Rock.

One thing that should be clarified is that it is not unusual for a Philadelphia crowd to boo a face character.

The booking of the Royal Rumble match will be heavily discussed over the course of the next week. Yes, the booking was questionable to say the least. But until Vince McMahon hands over his creative control to Triple H and Stephanie McMahon (don’t hold your breath), the booking is not going to change.

In the end, the best way to describe the 2015 Royal Rumble is to refer to the event as an emotional roller coaster.

There was an emotional high after Lesnar retained the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. But, that high transformed to a low during the Royal Rumble main event match.

May be if WWE hadn’t forced the issue with Reigns, the event could have lived up to it’s potential. But, there is no going back. WWE, for a second consecutive year, will need to regain momentum after a poorly received Royal Rumble.