5 Worst WWE Royal Rumble Winners of All-Time
By Tim Sherry
Photo Courtesy of WWE.com
3. Batista – 2014
Want to know how badly the WWE misread this one? Batista, who went into the match as a supposed babyface, walked out of the CONSOL Energy Center in Pittsburgh after his win flipping the near 16,000 fans in attendance the bird. It wasn’t just that Batista had spent the last 3 years in Hollywood, it wasn’t just that Daniel Bryan was clearly the guy everyone wanted in the main event of Wrestlemania, it wasn’t even that Batista’s return to the WWE was one of the most anti-climactic returns the wrestling world has ever seen. It was really just that the whole thing was so predictable.
When The Animal returned to WWE programming one week prior to the Rumble, it was very clear why. The WWE brass clearly were not sold on Daniel Bryan being a major superstar and thus brought back Batista to be the man to carry the Mania main event. As if that didn’t infuriate 99% of the fans who believed Bryan was the guy, it was made even worse that Batista immediately came off like the Hollywood star he turned into. He was smug, dismissive, and those skinny jeans were just too much to handle for the fans who refused to let the WWE cram him down their throats.
So when Batista entered the match at No. 28 it immediately became clear. Not only was Bryan not going to the win the match, there was now a good chance with only 2 remaining entrants, he may not even be in it at all. Poor Rey Misterio at No. 30.
So Batista survived by ironically eliminating a very hot and crowd-supported Roman Reigns and punched his ticket to Mania. What makes his win, not the worst in the events history is that the WWE actually smartened up and got Bryan into the main event of Wrestlemania where he captured the title. But still, it was pretty bad. And within 6 months of that Rumble, with the damage to Batista’s reputation proving too much, The Animal was once again gone.