AJ Styles and 5 WWE Royal Rumble Star-Making Performances
3. Roman Reigns – 2014
The Shield had begun to show cracks during the end of 2013 and into 2014. It looked like Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns, and Seth Rollins were getting selfish toward wanting the Royal Rumble win to receive a title shot at WrestleMania 30. There were other signs of tension about the potential “leader” of the group, which started with Ambrose, then moved to Rollins, and finally Reigns before they eventually split.
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During the 2014 Royal Rumble match, the Big Dog certainly looked like the Shield’s top guy. A footnote of this is him making a fool out of Ambrose and Rollins by eliminating them at the same time. But that was far from the only thing he did.
Reigns tore through the competitors, eliminating 12 total, breaking Kane’s record of 11 from 2001. Topping a mark set by a future WWE Hall of Fame is an incredible feat, the first of what would be many accolades for him.
The second part would be standing face-to-face with Batista as the final two Superstars left in the match. These two, despite the controversial winner, had a fun back-and-forth performance. It even looked like the former Georgia Tech player would win this, but he got dumped over the ropes to finish a close second.
This benefited Reigns after the Shield split in June, because as Rollins and Ambrose feuded with each other, the former FCW and NXT star jumped into the main event scene. He challenged for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at Money in the Bank, and would be vaulted into Royal Rumble contention by the end of the year.
Three years later, Reigns stands tall as one of the top stars in WWE. He has this 2014 star-making performance to look back on as one of the reasons for this.