Listing 5 wrestlers who should have won a Royal Rumble match

1. Daniel Bryan (2014 and 2015)

When you think of real “missed opportunities” for WWE over the years, there are fewer obvious choices than mid-2010s Daniel Bryan.

Between 2013-16 (and every year after that, quite frankly), you could count the number of wrestlers more over than Bryan on one hand without needing to use all of your fingers. Unfortunately, WWE often sees that as a detriment if it feels that it wasn’t responsible for a wrestler getting those reactions or if the wrestler doesn’t fit into whatever its plans are.

In 2014, it didn’t matter how many cheers Bryan got (cheers WWE tried to quell by turning him heel and booking him to join the Wyatt Family), WWE was determined to book Randy Orton vs. Batista as the main event of WrestleMania XXX. So, WWE kept Bryan out of the Rumble and moved forward with Batista as the winner.

How did the fans react to that? Well, they rejected it so much that it forced WWE to speed up Batista’s heel turn and made it add Bryan to the main event (CM Punk’s departure also forced WWE’s hand there).

Bryan ultimately won the world title at ‘Mania, but a neck injury forced him to relinquish the title not long after. When he returned to action in 2015 and announced his entry into the Royal Rumble, fans viewed him as the favorite to win, but once again, WWE had other plans.

With the company ready to push Roman Reigns as the next top babyface and not wanting a repeat of 2014, it scripted Bryan to enter the 2015 Rumble midway through the match, last a few minutes, and get unceremoniously eliminated by Bray Wyatt. It didn’t work; the Philadelphia crowd immediately turned on the match after Bryan’s elimination and maintained that animus until Reigns got the win.

WWE followed this up by attempting to push Reigns as John Cena 2.0 for several years before finally giving in and turning him heel, a move that WWE could’ve avoided by giving the fans what they wanted to begin with.