The match started out fine with a surprise entry of Bubba Ray Dudley and the Wyatt Family squaring off, but slowly lost its momentum when Bray Wyatt started dispatching people left and right. While things got better when Daniel Bryan made his entrance, that only lasted 10 minutes as the moment Bryan was eliminated, the crowd and many fans at home turned on the match itself. The atmosphere felt exactly the same as the end of last year's Rumble, but it lasted the majority of the match instead of 15 minutes. The volatile atmosphere only got worse when Reigns came out as everybody knew he was hand-picked to win the match. It didn't help that any of the guys people were invested in and should have been part of the final four (Bray Wyatt, Dean Ambrose and Dolph Ziggler) were nonchalantly dumped over the top rope by Kane and the Big Show. No exciting eliminations or set-up for a WrestleMania feud, just dumped like a piece of trash by two guys that should be putting them over. Weeks of build wasted in a matter of moments didn't help this match.
When the odds were stacked against Reigns, The Rock made a run-in to help his little cousin. Something done to clearly win back the crowd did exactly the opposite as it made Reigns look inferior to The Rock. Why should the audience believe in a babyface like Reigns to beat the indestructible Brock Lesnar when he needs help to eliminate Kane and the Big Show? It's not that I'm against Roman Reigns winning the Royal Rumble at some point in his career. Looking at his current in-ring ability and mic skills, Reigns isn't anywhere close to being the successor to John Cena at this point in time. Reigns needs more time to learn, mature and organically come into the role. Forcing him down people's throats much like WWE did with Sheamus, Alberto Del Rio and The Miz will only damage Reigns in the end.
A series of unforgivable creative decisions made the 2015 Royal Rumble the worst of all-time. WWE understood exactly what they were getting into when they booked the Royal Rumble for Philadelphia, a city filled with hardcore wrestling fans. It baffles my mind that WWE didn't learn from last year's debacle with Batista. Yes, the product may be targeted for younger audience, but that isn't going to get buys for the WWE Network. The people who will buy the Network are the passionate, hardcore, "Internet" fans that WWE despises and the target audience will eventually grow into. As seen by the CancelWWENetwork hash tag running rampant on Twitter, it isn't smart to alienate the fans which are the lifeblood of your business going forward. Guess we're in for an interesting WrestleMania season once again.
