10 Best World Title Matches In WWE Royal Rumble History

Daniel Bryan is currently killing it as heel WWE Champion, but this is not the first time he's held a top title as a bad guy.

D-Bry cashed in his Money in the Bank contract to become World Heavyweight Champion at TLC 2011. Bryan, who was a heel at the time, won the belt from Big Show, who had just defeated Mark Henry in a Chairs match to win the belt moments earlier. This set up a big time three way at the next pay-per-view: the Royal Rumble.

The cage stipulation was added later on and it looked like Bryan had been fed to the wolves; WWE was still very much pushing its "small guys are worse than big guys" mantra at this time and much of the build-up to this match was based around how Bryan could possibly survive being trapped in a cage with two behemoths like Show and Henry.

The match itself was an interesting take on "Big Man vs. Little Man" dynamic, with the smaller Bryan being cast as the despicable heel and the much larger Big Show presented as a heroic face. Bryan managed to evade both of his foes by escaping the cage, putting over his smug heel character very well.

This match told a great story in the ring and sometimes that's enough to make a good match into a great match.