10 WrestleMania Main Events The Royal Rumble Almost Promised Us

10. Chris Jericho Vs. Daniel Bryan (WrestleMania XXVIII)

Back in 2010, on the first-ever episode of NXT, Daniel Bryan made his WWE debut against then-world champion Chris Jericho. Two years later, we came close to seeing that rivalry come full circle on the grand old stage of WrestleMania XXVIII—except this time, it was Bryan who was holding the gold.

Having beaten Mark Henry and the Big Show in a cage match to leave the Rumble with the belt in tow, Bryan had essentially booked his ticket to WrestleMania. Meanwhile, the recently-returned Jericho was a pre-match favourite to win the Rumble match outright. For the briefest of moments, the stars seemed to be aligning to tie up that story that started two years’ prior on NXT.

Instead though, Jericho fell at the final hurdle. Having made it to the final two of the Rumble, Sheamus then eliminated him to become number one contender, going on to face Bryan for the title at ‘Mania in a match that lasted just 18 seconds.

One silver lining is that this freed up Jericho to face CM Punk in what was an awesome WWE Championship programme - but either way, we still missed out on a possible 'student-becomes-the-teacher' classic.