12 Ups And 8 Downs From WWE Royal Rumble 2016

By Scott Carlson /

1. Anyone But You, Roman

If the Orlando crowd wasn€™t clear Sunday night, Roman Reigns as WWE World Heavyweight Champion was not a popular option, even less so would have been back-to-back Royal Rumble winner. Fans were on Reigns€™ case from the get-go, and having AJ Styles debut at #3 didn€™t help. Then having Roman miss half the match by way of League of Nations beatdown made the crowd resent him even more when he returned €œtriumphantly€ at #29 to run wild on the field. Fans clearly didn€™t want to see Reigns go coast-to-coast Sunday night, especially after he avoided facing the Wyatt Family, Brock Lesnar, Kevin Owens and a host of others during his absence. The audience cheered like mad when Triple H eliminated Roman, which is not the reaction you want when you€™re trying to build to a WrestleMania main event pitting evil corporate champion the Game versus underdog Reigns.Despite their best efforts, WWE might need to wake up to reality €“ that fans simply aren€™t buying Roman as world champ. Period. Sure, Reigns got some good pops from crowds for a few weeks, and he certainly has his fans. But this is now two Rumbles in a row where Roman was largely booed, and it could easily be a second straight Mania where fans turn on him. If that happens, and Triple H is cheered by 100,000, then can we finally pull the plug on this experiment?