7 Ups And Downs From WWE Royal Rumble 2015

By Scott Carlson /

3. Kicking Fans Where It Hurts

The theme of the 2015 Royal Rumble clearly seemed to be, €œWe don€™t care who you cheer, we€™ll cram our babyface down your throat!€ This of course runs completely counter to Vince McMahon€™s podcast interview with Steve Austin where he said that they listen to the fans. (If you believe that, there€™s a bridge for sale.) By the middle of the match, fans had completely turned on the match with Daniel Bryan€™s elimination and were jeering everything that happened. Then the #25 entrant, Dean Ambrose, came out, and fans erupted. It bore a question: If WWE is going to book it€™s biggest fan favorite to get eliminated around #15, and you know that the Philly fans are going to turn on the match (which also happened last year, so this wasn€™t unprecedented), then why would you hold off your next smart fans€™ favorite for 10 entrants? It didn€™t matter though. WWE brilliantly booked two of its lumbers lummoxes, Big Show and Kane, to knock out and toss Ambrose, Bray Wyatt and Dolph Ziggler €“ three extremely popular wrestlers €“ in fairly rapid succession at the end. If WWE€™s goal was to royally piss off Rumble fans, mission accomplished.