10 Biggest Missed Opportunities In WWE Royal Rumble History

Cena, Rock, 'Taker, Punk: there are three different one-on-one match combinations to extract from this group, and only one that was supposedly prohibited by WrestleMania XXVIII's tagline. WWE being WWE, it's the one we got at 'Mania 29.

One of these combinations was a mouth-watering prospect, and it would've breathed a lot of life into a rather bland WrestleMania. Not a lot needed to change: you still have The Rock vowing to win the WWE title at the post-WM28 Raw, you still have him being attacked by Punk at Raw 1000th. Only instead of simply being awarded a title shot, he enters the Rumble, unannounced, and wins the thing. Cue the massive pop, cue The Rock, seeking both the title and revenge, lay out the challenge to CM Punk, cue all the great verbal exchanges on the Road to WrestleMania and Punk ultimately getting the main event he deserved.

Cena can still be in the Rumble, but he does get eliminated, possibly in the final four, maybe by The Rock himself. That keeps the redemption storyline rolling, only he then decides that to get his career back on track, he needs to accomplish something much bigger than any title win: end the streak. Cue the one challenge to the streak everyone at the time was dying to see.