10 Fascinating Facts About WWE In 2014

2014 kicked off with CM Punk telling WWE to shove it, then peaked when Daniel Bryan won the top title amidst much fanfare at WrestleMania XXX. That same pay-per-view also brought a sweeping curtain down on The Undertaker's legendary winning streak, and it confirmed to one Dave Batista that his company return had been a mistake.

Even so, big Dave pitched another return later the same year. It was laughed at.

There's a lot to unpick here. Vince McMahon was caught between relying on old favourites from yesteryear and pushing a relatively-plain looking dude who just so happened to be one of the best wrestlers in the world and the most popular worker on his roster with fans. Alarmingly, despite going with Bryan in the end, McMahon almost wrecked everything anyway before a tearful Daniel had to vacate the WWE Title due to injury.

WWE Network launched, 'Mania couldn't help it take off, 'Taker barely remembers one of his biggest matches ever, and SummerSlam's card was bizarrely a house show first. Sort of.

Get ready for a lot of wrestlers telling Vince McMahon and Triple H to sod off!

January's Royal Rumble was notable for fan rebellion. People booed Batista's win hard, chiefly because everyone had hoped firm fave Daniel Bryan would be involved. Incredibly, even an icon like Rey Mysterio was jeered out of the building for having the cheek to roll out as #30 as himself instead of magically morphing into DB!

Bryan wasn't the only one who missed out though.

Both Xavier Woods and Bad News Barrett were earmarked for the Rumble, but WWE decided to give their spots to JBL and El Torito instead. Those guys got short, hardly worthwhile cameos that added nothing to the match, and both effectively robbed two hard-working full-timers of a payday.

Woods even referenced Layfield replacing him the next night on Raw, and was clearly a little annoyed about it. This is the kind of thing that wouldn't happen to Xavier these days. He'd go on to experience success as a member of New Day, and Barrett became King Of The Ring in 2015. Less said about that last one the better, to be fair.