10 Potential Megastars That Never Recovered From WWE Burials
2. Roman Reigns
WWE had already burdened Roman Reigns with a toxic Royal Rumble victory having learned absolutely nothing from Batista's victory one year earlier, but to wrongly assume yet again that he was a Daniel Bryan surrogate with the vocal majority of the audience was idiotic in the extreme.
Winning a four-man tournament for a WWE Title vacated by Seth Rollins less than a month earlier, Roman was dethroned whilst his confetti still fell.
The victim of a cash-in from inexplicable Money In The Bank winner Sheamus, WWE attempted to recreate the foiled dream that made Randy Orton's same assault on the 'Yes Man' just over a year earlier so heart-wrenching.
It heavily missed the mark of course. Roman didn't have the hearts of the masses as Bryan did and still does, so Reigns' darkest day was only met with half-hearted boos and even fleeting cheers for the ordinarily ignored 'Celtic Warrior'.
Worse still, whilst Bryan's return to the title was littered with seemingly insurmountable obstacles he never ever stopped attempting to scale, Roman's immediate response was tearful remorse. It wasn't needful determination, nor was it something that should have been focussed on. That his crushed expression became the event's biggest visual takeaway only furthered their thoughtless and misguided portrayal.