10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About Daniel Bryan

2. He Only Main Evented WrestleMania 30 Because Fans Rejected Batista And CM Punk Left

It's hard to know what WWE had originally planned for WrestleMania 30, but it sure didn't feel like Daniel Bryan ending that show as WWE World Heavyweight Champion was what they always intended on doing. We all know that rumors exist in wrestling and that plans always change. Look at the facts, though. The person that usually main events WrestleMania is the winner of the Royal Rumble. That was especially the case this year with only one major WWE World Title in the company. Bryan wasn't even in the Rumble. The fans wanted him in it, but WWE didn't put him in it because at that time they had other plans. Batista was in the Rumble, he won and the expectation was that he would headline WrestleMania as a babyface against Randy Orton. The problem is that fans rejected Batista. Two days before the 2014 Royal Rumble, there were reports that the plan was for Bryan to face off against Sheamus at WrestleMania 30 with Sheamus going heel leading up to the match. The other matches would have been Orton vs. Batista, Triple H vs. CM Punk, Undertaker vs. Lesnar, Cena vs. Wyatt and Bryan vs. Sheamus. He was supposed to be in the fifth biggest match. What changed? The fans hated Batista and in addition to booing him at the Rumble, they were chanted "Bootista" at him at Elimination Chamber. Remember he was booked as a face at that show against Alberto Del Rio. It was after that when the wheels were in motion to make Bryan the top guy. WWE thought fans would love Batista because he was gone for four years, but instead they booed him because they wanted to see Bryan. The other big thing was that CM Punk left the company the night after the Royal Rumble. During Bryan's recent discussion on Chris Jericho's podcast, Bryan mentioned that things changed when CM Punk left after the Royal Rumble: "It wasn€™t necessarily that I felt a shift. It was essentially after Punk quit. It was like, €˜Well, we€™ve got John and we€™ve got eeeeeeeh.'" Due to the rejection of Batista and Punk's absence, WWE changed things up by putting Bryan against Triple H and then into the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. The rest is history as Bryan won the biggest prize in the business while WrestleMania 30 had one of the happiest endings ever. Years from now fans may not remember all the things that WWE had planned because in the end they got it right.