10 Times WWE Had A BLACKOUT
2. The Shield Attacks The Rock At The 2013 Royal Rumble
In the final Royal Rumble pay-per-view before a cursed run of shows that best exemplified the growing mutual disdain between WWE and its core audience, CM Punk (the man that tried his hardest to blow up the stale autocracy with a pipe bomb) pinned The Rock (the man most reflective of an era WWE wouldn't move away from).
It was, of course, chalked off and reversed just seconds later.
'The Voice Of The Voiceless' and 'The People's Champ' were around twenty minutes deep into their WWE Championship main event when the lights went out and The Shield struck. When normality and order had been restored, The Rock had been planted through a table. Not that you could completely tell at the time, but this had all been part of Punk and Paul Heyman's plan. Vince McMahon had laid down an edict that they'd be stripped of the gold if the 'Hounds Of Justice' interfered.
The heels thought they'd found a perfect workaround, but McMahon arrived first to see through his effort to take the belt back before Rock asked for a restart and put his opponent away.