10 Times WWE Stars Were Scapegoats For Bad Booking

Speaking of the 2014 Royal Rumble... the guy who actually won it!

Look, be honest with yourselves - if WWE called you up with a big-money offer and a guaranteed WrestleMania main event, complete with a World Championship victory, you'd surely take it as well. And that's exactly what Batista did when he returned to WWE following a four-year hiatus in 2014.

Upon his return, it became increasingly apparent that WWE was going to book him to win that year's Rumble. Fans rejected it almost immediately, and not just because they saw him as another part-timer taking opportunities from the full-time talents, but because once again, he wasn't Daniel Bryan.

So, in spite of WWE's best efforts to get fans to cheer for Batista, they booed the living f**k out of him. They even went as far as to cheer anybody who attacked him, namely Roman Reigns, who despite being a heel received thunderous applause for being in the final two and... well, not being Batista.

In retrospect, while it was idiotic of WWE to do anything besides capitalize on the white-hot "YES! Movement," it must have sucked for Batista to come back and be met with such vitriol from the fans simply by virtue of not being somebody else. Worse, yet, was that he ended up getting nothing he was initially guaranteed in his comeback deal, and he was gone from the company less than six months later.