10 Wrestlers Who Narrowly Missed A WWE WrestleMania Main Event

After stealing the show at WrestleMania XXX with his brilliant World Heavyweight title victory, many fans were hoping for more of the same for Daniel Bryan at the following year’s event. Ultimately, though, he was denied the opportunity to repeat history, and really the only ones doing the robbing in this instance were the powers that be backstage.

Despite being an overwhelming favourite with the audience, Vince McMahon and company were intent on instead pushing Roman Reigns to be the next big star. That line of thinking led to the 2015 Royal Rumble debacle, in which Reigns was booed out of the building upon winning, with a recently returned Bryan being unceremoniously dumped out of the match during the early goings in a hugely disappointing anti-climax.

Bryan then faced Reigns at Fastlane, with the number one contendership for WrestleMania up for grabs, but that match was essentially just a means of putting Reigns over at the expense of Bryan once again.

Come WrestleMania 31, Bryan would open the show rather than close it, and while he did compete for a championship, it was for the less-esteemed Intercontinental belt instead of the World title.